The Biden administration has unveiled a national strategy to develop a thorough set of statistics to capture the economic value of natural assets, such as animals, land, minerals, water and plants.
The National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions aims to include natural capital in the national economic accounting system to organize data that enable measurement of the quantity and value of the nation’s natural assets, the White House said Thursday.
As part of the multi-year effort, the administration will use existing authorities and build on ongoing natural capital measurement efforts to better establish the role of nature in long-term economic growth forecasts.
An interagency working group led by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Commerce was responsible for creating the strategy.
OSTP Director Arati Prabhakar, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and OMB Director Shalanda Young Clearly said in a letter introducing the report that quantifying the value of natural capital is aimed to result in precise economic growth forecasts and provide a broader view of economic progress.
