A Brief History of Ecological Accounting

On 22 January 1909, from the Oval Office at the White House, Theodore Roosevelt transmitted the report of the National Conservation Commission to the US Congress. In his message, he wrote: “[this report] presents a statement of our available capital in material resources, (...) and calls attention to the essential conditions upon which the perpetuity, safety and welfare of this nation now rest and must always continue to rest.” (Roosevelt, 1909, p. 1).Counting, inventorying, and measuring to account for the role of nature's resources, possibly considered as capital, for the prosperity of societies is nothing new. Since at least the nineteenth century, there have been discussions about the best way to measure natural wealth, in terms of physical or monetary flows. The history of ecological accounting, in contemporary terms, is…