Policy Briefs

Natural capital assessment in landscape-scale land use planning: how it works and key challenges

Policy makers, land managers and investors are increasingly interested in considering nature – and the services it provides – in decision making. It is expected that quantifying and valuing natural assets will help drive decisions that are more environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable, and help address the climate and biodiversity emergencies. Government and private sector actors are increasingly looking to better recognise this ‘natural capital’ in public and corporate policies. This is driving a thriving industry of assessment frameworks, methodologies, and tools to quantify natural capital ‘assets’ ranging from stored carbon to biodiversity. But the sheer number of approaches and the language of natural capital can be confusing. This makes it hard to know which tools may for improve decision-making. This brief introduces natural capital terminology, provides a summary of the ‘natural capital approach’, outlines its relevance to strategic, landscape scale land use planning, and introduces some of the tools being developed to support the approach.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving climate change adaptation objectives in the land sector will rely on effective collaboration bridging scales and sectors. Many approaches to ‘partnership’ working have been developed in the sector, working at different scales and focussed on a range of issues. Scotland has committed to the development of Regional Land Use Partnerships (RLUPs) to help deliver a more integrated approach to land use change and management, and meet its target of net zero by 2045. Stakeholders have different expectations about what RLUPs can deliver and how they might function. Success will rely in part on there being a clear vision for how they work. This brief explores how existing land use partnerships work and the learning they provide for how RLUPs might be designed to meet their multiple objectives.