Projects

Natural Capital Ireland has expertise in delivering on research, project facilitation, report-writing, stakeholder engagement work and more—you can keep up with our most recent work here. Click the project title or scroll on to read more on selected work below...

Natural Capital Ireland facilitated a series of workshops with members of the National Biodiversity Forum for an interim review of the National Biodiversity Action Plan and delivered a commentary report on the plan to Minister of State for Heritage Malcolm Noonan. The National Biodiversity Forum acts as an independent advisory group to the Minister and includes some of Ireland’s leading conservation experts.

The report called on the government to radically step up efforts to address the biodiversity crisis - and ensure Ireland's next Biodiversity Action Plan is an “impact plan”. The report made 5 key recommendations:

Ensure effective governance & stewardship
Finance the plan and prioritise action
Recover, restore, renew biodiversity & ecosystems
Build, connect & use the knowledge base
Engage communities & private sector

EVENTS: PEATLANDS GATHERING

NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY CONFERENCE 2019 & 2022

INCASE

Irish Natural Capital Accounting for Sustainable Environments

Natural Capital Ireland is a partner on the pioneering EPA-funded INCASE project, the first project to apply Natural Capital Accounting principles to catchments in Ireland.

The project team prepared accounts for four catchments across Ireland using the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) Central Framework and SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounts guidelines. These map the stocks and flows of ecosystem and geosystem services, highlight challenges, knowledge and data gaps, with a series of recommendations to enable and operationalise Natural Capital Accounting in Ireland.

The purpose of these accounts is to support more informed decision-making by policymakers, land owners and managers and a range of other stakeholders. Natural Capital Accounts integrate economic and environmental themes, and provide an evidence base for investments in rural development, health and much more.

The project ran from 2018-2023, and had numerous outputs and articles, with a final report and video issued by the EPA, along with a full-length rechnical report available.

Visit the website for more.

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blog coverage

Final Report

Irish business and biodiversity

Natural Capital Ireland, with Optimize, AECOM, and former EPA Director Micheál Ó Cinnéide, delivered on a study commissioned by the National Parks and Wildlife Service into how Irish businesses can better support national biodiversity objectives.

The project team conducted a survey of 122 Irish businesses to gauge their knowledge of and action on biodiversity. The project also assessed the appetite for developing a national Business and Biodiversity Platform to support businesses in protecting and restoring biodiversity, which is now active as Business For Biodiversity Ireland - an online hub also facilitated by NCI and backed by Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine and the Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage.

Key findings of the report:

Irish businesses are taking some action on biodiversity - such as engaging staff, growing pollinator friendly plants and installing beehives
Conversely, businesses do not tend to account for their strategic environmental impacts:
- Only 22% have completed a review of their direct environmental footprint and 13% have completed a review of environmental impacts in their supply chain
- Just 20% say that their policy to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals is complete.
Businesses could be missing out on opportunities to gain competitive advantage and win market share, with less than half (43%) viewing action on biodiversity as a business opportunity.
There was broad support for the establishment of a national Business and Biodiversity Platform, as a forum for peer-to-peer learning on biodiversity, with networking and advice from the Government.

Read Report

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Irish business and biodiversity

Teaching Natural Capital & Ecosystem Services Approaches in Higher Education in Ireland

How is natural capital being taught in higher education?

In 2021, Natural Capital Ireland ran a survey to gather data from educators on how third-level institutions in Ireland are integrating natural capital and ecosystem services concepts and approaches into curricula.

We asked people to fill out the survey even if they do not currently incorporate natural capital concepts in their courses - we would like to better understand the uptake (or lack thereof) of natural capital topics across key disciplines, as well as gain insight into the awareness of and the challenges of teaching these approaches.

Our findings will be used to advance the understanding and application of natural capital concepts in Ireland with more wide-ranging surveys to be conducted as the approach becomes more commonplace.

Read Report

Reports

Data 4 Nature workshop

Natural Capital Ireland organised and hosted a Data 4 Nature workshop on May 11th, 2021 which was funded under the Open Data Engagement Fund of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform with additional funding from the Office of Public Works.

The online event had over 100 attendees at two morning and evening sessions, in which we took a closer look at the state-of-play for nature-related data in Ireland. Speakers included data collectors, publishers and users, with some of Ireland’s major bodies responsible for nature—National Parks & Wildlife Service and the National Biodiversity Data Centre—represented.

Two examples of challenges faced in collating, accessing, analysing and formatting data for nature research included:

Data analyst Lisa Coleman of INCASE is working with over 200 datasets from different agencies in order to accurately map the various forms of natural capital we find at catchment level in Ireland.
The Demeter project has over 60 European partners with 6,000 farmers working on a project to bring the agri-food sector through the rapid adoption of data science and smart farming for long-term viability and sustainability.

All content is publicly available—just click the workshop hub button below to view slides and videos from the sessions.

This event was convened in order to produce a report to the Minister for State with Responsibility for Communications Ossian Smyth that provides recommendations for improving the availability and accessibility of data to support nature research and conservation.

Click the button below to access the final Data 4 Nature Report:

READ REPORT

WORKSHOP HUB

Data 4 Nature workshop

New and emerging natural capital projects:

Natural Capital Ireland and INCASE project are delighted to see a number of projects taking off in Ireland and abroad that embark on the natural capital approach.
Bord na Mona have carried out natural capital accounting on bog areas with Dr Catherine Farrell as they transitioned into their work for nature.
Grainne Devine of NCI has overseen the development of marine natural capital accounts alongside IDEEA Group at Clew Bay, Co Mayo for Bord Iascaigh Mhara.
Natural Capital Ireland members sit on the board of Waterways Ireland which is conducting natural capital surveys of the areas surrounding our waterways.
Our co-founder Prof Jane Stout of Trinity College Dublin is involved in a number of projects at farm & forest scale, including:
Farm Zero C,
TCD's Nature+ and
ForES project with Coillte and Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine using Bayesian Belief Network modelling and natural capital accounting to create a web tool for sustainable forestry decisions,
& Forest E3 which is exploring a biodiversity scorecard for woodlands.
The Central Statistics Office has been working on an Ecosystem Accounting Division since 2020.
Stay tuned for more updates and sign up to our newsletter HERE.

New projects