This User Guide provides guidance on how to use the NCMC like an open library to identify potential natural capital metrics, measurement methods and data sources, which can then be adapted to serve whatever purpose the user requires. 

It does not provide overall guidance on natural capital accounting, assessment or reporting; nor does it provide detailed guidance on how to measure natural capital or how to obtain or analyse natural capital data. However, other sources of overall guidance are listed below, and sources of more detailed guidance relevant to each metric are included in the results section for that metric (where available).

The NCMC is a catalogue of potentially relevant natural capital metrics, intended to serve the widest possible range of users. It is not prescriptive – it is unlikely that any single organisation would find all of the listed metrics applicable. Neither is it exhaustive or complete – rather, it represents an initial list of potentially relevant metrics sourced from numerous experts and stakeholder inputs, and which will continually be added to and refined over time. Efforts have been made to align the content and structure of the NCMC with major international standards such as the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) standards and Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Recommendations. However, no single standard covers all possible forms of natural capital measurement, and therefore decisions have had to be made about how to resolve differences between standards, while organising the catalogue in a logically consistent way. 

Once a relevant metric has been identified (either through using the search function or navigating the side bar, drop-down menus and tabs), the NCMC typically provides some contextual information about the metric (e.g. metric type and typical units); example measurement methods arranged according to three tiers and including example guidance, data sources and references, where available; and further information in the form of notes. 

Step-by-step guide to using the NCMC

Step 1: Determine which overall section of the NCMC is most relevant to you – Natural Capital Accounting, or Natural Capital Assessment

  1. If your organisation owns or controls significant natural capital assets, e.g. areas of land or water, then you may be interested in accounting for those assets and the flows of benefits derived from those assets. If so, the Natural Capital Accounting section may be most relevant. This section includes metrics for measuring the quantity/extent and quality/condition of individual environmental assets or components of the biophysical environment (such as mineral resources, land, timber or water) as well as whole ecosystem assets (such as forests, wetlands or rivers) where multiple individual environmental assets interact as a system. 

    Natural capital accounting is also known as environmental-economic accounting, particularly when applied to the development of national statistics. When applied at a country or regional level, the scope is usually defined by territorial boundaries, whereas when applied at the level of an individual entity, the scope would normally be defined by the entity’s ownership or control. The Natural Capital Accounting section of the NCMC provides metrics to support accounting consistent with the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) standards. 
  2. If you are more interested in your organisation’s relationship with nature, regardless of ownership or control, then the Natural Capital Assessment section may be most relevant. This section includes metrics for measuring an organisation’s impacts and/or dependencies on natural capital. The resulting information could be used to support improved management of an organisation’s nature-related risks and opportunities (arising from its impacts and/or dependencies), or to support disclosures in accordance with Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Recommendations, or International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) disclosure standards.  
  3. It is possible that both sections may be relevant to your organisation, for example if your organisation owns significant natural capital assets, and also has significant impacts and/or dependencies on nature beyond those assets.

Step 2A: Within the Natural Capital Accounting section, determine which sub-sections are most relevant to you – Environmental assets or Ecosystem assets (or both)

  1. Environmental assets are individual components of the biophysical environment, such as mineral resources, land, timber or water. These metrics can be used to measure the quantity or quality of individual environmental assets, and the physical or monetary flows of benefits that they provide. The Environmental assets section is aligned with the SEEA Central Framework (SEEA-CF)
  2. Ecosystem assets are whole ecosystems (complexes of living and non-living, or biotic and abiotic, environmental assets that interact as a functional unit). The Ecosystem assets section is aligned with SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA-EA). By definition, ecosystem assets may include various individual environmental assets that could also be accounted separately. For example, a forest ecosystem may include timber resources, but ecosystem accounting allows for consideration of ecosystem services that the forest may provide beyond the provision of timber, such as water flow regulation services or air filtration services.

The two sections are not mutually exclusive – they represent different ways of thinking about what is relevant to account for in the environment. A user may choose to account only for individual environmental assets, or only ecosystem assets, or a combination of both. However, if both types of accounts are presented, the information in each should be consistent, and quantities and values for assets that are common to both sets of accounts should not be added together. For example, the value of timber resources should be included in the value of wood provisioning services as part of an ecosystem account for a forest, and therefore not added to the total ecosystem accounting value for the forest.

Step 2B: Within the Natural Capital Assessment section, determine which sub-sections are most relevant to you – Impacts or Dependencies (or both)

  1. Impacts are a “negative or positive effect of business activity on natural capital” (Natural Capital Coalition, 2016, pp. 16-17). Impacts can be directly caused by the reporting entity, indirect or cumulative (TNFD, 2023). Generally, impacts are caused (or exacerbated by) certain actions, known as impact drivers, which result in changes to the state of nature and its ability to deliver ecosystem services or other benefits to humans. This in turn can give rise to risks (and/or opportunities) for the reporting entity, for example when natural capital that the reporting entity depends on is negatively affected (see next point), or when society responds to impacts by imposing regulation, fines, or constraints on market access.
  2. Dependencies are “aspects of environmental assets and ecosystem services that a person or an organisation relies on to function” (TNFD, 2023, p, 115). Changes to the state of nature can affect its ability to provide the ecosystem services, abiotic flows (e.g. water or mineral resources) or other environmental conditions (Smith et al., 2023) that an organisation depends on. This in turn can give rise to risks (and/or opportunities) for the reporting entity.

Step 3: Find metrics, measurement methods and data sources

Within the subsection of the NCMC that is most relevant to you, you can find metrics by browsing within that subsection (using the left hand navigation panel), or by using the Search and Filter functions. The Environmental assets and Ecosystem assets subsections are arranged by type of environmental asset, and ecosystem type; whereas the Impacts and Dependencies sections are arranged according to categories of natural capital impacted or depended on. 

Note that metrics in the NCMC have been named in a way that is intended to be as generic as possible, noting that the same metric may be called different things in different measurement or reporting frameworks, and there may be many similar metrics which can be considered variations of the generic metrics included in the Catalogue.

Once you have found a relevant metric, the Catalogue provides suggested measurement methods and data sources, arranged into three tiers (see FAQ: What are tiers?). All suggested examples are illustrative and not prescriptive. It is up to the user to decide how to adapt the suggestions from the NCMC to suit their particular context and purpose.