Watch the 42nd TB Macaulay Lecture by Professor Dieter Helm: Green and Prosperous Land

"Protecting and enhancing our natural capital are amongst the highest return investments we can make"

The 42nd TB Macaulay Lecture, given by Dieter Helm CBE, Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford and Fellow of New College, Oxford, on the topic of how to achieve a green and prosperous land in the face of multiple challenges including climate change, is now available to watch online.

In the lecture, Professor Helm discussed his radical but tangible plan for positive change, including a summary of Britain’s green assets, a look towards possible futures and an achievable 25-year plan for a green and prosperous country. His bold, generational plan assessed the environment as a whole, explaining the necessity of protecting and enhancing our green spaces and offering a clear, financially sound strategy to put Britain on a greener path.

Helm’s arguments exposed the economic inefficiencies in our environmental policies and alerted to an urgent need for change. Leaving behind the current sterile and ineffective battle between the environment and the economy, he explained how they can be integrated to deliver sustainable, eco-friendly economic growth.

Professor Helm said: "Protecting and enhancing our natural capital are amongst the highest return investments we can make. The costs are almost always low; the benefits are often immediate and can be very high.

"In an efficient and prosperous economy, the key flaws in markets need to be addressed. Public goods need public money, and pollution needs to be paid for, so all costs are internalised. Instead of paying farmers to simply own land, and the polluted having to pay the polluters to clean up the mess they create, it should be the other way around. The principles of public money for public goods and polluter pays are good economics."

Professor Dieter Helm is a leading economist specialising in utilities, infrastructure, regulation and the environment. He has expertise in energy, water, communications and transport in the UK and Europe, and was appointed chair of the Natural Capital Committee established to advise the UK Government. He has also assisted the European Commission in preparing the Energy Roadmap 2050, serving as special advisor to the European Commissioner and chair of the roadmap Ad Hoc Advisory Group.

Presented by the Macaulay Development Trust and the James Hutton Institute, the annual TB Macaulay Lecture is held to honour the vision of Dr Thomas Bassett Macaulay, President and chairman of the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, whose benefaction founded the original Macaulay Institute for Soil Research in 1930. He was a descendant of the Macaulays from the Island of Lewis and his aim was to improve the productivity of Scottish agriculture. This vision continues today in the work of the James Hutton Institute.