Despite progress towards carbon emissions accounting, most economic decisions ignore our impacts and dependencies on natural capital such as healthy soils, and clean air and water.
In 2016, Economics for Nature formed a global partnership of business, civil society and international policy institutions intent on system-wide change to protect and restore nature. Four global alliances — the Green Economy Coalition (GEC), the Green Growth Knowledge Partnership (GGKP), the Capitals Coalition and WWF France — led work to make the value of natural capital visible in economic and business decisions.
The Economics for Nature global partnership (E4N) was a six-year programme of work that ended in 2022. It pushed for system-wide change across business, civil society and government to maintain, protect, invest in and restore nature. The programme partners’ work revealed that these sectors still need more knowledge, tools and methods for integrating nature into economies; that decision-makers need more evidence and examples of good practice to guide them; that huge benefits can come from bringing different parts of society together to share learning and work collaboratively; and that all society should have long-term change in mind when its various parts work to do things differently. There are still frontiers to cross before systemic change is achieved and we arrive at a place where people, nature and economies can all thrive.
E4N has made nature’s value visible by putting natural capital at the heart of economic decision-making. E4N has connected stakeholder communities and brought the green growth and natural capital communities together, working closely with international and national organisations in France, the European Union, Brazil, Uganda, Madagascar, and India; and with other sector networks.
E4N has delivered on three key outputs on decision-making for nature positive green economies:
- E4N strengthened the knowledge base of methods and tools available to embed nature’s value within decision-making.
- E4N built connections which support the collaboration needed for economic systems that deliver for nature and people, as well as for businesses and economies.
- There is now a rich collection of best practice and use cases showing how nature positive green economies can be built when decisions take account of our impacts and dependencies on natural capital.
Further outcomes can be found in the full report. Download the report here.
