Forestry Commission England: Natural Capital Accounts 2015/16

August 05, 2016 |

Forest Enterprise England, working with environmental economics consultancy eftec, has produced a Natural Capital Account for 2015/16. We are the first organisation to do this for an entire landholding and will continue to work with others to develop them further in future years.

The Natural Capital Account provides a structured and transparent way of quantifying the full value of the services provided by the natural assets in FEE’s care and the impact of FEE’s management of them. The account reflects both value to the organisation (private value) and wider society (external value), providing a broader perspective compared to financial reporting.

The value of the services delivered by England’s woods and forests is estimated to be £11.9 bn. Over 95% of this value is as a result of the benefits it provides to society, for example through recreation and climate regulation. This value is not captured in traditional financial accounts.
The account should be interpreted as providing order of magnitude estimates based on the currently best available data and assumptions. While it provides a comprehensive account of the costs of management and commercial returns from the estate, it is currently a partial account. Some functions, such as air and water quality and flood risk mitigation, offer potentially significant additional value but further research is needed to be able to include this in the natural capital account. This means the values published in this report significantly underestimate the total value of our natural capital.
FEE’s ambition is to embed the account as a strategic management tool that will complement decision-making processes, through tracking the condition of natural capital and its value over time, and helping to understand sources of value and trade-offs in maintaining England’s national woods and forests.

Download the report here.

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Introduction from Carl Obst (2017)

Victor Hugo once wrote that “Nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come”. Recognising the true value of natural capital, is one such idea. Across private and public sectors, across disciplines, and around the world, initiatives to advance and develop natural capital thinking have emerged rapidly over the past 10 years.

In a blizzard of acronyms, we have the NCC, SEEA, WAVES, IIRC, KIP-INCA, A4S, GRI, EO4EA – among many others. Are they the same, are they competing, are they useful? To both insiders and outsiders this range of initiatives is confusing at best. At worst, it leads to a lack of engagement, avoidance and misunderstanding.

The reality is that, while differences among these various initiatives do exist, they have all been motivated by a common understanding of the reality that we are losing our stocks of natural capital – and that this matters.

While each initiative may have different origins, some differing objectives, and may reflect variations in technique and method, there is much common ground. Indeed, to engage the broader community in tackling the natural capital challenges we collectively face, we cannot afford to focus on distinctions. Instead, we must look to build on the overlaps and seek to build a common language that will enable the exchange of ideas and ongoing innovation.

It is in this spirit of collaboration that the Natural Capital Coalition, together with the IDEEA Group and supported by over 20 organisations, launches this statement on Combining Forces on Natural Capital.

It is especially relevant that this statement of collaboration is launched at the World Forum on Natural Capital, where leading voices in the movement gather every two years, to share best practice, enduring challenges and build further collaborations.

While progress to date has largely taken place in small pockets, in order to move forward we need to ramp up our efforts and move beyond talking with supporters and “the converted”.

For this, we need leaders who can establish spaces for dialogue and development, and who can ensure that technical debates do not form a barrier to progress, that we take full advantage of the diversity of skills and experience already engaged, and that the big picture is always kept in mind.

I encourage you to take the opportunity to read the statement, to share it within your organisations, to sign on, and to join us as we move towards a better understanding and appreciation of the complex and beautiful world in which we live.

Carl Obst is Director of the Institute for the Development of Environmental-Economic Accounting (IDEEA Group), and Lead Author of the United Nation’s System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (UN SEEA).