Measuring Your Way to Net Positive

September 07, 2016 |

We face a global population of 9 billion by 2050.

If we want to survive and thrive into the future, we must replenish the fast depleting environmental resources, and enhance the social foundations, we rely on.

The world’s most innovative organisations recognise this, and are acting on it. We’re seeing businesses being entirely powered by renewable energy, reusing expensive materials, slashing their carbon emissions and enhancing society.

The world’s most innovative organisations recognise this, and are acting on it. We’re seeing businesses being entirely powered by renewable energy, reusing expensive materials, slashing their carbon emissions and enhancing society.

Companies have an important role to play in creating an abundant environment and a better society. They must go beyond committing to “doing no harm”. Instead they must actively commit to doing more good.

Whether they call their new commitments “Net Positive” or simply “doing good”, more and more businesses are leaving a positive footprint on the planet and on society.

This unprecedented transition will change the role of business in sustainability and wider society. In the future, the success of an organisation will be measured by what they have delivered to citizens and to the environment, as well as their investors.

It is clear from the organisations involved and the wide scale of its impact that Net Positive is at the very forefront of sustainable business. Those organisations need to demonstrate how what they are doing goes beyond other approaches to sustainability. Over time they need to develop measurement systems which capture stories and data to help to communicate their activities and help them make better decisions. As the saying goes, what gets measured, gets managed.

But more companies must take up the Net Positive mantle and grasp the opportunity to improve their products and services – or risk getting left behind as a fairer, low carbon future unfolds. A future based on a strong economy, an abundant natural environment and a thriving society

Download the report here.

Related articles

Integrated Capitals

The Coalition’s Hiring for a Finance Officer

March 7, 2023 | Featured, Organisation

Integrated Capitals, Natural Capital

New Online Business Training Course on Social and Human Capital to Launch

February 21, 2023 | Business, Decision Making, Social & Human Capital

Integrated Capitals, Natural Capital

ACT-D Case Studies Demonstrating Business Action for Nature

January 19, 2023 | Business, Decision Making, Natural Capital

Natural Capital

Historic Framework Adopted At COP15 To Halt & Reverse The Loss Of Nature By 2030

December 19, 2022 | Enabling Environment, Measure & Value, Nature

Natural Capital

Nature Positive Economies: Progress, Lessons & Next Frontiers Report Published

December 12, 2022 | Enabling Environment, Measure & Value, Nature

New CEO Briefing on Measuring Nature-positive Business Actions

December 6, 2022 | Biodiversity, Measure & Value

Nature is Trapped Within A Cage of Brackets, Will Leaders At COP15 Find the Strength to Break Them?

November 28, 2022 | Biodiversity, Impacts & Dependencies, Livelihoods, Measure & Value, Nature Loss

Integrated Capitals, Natural Capital

Capitals Coalition COP15 Schedule of Events

November 21, 2022 | Organisation

Natural Capital

More Than 330 Businesses Call on Heads of State to Make Nature Assessment and Disclosure Mandatory at COP15

October 26, 2022 | Business, Decision Making, Measure & Value

Integrated Capitals

Capitals Coalition Announces Joining of SELINA and SUSTAIN EU Projects

October 25, 2022 | Data, Decision Making, Measure & Value

Integrated Capitals

Announcing the Capitals Coalition’s Global Dialogues 2022 Agenda

October 7, 2022 | Organisation

New Biodiversity Commitments Announced as World Leaders Declare Nature Summit COP15 as a Priority

September 21, 2022

Benefit from the Coalition’s unique overview of the capitals approach and community, gain insights into the latest thinking and developments and receive newsletters and project updates.

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).