Natural capital accounting in practice
Understanding nature’s role in business and financial decisions
Part of the Connecting nature, climate, and capital series, this report explores how organisations can use natural capital accounting to better understand their dependency on nature and to make more informed business, investment and risk management decisions to preserve and create value, and to avoid future costs and losses. Developed by BNZ and Deloitte, it provides practical insights into applying these approaches.
New Zealand’s economy is deeply connected with nature. Our landscapes, soils, forests, freshwater and marine ecosystems underpin the sectors that drive our exports, jobs and prosperity. As the world’s largest single-country exporter of dairy products, New Zealand’s food and fibre sector makes up 82% of New Zealand’s goods exports, amounting to NZ$64 billion in export value in June 2026.
Natural capital accounting tracks the stock and condition of natural assets, and the ecosystem services they provide, using physical or monetary measures. It helps organisations understand how they depend on nature, identify related risks and opportunities, and make better-informed decisions.
Key report themes
The organisations that contributed to the report all had a clearly defined use case, then selected the tools and frameworks best suited to addressing it.
Most natural capital accounting assessments focused on the natural resources material to their unique organisation, determining the condition, the ecosystem services they provide and how changes could affect downstream value creation.
Organisations are demonstrating that they can still establish initial baselines, metrics and targets, despite early-stage challenges with data availability, monitoring quality, baseline setting and repeatability. By undertaking the process, organisations can quickly identify which data gaps need to be addressed.
Geographic Information System platforms, ecosystem mapping, ecological surveys, remote sensing and environmental datasets play a central role in identifying natural assets, defining assessment boundaries and understanding dependencies.
Natural capital accounting is not purely a financial accounting exercise. Effective assessments bring together ecological science, geospatial analysis, operational data, financial expertise, stakeholder engagement and management judgement.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, concepts such as kaitiakitanga, mauri, whakapapa and intergenerational stewardship provide an important lens for understanding our relationship with nature and our responsibility to future generations.
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Looking ahead
Natural capital accounting is becoming a practical way to make nature more visible in financial decision-making. The report reveals strong alignment between New Zealand common practice and international leading practice in this space. While access to robust ecosystem data remains a challenge, organisations do not require perfect information to get started.
As adoption grows, natural capital accounting can support better risk management and capital allocation, strengthen resilience and contribute to sustainable growth.
Rikki Stancich
Louise Aitken
