Defra’s ‘natural capital’ approach to protecting environment under fire

The plan says recognising this natural capital value will lead to ‘better and more efficient decisions’ which support environmental enhancement, and the Government intends to make the approach a ‘feature’ in any new land management system post-Brexit.

But Prof Tiffin said: “I want to voice some concerns about the extent to which economics has captured the natural capital agenda.

“We have made a strong contribution in technology and analysis in terms of capital assets for delivering ecosystem services.

“What bothers me, and I know bothers a lot of non-economists, is the extent to which we have taken this to imply economics also contributes to the valuation of those assets and services.

“I am seriously doubtful about how good some of the methodologies we have as economists are at producing meaningful values in monetary terms of natural capital assets.”

Prof Tiffin also raised concerns that applying a monetary value to different environmental features could lead policy makers to claim their actions had made the country a natural capital profit, when in fact the numbers were ‘invariably meaningless’.

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However, he pointed out a piece of software developed by Agrimetrics was designed to support Defra’s natural capital framework, not replace it.

“The tool is designed to put data in the hands of decision-makers so they better understand the impacts of their decisions on the natural environment”, he said.

“It helps communicate what is a complicated conceptual framework in a way which will support consensus building between different stakeholders.”