INSIGHT by CreditNature
CreditNature is delighted to announce the world’s first accreditation of a Terrestrial Ecosystem Condition Method, under the Accounting for Nature® Standard. This historic accreditation marks a significant step forward, with the potential to unlock substantial financial investments into global ecosystem restoration and natural capital. By providing quantified, credible, and consistent metrics of environmental change and connecting these to mechanisms such as nature credits, this method has the potential to significantly scale nature markets.
Following a rigorous year-long process, working closely with Accounting for Nature® (“AfN”) and their panel of leading scientists, CreditNature have pioneered a method that will help companies to evidence the nature positive impact of investments and align with reporting and disclosure requirements of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosure (“TNFD”) Guidelines, the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (“CSRD”), and other global frameworks. By adopting this method, businesses can report on the impact their investments in nature have achieved and disclose attested and impactful ESG outcomes.
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Bridging the finance gap for nature-positive investments | CreditNature
Accounting for Nature® is a globally recognised independent, not-for-profit, environmental accounting framework. Securing the accreditation is a testament to CreditNature’s unwavering commitment to scientific excellence, innovation, and creating a better world for people and nature.
Benefits of CreditNature’s Ecosystem Condition Method:
〉Empowering Companies and Governments to Fulfil Nature-Positive Commitments: With accreditation for use in Europe in areas where nature has been impacted by agricultural activities, the method forms part of CreditNature’s NARIA framework. The NARIA framework allows the consistent measurement of ecological systems and land regeneration. This enables stakeholders to measure and report on their nature commitments effectively.
〉Endorsed Metrics for Scalable Reporting: The CreditNature Ecosystem Condition Method provides market participants with an accredited metric that allows for consistent, and time verified reporting of ecosystem integrity, with a score of 0 to 100, underpinned by the Accounting for Nature’s key metric, the Econd®, and in line with TNFD and CSRD guidelines. This standardised scoring system ensures consistency across landscapes throughout the UK and Europe. Plans are underway to extend this accreditation to other global regions, including Africa, South and Central America, the United States and Southeast Asia.
〉Real-World Visualisation of Restoration Progress: Market participants have a way to evidence real-world restoration of ecosystems. The CreditNature dashboard offers investors evidence, insights and information that is location verified into restoration gains, complemented by narratives, accredited KPIs, site photographs and videos that vividly depict a clear picture of nature restoration successes.
〉Science-Backed Outcomes: The development of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Condition Method, initiated in 2020, is being continuously refined based on the latest earth systems, ecosystem and biodiversity science. The composite metrics have been tested across multiple land holdings, amounting to over 20,000ha of land.
〉Alignment with Emerging Standards and Frameworks: The Method aligns with emerging frameworks such as the BSI Flex 701 Nature Markets – Overarching Principles and Framework, Taskforce on Nature-related Finance Disclosures and the Global Biodiversity Framework.
What our Supporters say:
“CreditNature receiving accreditation from AfN is an important step to ensuring that nature credits meet our high standards for nature finance and responsible investment. We welcome this achievement which, via our CivTech challenge with CreditNature, will help Scotland to keep pace with global developments in biodiversity markets and continue to lead innovation in this space.”
-Dr Peter Phillips, Scottish Government, Head of Natural Capital Land Management Policy & lead sponsor for the CivTech challenge
“With the Accounting for Nature® Accreditation, CreditNature provides the biodiversity market with a high quality independently verified method for landowners and ecosystem managers to quantify Nature Positive outcomes.”
-Prof Hugh Possingham, Chief Scientist of Accounting for Nature
What our Founders say:
“The imperative to restore ecosystems that are resilient to changes in climate has led to the development of a new generation of nature metrics. Our novel Ecosystem Condition Index measures the condition of four ecosystem processes that give rise to ecosystem structure, function and complexity, in short, integrity and resilience. By adopting the AfN standard and gaining support, challenge and advice from their science committee, we have assured a rigorous development process and achieved a level of design quality for the ECI metrics that we are extremely proud of.”
-Dr Paul Jepson, Head of Innovation & Science
“CreditNature are committed to helping restore nature at scale, and support businesses to address the combined climate and biodiversity crises head on, through responsible and credible investment. Our approach creates an opportunity for businesses to balance operational impacts, build resilient supply chains and create a better, nature positive world, for their employees and wider society.
By referring to our simple to understand and accredited 0 to 100 ECI scale, it is now possible for businesses to recognise and invest in nature as an asset and at the same time secure long term sustainable growth.”
-Cain Blythe, CEO of CreditNature
| about
Accounting for Nature® is an independent expert-driven, not-for-profit standard-setting body that has set the first globally consistent Standard for measuring, certifying and communicating changes in the condition of environmental assets of vegetation, soils, fauna, water, microorganism and ecosystems.
Accounting for Nature® is used to inform investment, policy and management decisions in natural capital. These include carbon co-benefits, green bonds, environmental offsets and impact investments.
Central to the Accounting for Nature®_ Framework is the Econd®, which describes the environmental condition of an environmental asset or ecosystem. It is a simple and easy to understand metric that summarises complex scientific information (i.e. multiple indicators) into a single number between 0-100. An Econd® of 100 would mean the asset is in its best possible, or an undegraded, state, while a score of 0 would mean that the asset is fully degraded. An Econd® is measured in accordance with an Accredited Method to ensure that it accurately represents the true condition of nature.
More information can be found here: accountingfornature.org
| All opinions expressed are those of the author and/or quoted sources. investESG.eu is an independent and neutral platform dedicated to generating debate around ESG investing topics.
