Join us for a workshop exploring the UN's System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), Ireland's progress in developing national natural capital accounts, and the ways in which accounting-based approaches can be used to monitor the environmental aspects of the National Planning Framework.

• When: 11am - 1pm, Thursday 3rd May 2018
• Where: Botany Lecture Theatre, Botany Department, Trinity College Dublin
• Speakers: Carl Obst (IDEEA Group), Gerry Brady (CSO)
• Registration: Free, but registration is required. Please RSVP to naturalcapitalireland@gmail.com

About the Workshop: 

Accounting for natural capital is a rapidly emerging area of work across business and government. At government level, much work is being driven through the implementation of the new United Nations standard, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), which covers accounting for environmental flows (such as water and energy), natural resources (minerals, timber, fish), environmental activities, and biodiversity, ecosystems and ecosystem services. For businesses, work is being driven through the application of the Natural Capital Protocol (NCP) established in 2016 through the Natural Capital Coalition. The NCP provides a standardised pathway for businesses to engage in a discussion on the relevance of natural capital.
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These significant advances have developed through somewhat independent processes but are increasingly connecting as the reality bites that our natural capital must be managed through the joint action of business, government and the community. Accounting is providing a framework through which these different sectors can engage and is also a platform on which different disciplines – natural scientists, economists, geographers, statisticians and many others – can exchange perspectives. The Natural Capital Coalition’s Combining Forces initiative is leading a range of engagement in this cross-sector space.

This workshop aims to introducing the latest thinking in natural capital accounting, outline Ireland's progress to date and explore the relevance of this approach to the National Planning Framework. It will explain key ideas (including some mythbusting), place different pieces of work in context and provide an open forum for attendees to pose questions and engage in debate. It is open to people from all sectors, disciplines and roles, including both measurement technicians and users of information in decisions. Attendance is free, but spaces are limited - please RSVP to naturalcapitalireland@gmail.com.

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Speakers

Carl Obst
Director at the Institute for Development of Environmental-Economic Accounting (IDEEA Group)

​Carl was the lead author and editor of the United Nation’s System of
Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) – the international standard for government work on accounting for natural capital. This work built on a long career at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, including five years as head of the Australian national accounts. In addition to advancing the development of measurement frameworks for assessing the sustainability of sectors such as tourism and agriculture, Carl is a leading player in closing the gap between national and corporate natural capital accounting approaches.

 
The third biennial World Forum on Natural Capital took place from 28-29 November 2017 in Edinburgh. In keeping with previous years, it was a tightly packed agenda, with over one hundred speakers and 700 delegates from 60 countries coming together to explore this rapidly-developing area.

There was much to discuss! Natural capital is an expansive topic, spanning all of the natural sciences, a good chunk of the social sciences, business, economics, finance and accountancy, plus politics, international relations and information technology. Speakers included Environment Ministers, the heads of major international NGOs, leaders in business and finance, economists and scientists, as well as Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who opened the event.

​She spoke authoritatively and passionately about the value of nature to Scotland: “You cannot put a price on the sense of joy, happiness and wellbeing that people get from nature,” she said. “If that was the only value, it would be enough to merit the priority that we attach. But that doesn’t take away from fact that it’s also economically significant ... The Scottish Government’s view is clear – we are more likely to abuse nature if it’s free, and more likely to treat it with care if we understand its value.”
 
If anything, the sheer scale of this conference and the calibre and range of speakers is evidence of the global attention that the natural capital concept has gained since the very first World Forum in 2013. To give you a sense of what was discussed, we’ve crammed together our top five messages from the conference into these bullet points:
 
1. There is a lot to do
Many of the conversations at the Forum – both on stage and off – were around what needs to be done to mainstream the natural capital approach, to put it at the heart of the green economy, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, to engage corporate Boards, and to transform finance. While it was acknowledged that much has been achieved and that natural capital concepts are gaining traction and being implemented in some cases, there is still a long way to go.
 
2. Accounting can help tell better stories
The need for compelling narratives that engage both hearts and minds was articulated by many speakers, including Jessica Fries (A4S), who called for storytelling that flips the notion of economic primacy on its head. Carl Obst (IDEEA) explained how accounting for natural capital can help to tell the story of how the value of our natural assets has changed over time, while helping to make a clearer case for the connections between conservation policy and benefits to society: “These connections make most sense at local community level,” he said. “Accounting can help take pictures from the lower level context and translate them into something that can be aggregated and of meaning to someone working on macro scale.”
 
3. Companies need environmental limits
When is a business truly sustainable? As Gary Gillespie (Scottish Government) pointed out, companies can report on their own environmental impacts and set targets, but how do they know whether those targets are within environmental limits? Companies need clarity on environmental thresholds to understand what they’re measuring against. There is an urgent need to develop metrics that link decisions to consequences.
 
4. The boundaries of the natural capital approach must be understood
Natural capital is still a contested concept and speakers referred to the need to better understand the boundaries of the approach. Pushpam Kumar (UNEP) pointed to significant questions around scale and substitutability, along with the need for robust measurement and assessment, while Philippe Joubert (Earth On Board) and Oliver Greenfield (Green Economy Coalition) reinforced the idea that regulation and legal protection cannot be ignored in favour of purely economic assessments – “The market will not correct itself,” said Joubert. “We need rules, laws and regulations, and inside these lines the market can play. This will liberate energy of business which is 75 – 85% of the problem.”
 
5. We need money
To respond to environmental and social crises, very large scape deployment of capital is required. According to Richard Hardwicke (Trucost), we need $9bn per year to achieve the Sustainable Development goals, and government or philanthropy alone can’t do this. He says we need to harness the power of capital markets at scale, and doing so will depend on a mind-shift that revolutionises the way we think about value.

 
I attended the Valuing Nature Annual Conference in Edinburgh (18-19 October 2017). The aim of this conference is to bring together people from diverse research areas and from business, policy and practice, with the common goal of tackling Valuing Nature challenges. The Valuing Nature Network (http://valuing-nature.net/) aims to better understand and represent the complexities of the natural environment in valuation analyses and decision making, by looking at the economic, societal and cultural value of ecosystem services. To achieve this, these events encourage the building of an interdisciplinary research community capable of working across the natural, biological and social sciences, and the arts and humanities.


Nature underpinning a vibrant and thriving human society

The keynote address was delivered by Prof Georgina Mace, Head of the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research at University College London. Prof Mace framed the discussion well in her keynote address by highlighting the value of nature as an essential underpinning of a vibrant and thriving human society. She argued that we must acknowledge the multiple framings for nature conservation. Nature must be considered as more than just an obstacle to economic development or a passive victim of human population growth.
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This theme of the inter-dependence of human society with the natural world was developed throughout the meeting by various speakers and presenters. Species and habitat restoration and conservation is both an end in itself, as well as supporting ecosystem functions and services. ‘Biodiversity’ (the variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat) has multiple roles including as a regulator of ecosystem processes, a provider of ecosystem services, and as a “good” or benefit in itself.
 

Interdisciplinary challenges

Another general theme throughout the conference was the challenges and benefits of ‘interdisciplinarity’ in valuation projects. Nicola Beaumont discussed the importance of being able to translate complex natural science into terms which are meaningful in a social and economic context. The CoastWEB project was a good demonstration of an interdisciplinary approach including environmental science and economics, social psychology, art, policy and governance, to study flood risk management capacity of saltmarshes.

Many of the speakers highlighted the multi-faceted role of nature both as a provider of ecosystem services and as an intrinsic good, and the practical efforts to incorporate this into “on-the-ground” conservation efforts. These types of conferences represent a great opportunity for researchers and stakeholders from different backgrounds to get together to discuss the needs and opportunities at the science and policy interface, for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management.


“Conservation means development as much as it does protection”
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In conclusion, Prof . Mace finished off her presentation with a quote from Theodore Rosevelt (1854-1919) that is still relevant for decision makers today: “The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased; and not impaired in value…Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”

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How are organisations applying natural capital values to their business? How are those values informing decision-making and operations?

Join us at this practical workshop to find out how the Corporate Natural Capital Accounting (CNCA) system was used to integrate financial values for carbon sequestration and recreation, and non-financial values for biodiversity, into a natural capital asset index and balance sheets for Forest Enterprise England.

Details:

• When?       9.30 - 2.30pm, Tuesday 28th March 2017
• Where?      Aran Room, Chartered Accountants House, 47-49 Pearse Street, Dublin 2
• Cost?         The cost for the event is €80

The workshop will be delivered by Phil Cryle from UK-based environmental economics consultancy, eftec, and Pat Snowdon, Forestry Commission, who will take attendees through the CNCA process step-by-step, explore the relationship between the ecological data organisations already have and the kinds of accounts they can develop, and set out the opportunities and challenges for the CNCA methodology that other organisations might build on on when putting together their own accounts.

Schedule: 

• ​9.30 - 10:   Registration and coffee
• 10 - 11:      Overview of the project - Pat Snowdon (FEE)
• 11 - 12:      Details of the accounts - Phil Cryle (eftec)
• 12 - 1:        Lunch
• 1 - 2:          Discussion and Q&A
• 2 - 2.30:     Sum up, next steps - Ciaran Fallon (Coillte)

Places are extremely limited, so please book early by emailing naturalcapitalireland@gmail.com with 'CNCA Workshop' in the subject bar.

We are hosting a Business Breakfast Briefing in collaboration with Sustainable Nation on 23rd November. To join us, please RSVP to Paul.Harris@boi.com. Details below.

IFNC members are invited to register for FREE WEBINARS from the Ecosystems Knowledge Network, which will be taking place throughout the week of our conference. Topics include:
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1. The Natural Capital Protocol for business
2. Payments for Ecosystem Services
3. Nature and Health
4. Natural Capital Accounting at the landscape-scale
5. Mapping ecosystem services
6. Ecosystem services in environmental assessment

IFNC members are invited to register through the Members Area of the website using the password you received when you joined.

• Forgotten the password? Contact us.
• Not a member? Register here, it's free.

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UPDATE: Tickets now available! Register here

We are delighted to announce details of our 2016 conference, Making Nature Count, which takes place on Tuesday 4th October at The Studio, National Concert Hall, Dublin 2.

This conference brings together some of the leading voices on natural capital from a diverse range of disciplines, including economics, accountancy, business, communications and politics, as well as ecology and environmental science.

Our speakers include the Chief Economic Adviser to the Scottish Government, Dr Gary Gillespie; author and campaigner, Tony Juniper; the Head of Sustainability at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales, Richard Spencer; Director of Science at Kew and UK Natural Capital Committee member, Kathy Willis; and Ireland's permanent Ambassador to the UN, David Donoghue, who co-chaired the Sustainable Development Goals.

​We will also hear from businesses using natural capital concepts to improve environmental sustainability, representatives from other EU countries on their own approaches to this emerging agenda, and a selection of Ireland's top researchers in this area. 
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Our aim is to broaden the conversation in Ireland. To support this, we are also running a number of Fringe Events:

• An academic discussion at Trinity College Dublin titled 'Natural Capital - Is it worth it?' Join a multi-disciplinary panel of academics at Trinity College Dublin for a discussion on whether or not the opportunities of valuing natural capital in order to protect nature outweigh the risks. Where? M4 Lecture Hall, Museum Building, Trinity College Dublin. When? Wednesday 5th October, 1pm

• A series of free webinars for members of the Irish Forum on Natural Capital, in conjunction with the Ecosystems Knowledge Network:

          - ​Mapping the connection between the environment and people’s needs
          ​- Incorporating ecosystem services  into environmental assessment
​          - Addressing local health priorities through improved access to nature
          ​- The challenges of investing in the natural capital for urban areas
​          - Implementing payments for ecosystem services schemes​
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• A Breakfast Briefing Session for private sector organisations that are interested in exploring best practice in corporate sustainability, to be held on the morning of the conference in Dublin city centre. Mark Gough, Executive Director of the Natural Capital Coalition, will discuss applying natural capital concepts in business using the Natural Capital Protocol. 

Registration for the conference will open next month. We hope to see you there.