Making Nature Count Through Natural Capital Accounting

Mainstreaming biodiversity is generally understood as ensuring that biodiversity and ecosystems are adequately factored into national policies and practices. Natural capital accounting is the umbrella term used to indicate the use of an accounting framework to provide a systematic way to measure and report on stocks and flows of natural capital.  The underlying premise is that nature is important to society and the economy and should be recognized as an asset that must be maintained and managed and its contributions better integrated into the regular statistical production process.

The System of Environmental Economic Accounting is the accepted international statistical standard for natural capital accounting, providing a framework for organizing and presenting statistics on nature and its relationship with the economy. This high-level side event will examine how the SEEA can help mainstreaming biodiversity into relevant strategies and plans, systematically integrate biodiversity into programmes, policies and projects, promote inter-ministerial coordination and setting time-bound targets, clear roles and responsibilities.

Using the SEEA as the underlying statistical framework for some of the indicators in the monitoring framework will result in indicators that are consistent across domains comparable across countries and over time and permit monitoring progress towards achieving the goals and targets.  The event will feature speakers from different communities and will highlight the importance of the SEEA to support integrated policies and decision making.