Natural capital for governments: what, why and how

The report argues that wealth and wellbeing depend on natural capital—the stock of renewable and non-renewable resources that provide essential ecosystem services. It highlights that natural capital can account for 30% to 50% of national wealth in various countries, yet traditional GDP measures fail to capture this value. The document outlines how governments can generate societal returns (e.g., poverty reduction and public health), economic returns (e.g., business resilience and green infrastructure), and environmental returns (e.g., ecological resilience). To scale these benefits, the report proposes twelve specific levers for government action, ranging from implementing UN-SEEA accounting frameworks and creating public-private partnerships to mainstreaming natural capital into macro indicators and implementing mandatory non-financial disclosures.

• Natural capital is a critical component of national wealth, accounting for up to 50% of wealth in low-income countries and an average of 30% in high-income non-OECD countries, though these values are typically invisible in GDP measurements.
• Investing in natural capital can yield significant economic returns; for example, agri-environment schemes in the UK returned £25 million in benefits for every £1 million spent, and peatland restoration is estimated to have a 4:1 benefit-to-cost ratio over 40 years.
• Natural capital restoration can create more employment than traditional extractive industries; in the USA, restoration initiatives supported 33 jobs per $1 million invested, compared to 5.2 jobs per $1 million in the oil and gas industries.
• Governments can achieve public health cost savings through natural capital; for instance, London's parks save the city over £950 million annually by reducing disease risk and improving mental health.
• The report identifies twelve levers for government action to transition toward natural capital management, categorized into creating insights, supporting first movers, fostering participation, funding change, mainstreaming into policy, promoting standardization, and changing market rules.
• Effective natural capital management requires governments to use the UN-SEEA framework for consistent accounting and to manage trade-offs between societal, economic, and environmental returns to ensure one does not come at the expense of another.

APA

M., L., E., B., M., G., S., A., O., G., J., C., & W., W. (2019). Natural capital for governments: what, why and how. Green Economy Coalition. https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/GDNC2018-005-WS3-Natural-capital-for-governments-Final-28-02-2019.pdf

Chicago

M., Lok,, Benson, E., Gough, M., Ahlroth, S., Greenfield, O., Confino, J., and Wormgoor, W. Natural capital for governments: what, why and how. Green Economy Coalition, 2019. https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/GDNC2018-005-WS3-Natural-capital-for-governments-Final-28-02-2019.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{m2019natural, author = {M., Lok, and E., Benson, and M., Gough, and S., Ahlroth, and O., Greenfield, and J., Confino, and W., Wormgoor,}, title = {{Natural capital for governments: what, why and how}}, institution = {Green Economy Coalition}, year = {2019}, month = feb, url = {https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/assets/reports/GEC-Reports/GDNC2018-005-WS3-Natural-capital-for-governments-Final-28-02-2019.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }