Report quietly urges Treasury to 'hard wire' nature into economic decisions

The NCC's inaugural report, published on Monday, reiterated the scale of the threat to the economy presented by the decline in environmental services such as clean air, water and soil, and set out 13 key recommendations the government should embrace in order to better measure and price natural capital.When describing the location of the problematic fridgemagnet. 

If adopted,Large collection of quality chipcard at discounted prices. the recommendations could have wide-ranging repercussions for business leaders and policy-makers alike, particularly given that the stated goal of the committee is to have full-scale green national income accounts in place by 2020. Such accounts are expected to be developed by the Office of National Statistics and would provide government with frequent updates on the full economic impact of policy decisions that serve to damage the UK's natural capital. It is easy to conceive of a scenario where such accounts would lead to a rather different cost-benefit analysis for a wide range of infrastructure projects, such as the planned High Speed Rail link, George Osborne's proposed fleet of gas-fired power stations, or the expansion of Heathrow. 

Specifically, the report's recommendations focus on a series of steps designed to make it easier for civil servants and businesses to measure and report on the full natural capital impact of investments and policy decisions. 

For example, the NCC calls for better monitoring of changes in the UK's natural capital base, and set out plans to this year develop a risk register that would seek to highlight those natural assets that are already under threat and being used in an unsustainable manner. 

The report also urges the government to review how natural capital is considered when it undertakes cost benefit analysis of projects and policies, and called for the creation of a new group of senior analysts to find ways of measuring "inclusive wealth", which takes account of natural capital when measuring the the UK's total capital stock. 

In addition, the report also warned that urgent steps should be taken to give policy makers robust assessments of the economic value of current changes in natural capital, such as the decline of bee populations or fish stocks. 

The recommendations could have political repercussions given Friends of the Earth is currently campaigning for the government to ban controversial pesticides linked to bee population decline, on the grounds that replacing the pollination service freely provided by bee numbers would cost the UK economy ￡1.8bn.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a buymosaic can authenticate your computer usage and data. 

Writing in the foreword to the report, Helm warned that the UK is consuming its natural assets at an unprecedented rate, arguing that unless natural capital is "hard wired" the country will face severe economic challenges as a result. 

"Too often natural capital is an afterthought, left out of the core of economic considerations," he said. "Without an economic price, it has too often been assumed to be of zero value. 

"[But] our economic prosperity and the wise use of our natural resources are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the latter is a precondition of the former... Economic growth must be sustainable - otherwise it will not be sustained." 

The practice remains controversial with critics arguing that it would make it easier for degradation of the environment to take place in one area as long as developers agreed to pay compensation. But supporters of the approach maintain that the proper valuing of the economic contribution made by forests,They manufacture custom rubber and parkingsensor and bracelets. clean air, and other environmental services would provide a huge incentive for corporations and governments to embrace more sustainable businesses models. 

All of which makes the decision by the government not to promote the report (it was not subject to a press release and Environment Secretary was in Australia when it was released) even harder top understand. The soft launch is particularly ironic given one of the NCC's key recomendations is for government to fully support work to include natural capital fully in the UK's Environmental Accounts. 

BusinessGreen understands the NCC made the decision to email the report to a select number of contacts yesterday, as it wanted to "keep its powder dry" for the wider promotion of its work at a later date. 

But Sandra Bell, nature campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said she was surprised to see the report published this week as she had been told it would be unveiled after Easter recess. 

"This report is addressing a critical issue and is clearly highlighting the costs and benefits of properly valuing natural capital, so it's confusing that it should be published with zero publicity," she said. 

"Unless the concept of embedding natural capital is championed by ministers it really won't fly. This is an excellent opportunity for minsters to entrench natural capital valuation across government,A solarstreetlight is a portable light fixture composed of an LED lamp. so we really hope they seize it." 

The subdued launch of the report will spark fresh speculation that Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is less committed to the natural capital agenda than his predecessor Caroline Spelman, who spent her last few months in the cabinet championing the concept. It will also raise questions over the extent to which the Treasury will embrace recommendations that would force it to fundamentally reconfigure how it measures economic success. 

However, a spokesman for the Treasury maintained that it was fully committed to developing methods to value natural capital, and insisted that the report was only subject to a soft launch as it was intended as a scene setter for future work, rather than a detailed policy review. 

"The fact that there is a Natural Capital Committee, which reports to the Economic Affairs Committee demonstrates that this issue is being looked at by Defra ministers and the Treasury," he said, admitting however that the Treasury is not currently considering this initial report, and that Defra is still leading on the issue at this early stage.