Review of Natural Capital Reporting

Description

The Environment Agency Natural Capital Team, part of the Chief Scientists Group, is commissioning a review of how natural capital is used in environmental reporting. This project will support a new workstream exploring where a natural capital framing of ecosystem services and benefits can be used in reporting to help us achieve our goals for environmental improvement. The project will focus on the water environment including rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, groundwater, coasts & estuaries. Objective 1: Review how natural capital has been applied in environmental reporting across a range of scales and actors - focus on the water environment. The work should review what is being done, who is doing it, for what purpose, what's worked. It should note patterns/trends across different scales (e.g. supra-national, national, local) and sectors (policy, private, third sector) in how natural capital is (and isn't) being applied into reporting. We are also interested in approaches taken in other countries with similar policy and regulatory approaches to the water environment. Objective 2: Identify opportunities where the Environment Agency can apply similar approaches to achieve our goals to improve the water environment. Based on the literature reviewed, the contractor should identify opportunities where the Environment Agency could explore the use of natural capital in reporting to incentivise protection and improvement of the water environment. We anticipate that the project will require searches of databases of scientific literature, grey literature and the identification and review of reports by key advisory bodies. The final reports and outputs are required by 31st March 2025. Additional information: To apply for this opportunity you must submit your quotation meeting the requirements detailed in the Request for Quotation (RFQ) attached. Your response must be sent to ruth.hughes@environment-agency.gov.uk by 23:59 on Thursday 14 November 2024. If you have any clarification questions linked to this opportunity or the procurement process please submit these via email to ruth.hughes@environment-agency.gov.uk. Please note that, unless commercially sensitive, both the question and the response will be circulated to all tenderers.