NatCap News
New partners, new tools: recent articles, announcements, a free course, and hands-on resources
Welcome to the many new subscribers here! Thanks to all of you who’ve been following us so far. This week we’re taking a moment for a quick re-introduction to the Natural Capital Alliance, and what to expect here on our publication, the Natural Capital Review… plus we share a few really exciting new resources you may find useful.
Who We Are | Natural Capital Alliance
With its hub at Stanford University, NatCap is a global alliance of researchers, professionals, and leaders directly engaging in more than 75 countries. Our work is focused on enabling people, governments, investors, and businesses to recognize the values of nature in supporting human well-being and to routinely incorporate them in decision-making.
Recently, three new institutions have formalized their participation in the global collaboration: the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as international financial institution (IFI) collaborators, and the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont as a research member. You can read more about this partnership here: Deepening collaborations, scaling up benefits for people and nature.
What We Write | The Natural Capital Review
Mainstream coverage tends to focus on the consequences of climate change, the limits of global cooperation, and the scale of what’s already been lost. Our work tries to highlight where collaboration is succeeding, how local and national governments are successfully adopting natural capital information, and how to accelerate adoption to meet the scale of the crisis we face.
Our content is free, educational and published approximately weekly. Those who subscribe gain access not only to our archive but also to the peer-reviewed research that underpins it, along with key updates, insights, and ways to contribute to our tools like InVEST®, our flagship open-source software that is used in nearly every country in the world. Below we’ve pinned a few of our top stories over the past six months.
The Exchange
Interviews with our collaborators around the world.
The Review
A monthly long form feature, conceptual essays on nature, finance, and economy, and deep-dives into pilot projects around the world.
Software & Modeling
This column keeps you up to date on advances in our software InVEST®, a free, open-source platform of ecosystem service models and tools that quantify and visualize the benefits ecosystems provide to people.
Key Concepts & Applications
Core ideas, tools, and approaches shaping the field.
New resources for putting these concepts into practice
A natural capital curriculum: This open online course, Natural Capital for Development: Valuation, Investment and Policy is a self-paced course for public officials and practitioners seeking practical tools to integrate nature into policy, planning, and investment.
The course has no prerequisites and is designed for:
Public officials and practitioners from ministries and diverse backgrounds.
Academics, scientists, and students interested in developing capacity to support future natural capital-related projects
General public interested in the evaluation and accounting of nature as an asset for inclusion in public policies and decision making.
The Implementation Toolkit for Scaling Natural Capital Approaches: A collection of resources designed for practitioners, government professionals, academics, and consultants who want to apply natural capital approaches in their own work.
The Toolkit includes:
A How-to Guide for project managers and technical teams on how to get started, including ready-to-use scoping worksheets
Case studies across a range of geographic, institutional, and policy contexts
Resources to learn more about ecosystem services modeling and valuation, including an online course
Tools for trainers including example workshop and training agendas, slide decks, and video lectures
International Financial Institutions (IFIs) Factsheet: focused on how NatCap’s approaches, tools, and data directly support decision-making across policy, planning, and investment contexts, including within and other financial institutions.
NatCap’s approaches and tools enable natural capital information to inform a wide range of IFI and private-sector decisions–from project design and ESIA to infrastructure planning, investment prioritization, and policy development–by making nature’s contributions visible, comparable, and actionable.