A US-headquartered joint venture is set to expand access to its software models in a bid to enhance investments in nature and underpin corporate assessments under the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework, its co-founder has said.
The Nature Capital Project (NatCap) developed the Integrate Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) open-source software to assist governments and companies in identifying areas where investment in natural capital can foster biodiversity conservation and improve local communities’ livelihoods.
InVEST is currently adopted in 185 countries, NatCap co-founder Gretchen Daily said at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week.
“All the software is now in Spanish and also in Chinese. We’re beginning to make it more accessible in many other languages. It is supported by satellite imagery that lets us really sense the change in ecosystem conditions around the planet,” Daily said.
The Natural Capital Project is a partnership between Stanford University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Stockholm Resilience Center, the University of Minnesota, the Nature Conservancy, and WWF.
“InVEST is well-suited to support companies and financial institutions using the LEAP approach (Locate, Evaluate, Asses, Prepare), the suggested risk and opportunity assessment approach from TNFD,” NatCap said in a policy brief titled ‘A powerful tool to map and value ecosystem services’, released last year.
The software can be especially useful for the Locate and Evaluate phases, according to NatCap. By overlaying natural capital hotspots with a firm’s physical assets on a map, it enables the company to determine where it hinges on or negatively impacts critical ecosystem services.
InVEST also allows the assessment of ecosystem services under various scenarios, including current, historical, and potential future conditions. “The use of scenarios in InVEST can be an especially powerful tool for understanding and planning to manage risks and opportunities,” the policy brief said.
The InVEST software incorporates 20 ecosystem service models encompassing terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, marine, and urban contexts, and is among the tools for mapping and quantifying natural capital and ecosystem services included in the TNFD list.
TNFD disclosures are set to surge in the near future, as the task force announced on Tuesday that 320 companies worldwide have committed to adopting its guidelines on nature-related financial disclosures within the next two years.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
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