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The Nature workstream held a workshop on Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) to unpack the role of Ministries of Finance in supporting the implementation of national and subnational NCA practices and how this information can drive policy decisions for sustainable development.

Valuing natural capital is an important tool for the Coalition members. Ministries of Finance (together with other relevant Ministries and agencies) can support the implementation of national and subnational NCA practices and ensure this information is integrated into national accounts so that it is considered in broader policy making, including planning, budgeting, fiscal and trade policies, and investment decisions alongside other economic information to ensure effective ‘asset management’ of all forms of a nation’s capital.

Ministries can also use new metrics (applying advance technology to measure ecosystem health), as well as macroeconomic and financial modelling, which would provide them with the information on the long-term economic implications of nature loss (nature-related risks assessments) and enable evaluation of potential trade-offs and complementarities of different nature-related policy instruments.

Agenda

  • Coalition’s Co-Chair Deputy from The Netherlands, Joan Heister, opened the workshop.
  • Making nature count for policy and business practices: experiences from WAVES and GPS - Bekele A. Shiferaw, Program Manager, Global Program on Sustainability (GPS), The World Bank, presented how wealth accounting, valuation of ecosystem services and natural capital accounting have been used to make the economic case for nature in government policy and financial market decision making (see presentation here).
  • NCA implementation – Tuuli Hietaniemi, Senior Lead, Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA, presented on the implementation of the NCA in Finland, the UK, Netherlands, China, Germany, Norway, and Estonia, as well as updated on the proposed changes in EU regulation regarding NCA (see presentation here).
  • Open discussion – members from the UK, Mexico, Chile, and The Netherlands participated in the discussion.
  • Olha Krushelnytska, Coalition Secretariat, moderated the workshop.