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What is natural capital accounting?

Accounting for our environment

Australia's environment is fundamental to our quality of life and prosperity. Every day it provides us with goods and ecosystem services, such as clean air, fresh water, food and fibre. Natural capital accounting, also known as environmental-economic accounting, is a framework for integrating economic and environmental data to better understand our environmental assets. It helps us to describe changes in ecosystems and how these impact our well-being and our economy.

Natural capital accounting is important to the private and public sectors because nature underpins our economic growth, but it is currently left out of the tools that businesses and governments use to inform their decisions. Our researchers are helping to standardise how to report our interactions with nature so companies and governments can better understand how their activities affect and depend on nature, and more confidently report these to shareholders and the public.

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Environmental natural capital accounting and assessment

Making natural capital science and technology accessible to support responsible business practices to better protect our environment.

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Resources

A practical guide to corporate natural accounting

As pressure increases to integrate nature protection and restoration into all aspects of policy and business operations, how can organisations better measure and report on their interactions with nature?

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Our work with government

We work with partners to build regional and national environmental-economic accounts and integrate them into public and private decision-making,to help harmonise reporting across sectors and jurisdictions.

Ecological Knowledge System

The Ecological Knowledge System (EKS) delivers information about biodiversity and management options to support the Nature Repair Market. The EKS helps market participants to design projects and assess potential biodiversity benefits, as well as helping investors to compare the benefits of different projects.

Habitat Condition Assessment System (HCAS)

CSIRO and the Australian Government have worked together to create HCAS, a national habitat condition monitoring capability. It uses space technology to compare each location with a set of related benchmark sites that are believed to represent high levels of ecosystem integrity.

Experimental ecosystem accounts for the Gunbower-Koondrook-Perricoota

Linking environmental and economic information to better understand the contribution of this forest icon site to our wellbeing and prosperity.

Experimental ecosystem accounts for the Murray-Darling Basin

Ecologically meaningful information for diverse decision makers, from conservation to production .

National datasets for Australia's ecosystems and their services

Access the national ecosystem data

National datasets for Australia's ecosystems and their services: where ecosystems are, how they are functioning, their biodiversity and the services they provide. These datasets encompass the land, water, coasts and oceans of Australia.

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Our work with industry

We work with industry and research and development partners to apply natural capital accounting at scales from enterprises to regions. Natural capital accounting can help industries measure and report their environmental performance and track it against their economic information, improving their decision making and justifying investments in nature.

Assessing the economic benefits of maintaining natural capital on farms

Developing a methodology for assessing the impacts of biodiversity conservation activities on agriculture under a changing climate.

Pathways to a carbon neutral red meat industry

Natural capital accounting is helping Australia's red meat and livestock industry measure and monitor its carbon and natural capital outcomes. This will support the industry's progress towards its carbon neutrality targets, and facilitate access to emerging carbon and biodiversity markets.

NatureIQ™

Powering natural capital management at scale

We have developed an online platform leveraging decades of scientific expertise to help inform your organisation’s sustainability strategy and restore nature.

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Our work with communities

Increasingly, communities seek to better understand relevant ecosystem-related values as they work towards a sustainable and prosperous future. Weaving local and Indigenous knowledge with western scientific knowledge can support better decision making and better recognise the important contributions that Indigenous and regional communities make towards Australia’s environment and economy.

Valuing ecosystem services of urban forests and open spaces

An environmental valuation of alternative long-term management strategies for living infrastructure in Canberra, Australia.

Valuing local provenance and place-based economies

We’ve been working in partnership with government, farmers, and land managers to examine how investments toward environmental priorities like nature positive can deliver locally defined co-benefits and support equitable, community-led regional transformation.

Methods, models, data and tools

BILBI - modelling infrastructure for biodiversity indicators

BILBI uses best available biological and environmental data, modelling and high-performance computing to assess biodiversity change at fine spatial resolution across the global land surface.

Australian Ecosystems Models Framework

A set of dynamic ecosystem models to describe the dynamic characteristics and drivers of Australian ecosystems in unmodified and modified states.

Biodiversity co-benefits calculator

A tool to quantify the biodiversity co-benefits of land management actions such as carbon farming - at any scale - anywhere in Australia.

LOOC-C: digital services for carbon farming markets

A software tool that allows land managers to quickly assess the greenhouse gas abatement options for a specific land area.

Indicators of biodiversity change

A suite of biodiversity indicators to report on recent changes in biodiversity, from local to global scales.

Developing nature-based solutions to the climate challenge

We’re finding new ways to help organisations reduce their impacts on nature and biodiversity.

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Read more about our work in environment