Global Program on Sustainability

Increasing the capacity of countries to produce and use natural capital data for policy and planning decisions.

Although natural capital accounting and ecosystem services valuation can provide valuable information on the economic contribution of natural assets and how best to sustainable manage these resources, many low-income countries lack comprehensive natural capital accounts, or the capacity to use such information in designing policies for sustainable growth. GPS support often includes the development of natural capital accounts, which collect data and information on a specific natural asset in a country, such as forests or water. Examples of Natural Capital Accounts can be found here.

GPS builds on a decade of work by the Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) program and aims to expand the number of countries regularly using natural capital accounting and ecosystem services valuation in decision making. Specifically, the GPS strategy includes:

• Building and institutionalizing country-level natural capital accounts.

• Meeting countries’ requests to assist with the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of natural capital accounting policies, programs or projects.
• Collaborating with partners to establish and support regional cooperation efforts, such as communities of practice and knowledge exchanges, that provide opportunities for peer learning and training.
• Supporting global knowledge-sharing and strategic partnerships, notably through the annual Natural Capital Policy Forum.

Scope of WAVES, WAVES Plus and GPS Programs
 

• Natural capital accounts in Morocco for coastal and marine ecosystem services, climate change, and cultural services/nature tourism.
• Natural capital accounts in Egypt for air emissions, waste, and coastal ecosystems.  
• Project-level support to Myanmar, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal, Madagascar, and the West Africa Coastal Areas Management Program (WACA).  
• Economy-wide analysis for improved land use planning for protection of peat, and coastal resources including mangroves in Indonesia (building on work started under WAVES)
• Natural capital accounts in Uganda for forest and ecosystems (the land account was developed under WAVES).
   

GPS is working to integrate sustainability considerations in financial markets by increasing access to and use of data and tools that can inform investment decisions and related policy and regulation, as well as by providing research that improves awareness and understanding of sustainability related issues. The program supports the development of financial sector policy and regulatory frameworks that better integrate environmental considerations into financial markets through climate and nature risk assessment methodologies (which are applied in the World Bank / IMF Financial Sector Assessment Program), credit ratings and index rankings, financial analysis, and reporting frameworks. A key data source managed by the program is the Sovereign ESG Data Portal, which provides information on countries’ sustainability performance to inform investors’ capital allocation and engagement decisions for sovereign bonds and other related investments. The team also offers technical assistance to governments to assess the impact of environmental risk on their financial sector or broader economy, and to leading investors in emerging markets on how to incorporate these issues into their investment strategies.

As governments and the financial sector actors expand the scope of environmental risks and opportunities they consider beyond climate change, to include other nature, GPS is supporting these institutions to take practical steps to assess and manage climate and nature-related risks and opportunities in an integrated way. GPS supports organizations, such as the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action in better understanding and addressing climate and nature-related risks and opportunities. We are working with the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosure (TNFD) as they develop scenarios for nature-risk assessments. GPS data and analysis have been widely used and quoted, including in the highly influential Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity published by the UK Government in 2021. Financial sector data and product providers have incorporated GPS analysis and recommendations into their offerings (e.g. adapting ESG indexes to adjust for ‘inherent income bias’ against emerging market countries, to which GPS contributed).  GPS has also contributed to the on-going development of the Biodiversity Pledge and Nature Action 100+ investor engagement approach. Further analytical work is planned, along with the development of innovative financial instruments, and the launch of an updated Sovereign ESG Data Portal.