The Natural Capital Project

The Natural Capital Project (NatCap) aims to incorporate the values of nature’s benefits into all decisions affecting land, air, and water. With a global hub at Stanford University, we have direct engagements in over 50 countries with hundreds of partner institutions. We are working to accelerate, standardize, and scale up our approaches with global environmental data and open source software tools on The Natural Capital Platform. This decision-support platform is designed to change norms across public and private institutions by allowing decision-makers to visualize environmental and well-being information. Around the world, we have developed nature-based solutions to problems as varied as: building resilience to climate and coastal hazards in Belize and the US; guiding development planning in China, The Bahamas, and Myanmar; managing corporate risk in global sourcing decisions for Unilever; and making smart transportation loan decisions by multilateral banks in Latin America. In response to increasing demand, we are now refining and mainstreaming our approach into policy, finance, and management globally. Our particular focus for the next five years is on solving the challenges of urban resilience and sustainable infrastructure development, with major efforts in China, the US, and throughout Latin America.