Tipping Points: Why Business Needs a Natural Capital Protocol
1. Mumbai, 8 July 2014
Professor Jeremy B Williams
Director, Asia Pacific Centre
for Sustainable Enterprise
@TheGreenMBA
@jeremybwilliams
tinyurl.com/teribcsd
18. The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from
a measurement of national income as defined by the
GDP... goals for ‘more’ growth should specify of
what and for what.’
20. ‘Capitalism, as practiced, is a
financially profitable, non-
sustainable aberration in human
development. What might be
called ‘industrial capitalism’
does not fully conform to its
own accounting principles. It
liquidates its capital and calls it
income. It neglects to assign any
value to the largest stocks of
capital it employs – the natural
resources and living systems, as
well as the social and cultural
systems that are the basis of
human capital.’
Hawken, Lovins and Lovins (1999), Natural Capitalism, p. 5.
26. < 1/3 of responding
ACCA members were
familiar with the term
‘ecosystem services’
70% of ACCA members
surveyed said they
needed training on its
potential impact on
corporate value and
performance
27. Examples of ecosystem services (Costanza et al 1997)
Ecosystem service Examples
Climate regulation Greenhouse gas regulation, dimethyl sulfide production affecting cloud
formation.
Disturbance regulation Storm protection, flood control, drought recovery and other aspects of
habitat response to environmental variability mainly controlled by
vegetation structure.
Water regulation Provisioning of water for agriculture (e.g. irrigation) or industrial (e.g.
milling) processes or transportation.
Water supply Provision of water by watersheds, reservoirs and aquifers.
Soil formation Weathering of rock and the accumulation of organic material.
Nutrient cycling Nitrogen fixation, nitrogen, phosphorous and other elemental or nutrient
cycles.
Waste treatment Waste treatment, pollution control, and detoxification.
Pollination Provision of pollinators for the reproduction of plant populations.
Biological control Keystone predator control of prey species, reduction of herbivory (plant
eating by insects) by top predators.
Food production Production of fish, game, crops, nuts, fruits etc. by hunting, gathering,
subsistence farming or fishing.
Raw materials Production of lumber, fuel or fodder.
Genetic resources Medicine, products for materials science, genes for resistance to plant
pathogens and crop pests, ornamental species (pets and horticultural
varieties of plants).
Recreation Eco-tourism, sport fishing and other outdoor recreational activities.
Cultural Aesthetic, artistic, education, spiritual and/or scientific values of
ecosystems.
33. (Released 14 May 2014) Executive Summary:
‘Natural capital will become as
prominent a business concern in
the 21st Century as the provision
of adequate financial capital was
in the 20th Century ... We are
already ‘drawing down’ on 50%
more natural capital a year than
the earth can replenish – and the
rate of depletion is accelerating.
All too soon, businesses will face a
stark choice: adapt or fail.’
40. September 2013
Follow up on Is Natural Capital a
Material Issue?
• narrative reporting on strategy
and management providing
qualitative understanding of
an organisation’s relationship
to natural capital and the
processes used to manage the
various risks and
opportunities; and
• performance reporting
providing stakeholders with
quantitative information on
KPIs that can be used to track
performance over time
51. The conservation of natural capital needs should be price
determining, not price determined (Farley 2008)
Neoclassical Cost-Benefit Analysis where everything has a
price is a hazardous approach
Ecologists and climate scientists must help identify critical
tipping points and set the boundaries for market
exchange.
Closing thoughts …
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/rise_and_fall_of_.jpg
KPMG Report – Released November 2012
http://blog.nwf.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/11/files/2014/06/NativeBee_PaulGardner_295696-copy.jpg
KPMG Report – Released November 2012
Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) was launched at the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nagoya, Japan.
Botswana, Colombia, Costa Rica, Madagascar, and the Philippines were the initial core implementing countries that embarked on programs for natural capital accounting endorsed at the highest level of their governments, with extensive technical support from WAVES. These countries established national steering committees, carried out stakeholder consultations, identified policy priorities and designed work plans that are now being implemented.
Guatemala, Indonesia and Rwanda joined WAVES as core implementing countries in late 2013.
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (2014), Accounting for Natural Capital: The elephant in the boardroom. http://www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/Thought_leadership_docs/Sustainability%20and%20Climate%20Change/CIMA-accounting-for-natural-capital.pdf
Executive summary
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (2014), Accounting for Natural Capital: The elephant in the boardroom.
HRH Prince Charles
http://images.smh.com.au/2011/07/26/2517049/prince_charles_729-420x0.jpg
The Guide to environmental accounting in Australia (BOM 2013) presents a Joint Perspectives Model that sets out key relationships between the environment, society, and the economy relevant to producing environmental accounts (Figure 2).
This model consists of four nested systems: the physical Earth, living, human cultural, and economic systems.
Each system has emerged from all the others listed before it and is not separate from them. This means that any transaction in an emergent system can also be viewed from the perspective of the systems in which it is nested.
In the lower cross-sectional view, the vertical dotted lines delineate systems while the coloured horizontal slices represent the different perspectives from which systems can be viewed. For each perspective (slice), potential accounting units are listed.
KMPG Report pg 12
The links between BES and corporate value through impacts on share price are strengthening as the extent of corporate reliance on BES becomes clearer. These links are likely to strengthen further as governments take steps to maintain stocks of natural capital in the face of increasingly competing demands of resource users.
Hyper link takes you to the website: http://www.naturalcapitaldeclaration.org/
The CEOs of 37 major financial institutions announced that they would be integrating natural capital considerations into their products and services as a result of their commitment to the UN backed Natural Capital Declaration.
Yes Bank - India: signed September 2013
Mongeral Aegon – Brazil
Sumitomo Mitsui – Japan
NAB – Australia