Lessons learned from development of natural capital accounts in the United States and European Union

The United States and European Union (EU) face common challenges in managing natural capital and balancing conservation and resource use with consumption of other forms of capital. This paper synthesizes findings of 11 individual papers from a special issue of Ecosystem Services on natural capital accounting (NCA) and their application for the public and private sectors in the EU and U.S. NCA is inherently a data-integration centered exercise, aiming to draw new insights from the realignment of environmental and economic data into a consistent framework. Drawing primarily on papers from the special issue but also from other key NCA literature, we identify lessons learned and gaps remaining for the NCA’s development and application to decision making. In doing so, we compare NCA development, status, and application in the U.S. and EU to understand key similarities and differences. NCA can be highly policy relevant: special issue papers address critical issues like agriculture, water, conservation/land-use planning, climate, and corporate decision making. In both the U.S. and EU further application is needed to drive demand for the accounts’ production. We also build the case for cross-sector, international collaboration toward next-generation environmental-economic accounts and advancement of the global state of NCA practice.

BAGSTAD Kenneth;  INGRAM Jane Carter;  SHAPIRO Carl;  LA NOTTE Alessandra;  MAES Joachim;  VALLECILLO RODRIGUEZ Sara;  CASEY Frank;  GLYNN Pierre;  HERIS Mehdi;  JOHNSON Justin;  LAUER Chris;  MATUSZAK John;  OLESON Kirsten;  POSNER Stephen;  RHODES Charles;  VOIGT Brian; 

2021-10-13

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

JRC123774

2212-0416 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041621001170?via%3Dihub,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC123774,   

10.1016/j.ecoser.2021.101359 (online),