Global| Better-informed policy, investment, and risk management decisions for a nature-positive economy | Status: Completed
Building the Future of Environmental Decision Making: Scoping the Potential Connection Between the ESVD and ENCORE
This scoping study explores how data originating from two complementary tools–the ESVD and ENCORE– could be combined in a meaningful way to stimulate private sector investment in nature. The aim of any potential integration would be to enhance how ecosystem service values are represented in financial, policy, and disclosure frameworks, thereby making nature’s economic significance more visible and actionable.
The study shows the potential rationale and technical feasibility of integrating data from the two tools. Stakeholder consultations with financial institutions, regulators, and research partners revealed initial support for linking ENCORE’s qualitative impact and dependency structure with ESVD’s quantitative, monetary valuation data. This connection could fill a gap in current nature-related risk and disclosure approaches by providing geographically explicit, comparable data to assess nature-related exposures and opportunities, not merely from a company perspective, but also providing insights for the larger socio-economic effects.
Prototype Use Cases
The most promising finding is that combining data from the two sources enables location-specific prioritization neither could achieve alone. ENCORE identifies which ecosystem services matter to specific economic sectors from a business-operations perspective, while ESVD captures the total economic value of those same services to all stakeholders, communities, governments, and businesses, within a given location. This complementary relationship could transform sector-level dependencies into site-specific monetary assessments, differentiating between facilities with identical operational dependencies based on the actual value of ecosystem services where they operate. Adding a socio-economic perspective through ecosystem service valuation could strengthen double materiality analysis by connecting corporate dependencies and impacts to the broader landscape of communities, sectors, and value chains that share the same natural assets.
Three prototype use cases outlined in this report demonstrate the potential value of this practical connection.
Compliance Disclosure
The Compliance Disclosure use case shows how the integrated ENCORE-ESVD data could support the estimated 50,000+ European companies required to comply with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) once fully phased in, and companies adopting the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework. This use case would enable automated assessments that combine ENCORE's dependency and impact mappings with ESVD's monetary valuations, streamlining the quantification of nature-related risks and opportunities for mandatory reporting.
Portfolio Screening
The Portfolio Screening use case transforms sector-level ENCORE ratings into holding-specific priorities by revealing that facilities with identical "High dependency" ratings may be located in ecosystems that have differing values to people. Such information can inform decisions relating to investment in conservation and/or restoration efforts
Project Due-Dilligence
The Project Due Diligence use case enables development banks to quantify the baseline socio-economic value of ecosystem services at project locations in data-poor regions where primary valuation studies are often infeasible.