LInking accounts for ecosystem Services and Benefits to the Economy THrough bridging (LISBETH) Part II

Economy is embedded within nature, with all its risks and opportunities. There is the need for the financial system to channel public and private investments to enhance the stock of natural assets and encourage sustainable consumption and production activities throughout an ecological transition. However, an ecological transition may imply to protect, restore, and preserve nature and reverse the accelerating trajectory of its loss. With respect to this transition, one critical issue to address is the availability and usability of appropriate environmental metrics. The challenge addressed by this report is to propose the ecosystem service-based approach as the common framework that could meet this compelling need. Ecosystem Services (ES) are the contribution of ecosystems to human activities i.e., the flows provided by nature to socioeconomic systems. To mainstream nature into decisions that directly affect financial services, could require to group ES differently in order to reflect investor-client kinds of agreements. This report specifically addresses how to group ES to fit the needs (i) for monetary estimates of ES to support, justify and monitor the biodiversity financial gap; (ii) to map ES vulnerabilities that expose economic sectors to risk; (iii) to rank ES values according a principle of richness that goes beyond GDP. The source of data and information used in each of the chapters for the applications, are the outcomes of the Integrated project for Natural Capital Accounting.