Preface: This report represents a snapshot of opinion from more than eighty businesses about the current state of play of natural capital measurement and valuation, and their expectations for the Natural Capital Protocol.
As you will see, there is a wide divergence of opinion about the purpose and anticipated applications of the Protocol, which is reflected in the rich variety of these (sometimes contrasting) views. Whilst continuing to develop the Protocol, our Technical Group will consider this report’s content alongside other valuable insights from sources including our business piloting program, peer-review process and the Coalition Members’ consultation, which are all planned for 2015.
One area that is highlighted in this report and which I would like to provide some clarity on is the purpose of the Protocol. We are writing a Protocol primarily to support better decision making and not as a reporting framework. Therefore, although it will aim to standardise the process for assessing impacts and dependencies on natural capital, it is not intended that it should provide absolute comparability of results for external disclosure, although we do acknowledge that some companies may wish to report their findings.
We are grateful to the businesses that took part in this research and provided such important insights. This report represents a moment in time, and I fully Expect that all of our opinions will evolve as we continue to collaborate in the development of the Protocol and the creation of the enabling space for it to be launched in June 2016.
Mark Gough, Executive Director, Natural Capital Coalition
Download the report here.
