The Committee is developing a methodology for corporate natural capital accounting. In 2014, it will undertake a pilot project with a range of organisations to test and refine this methodology.
Private sector and non-governmental organisations own or are responsible for a significant proportion of England’s natural assets.
The Natural Capital Committee is therefore encouraging organisations that own or manage land to develop natural capital accounts.
Natural capital accounts aim to document an organisation’s ownership, liability and assets related
to natural capital. In the same way that recording more conventional assets on their balance sheet informs and improves a company’s management decisions, natural capital accounts will enable organisations to make better decisions about their natural capital.
The Committee is developing and testing a new framework for ‘corporate natural capital accounting’. Through 2014, it will run a pilot project for corporate natural capital accounting with several major UK businesses and landowners.
The project will involve working closely with the pilot organisations to trial and refine the Committee’s experimental natural capital accounting methodology. The lessons learned from this process will be distilled into high-level guidance and the Committee will publish a generic accounting framework that can be adapted for use by a wide group of organisations.
The Committee will seek opportunities to work with the private sector to encourage adoption of this model for corporate natural capital accounting.
More information on the Committee’s work to develop corporate natural capital accounts will be published here as the project progresses.