"I'm Tired of Footing the Bill. You Never Pay," says Spent Earth
20 May 2024// Resources // Tool // NatCap Calculator
For thousands of years, our beloved planet Earth has foot the bill. We hardly ever pay. Last year we had already reached ecological overdraft (aka earth overshoot day) by 2nd August. It’s true that the planet has far greater means with bounty that literally sustains 100 percent of the economy and human life. She provides awe-inspiring beauty, intelligent design, and an estimated $140 trillion worth of ecosystem services, which is 1.5x global GDP. But lest we reform our penny-pinching ways and start to split the bill, we could reach the ecological point of no return by the end of this decade. Instead, in a perverse token of gratitude and myopic acceleration of our own extinction, we spend $7 trillion each year to support activities that directly harm our greatest social and economic partner.
The heart of this problem is not the
under-financing of nature, but rather
the undervaluation of nature.
Unfortunately, accurate natural capital valuation is notoriously costly, lengthy, and complex. As the Symbaiosys team and partners develop a granular, business-friendly analytics solution to make valuing nature more accessible, we are delighted to introduce an initial basic, and free, NatCap Calculator.
Simple to use, all you need to input is the ecosystem type, location, and size in hectares and our tool will calculate the estimated monetary value of almost 80 ecosystem services, that have been specifically aligned to climate and nature-related financial frameworks like the respective Taskforces on Climate and Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and (TNFD), for interoperability. You can also view our taxonomy here.
Source: NatCap Calculator, Symbaiosys
Our hope is that this tool facilitates nature-positive decision making by eliminating the trade-offs businesses and governments often make between the environment, the economy and profits. We especially hope it improves the bankability of restoration and conservation projects by making a stronger business case for nature.
We’d love to hear what you think of the NatCap Calculator and how you are using it to advance nature positive. To use the free tool, sign up, or get in touch if you’d like to collaborate.
Note: The NatCap calculator provides the minimum, maximum and average per hectare monetary values of a chosen ecosystem in a given location (e.g. mangroves in the Bahamas) on either:
(1) Reducing the financial impact of a climate-related risk or (e.g. flood protection) or;
(2) Increasing the impact of a climate-related opportunity (e.g. improving human health).
The natural capital values are calculated based on a spatial analysis of the average financial and economic welfare values related to ecosystem services measured in monetary units. The financial values are based on the Ecosystem Services Valuation Database (ESVD) which contains over 9,400 standardized value records from global reports and scientific studies distributed across all biomes, ecosystem services and geographic regions.
Explore Further
Are you a nature project developer seeking funding? Or an institutional investor seeking high integrity projects? Sign-up for a free beta of our platform and explore our investment database, natural capital valuation calculator, and knowledge library.