Professor Jane Stout:

I will pick up on the issue of our addiction to growth in the economy. We need to remember that the economy is part of nature and not the other way around. Our economic approaches were developed at a time when there were far fewer people on the planet and resources were seen to be infinite. Now that we know this is not the case we need to adapt our economic systems. We need to remember that nature facilitates and underpins all of our economic activity, so if we diminish nature, ultimately we diminish that economic activity. It makes sense in terms of nature itself, people and our economies to protect and restore nature because it does underpin everything else. All of the other developments we want to achieve are underpinned by nature.