Upsetting the Offset - Transnational Institute

Critiques
WBCSD stand at the 2008 World Conservation Congress, is suggestive of its
planetary reach and ambition. It depicts the brand logos of many of the world’s
largest multinationals, stretching across an abstract earth, smoothed of
difference, diversity and inequality. This is a world good for capital. But is it also
good for cultural and ecological diversity?
Figure 1: The world according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development: a
smooth earth populated by corporate logos. From the WBCSD display at the 2008 World
Conservation Congress of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Photo: Sian
Sullivan.
A Unifying Language?
Recently, the UNEP and the IUCN described ecosystem services as a ‘unifying
language’ in global environmental policy. 46 This indeed may be the desire.
Significant questions remain, however, with serious relevance for the
distribution of power and voice in global decision-making. Who is creating and
writing this language and for whom? What are the ontological and
epistemological assumptions built into the construction of nature as service
provider – i.e. what is understood to be the nature of nature? And what are
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