Putting Nature on the National Balance Sheet
On Earth Day 2022, the White House announced an initiative to develop a comprehensive set of environmental-economic statistics for the nation's natural capital. This fall, an Interagency Working Group unveiled a draft plan to achieve this goal and opened a public consultation on its proposed strategy (see the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy briefing on the consultation here).
Beyond our general enthusiastic support for the National Strategy, the Lab provided two key recommendations regarding its implementation:
Valuation of the United States’ natural capital should include stocks and flows of carbon and other greenhouse gases. Moreover, these data should enter into the calculation of any headline statistic (like Change in Natural Asset Wealth).
The government should use the data and statistics generated within its natural capital accounts to inform the management of federal resources. In many instances, the administration need not wait until the Core Statistical Products are fully developed to begin shaping policy decisions with certain indicators.
Read the Lab's full response, including an introductory letter from our founder Dean Takahashi, below.
