NAS Core Services
NAS provides holistic nature advisory services supporting clients of all sizes and sectors throughout all stages of strategy development, assessments, decision-making and implementation. By combining biodiversity, climate, natural capital and ecological economic expertise, NAS is the perfect choice to assist your organisation at every step of your Nature Positive and Climate Positive journey.
Nature Strategies
There are increasing requirements and expectations on businesses to manage and improve their impacts and dependencies on nature. Drivers include regulator and stakeholder expectations, reporting requirements, risk management, access to green finance, reputation and cost reduction.
NAS develops nature strategies tailored for your specific needs. Based on extensive assessments of ambitions, business context and operations as well as stakeholder consultations, NAS provides everything from vision to KPI’s to Science-Based Targets for Nature (SBTN) to nature-positive roadmaps.
Natural Capital Assessments
Regulators and stakeholders increasingly demand clients to demonstrate wider environmental benefits and natural capital enhancements from projects. This includes development, infrastructure, nature conservation and mine re-naturalisation projects.
NAS offers assessments in line with latest regulations and best practice for each UK nation, e.g. Environmental Net Gain (ENG) in England and Net Benefits for Biodiversity (NBB) in Wales. NAS uses state of the art tools like the NATURE Tool and Urban Greening Factor.
Green Infrastructure
Councils are expected to improve Green Infrastructure (GI) which acts as green corridors for wildlife, sustainable travel routes and adapts towns and cities to climate change. High-quality GI improves physical and mental health, attracts visitors and talent, and manages stormwater cost-effectively.
NAS recognises GI as critical infrastructure and offers comprehensive services ranging from needs assessments and strategic planning to spatial analysis and evaluation. Our holistic approach ensures that the full multifunctional potential of GI is realised.
Baselining & Opportunity Mapping
The first step towards nature positive is to understand the business’s biodiversity and natural capital assets as well as the organisation’s impacts and dependencies on nature. A baseline is essential for monitoring and reporting progress and to reveal and plan enhancement opportunities.
NAS develops innovative approaches to establish natural capital asset baselines. NAS models the carbon, ecosystem services and biodiversity benefits including spatial provision and opportunity maps (see example) to identify and inform enhancement and investment opportunities. An example for opportunity maps is provided below.
Natural Capital Accounting
Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) allows businesses to quantify the natural resources they depend on and/or impact. It helps businesses to understand their environmental footprint and the associated risks and opportunities in terms of financial, environmental and social value.
NAS prepares NCA’s in line with national and international best practice including the UN System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) and the British Standard for NCA (BS 8632). NAS utilises standardised NCA tools like NCRAT but also develops tailored ecological economic models.
TNFD
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is a new framework for businesses to understand and disclose their impacts and dependencies on nature, informing decisions about nature-related risks and opportunities. TNFD reporting is increasingly demanded by investors.
NAS provides TNFD services tailored for the specific business sector and needs. NAS uses the recommended LEAP (Locate, Evaluate, Assess and Prepare) approach to help businesses to understand, manage and disclose their nature-related risks and opportunities along the supply chain.
BNG, BNG+ & NBB
Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and Net Benefits for Biodiversity (NBB) are new planning requirements in England and Wales, respectively. Beyond simple compliance, organisations often wish to demonstrate wider environmental co-benefits by enhancing carbon storage and delivering social value.
NAS assesses BNG but can also go beyond by effectively demonstrating wider environmental benefits: BNG+. We also assess NBB which already requires both, biodiversity and natural capital enhancements. We furthermore develop BNG/NBB strategies such as for habitat banking and nature markets.
NATURE Tool Services
There are many natural capital tools out there and they all have different scopes and models. But clients seek for straight-forward tools to assess and demonstrate ecosystem services and natural capital enhancements consistently at all scales, comparable across the industry.
NAS offers a wide range of NATURE Tool related strategic and project-level services from as shown on the left-handed side. The key benefit is that all services consistently utilise the same NATURE Tool model which makes assessments comparable and transferrable.
CBA & Business Cases
Monetising environmental impacts as part of Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) and Business Cases becomes increasingly important as projects need to demonstrate positive contributions to the environment and society. Demonstrating wider environmental benefits also helps securing funding.
NAS provides a wide range of ecological economic assessments to reveal and demonstrate the true value of nature. This includes CBA and contributions to economic business cases such as in line with the Department for Transport’s Value for Money Supplementary Guidance on Landscape.
System Integration
Nature-based solutions, natural capital and ecosystem services are complex concepts which can be challenging to integrate into existing systems and process management. They require new skill and tools which is why businesses need assistance when integrating these concepts into their operations.
Based on deep-dive assessments of business processes, systems and the skills and needs of colleagues tasked with implementing nature-related concepts, NAS provides tailored tools, guidance and training to enable a smooth and effective integration of natural capital and nature-positive.
Tool Development
Natural capital and ecosystem services are complex and not easy to model. Relevant tools are therefore critical to implement relevant approaches at both, the strategic and project level. Tools also enable clients to assess and manage natural capital impacts independently without ongoing support.
NAS’s philosophy is to prepare and enable clients to manage natural capital independently without requiring costly ongoing support. NAS adapts and develops relevant tools tailored to the individual needs of each client rather than clients and systems needing to adapt to tools as often the case.
Climate Positive
More and more organisations develop ambitious net zero or climate positive targets which are nearly impossible to achieve without nature’s contribution. At the same time, carbon markets offer increasing opportunities to sell carbon credits from woodland creation and peatland restoration.
NAS advises on how nature can be used to increase carbon storage. NAS can provide anything from opportunity identification to carbon accounting to engaging in carbon markets utilising authentic and high-quality frameworks such as the Woodland Carbon Code and the Peatland Code.