TEEB Report Released: Organizational Change for Natural Capital Management: Strategy and Implementation

This month, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), a "a global initiative focused on drawing attention to the economic benefits of biodiversity" released its report Organizational Change for Natural Capital Management: Strategy and Implementation (2013). The 47-page document available here, discusses the following:

Organisational Change for Natural Capital Management: Strategy and Implementation is based on data from 26 businesses across nine industrial sectors (60 per cent of them with revenues of over US$10 billion), which are implementing behavioural and organisational changes to promote natural capital management.

The main findings of the study include:

• A small group of pioneering companies, who recognise the growing business case for NCM, are moving NCM forward and expect to build it deeply into their business within the next 3 years.

• Their rationale is that they will be much better positioned than other companies to manage and thrive in a resource-constrained world that could have serious implications for business in 3-5 years.  

• Delaying the measurement and management of natural capital carries a significant business risk for companies regarding the availability of key raw materials and maintaining competitive advantage.  

• In particular, the availability of freshwater, renewable energy, climate regulation, fibre and food were identified as the most important natural capital risks in the next 3 -5 years.  

• Current barriers to change for business on NCM are at the macro-level (e.g. lack of government regulation and customer demand) and organisationally. In particular challenges at the organisational level include establishing the relevance of NCM to the business, and a lack of harmonised methods to measure, prioritise and integrate natural capital into business decision-making.

• NCM is a business innovation that changes business processes, practices, systems and strategies. It is therefore a major driver of organisational change.