The Natural Capital Measurement Catalogue (NCMC) is an open resource that presents metrics and methods for the measurement of natural capital assets, flows of services or benefits, and organisational impacts or dependencies on nature.
The purpose of the NCMC is to help integrate natural capital considerations into business, financial and government decision-making, by facilitating convergence on a core set of consistent and comparable natural capital metrics.
When businesses incorporate natural capital into their decision-making, it creates space for improvements in a range of areas, such as supply-chain management, risk management, business sustainability, resilience, and uninterrupted production and operation.
If businesses use consistent metrics, measured and reported in a comparable way, then their investors, lenders and insurers can also incorporate natural capital information into their decision-making, enabling more sustainable allocation of capital and financial risk management.
Governments and natural resource managers at all levels also rely on consistent metrics to provide reliable information on the state of natural capital and organisational interactions with nature, thus supporting improved policies and investments, risk management and the provision of natural capital information to other stakeholders, such as the general public.
Vision
Globally, the race is on to reduce emissions and protect ecosystems – as limiting warming to 1.5C is only possible by doing both.
Markets have not traditionally accounted for the benefits of nature, yet our economies and societies are entirely dependent on the natural world. Measuring and valuing natural assets and the services they provide as ‘natural capital’ can encourage investment in nature. However, nature is complex, and without an agreed way to measure natural capital, nature is under threat.
Since 2021, the team in Climateworks Centre has been working closely with experts, industry, government and other stakeholders, to address this major barrier. This has shaped the Natural Capital Investment Initiative (NCII) which developed an initial proof of concept followed by the digitisation of the NCMC.
For more information:
- Climateworks Centre Natural Capital Roadmap (2019) – a barrier to broader adoption is the readiness of tools and systems to enable adequate and consistent measurement of ‘natural capital’.
- Climateworks Centre Natural Capital Investment Initiative – Phase 1 Report (2021)
Catalogue inclusion guidelines
The NCMC has been developed by Climateworks Centre with extensive input from a Technical Reference Panel of natural capital experts, plus wide stakeholder engagement. As a live resource the NCMC is always open to the inclusion of further metrics, measurement methods, data sources or related useful information. Any suggested additions or changes will be considered for inclusion in a next version of the NCMC, subject to availability of resources to review and address the suggestions, based on the following guidelines.
Suggested metrics, methods, data sources and other information should be:
- applicable to a broad range of end users and purposes
- publicly available (not restricted or commercial), accessible and findable
- in the case of ecosystem condition metrics, be an ecosystem condition variable (as fundamental metrics from which ecosystem condition indicators and ecosystem condition indices can be developed)
- scientifically credible, based on robust evidence (e.g. peer-reviewed publications, or published by a reputable organisation, such as a government agency or research organisation)
- practical and achievable to measure
- where possible, aligned with an internationally and/or nationally recognised standard or framework (e.g. SEEA or TNFD)
- applicable in the Australian context, or internationally recognised
- data sources should be as current as possible to provide useful information to a reasonable number of end users, recognising that this depends on how the characteristics being measured change over time, and whether detecting change over time is important
- data sources should apply internationally, nationally or to a large part of Australia (such as whole states or territories)
- where multiple possible data sources are identified, priority will be given to those from more reliable sources, most current (especially if updated regularly), and/or with the largest spatial coverage, recognising that there are diminishing returns from adding more data sources to the Catalogue.
Acknowledgment and funding
The NCMC has been developed by Climateworks Centre with the support of the Macdoch Foundation.
The catalogue was developed under the guidance of a technical reference panel of experts from research institutions across Australia (includes experts from CSIRO, Australian National University (ANU), La Trobe University, Griffith University, Federation University, Accounting for Nature and Farming for the Future) and an advisory group comprising more than 50 organisations – financial institutions, government, land management, research and supply chains, measurement providers, and consultancies – all with an interest and expertise in measuring and improving natural capital.
Phase 1 of the NCMC including: proof-of-concept, was supported by NAB.
Release summary
Version 2.0 – October 2024
Version 2.0 includes updates to the technical content of the NCMC and improvements to the website user experience.
All updates were informed by extensive stakeholder feedback on version 1.0, plus further inputs from Technical Reference Panel members, Advisory Group members, and a range of user experience, website and communication professionals.
Key website functionality updates include new:
- home page design
- pop-up on entry
- welcome video
- user guide
- use cases
- search and filter functions
- modular site design, with re-usable metrics and terms
- results page layout with all Tiers on one page
- tooltips to provide more information on key terms
- abbreviations section.
And improved and updated:
- glossary and references
- feedback form.
Key technical updates include:
- numerous additions, clarifications and corrections in response to technical feedback
- review and inclusion of references to metrics and methods from TNFD (global core and additional metrics, and sector-specific metrics for Food and Agriculture sectors) and Accounting for Nature (publicly available methods as of mid-2023 only)
- after a systematic review of potential publicly available Tier 2 data sources, the addition of around 70 new Tier 2 and Tier 3 data sources, together with selected metadata, now contained in a new Data Sources section
- updated downloadable spreadsheet version.
Version 1.0 – July 2023
The release of Version 1 followed an extensive feedback and refinement process. A broad range of stakeholders working in the natural capital space advised on the development of the NCMC, including from research, financial institutions, measurement providers, government, consultancy, land management and supply chains organisations.
Since the release of the proof-of-concept in 2021, the NCMC was refined and expanded based on expert stakeholder feedback to include updates such as:
- broadening the scope to include other forms of land use beyond agriculture
- supporting both natural capital accounting and natural capital assessment
- closer alignment with the United Nations System of Economic-Environmental Accounting (SEEA)
- inclusion of natural capital impacts and dependencies, aligned with the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)
- consistency with national and state data and the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology
- ecosystem metrics based on extent, condition, and ecosystem services (physical and monetary flows)
- consistency with the Natural Capital Protocol and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) IFRS S1.