20 July 2017: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has developed tools to help companies and businesses transition towards a circular economy and undertake natural capital measurements and valuation, thereby contributing to a number of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) and SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure).
The ‘Natural Capital Protocol Toolkit’ complements and seeks to help companies implement the Natural Capital Protocol, a standardized international framework for conducting natural capital assessments that helps businesses understand which tools to use, for what and when, and address natural capital depletion by improving understanding, measurement and decision-making. The Toolkit consolidates tools, methodologies and approaches available for natural capital measurement and valuation, puts existing tools under the Protocol’s standardized framework, and links them into the process for conducting natural capital assessments. The Toolkit aims to help businesses measure a specific aspect of natural capital, such as water, waste or biodiversity.
WBCSD plans to continue to update the Toolkit to ensure it remains flexible and provides additional value to businesses working at all levels of natural capital measurement and valuation. WBCSD developed the Toolkit, with the Natural Capital Coalition as a strategic partner, and with input from a multidisciplinary Advisory Group. The Toolkit was released on 13 July 2017. [Natural Capital Protocol Landing Page] [Natural Capital Protocol Toolkit] [Natural Capital Protocol] [Natural Capital Protocol Toolkit Concept Note]
WBCSD has also developed a ‘Circular Economy Practitioner Guide’ to assist companies in accelerating their transition towards the circular economy, which aims to retain as much value as possible from products, parts and resources to create a system that promotes, long life, digitization, resource recovery, and sharing services across materials, energy and water. Through the circular economy, companies can design out waste, increase resource productivity and decouple growth from natural resource consumption. The online Guide will be constantly updated to include new examples, strategies and tools.
In addition, WBCSD published ‘8 Business Cases for the Circular Economy’ that will help accelerate growth, enhance competitiveness and mitigate risk. These cases include: creating additional income from existing products and processes; spurring innovation of new products and services; reducing operating costs; enhancing customer and employee relationships; distinguishing from competition; aligning corporate strategy with mission; adapting business models and value chain relationships; and mitigating risk exposure. [Circular Economy Practitioner Guide] [8 Business Cases for the Circular Economy]