I came across a report titled“Corporate Ecosytem Valuation – Building the business case” developed by World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
About 10 years ago, one of the first attempts was made by 13 environmental economists to put a value of ecosystem services that the businesses extract – $33 trillion a year. The more recent interim TEEB study (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) published in 2008 estimated that each year the world looses natural capital worth $3-4 trillion.
Such numbers make it imperative that businesses around the world conduct ecosystem evaluation into the manufacture of their products as these have been grossly undervalued till now.
So here are 10 good reasons why companies should employ Corporate Ecosystem Evaluation as a decision-support tool to improve operational efficieny and develop new business opportunities while reducing their environmental impacts or ecological footprint. Kindly view the complete report here.
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Improving business decision-making
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Capturing and pricing new income streams
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Saving costs
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Reducing taxes
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Sustaining revenues
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Revaluing assets
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Investigating new goods and services
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Assessing liability and compensation
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Measuring company and share value
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Reporting performance
All businesses depend on ecoystem services in one way or the other and this kind of evaluation puts a dollar value that can be directly integrated with traditional financial bottom line results. If ecosystem costs are factored in, then the products will be given their true costs (which has not been the case).
But their are informational, conceptual, methodological and resource challenges in institionalizing this approach to corporate ecosystem valuation. WBCSD is playing a critical role in bringing awareness in this new field to improve the corporate decision making.
Read the report here
Related articles
- A Good Year for Ecosystem Services Awareness? (greenresearch.com)
- The Connection Between Biodiversity, Finance and Sustainable Prosperity (socialearth.org)
- Internalizing the Externalities
- Tools for Triple Bottom Line Accounting
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