Side Event COP 15: Making Nature Count Through Natural Capital Accounting

This side event at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) is organized by the Secretariat of Convention of Biological Diversity, European Commission, the European Space Agency, the United Nations Statistics Division and the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Mainstreaming biodiversity is generally understood as ensuring that biodiversity and ecosystems are adequately factored into national policies and practices. Natural capital accounting is the umbrella term used to indicate the use of an accounting framework to provide a systematic way to measure and report on stocks and flows of natural capital. The underlying premise if that nature is important to society and the economy and should be recognized as an asset that must be maintained and managed and its contributions better integrated into the regular statistical production process.

The System of Environmental Economic Accounting is the accepted international statistical standard for natural capital accounting, providing a framework for organizing and presenting statistics on nature and its relationship with the economy. It is essential for integrating biodiversity considerations into measures of national performance and policy appraisal and integral to inclusive wealth accounts. According to the 2021 global assessment on the SEEA implementation, approximately 90 countries compile the SEEA with 35 countries compiling ecosystem accounts. Scaling up the implementation in countries is an important goal of the statistical community, which adopted the SEEA implementation strategy in 2022

This side event will examine how the SEEA can help mainstreaming biodiversity into relevant strategies and plans, systematically integrate biodiversity into programmes, policies and projects, promote inter-ministerial coordination and setting time-bound targets, clear roles and responsibilities. Using the SEEA as the underlying statistical framework for some of the indicators in the monitoring framework will result in indicators that are consistent across domains comparable across countries and over time and permit monitoring progress towards achieving the goals and targets. The event will feature speakers from different communities and will highlight the importance of the SEEA to support integrated policies and decision making.