Natural and Social Capital Accounting: An introduction for finance teams

This guide serves as an introduction for finance teams on how to align finance thinking with long term environmental and societal trends. It provides a framework to embed this into your decision making.

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Today the world consumes 50% more than the planet's natural resources can renew every year. This overconsumption continues to gather pace and presents a significant challenge to how businesses need to operate.

Businesses are constantly responding to change but in order to do this successfully, and protect their long term financial performance, businesses need to adapt to supply changes of natural resources and invest in their supplies of social skills.

To date, traditional accounting methodologies have focused on financial metrics. Natural and social stocks have not often been reflected in commercial decisions.

Whilst financial metrics will continue to be an important indicator of business performance, we now also need better visibility of our natural and social resources and to understand the impacts they may have on our future business viability.

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Natural_and_Social_Capital_Accounting_-_By_the_A4S_Chief_Financial_Officer_Leadership_Network.pdf