Globally, governments and the financial system are increasingly recognizing the risks and opportunities that must be managed due to the interconnectedness of dynamic climate forces, biodiversity, and economies.

This Earth Day high level panel brings together global leaders in natural capital science and approaches from academia, government, and finance. The panelists will discuss two main topics:

Part I: successful implementation of natural capital approaches and advances

Part II: Mainstreaming implementation of natural capital approaches: Leading edge challenges and opportunities

This high level panel is intended to set the stage for natural capital conversations at Stockholm+50, aiming to spur actions that tackle inequalities and create sustainable prosperity.

Moderators:
Steve Polasky, University of Minnesota and the Natural Capital Project
Steve Polasky is one of the leaders of the Natural Capital Project’s environmental service mapping and valuation effort.

Emily McKenzie, Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
Emily McKenzie (she/her) is the Technical Director at the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). ​​

Panelists:
Gretchen Daily, Stanford University Natural Capital Project
Gretchen C. Daily (she/her) is co-founder and Faculty Director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project. Daily is the Bing Professor of Environmental Science in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, the Director of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

Mary Ruckelshaus, Stanford University Natural Capital Project
Mary Ruckelshaus (she/her) oversees all work of the Natural Capital Project partnership including strategy, coordination, fundraising, communications, and hiring.

Ouyang Zhiyun, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Dr. Ouyang (he/him) is Professor and director of the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include ecosystem assessment, ecosystem services, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation.

Greg Watson, Inter-American Development Bank
Greg Watson is a Principal Specialist for the Natural Capital Lab Program, Climate Change and Sustainable Development Division at the Inter-American Development Bank, funded with $44M from the governments of France and the United Kingdom.

Qingfeng Zhang, Asian Development Bank: ​​As the Chief of Rural Development & Food Security Thematic Group
Mr. Zhang provides leadership to the formulation and implementation of the Bank’s strategy and knowledge in agriculture, natural resources and food, oversees the operationalization of the Bank’s vision on agriculture, natural resources and food in regional and country programs.

Serafín Martínez Jaramillo, Banco de Mexico
Serafin leads the Environmental and Social Risks Analysis and Policy unit at Banco de México.

This panel is a collaboration between the Natural Capital Project, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. It is a part of the initiative “Economy and Finance for a Just Future on a Thriving Planet” convened by the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University in support of Stockholm+50.

Read more: https://beijer.kva.se/news-item/stockholm50/

Read the recent Joint Statement on Nature, People, and Planet by nine multilateral development banks: https://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=EZSHARE-1729984378-40

Speaker(s): Professor Dieter Helm
Chair: Professor Giles Atkinson

Recorded on 20 October 2015 at Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building

Natural capital is what nature provides to us for free. Renewables – like species – keep on coming, provided we do not drive them towards extinction. Non-renewables – like oil and gas – can only be used once. Together, they are the foundation that ensures our survival and well-being, and the basis of all economic activity. In the face of the global, local, and national destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems, economist Dieter Helm offers a crucial set of strategies for establishing natural capital policy that is balanced, economically sustainable, and politically viable.

Professor Dieter Helm (@Dieter_Helm) is Professor of Energy Policy and Fellow of New College, Oxford.

Professor Giles Atkinson is Professor of Environmental Policy in the Department of Geography & Environment at LSE.

The LSE Department of Geography & Environment is a centre of international academic excellence in economic, urban and development geography, environmental social science and climate change.

The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (@GRI_LSE) is a world-leading centre for policy-relevant research and training on climate change and the environment, bringing together international expertise on economics, finance, geography, the environment, international development and political economy.

In this video made for Advanced Environmental Science, I explore the concept of natural capital, and its two components natural resources and ecological services.

Combining the environment with economics is what Lars Hein deals with in his illuminating talk about Natural Capital Accounting. His ecosystem accountant approach makes extensive use of spatial information like satellite images and integrates this with statistical data to get valuable data about monitoring of land use. Lars Hein specifically specialises in CO2 emission and additionally calculation of actual costs of CO2, even down to a farm field level | Lars Hein is a professor of Ecosystem Services and Environmental Change and the deputy chair of the Environmental Systems Analysis Group at Wageningen University. Lars was previously employed as an environmental expert at the FAO/World Bank Collaborative Program between 1997-2002. He is a member of several advisory boards for both industry and international organisations, and has received a number of awards for his research including the prestigious Personal Grant from the European Research Council in 2010. He is one of the main contributing authors of the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting Framework (SEEA EEA, 2012) as well as of the SEEA EEA’s Technical Recommendations (2017) This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx