The Natural Capital Century
A prosperous new era for agriculture
The Natural Capital Century will see natural capital and its custodians moving from the sidelines to take centre stage in our economy.
This will deliver financial and environmental progress at the required pace and scale.
An outcome that at present, remains beyond the grasp of UK agriculture. This is not only putting farmers and rural communities at risk, but also food supply chains, the environment, and the overarching economy.
The industry must act with urgency
The landscape presents a wealth of opportunities, alongside significant risks associated with persisting on the current course. These include:
To secure economic and social prosperity - Natural capital serves as the asset base for 53% of the global GDP, this is equivalent to $44tn. (Source: WEF 2020 New Nature Economy Report)
To advance the flow of new money into agriculture – it is projected that we need a global investment of $15tn to transform the industry for the prosperity of agriculture, the economy and society at large. (Source: McKinsey & Company)
To stabilise the earth’s systems - 7 out of 8 globally quantified safe planetary boundaries that sustain humanity have been compromised. (Source: Rockström et al, May 2023)
To help reduce, if not eliminate: “green washing,” misinformation, miscalculation, misrepresentation, partial analysis, pseudoscience, and the unforeseen negative consequences that partial and standard-poor calculations have on farming systems. This includes, misallocation of resources, deterioration of farms’ adaptive capacity to climate change, legal challenges and excessive risk and misapprehension across the industry and society that over the longer term, have a cascading effect, worsening inequalities, threatening food security, and contributing to the demise of rural communities.
Why has this action not been achieved sooner?
In previous endeavours, commendable efforts have been invested in delivering a framework that grasps the opportunities around natural capital. But it is a complex space, requiring deep understanding of the obstacles, opportunities and required methodologies.
There had not been an analytical and navigation software with the pre-requisite scientific rigor, credibility, national and international standards compliance and hence able to exude trust by the economic and financial systems.
Furthermore, until now, we had not seen the joining together of expertise across science, technology, farming and finance. Additionally, the valuation of natural assets had not received the recognition it warrants.
These pivotal inhibiting factors have now been overcome and this is why we can now confidently drive a step-change that will usher in a much more prosperous and transformative era for agriculture.
