[Pollinator] New accounting tool tallies 'ecosystem services'

Tue May 3 13:09:12 PDT 2011

New accounting tool tallies 'ecosystem services' (05/03/2011)

Jenny Mandel, E&E reporter

Pollinating insects contribute $190 billion per year to the global economy
-- about eight times the total operating income of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in
2010 -- and their contribution, along with other crucial functions provided
by natural ecosystems, should be accounted for in business decisionmaking.

So argues a new framework on corporate ecosystem valuation published by the
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) that aims to help
companies take stock of the resources they use and their contribution to the
corporate bottom line.

"Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation are continuing to escalate,
thereby putting business at risk, but if managed properly, [they] can be
transformed into new opportunities," WBCSD President Björn Stigson said in
launching the framework last month in Geneva.

Corporate ecosystem valuation, or CEV, "allows business to fully recognize
and value ecosystems and the services they deliver," Stigson said.

The term "ecosystem services" covers a broad swath of benefits that accrue
from the natural environment including filtering dirty water, providing
flood control, dispersing pollutants, providing naturally occurring
resources like minerals and the genetic basis for farmed resources like
crops, and serving up recreational and spiritual opportunities.

The new framework, which was developed by WBCSD over 18 months along with
consulting group Environmental Resources Management, the International Union
for Conservation of Nature, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Resources
Institute (WRI), is designed to help willing participants account for those
benefits and assess how they play into business decisionmaking.

The framework builds on a previous tool developed by WRI, WBCSD and the
facilitation group Meridian Institute that they say has been used by more
than 300 companies since 2008 to tally their exposure to ecosystem-related
risks and opportunities.

The new approach was road-tested by more than a dozen companies that have
endorsed the roadmap, including mining giant Rio Tinto, forest product group
Weyerhaeuser, Italian oil and gas company Eni, South African utility Esko,
and manufacturer Hitachi.

"We see that CEV can strengthen business performance by considering social
benefits, sustaining revenues, reducing costs, revaluing company assets and
determining levels of liability and compensation," the group of early
testers said in a joint statement.

WBCSD officials say the framework does not tell businesses how to carry out
an ecosystem valuation, nor does it put values on particular services.

Rather, it can help companies decide if they might benefit from carrying out
a comprehensive assessment and lays out a process of scoping, planning and
evaluation with further advice on how the results can be applied to change
companies' "business as usual" processes.

The framework argues that CEV can help companies save money, find new
revenue streams from underutilized resources, reduce their tax burdens,
assess liabilities and gauge environmental risk, among other benefits.

Another potential upside of undertaking an assessment, the report says, is
if companies can use the results of a formal ecosystem valuation to argue a
case with regulators, for example that taking certain conservation steps
should allow the company to charge users an additional fee.

But it acknowledges that one factor in whether businesses should take the
approach is the range of mandates set by various levels of government that
require some form of reporting.

In publishing the evaluation tool, the groups behind it said they aimed to
develop a system that would cater to the needs of business. That would set
it out from among an increasing number of such frameworks that have emerged
over recent years, they said, each of which with a slightly different
perspective.

This tool was specially designed to meet the requirements of a study, the
Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) report, released by "G-8 +
5" group of environment ministers at last year's U.N. Convention on
Biological Diversity, they said (ClimateWire
<http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2010/10/28/archive/3> , Oct. 28, 2010). 

_______

Scott Hoffman Black

Executive Director

     The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

Chair

     IUCN Butterfly Specialist Group

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

1971 – 2011: Forty Years of Conservation!

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To join the Society, make a contribution, or read about our work, please
visit  <http://www.xerces.org> www.xerces.org.

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