Independent think tank Green Alliance has called on the government to set a timeline for mandatory nature risk reporting by companies to make the impact UK businesses have on nature, the extent of their dependence on it and the nature-related risks they face visible for the first time.
As well as holding businesses accountable, Green Alliance’s latest report – The nature of our economy: Implementing the Dasgupta Review – also argued the UK needs a new economic indicator to enhance or supersede gross domestic product (GDP), as it obscures the value of natural assets by estimating the market price of an asset or activity to represent its value to the economy solely. New Zealand and Canada are already revising their indicators of economic success to reflect nature’s economic importance, Green Alliance said.
The report stated the UK’s economic system “allows companies to use and deplete nature with no incentive for them to preserve natural assets for the future”. This threatens the government’s growth mission because a thriving economy depends on a healthy natural environment, as the landmark Dasgupta Review, commissioned by the Treasury, highlighted in 2021.
The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and asset damage and the impact of nature degradation worldwide is predicted to suppress GDP by as much as 6% by the 2030s, according to the report.
Meanwhile, polling shows that a majority of the public in England think big companies and the government aren’t doing enough to protect the natural environment. Despite the previous government setting a goal of £1bn in private finance for nature every year by 2030, in 2022, private sector investment was only £95m, highlighting the scale of the task ahead.
Also read: Born to rewild: How nature shares are aiming to restore biodiversity to the UK
Heather Plumpton, head of research at Green Alliance and one of the report’s authors, said: “The UK’s severe and continuing nature decline is evidence our economic system is dysfunctional. We perversely destroy natural assets we depend on heavily for future growth and national wellbeing. Businesses rely on nature to make profits but don’t necessarily value it properly, as incentives to look after it aren’t embedded in the system. We’ve set out immediate and longer term steps ministers should take to recognise nature’s proper value, so we can begin to turn the tide on nature loss here in the UK.”
