Increasingly, businesses are having to account for how they impact the environment, and work towards no net loss or better still, environmental net gain.
We developed an innovative natural capital accounting platform which enables land and infrastructure owners to better understand, manage and value their environmental assets. Our digital natural capital accounting platform is the first tool that specifically enables landowners to readily understand their natural capital assets, learn how their work impacts them and decide how to preserve and enhance the natural world.
The interactive, web-based platform uses spatial data, remote sensing, audio and video to bring the components of a natural capital account to life. This data then integrates with virtual reality software to create a digital version of the natural capital asset. The platform includes a digital dashboard so that users can access and view the natural capital data. This can include data quantifying the numbers and locations of plants and wildlife, ecological condition, and recording how these change over time, as well as monitoring changes to soil, air, or water quality. Where data is not available in terms of habitat types and condition on a site, machine learning can be applied to remotely collect and analyse this information using satellite data.
The platform provides an increased understanding of the ecological condition of a site, allowing businesses and organisations to better factor natural capital into their decisions and strategies, including for the achievement of biodiversity net gain and net zero commitments. The platform also presents information on ecosystem services such as the amount of carbon the site captures and the financial value of this service, enabling better measurement of offsetting activities, as well as the number of biodiversity units held.