The title of my PhD dissertation is, “Tracing Social-Ecological Relationships: Hāʻena, Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi.” To trace these relationships, I used Diagram #2 in my previous post to identify the resource users and resource units consumed overtime. I identified the stakeholder groups under each historical governance regime, and characterized the resource system of Hāʻena during each time period. I traced this stakeholder map to examine the current state of the place and its historical network. I created a framework for understanding how stakeholder benefits have been and are distributed.
The ahupuaʻa of Hāʻena is a public good. From a geological perspective the land will exist for our life time, and maybe the next seven generations? The assets of the place will never need to be liquidated, or is that what happened when land was privatized? The culmination of the stakeholders I identified, is not a singularly governed entity. The actor groups extend historically and geographically beyond the property tax payers. Not all stakeholders hold “stock” in the place. When an entity is dissolved in a bankruptcy the stockholders are the last to get paid in a liquidation after creditors, suppliers, employees, and banks. If we consider the wider community or mesosystem, it is the stakeholders, including the physical land that truly gets paid last. It is important that we account for all stakeholders before we can govern sustainable and equitable macrosystems.
In my last post, I shared my musings on Ostrom’s SES versus Bronfenbrenner’s SES. With this consideration of stockholders versus stakeholders I’d like to introduce G to the SES-G alphabet soup. ESG is an acronym that has gained a lot of momentum in the world of finance, especially in the midst of a global pandemic and wide social and political unrest. It refers to the attributes of an investment or company that account for the Environmental, Social, and Governance factors that will contribute to the ROI (Return On Investment) as well as reduce future risk or volatility. How do we govern resilient systems that grow healthy individuals who reciprocate with the resources they use?
In the case of Hāʻena the resource units (the waves, the metaphysical benefits of time in nature, the fish, etc.), are provided without profit by the place, the ʻāina … and the State of Hawaii? 'Āina is the Hawaiian word for land, and can have a literal translation of “that which feeds.” Whether the resources and services of Hāʻena are provided by the ʻāina or the State of Hawaii, neoclassical economists would call it a public good.
Public goods cannot be denied to anyone, and they cannot be depleted. Inevitably, unsustainable interactions between resource users and resource units (example: non-renewable energy extraction) will ultimately have consequences on outside stakeholders. This is what neoclassical economists call an externality. Externalities do not account for all transaction costs involved in the interaction between resource users and the ʻāina. Often it is our future generations who will pay for our use of resources. It is the goal of an investor to ensure their long-term returns, possibly for generations. So, I see why the acronym of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) has permeated the world of finance. ESG and the SESs should go on a date to see if they have similar values 😅 Ostrom’s SES examines the tragedies and triumphs of collaboration among users of a common resource over time. We can understand the historical forces that caused environmental regime shifts so we can reverse trends that are degrading our shared ecosystem! The importance of societal memory is not to remember the past, but to teach us how to act appropriately in the future. This is why Diagram #2 always makes me feel warm and fuzzy like alphabet soup.