Natural Capital Committee

Last updated
Natural Capital Committee.png
Natural Capital - The Great Fen Project Natural capital.JPG
Natural Capital - The Great Fen Project

The Natural Capital Committee (NCC) was an independent body set up in 2012, initially for a three-year period, to report to the UK Government and advise on how to value nature and to ensure England's 'natural wealth' is managed efficiently and sustainably. [1] During its first term it produced three reports to government on the 'State of Natural Capital'. It has called on the Office for National Statistics to integrate the state of the country's natural assets (also known as natural capital) into mainstream national accounting. [2] :250

Contents

Having fulfilled its initial remit, the UK NCC ceased activity in March 2015, but was reformed by the new 2015 conservative government with modified Terms of Reference and a brief to continue for the life of that current parliament (i.e. up to 2020). [3] It finally ceased to exist in December 2020. [4]

History

The NCC was set up as an independent advisory Committee following a key UK Government Natural Environment White Paper commitment in 2011. It initially had a three-year term and formally reported to the Economic Affairs Committee, which is chaired by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In November 2012, the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Owen Paterson, described his ambition for the natural environment and how the work of the Committee fits into this. In a speech to the Royal Society he said: "I do not, however, just want to maintain our natural assets; I want to improve them. I want us to derive the greatest possible benefit from them, while ensuring that they are available for generations to come. This is what the NCC's innovative work is geared towards". [5]

In 2015 the new UK Government announced that the Natural Capital Committee would be continued at least until the end of the current parliament and that its terms of reference would be reviewed. In December 2015 it reappointed Professor Dieter Helm as its chair, with new members to be appointed early in 2016. [6]

Role and purpose

Between 2012 and 2015 the NCC's role was broadly to advise the UK Government on how to ensure England's 'natural wealth' is managed efficiently and sustainably, thereby unlocking opportunities for sustained prosperity and well-being.

The Committee had three Terms of Reference:

  1. to provide advice on when, where and how natural assets are being used unsustainably;
  2. to advise Government on how it should prioritise action to protect and improve natural capital, so that public and private activity is focused where it will have greatest impact on improving well-being in our society; and,
  3. to advise the Government on research priorities to improve future advice and decisions on protecting and enhancing natural capital. [7] [8]

The NCC's main form of advice to Government was in the form of annual reports to Government, containing a series of recommendations on what needs to be done to put the economy on a sustainable footing (as far as the environment is concerned).

In addition, the Committee was also involved in developing natural capital accounting, both at the national and corporate levels. It worked with the UK's Office for National Statistics and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to help incorporate natural capital into the national accounts. At a corporate level, the Committee developed and tested a new framework for corporate natural capital accounting to go alongside traditional financial accounts. The aim of this project was to work with a small group of organisations to pilot corporate natural capital accounts, then use the lessons learned to produce high level guidance and a template account for other organisations to follow and implement.[ citation needed ] It would also use the lessons from this work to inform its own advice to Government.

The Committee also provided ad hoc advice to Government when requested. As of April 2014, it had given advice on forestry, reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and biodiversity offsetting.[ citation needed ]

In line with its third Term of Reference, the UK NCC produced an advice paper to Government on research priorities. This identified what needs to be done in order to fill the gaps in our knowledge and understanding of natural capital. [9]

State of Natural Capital reports

Between 2012 and 2015 the NCC's advice mainly took the form of annual reports to Government. It produced its first report in spring 2013 and its second in March 2014. The third State of Natural Capital report was published in January 2015.[ citation needed ]

The first State of Natural Capital report [10] set out a framework for what the NCC thought was needed. This was: to measure and value natural capital in order to better manage it. It highlighted that better management of natural capital can produce economic and wellbeing benefits.

The second State of Natural Capital report [11] contained three key messages:

  1. Some assets are currently not being used sustainably. The benefits we derive from them are at risk, and this has significant economic implications;
  2. There are substantial economic benefits to be gained from maintaining and improving natural assets. The benefits will be maximised if their full value is incorporated into all decision-making; and,
  3. A long-term plan is necessary to maintain and improve natural capital, thereby delivering well-being and economic growth.

To arrive at the first key message, the Committee began identifying those assets that are at risk and record them in a risk register. Perhaps the main message of its second report was the recommendation to establish a 25-year plan for restoring the country's key natural assets.

Government responded to the recommendations of the second report in October 2014. [12]

The third State of Natural Capital report [13] was published by the NCC in January 2015. It recommended that Government should develop a strategy, action plan and investment programme to protect and improve natural capital within a generation. Government gave its response to the third NCC report in September 2015 [3] and later that month the NCC responded with its final advice to government of its initial three-year term. [14]

Second term reports to government

The fourth report on the state of natural capital to the Economic Affairs Committee was published in January 2017. It recognised that, despite the UK Government's pledge to be "the first generation to leave the natural environment of England in a better state than that in which it was found", many elements of the environment were still in decline. [15] [16]

Key recommendations:

The 4th report identified its own work priorities for 2017 as:

The committee's final 'end of term' report was published in November 2020. [17]

Members

Dieter Helm, chair of the UK Natural Capital Committee Dieter Helm.jpg
Dieter Helm, chair of the UK Natural Capital Committee

The Committee was chaired by Professor Dieter Helm [18] and supported by a small, full-time secretariat. Between 2012-2015 the Committee members were all from academia and business with expertise and experience in ecology and environmental science, economics and business. These were: Giles Atkinson, Ian Bateman, Rosie Hails, Kerry ten Kate, Georgina Mace, Colin Mayer, Robin Smale.

In February 2016 the UK Government appointed new members of the NCC. [19] The members now were:

Criticism

Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, has been an outspoken critic of the work of the Natural Capital Committee and of other similar attempts to put a monetary value on natural capital assets and the free ecosystem services they provide. In a speech referring to a recent NCC report which suggested that better protection of the UK's freshwater ecosystems would yield an enhancement in aesthetic value of £700m, he accused the NCC of "trying to compare things which cannot be directly compared". [20] He went on to say:

These figures, ladies and gentlemen, are marmalade. They are finely shredded, boiled to a pulp, heavily sweetened ... and still indigestible. In other words they are total gibberish.

G. Monbiot

Others have defended the efforts of the Natural Capital Committee to integrate the valuation of natural capital into national and local economic decision-making, arguing that it puts the environment on a more equal footing when weighed against other commercial pressures, and that valuation is not the same as monetisation. [21]

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natural capital</span> Worlds stock of natural resources

Natural capital is the world's stock of natural resources, which includes geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms. Some natural capital assets provide people with free goods and services, often called ecosystem services. All of these underpin our economy and society, and thus make human life possible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ecological economics</span> Interdependence of human economies and natural ecosystems

Ecological economics, bioeconomics, ecolonomy, eco-economics, or ecol-econ is both a transdisciplinary and an interdisciplinary field of academic research addressing the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems, both intertemporally and spatially. By treating the economy as a subsystem of Earth's larger ecosystem, and by emphasizing the preservation of natural capital, the field of ecological economics is differentiated from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment. One survey of German economists found that ecological and environmental economics are different schools of economic thought, with ecological economists emphasizing strong sustainability and rejecting the proposition that physical (human-made) capital can substitute for natural capital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valuation (finance)</span> Process of estimating what something is worth, used in the finance industry

In finance, valuation is the process of determining the value of a (potential) investment, asset, or security. Generally, there are three approaches taken, namely discounted cashflow valuation, relative valuation, and contingent claim valuation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Capital Commission</span> Crown corporation of the Government of Canada

The National Capital Commission is the Crown corporation responsible for development, urban planning, and conservation in Canada's Capital Region, including administering most lands and buildings owned by the Government of Canada in the region.

The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enhancement of the environment in England.

The green gross domestic product is an index of economic growth with the environmental consequences of that growth factored into a country's conventional GDP. Green GDP monetizes the loss of biodiversity, and accounts for costs caused by climate change. Some environmental experts prefer physical indicators, which may be aggregated to indices such as the "Sustainable Development Index".

A capital asset is defined as property of any kind held by an assessee, whether connected with their business or profession or not connected with their business or profession. It includes all kinds of property, movable or immovable, tangible or intangible, fixed or circulating. Thus, land and building, plant and machinery, motorcar, furniture, jewellery, route permits, goodwill, tenancy rights, patents, trademarks, shares, debentures, securities, units, mutual funds, zero-coupon bonds etc. are capital assets.

David William Pearce OBE was Emeritus Professor at the Department of Economics at University College London (UCL). He specialised in, and was a pioneer of, environmental economics, having published over fifty books and over 300 academic articles on the subject, including his 'Blueprint for a Green Economy' series.

In economics, valuation using multiples, or "relative valuation", is a process that consists of:

The Climate Change Committee (CCC), originally named the Committee on Climate Change, is an independent non-departmental public body, formed under the Climate Change Act (2008) to advise the United Kingdom and devolved Governments and Parliaments on tackling and preparing for climate change. The Committee provides advice on setting carbon budgets, and reports regularly to the Parliaments and Assemblies on the progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Notably, in 2019 the CCC recommended the adoption of a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the United Kingdom by 2050. On 27 June 2019 the British Parliament amended the Climate Change Act (2008) to include a commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. The CCC also advises and comments on the UK's progress on climate change adaptation through updates to Parliament.

Historic England is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with protecting the historic environment of England by preserving and listing historic buildings, scheduling ancient monuments, registering historic parks and gardens and by advising central and local government.

The National Asset Management Agency is a body created by the government of Ireland in late 2009 in response to the Irish financial crisis and the deflation of the Irish property bubble.

<i>The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity</i>

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) was a study led by Pavan Sukhdev from 2007 to 2011. It is an international initiative to draw attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity. Its objective is to highlight the growing cost of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation and to draw together expertise from the fields of science, economics and policy to enable practical actions. TEEB aims to assess, communicate and mainstream the urgency of actions through its five deliverables—D0: science and economic foundations, policy costs and costs of inaction, D1: policy opportunities for national and international policy-makers, D2: decision support for local administrators, D3: business risks, opportunities and metrics and D4: citizen and consumer ownership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natural Capital Initiative</span>

The Natural Capital Initiative (NCI) is a partnership of UK science organisations which promotes and supports decision-making across government, business and the private sector that results in the sustainable management of our natural capital. It is a partnership between three leading science organisations in the UK:

Brand valuation is the process of estimating the total financial value of a brand. A conflict of interest exists if those who value a brand were also involved in its creation. The ISO 10668 standard specifies six key requirements for the process of valuing brands, which are transparency, validity, reliability, sufficiency, objectivity; and financial, behavioral, and legal parameters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corporate finance</span> Framework for corporate funding, capital structure, and investments

Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, and the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analysis used to allocate financial resources. The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize or increase shareholder value.

A heritage asset is an item which has value because of its contribution to a nation's society, knowledge and/or culture. Such items are usually physical assets, but some countries also use the term in relation to intangible social and spiritual inheritance.

Natural capital accounting is the process of calculating the total stocks and flows of natural resources and services in a given ecosystem or region. Accounting for such goods may occur in physical or monetary terms. This process can subsequently inform government, corporate and consumer decision making as each relates to the use or consumption of natural resources and land, and sustainable behaviour.

Local Nature Partnerships (LNPs) are partnerships of a broad range of influential organisations, businesses and people, and from a range of sectors, charged by government with the task of bringing about improvements in their local natural environment in England. To achieve this they are expected to ensure that consideration for the environment is put right at the heart of local decision-making.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Healthy Land & Water</span>

Healthy Land and Water Limited is the peak environment group for South East Queensland.

References

  1. "Natural Capital Committee". www.gov.uk. UK Government. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  2. Juniper, Tony (January 2015). What Nature Does for Britain. Profile Books. ISBN   9781781253281.
  3. 1 2 "The government's response to the Natural Capital Committee's third State of Natural Capital report" (PDF). www.gov.uk. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  4. "Natural Capital Committee (NCC)".
  5. "Owen Paterson's speech to Royal Society on Natural Capital Committee". www.gov.uk. 27 November 2012. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  6. "Dieter Helm remains chair of the Natural Capital Committee". Utility Week. 9 December 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  7. Helm, Dieter (June 2015). Natural Capital: Valuing the Planet. Yale University Press. p. 236. ISBN   978-0300210989 . Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  8. "Annex B: The Natural Capital Committee". Natural Capital Committee. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  9. "Advice to Government on Research Priorities". Natural Capital Committee. September 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  10. http://nebula.wsimg.com/c172061d66e972eab300a38dda8d35e9?AccessKeyId=68F83A8E994328D64D3D&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 [ bare URL PDF ]
  11. http://nebula.wsimg.com/dd76a0185ded3a0fcbce700ee96f69a7?AccessKeyId=68F83A8E994328D64D3D&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 [ bare URL PDF ]
  12. "Written Ministerial Statement: The Government's response to the Natural Capital Committee's 2nd State of Natural Capital Report" (PDF). Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  13. http://nebula.wsimg.com/b22fcea4b856744731e1a9d186869f5f?AccessKeyId=68F83A8E994328D64D3D&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 [ bare URL PDF ]
  14. "Final Natural Capital Committee Advice to Government". Natural Capital Committee. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  15. "Natural Capital Committee's fourth state of natural capital report". www.gov.uk. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. 24 January 2017. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
  16. "Natural Capital Committee publishes 4th Report". www.britishecologicalsociety.org. British Ecological Society. 25 January 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  17. "Natural Capital Committee's end of term report". GOV.UK. Retrieved 2021-12-18.
  18. "Committee Chairman, Dieter Helm". www.naturalcapitalcommittee.org. Archived from the original on 2014-03-06.
  19. "Defra appoints six members to new Natural Capital Committee". www.gov.uk. DEFRA. 25 February 2016. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
  20. Monbiot, George (24 July 2014). "Put a price on nature? We must stop this neoliberal road to ruin". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
  21. Paddison, Laura (1 August 2014). "Is natural capital a 'neoliberal road to ruin'?- experts discuss". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 October 2015.