To avoid the climate apocalypse, we need a new accounting system

How to turn Garbage Capitalism into Sustainable Capitalism

Accounting for the costs and benefits that the whole world experiences from the production of a good or service is the sustainable way to create wealth in a multi-crisis era. Image generated by Leonardo AI

Accounting is the bedrock of capitalism. Had it not been for Luca Pacioli, a monk who in 1495 described the double-entry bookkeeping used by Venetian merchants, our modern corporations might be looking quite different.

Double-entry bookkeeping made possible a focus of many corporations on the “bottom line” and the pursuit of profits — a pursuit that motivates many of the personal and professional activities of modern-day humans. Being able to create value and then taking home some of that value for your personal (or corporate) gain is an incredibly satisfying idea. It is quite likely that humans would not have created this much value over the past few millenia, had they not been able to take one piece of the pie they baked back home.

Many activists point out that this pursuit of profits has also lead to climate change, ecosystem degradations, and terrible working conditions for workers in emerging economies. This, however, is only partially true.

The pursuit of profits certainly accelerated all these negative effects. The root cause for ecological and social disasters, however, cannot be found by scrutinizing the result, but by taking a close look at the…