{"id":1099,"date":"2015-07-09T20:18:06","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T03:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/industry\/blog\/uncategorized\/the-natural-capital-project\/"},"modified":"2023-07-03T15:14:19","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T22:14:19","slug":"the-natural-capital-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/industry\/blog\/government\/2015\/07\/09\/the-natural-capital-project\/","title":{"rendered":"The Natural Capital Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft and The Natural Capital Project join forces to transform the way we evaluate the services that nature provides<\/h1>\n

What is the economic value to cities of parks and trees that reduce storm runoff, lower air temperature and improve air quality? What is the value of a wetland that can significantly reduce storm surge damage? What is the value of a forest that prevents landslides, improves air quality and water quality? What would happen if we invested in re-establishing coastal habitats like wetlands and reefs vs. building more cement and concrete infrastructure in our coastal cities?<\/p>\n

These are questions that we not only need to ask ourselves, but ones which we can now better understand and answer and which will have profound impact as our cities around the world continue to grow.<\/p>\n

Today, Microsoft is joining forces with The Natural Capital Project, a ten-year partnership between Stanford University, the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund and the University of Minnesota to help accelerate the way in which IT-enabled decision support tools will help leaders around the world transform their approach to making decisions that benefit both nature, the economy and human wellbeing at the same time. For the past few decades, there has been a growing body of work, tools and data which support a very simple premise \u2013 nature provides society with significant value. But determining the economic and societal value that is assigned to the services nature provides different communities around the world has been a difficult task. While many cities acknowledge that preserving the environment and these resources is essential, they often believe environmental health is a general benefit that cannot be quantified. However, metrics do exist to measure, map, and value the essential role the natural environment plays in global economies and broader human wellbeing. According to a 2012 study by The Nature Conservancy and the Corporate EcoForum<\/a>, it is estimated that the environment currently provides some $72 trillion a year of \u201cfree\u201d support to the global economy. Gaining insight into how this value can be best realized, managed, preserved or enhanced has been a complex problem.<\/p>\n

With up to 70% of the world\u2019s population projected to live in cities by 2030, cities will face increasingly limited natural resources, outdated infrastructure, growing energy demands, and rigorous regulatory requirements. All of those pressures have effects on the \u201cnatural capital\u201d \u2013 forests, river basins, wetlands, coral reefs and so on \u2013 that governments around the world rely on to provide fundamental value to people. At Microsoft, we believe that by combining the right sets of data with the right tools and by driving awareness and use of these tools, society can accelerate projects which invest in our natural capital \u2013 and that those investments are both economically and ecologically sound.<\/p>\n

Historically, very little was known about how and where ecosystem services provide benefits. As a result, such values have not conventionally formed a part of either public or private sector planning and financial analysis. Today, major science and technology advances have dramatically transformed our capabilities to improve resource and land use decisions so benefits from natural capital are realized for intended beneficiaries who need them most. But city and business decision-makers often lack the expertise, data, tools and incentives to fully incorporate these opportunities and trade-offs into their choices.<\/p>\n

This new partnership between Microsoft and The Natural Capital Project aims to help companies and cities understand the positive value that can be realized by better understanding and investing in natural ecosystems. We hope that by providing access to a growing library of relevant data and cloud-based tools that assess the value of nature to specific landscapes, places and communities, we can help accelerate change. These tools have been created based on mathematical models developed and tested by leading scientists in collaboration with end-users over the last decade. Through this partnership, leaders will have access to the best data and powerful analytic and visualization tools so that they can more deeply understand historical trends and patterns within the city or company, predict future situations, model \u201cwhat-if\u201d scenarios, and gain vital situational awareness from multiple data streams such as satellite imagery, social media and other public channels.<\/p>\n

By taking a data-driven approach to understanding nature and the value of its services, leaders will be empowered to create positive returns for citizens, organizations and the surrounding ecosystems.<\/p>\n

The Natural Capital Project is excited about partnering with Microsoft to accelerate access for leaders to the latest information on where and how the environment can improve economic and personal vitality for people, governments, and companies.\u00a0<\/em>Mary Ruckelshaus, Managing Director, The Natural Capital Project<\/strong><\/p>\n

Together, Microsoft, The Natural Capital Project and others will tap into the power of the cloud, data analytics, distributed sensor networks, and mobile devices to both enhance existing decision-support tools and to bring about the next generation of them, through:<\/p>\n