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Notes -
The SEC has proposed a new type of company, a Natural Asset Company (NAC.) As the main proponents, Intrinsic Exchange Group, state:
While there are also criterion for farmland and mixed use lands to qualify, it sounds like they expect the public to buy shares of land to pay the owners to not develop it in certain ways. I'm not sure how popular this idea will become. Carbon credits are a thing so there might be some buy-in from the public.
Margaret Byfield at Real Clear Markets takes a dimmer view of NACs:
Based on just this first sentence, I'm not sure she knows what a cryptocurrency is. Maybe she means it will be subject to a speculative bubble. However, the consequence that most concerns her is that other countries could own stakes in our Natural Parks:
Both supporters and critics seem to think that an NAC will be big deal. The IEG believes that, "The financing gap for biodiversity is estimated between US$598-824 billion per year, for climate change about US$5 trillion dollars per year, and for the transition to a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable economy, orders of magnitude larger."
But I have a hard time conceptualizing how a NAC will tap into all that wealth and power. What is the expected impact for the average Joe and for international politics? Will I no longer be able to "breathe the free air," as real life starts to resemble the Lorax movie? Will foreign countries strategically buy land and prevent Americans from accessing resources?
I think Conservation Easements are worth examining in the context of this announcement.
For the unfamiliar, a conservation easement is an agreement where a landowner sells/donates the development rights of their land, and the receiving organization promises to never develop it and to prevent anyone else from developing it either.
Instead of trying to get capitalists involved in common goods, it sticks with charity.
And thus it'll never work as well as making people do "good" for more selfish reasons like financial gain. Even the Effective Altruists don't outspend the cosmetics industry.
If there's a latent demand for nature/environmentalism/conservation, and a mechanism for making people who care about them willing to pay instead of using legislative means to strong-arm those who don't, and vice versa, you'll have the more hard-nosed simply buy up empty land because they can make money off being paid not to exercise their right to do other things with it.
If someone wants to prevent me from turning my grassy knolls into a parking lot, they'd better pay me more than I'd get by doing so, or at least the same amount.
I have far more confidence in rational self-interest than in expecting people to "do the right thing" for its own sake when it costs them. I know which one works better at scale.
Not that I'm against Conservative Easements, it's a mutually positive sum trade, or at least I'd hope so. Doesn't mean there aren't benefits to expanding on it and streamlining things.
I don't see how it would receive funding other than "expecting people to 'do the right thing' for its own sake".
In a normal company, the flow of money goes:
In a NAC (as far as I can tell), it goes:
Even their summary is just:
Skimming through the linked PDF, it appears that step 2a) is "write down a number" and 2b) is "write down a bigger number" (they're even putting a dollar sign in front of the big numbers!). The only two ideas I have for 2c) are to take a charitable purchase and print an Impact Certificate (or similar), or else to build a pyramid scheme and resell it to another investor.
Doesn't matter so much whether or not it's the "right thing" as much as whether it's something people will pay for.
To the extent that many/most people value environmental protection or nature, for whatever reason, those two can be aligned.
I don't have a strong opinion on whether NACs have any value outside of being a speculative asset, I'm making a more general point about getting people to buy out others who would do something they didn't prefer they do, with the additional considerations of more universal externalities.
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