Description of BS 8632:2021 2021

This British Standard provides specifications and guidance for the process of preparing natural capital accounts including minimum requirements for defining the scope of an account and the material impacts and dependencies; and documenting the data and process used to prepare the natural capital account.

There are two key accounting outputs of natural capital accounts prescribed – each with supporting schedules:

1. a Natural Capital Balance Sheet showing the organization’s dependency on natural capital assets; and

   NOTE 1 Scope 1 includes the natural capital assets the organization owns or has legal or voluntary responsibility for. Scope 2 includes other natural capital assets. Assets that are not owned by anyone might be included in Scope 1 or Scope 2 depending on the organization and materiality of its impacts and dependencies.

2. a Natural Capital Income Statement showing the positive and negative impacts of the organization on natural capital assets.

   NOTE 2 Scope 1 includes the impacts from the organization’s own operations. Scope 2 includes the impacts attributed to the organization through the operations of its value chain.

This British Standard is applicable to organizations of all types (public, third sector and listed and unlisted private) across all sectors, and of any size (such as SMEs and larger businesses) and to one or more sites in which they operate. A group of organizations dependent on the same natural capital assets, or considering collaborating to change their impacts, may produce joint natural capital accounts. This standard is applicable internationally.

This British Standard is intended to be used by those who will be preparing the natural capital accounts. These could be environmental and sustainability professionals, accountants, economists and others working in collaboration.

The natural capital account aims to provide beneficial information to managers of organizations, and their stakeholders such as investors, auditors and those responsible for assurance, certification bodies, regulators/policy makers, customers and the wider public. The standard recognizes that the process of preparing the accounts could be as informative as the results presented in the accounting outputs.

This British Standard does not apply to national or sector-wide natural capital accounts, which are covered by the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (UN SEEA-EA) [1] within the context of the System of National Accounts.¹

Although the primary focus of the UN SEEA-EA is on nation-wide accounts, many of its principles and methods are relevant to, and can be applied to, organizational natural capital accounts. The data gathered by national authorities for UN SEEA-EA can also be used by organizations.

About BSI

BSI Group, also known as the British Standards Institution is the national standards body of the United Kingdom. BSI produces technical standards on a wide range of products and services and also supplies certification and standards-related services to businesses.