Nature offers invaluable benefits to human societies, yet these advantages are often overlooked in decision-making processes. Decision-makers who recognise the benefits of nature, its value to our wellbeing and our reliance on it are better positioned to identify opportunities, mitigate risks and make well-informed decisions that yield positive outcomes. Natural capital makes the value of nature visible so it can be brought into policy and decision-making processes. You will learn what natural capital is and how factoring it into policy and decision-making can help you make informed choices that deliver both environmental and social outcomes. Developed in partnership with the WRI Brazil, this course is designed specifically for policymakers and public servants who want to help drive sustainable development in their own area of government work.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
Describe what a natural capital approach to policy and decision making is and why it’s important to recognise nature’s contribution to sustainable development
Recognise ways of assessing the diverse values of nature and the role of data in this
Explore how natural capital can be managed in practice to solve multiple problems at once
Summarise how governments can catalyse the shift toward sustainable natural capital management