Helping to identify impacts and dependencies for an integrated perspective on sustainability. Sustainable organisations recognise the impact of wider environmental and social issues on their long-term profitability. They look at ways to maintain and, where possible, enhance their stocks of…
Helping to identify impacts and dependencies for an integrated perspective on sustainability.
Sustainable organisations recognise the impact of wider environmental and social issues on their long-term profitability. They look at ways to maintain and, where possible, enhance their stocks of capital assets including natural, human, social, financial and manufactured. The Natural Capital Protocol (NCP), launched in July 2016, provides a framework to transform the way businesses operate through understanding and incorporating their impacts and dependencies on the natural world.
Piloted by more than 50 businesses, the NCP allows companies to connect different non-financial workstreams for better corporate decisionmaking and long-term value creation, improving risk management, increasing their competitive advantage and allowing for balanced and comparable reporting.
“Natural capital can be defined as the elements of nature that directly and indirectly produce value to people, including ecosystems, species, freshwater, land, minerals, the air and oceans, as well as natural processes and functions. Natural capital underpins all other types of capital and is the foundation on which economy, society and prosperity are built.” Natural Capital Committee (2014)
Natural Eco Capital support businesses routinely account for inputs of production such as energy and water use or outputs such as greenhouse gas emissions, either through environmental management systems or in a more informal way, but is to overlook or under-value their dependencies and impacts on natural capital and fail to recognise and act upon risks and opportunities for increased efficiency, reputation building and cost-saving.
Natural Eco Capital uses established and bespoke tools to inform procurement decisions, new product development, site selection and investment across the value chain, and can value the level of effort or resources required to offset impacts to achieve a ‘net positive’ or ‘no net loss’ outcome. Our team of experts, including environmental economists, ecologists, ecotoxicologists, human toxicologists, researchers, data analysts and social scientists, are experienced in the natural capital valuation and accounting and biodiversity appraisal.
Natural Eco Capital can: