Rethinking asset management: anthropocentric or ecocentric?

Introduction

The global ecosystem, referred to here as the "natural–built environment," is characterised by complexity, nonlinearity, and deep interdependence. Conventional, linear approaches struggle to adequately frame the issues involved, let alone identify causal pathways and durable solutions. As Donella Meadows observes, "There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw the boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion." This is the context in which this paper is situated.

The central argument advanced here is that contemporary asset management (Figure 1) remains fundamentally anthropocentric, valuing natural systems primarily for the services they provide to humans. In response, this paper proposes an ecocentric model that integrates natural and built assets and treats ecological systems as primary assets whose regeneration is essential to long-term economic and societal resilience.

Figure 1: An idealised, generic asset management system (adapted from "Overview of an Asset Management Framework," OAM/FHWA/USDOT, 1999).

The world is currently experiencing what has been termed a "polycrisis": mutually reinforcing and intersecting challenges including climate change, rising autocracy, habitat and biodiversity loss, violent conflict, pervasive pollution, and overuse of resources. Elements of environmental stewardship have gradually been incorporated into law, regulation, policy, science, engineering, and professional practice. However, these efforts remain fragmented, are often weakened or rolled back, and in most jurisdictions the natural environment has little or no legal standing.

In contrast, many Indigenous communities have historically managed and lived within their ecosystems in ways that are more sustainable than those of industrialised societies. As Michael Wright notes, nature has "engineered" the biosphere far more effectively than humans have engineered their built environments; a viable path forward may require "de-risking" by learning from nature's own design principles.

By comparison, asset management has emerged over recent decades as an integrated, evidence-based, performance-oriented discipline. It represents a shift from simply constructing and operating assets toward actively managing them over their full life cycle, with explicit attention to long-term performance and return on investment (Figure 1). In the built environment, asset management is one of the more successful systematic approaches to continuous improvement. This paper explores whether a similarly structured framework, adapted to be ecocentric and regenerative, can be applied to the combined natural–built environment.

From fragmented governance to integrated natural–built asset management

Historically, governments and businesses have inadequately measured, recorded, and accounted for natural capital, social justice, and other critical dimensions of well-being in their budgets and decision-making processes. In response, a number of public, private, and civil-society actors are pursuing a net-zero, "nature-positive" economy aimed at more equitable and resilient societies. This shift requires explicitly recognising and accounting for our dependence on, and impact upon, nature's assets and services.

Emerging initiatives such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the Natural Capital Protocol are enabling governments, financial institutions, and corporations to better understand and report nature-related risks, dependencies, and impacts. These efforts indicate a gradual movement toward valuing and safeguarding the natural environment within economic and financial systems.

In this paper, natural–built asset management refers to the integrated management of:

• Natural assets such as ecosystems, watersheds, wetlands, forests, grasslands, coastal systems, and green spaces; and
• Built or produced assets such as infrastructure, buildings, transportation systems, utilities, and vehicle fleets.

This approach explicitly recognises and incorporates into decision-making the value and benefits that natural assets provide, such as flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, air and water purification, soil formation, habitat provision, materials, cultural and spiritual services, alongside built assets. The overarching goal is to maximise co-benefits for both natural and built systems, while giving explicit priority to the regeneration and long-term viability of the natural ecosystem.

Whereas sustainability has often focused on "doing less harm" and balancing trade-offs, regenerative approaches seek to restore and enhance ecological health, re-establishing nature's primacy rather than treating it as a residual concern. Table 1 illustrates a progression from degenerative to sustainable to regenerative development.

Table 1: Regenerative development in integrated natural–built asset management (adapted from ProTech For Good)

In recent years, "natural asset management" has begun to develop as a means of better stewarding ecosystems and biodiversity. Integrating natural and built asset management is one promising pathway toward a healthier global ecosystem, of which human society is only one part.

A global natural–built asset management approach would likely require, among other steps, a systematic inventory of natural assets at multiple scales, even as biodiversity declines and extinction rates accelerate. This is a formidable undertaking, but early examples exist.

In 2023, for instance, the United States initiated a 15-year holistic assessment of lands, waters, wildlife, and the benefits they provide for environmental and economic decision-making. The initiative was terminated by the Trump Administration on 30 January 2025. The original scientific team of more than 150 experts subsequently reorganised, secured private funding, and released an 868-page independent draft study titled The Nature Record. Several other countries are conducting similar comprehensive inventories of nature.

A natural–built asset management tool could be embedded within broader frameworks such as Doughnut Economics and other models that aim to respect planetary boundaries while ensuring social foundations. Additional asset categories, financial capital, human well-being, and community and social capital, could be integrated within a comprehensive "asset portfolio" for the planet.

The wealth of the planet: inclusive wealth and natural capital

To mobilise meaningful action, global goals and metrics must be sufficiently simple to communicate, yet robust enough to be decision-relevant. Not everything that matters can be quantified, but a set of common metrics is indispensable. The Inclusive Wealth (IW) framework, comprising natural, human, and produced capital, represents one such effort.

Inclusive wealth is defined as the aggregate value of all forms of capital that support human well-being over time and is intended to indicate whether a society is on a sustainable development trajectory. In practice, it is challenging to measure because it includes both market and non-market assets.

By late 2021, global human net worth (wealth held by households, net of debt) was estimated at approximately US$463.6 trillion. This relatively straightforward metric captures primarily produced and financial assets designed and controlled by humans, and largely excludes natural capital, which is being depleted and degraded. This trend may continue.

By contrast, one influential estimate placed the value of global ecosystem services at approximately US$125 trillion per year in 2015, down from about US$145 trillion in 1997, with the decline attributed to environmental degradation. For comparison, global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015 was roughly US$75 trillion. While such figures are uncertain and methodologically contested, they underscore that the estimated value of ecosystem services appears to exceed, often by a large margin, conventional economic output. Even in purely economic terms, nature is "worth" a great deal.

Nonetheless, financial flows continue to work predominantly against nature. In 2023, global public and private financial flows with direct negative impacts on nature were estimated at US$7.3 trillion per year, including environmentally harmful public subsidies and private investments in high-impact sectors. Private finance accounted for roughly two-thirds of this amount (around US$4.9 trillion), with public subsidies comprising the remaining US$2.4 trillion. By contrast, only about US$220 billion in public and private flows were directed toward activities that support biodiversity conservation and sustainable use. A forthcoming 2026 report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is expected to further examine these dynamics and inform policy and investment.

Given that money and the modern economy are human constructs deeply embedded in our societies, there is a compelling case to adapt these constructs for natural–built asset management. The value of nature is increasingly recognised and partially quantified, and the value of built infrastructure is already well established. Many of the building blocks required for integrated management of the global environment as a portfolio of assets already exist, even if they are not yet coherently aligned.

Toward a new economic paradigm: from anthropocentric to ecocentric economics

The growing recognition of climate and ecological limits has profound implications for economic theory and policy. Climate change alone undermines key assumptions of modern macroeconomic models, many of which rest on an implicit premise of a relatively stable physical environment.

The tension between growth-oriented macroeconomic theory and environmental constraints has been recognised for some time. Steven Pierce, for example, argues that modern macroeconomics is "no longer fit for purpose in a world defined by climate volatility," because the global ecosystem and its value remain largely external to our anthropocentric economic system. He characterises this not as a failure of existing economics but as the end of an era, and calls for a new macroeconomic order driven by climate risk and ecological realities, "Climate Nomics."

Although Pierce focuses primarily on climate change, his critique applies equally to the broader biosphere. An ecocentric economic system would internalise natural capital, ecosystem services, and biodiversity into its core logic, rather than relegating them to side constraints or "externalities." This has been pointed out before.

Within such a paradigm, there is potential for a "triple win" for the economy, nature (including climate), and people, if public and private actors:

• Protect and restore nature;
• Identify, assess, and mitigate nature-related risks and accumulated ecological "debt"; and
• Redirect financial flows from harmful activities toward regenerative investments.

An asset management methodology, extended to the natural–built environment, could support this transition by providing structure, transparency, and accountability.

Designing an integrated natural–built asset management system

In its simplest form, a natural–built asset management process might include:

• Inventory of assets;
• Assessment of condition and performance;
• Estimation of value and remaining service life;
• Identification of required interventions (e.g., repair, rehabilitation, replacement, restoration);
• Evaluation of options and life-cycle costs and benefits;
• Prioritisation using clear, agreed criteria;
• Programming and budgeting based on available resources and strategic goals; and
• Monitoring and continuous improvement.

While monetary value has traditionally been the primary metric, other forms of measurement, numeric scores, condition ratings, risk indices, or composite indicators, can also be used. For natural–built asset management, common metrics and rating systems should be applied consistently to both natural and built assets, while recognising that not all ecological or cultural values can be fully captured in quantitative terms.

A natural–built asset management approach explicitly acknowledges that natural assets provide essential ecosystem services, including:

• Flood and stormwater management;
• Air and water purification;
• Carbon sequestration and climate regulation;
• Soil fertility and nutrient cycling;
• Biodiversity maintenance and habitat provision; and
• Cultural, spiritual, and recreational values.

By systematically valuing and managing these natural assets alongside built infrastructure, organisations and communities can pursue sustainability and regeneration while enhancing quality of life and resilience.

Implementing such an approach will require:

• Multidisciplinary teams, likely organised as "teams of teams," including ecologists, geologists, climate and other natural scientists, economists, engineers, planners, social scientists, historians, Indigenous knowledge holders, data scientists, and governance and policy experts, among others;
• Blended frameworks, combining sustainability and regenerative methodologies (as outlined in Table 1) and progressively moving toward fully regenerative practices;
• Clear, limited sets of goals and indicators, organised around a small number of widely recognised targets, analogous to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, to mobilise stakeholders and guide action; and
• Recognition of qualitative values, acknowledging that cultural identity, spiritual relationships to land, and intrinsic ecological value cannot be neatly quantified.

Strategic measures under a natural–built asset management regime might include:

• Integrating green and blue infrastructure into urban and regional planning;
• Preserving, connecting, and restoring critical habitats and biodiversity corridors;
• Embedding nature-based solutions into flood control, coastal defence, and climate adaptation;
• Promoting sustainable and regenerative construction and land-use practices;
• Aligning policies, incentives, and regulations to prioritise natural capital protection and restoration; and
• Designing financial instruments that reward regenerative outcomes and penalise ecological degradation.

By adopting natural–built asset management, institutions could advance a more holistic and durable approach to development and resource use, balancing human-made structures with the irreplaceable contributions of nature, and working toward a vibrant, functioning global ecosystem.

It is important to emphasise that this proposal exists within a much broader landscape of ongoing efforts: environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks; sustainability and regeneration initiatives; regenerative project management; bioregionalism; Indigenous land and water stewardship; academic research and modelling; engineering and planning standards; and actions by governments, businesses, professional associations, and civil society organisations. Natural–built asset management is not intended to replace these efforts, but rather to provide a unifying and operational framework through which they can be more effectively coordinated and scaled.

Complexity, limits, and the need for collaboration

The original Limits to Growth studies and their 50-year update have reinforced concerns that human societies and the natural resources upon which they depend are on a collision course. Over recent decades, numerous frameworks, strategies, and proposals have been developed to address environmental and social crises. While many are scientifically grounded and well intentioned, including this one, their sheer number and fragmentation can impede coherent, collective action.

Gaya Herrington, whose work contributed to the 50-year update of The Limits to Growth, argues that the problems we face are increasingly complex, constraints are evolving rapidly, and costs are escalating so quickly that they risk exceeding our collective capacity to cope.

In this context, any viable way forward will need to emphasise:

• Collaboration rather than fragmentation;
• Decentralised execution within coherent global frameworks; and
• Aggregation of local and regional progress into global outcomes, rather than reliance solely on top-down, centralised directives.

Natural–built asset management, implemented with an ecocentric orientation, could provide one organising mechanism for such collaboration. It offers a way to re-balance natural and social priorities against a historically dominant anthropocentric paradigm that has elevated economic growth above ecological integrity. This implies a societal shift from prioritising what we want toward securing what we need for long-term planetary health.

The planet is a single, closed system with abundant yet finite resources. Dividing this system into "sectors" or "domains" is a human construct, useful for analysis and management, but potentially misleading when it obscures interdependencies.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can play a valuable supporting role by analysing large datasets, mapping interactions, and simulating scenarios within this global system. However, AI remains a tool; it cannot substitute for ethical judgment, ecological humility, or political will. To date, AI and digital technologies have often been deployed primarily to enhance economic efficiency and consumer satisfaction, "giving us what we want", rather than aligning with what ecosystems and societies genuinely need.

Planetary-scale challenges have been created by human choices, and it is ultimately human decisions, informed by better tools and deeper ecological understanding, that must guide solutions.

Conclusion

Asset management has traditionally focused on preserving the financial value embedded in built infrastructure. The next evolution is to recognise that the ultimate asset portfolio is the Earth's natural–built system itself. An ecocentric approach shifts the objective from maximising the performance of human infrastructure to sustaining the global ecological system upon which all infrastructure, economies, and societies ultimately depend.

Reframing asset management in this way does not merely add nature to an existing anthropocentric framework; it reorients the framework toward ecological regeneration and planetary health as primary goals. In doing so, it offers a practical, operational pathway for aligning economic activity with the biophysical limits and possibilities of the Earth system.

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