Photo: IUCN-Imene Meliana
If adopted at scale, the Natural Capital Protocol has the power to completely revolutionise the way that businesses make decisions. It acts as a magnifying lens to make natural resources, organisms and ecosystems -- as well as the services that they provide -- visible to senior executives and business leaders.
IUCN's role
In concert with other Coalition members, IUCN oversaw the consortia on business outreach for the Protocol, which included testing the draft framework with more than 50 companies, such as Coca-Cola, Dow, Kering, Hugo Boss, Interface, Nespresso, Nestlé, Olam, Shell and Yorkshire Water.
In addition, IUCN contributed to the development of two Protocol sector guides: one for the apparel industry and another for food and beverage.
Under the auspices of the Coalition, IUCN also worked on an International Finance Corporation (IFC) country case pilot project, with its local partner Ecoversa in Colombia, as well as with Coalition partners EY, Trucost and Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership. The project identified barriers and enabling conditions – both financial and regulatory – that need to be addressed if the Natural Capital Protocol is to be adopted and scaled-up at a country and regional level, and a multi-stakeholder workshop in Bogota, confirmed these findings.
Fast forward
The Natural Capital Protocol has now been downloaded more than 50,000 times and it is available in several different languages. IUCN has also contributed to a Natural Capital Toolkit developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which is intended to facilitate business uptake.
More recently at Natural Capital Week in November 2018, IUCN launched a new three-year campaign with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), WBCSD and Oppla called We Value Nature, which will leverage on existing networks and coalitions, and overcome barriers to accelerate business integrating the value of natue in their decision making .
For more information about the Natural Capital Protocol, visit the Natural Capital Coalition website.
