Também sobre o Capital Natural e em ambiente do Fórum que vai ter lugar no próximo mês de novembro 2017, este artigo: «Can accounting standards advance the natural capital agenda?». Uma passagem:
«(...)Primarily designed to support the decision making of governments, the SEEA provides a standardised set of concepts, terms and definitions to integrate environmental data with standard economic data (such as GDP) and hence standardise the discussion of natural capital in decision making. Thus, rather than seeing issues of deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change as “environmental”, the SEEA provides a framing and an information base to support more systemic analysis of the issues in a way that recognises the inherent complexity and depth of the relationship between humans and the environment. The momentum that is building in the implementation and development of the SEEA is driven by its willingness and capacity to engage with these systemic issues.
No doubt, the SEEA does not provide a perfect representation of these systemic relationships. No single framework or perspective can. Indeed, standard corporate and economic accounting frameworks do not provide perfect representations of the corporate and economic systems that they describe. This, however, would be the wrong benchmark. The question instead is whether the information organised via natural capital accounting framework can provide a better basis for decision making and for communicating, in a standardised way, the structure and trends of our relationship with natural capital. Increasingly, companies and countries are answering yes.
There is a range of barriers to the further advance of natural capital accounting. There is the need to advance methods and techniques on data, but of course, there will forever be a desire for more data and better measurement. There is the need for developing the information infrastructure, analytical techniques and decision-making tools that can utilise the extended information set. There is the need to develop effective presentations of the broad range of information and communicate the integrated environmental-economic picture appropriately. There is a need for heightened dialogue between natural capital accounting communities and standard setters.
Above all, however, is the need to recognise that our society has entrenched silos that divide our understanding of economic, environmental and social factors and hence impose blindfolds on our ability to see systemic connections. These silos are evident in our education system and our institutional structures and are ultimately reflected in our collective lack of urgency in the face of evident systemic environmental change.
Natural capital accounting, using standards such as the SEEA, cannot overcome these challenges on its own. It can, however, provide a platform and common language for discussion across sectors, disciplines and countries. There is now a real opportunity to harness all of our individual understandings and perspectives, we must take it. (...)». Leia na integra
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