Extended abstract. There is growing business interest in accounting for natural capital at the corporate level. In a 2013 report commissioned by the Natural Capital Coalition (NCC), half of all existing corporate profits would be at risk if the costs associated with natural capital were to be internalized through market mechanisms, regulation, and/or taxation. For example, a water shortage would have a catastrophic impact on over 40% of Fortune 100 companies.
Better accounting for the natural environment is a global agenda priority to include a greater focus on natural capital, produced capital and human capital that underpin the wealth and welfare of nations. In 2010 at Nagoya, 193 countries agreed to a strategic target to incorporate the values of biodiversity into national accounting and reporting systems by 2020. In 2012, the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development recognised “the need for broader measures of progress to complement GDP in order to better inform policy decisions” and requested the UN Statistical Commission to convene “a programme of work in this area building on existing initiatives.”
In 2011, the UK government committed to working with ONS and Defra to incorporate natural capital into the UK Environmental Accounts by 2020. In 2016, Defra recognized the need for digitally structured natural capital accounting data so that it could be used and analyzed more easily and reliably in order to meet the 2020 UK Environmental Accounts goals. As a result, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) established the ICEW Natural Capital Accounting Structured Data Task Force (INCA SDTF) to provide recommendations and guidance that will inform the ONS' decision on whether to implement an XBRL strategy and program to help it achieve its 2020 vision to incorporate natural capital into UK Environmental Accounts for statistical analysis and reporting.
In this session, the INCA SDTF co-chairs will provide background and updates about its work, and potential research topics will be proposed for further support for this UK initiative.