The natural capital accounting opportunity: Let's really do the numbers

BioScience
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Abstract

The nation’s economic accounts provide objective, regular, and standardized information routinely relied upon by public and private decision makers. But they are incomplete. The U.S. and many other nations currently do not account for the natural capital — such as the wildlife, forests, grasslands, soils, and water bodies—upon which all other economic activity rests. By creating formal natural capital accounts (NCA) and ecosystem goods and services (EGS) accounts, governments and businesses can better understand the past, peer into the future, innovate, conserve, and plan for environmental shocks. They would standardize, regularly repeat, and aggregate diverse natural resource, environmental, and social and economic data and could thereby play a significant role in advancing the science of coupled biophysical and social systems.
Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title The natural capital accounting opportunity: Let's really do the numbers
Series title BioScience
DOI 10.1093/biosci/biy135
Volume 68
Issue 12
Year Published 2018
Language English
Publisher American Institute of Biological Sciences
Contributing office(s) Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis
Description 4 p.
First page 940
Last page 943
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