Take the Malayan flying fox, Atkins says. With growing Chinese demand boosting an $18 billion market for the durian fruit, plantations have been expanding into the Malaysian rainforest, endangering the large bat species - the fruit's chief pollinator. By revealing the risks posed by such unintended consequences, Atkins hopes "extinction accounting" could help save at least some of the many life forms now on the brink.
LONDON: Five years ago, many investors and executives would have politely told Jill Atkins to buzz off.
Now they listen keenly when the British academic presents her work, known as "extinction accounting", which shows how companies are contributing to the demise of honeybees, as well as other species - and how that could come back to sting them.
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