BS 8632:2021 pdf download.Natural Capital Accounting for Organizations — Speci ication
1 Scope
This British Standard provides specifications and guidance for the process of preparing natural capital accounts including minimum requirements for defining the scope of an account and the material impacts and dependencies; and documenting the data and process used to prepare the natural capital account. There are two key accounting outputs of natural capital accounts prescribed – each with supporting schedules: a] a Natural Capital Balance Sheet showing the organization’s dependency on natural capital assets; and NOTE 1 Scope 1 includes the natural capital assets the organization owns or has legal or voluntary responsibility for. Scope 2 includes other natural capital assets. Assets that are not owned by anyone might be included in Scope 1 or Scope 2 depending on the organization and materiality of its impacts and dependencies. b] a Natural Capital Income Statement showing the positive and negative impacts of the organization on natural capital assets. NOTE 2 Scope 1 includes the impacts from the organization’s own operations. Scope 2 includes the impacts attributed to the organization through the operations of its value chain. This British Standard is applicable to organizations of all types (public, third sector and listed and unlisted private) across all sectors, and of any size (such as SMEs and larger businesses) and to one or more sites in which they operate. A group of organizations dependent on the same natural capital assets, or considering collaborating to change their impacts, may produce joint natural capital accounts. This standard is applicable internationally.
This British Standard is intended to be used by those who will be preparing the natural capital accounts. These could be environmental and sustainability professionals, accountants, economists and others working in collaboration. The natural capital account aims to provide beneficial information to managers of organizations, and their stakeholders such as investors, auditors and those responsible for assurance, certification bodies, regulators/ policy makers, customers and the wider public. The standard recognizes that the process of preparing the accounts could be as informative as the results presented in the accounting outputs. This British Standard does not apply to national or sector-wide natural capital accounts, which are covered by the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (UN SEEA-EA) [1] within the context of the System of National Accounts.1)
3.6 ecosystem
dynamic complex of plant, animal, and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional entity NOTE 1 Examples of ecosystems include deserts, coral reefs, wetlands, rainforests, boreal forests, grasslands, urban parks, and cultivated farmlands. Ecosystems can be more or less influenced by human activity. NOTE2 For example, in the UK and much of Europe, the classification of ecosystems can be considered as a higher- level structure, encompassing one or more types of habitat (3.2). In the UK, ecosystems are often classed as Broad Habitats (UK National Ecosystem Assessment [4]) with the following classes: mountains, moors and heaths; semi- natural grasslands; enclosed farmland; woodland; freshwater, wetlands and floodplains; urban; coastal margins and marine. Other examples include the International Union for Conservation of Nature Global Ecosystem Typology (IUCN GET) [5] adopted by the UN SEEA-EA [1]. NOTE 3 People are part of ecosystems and, like all other living organisms, affect the processes taking place there, as well as deriving welfare gains from them.