A balance sheet approach to natural capital accounting
Summary
Little Blue Research produced a natural capital account for ofi, a multi-national food and agri-business, to understand the natural capital impacts and dependencies of one of their business units.
Client description
Capitals
Olam Food Ingredients (ofi)
80,000+ employees

NATURAL
Client need
Olam Food Ingredients (ofi) requested technical support to:
• review the current valuation of natural capital impacts of an entire crop supply chain and business operations, and their relevant natural capital profit and loss (NC P&L) statements for 2018 and 2019 in collaboration with Rosie Dunscombe.
• update and add to relevant valuation methods based on review outputs, and
• work with them to produce an updated NC P&L and a pilot natural capital balance sheet (NCBS) for their a crop business unit, identifying natural capital impacts and dependencies, and changes over time.
The challenge
Creating a NC P&L and NCBS, following, where possible, the recently launched BS 8632 natural capital accounting for organizations standard.
Updating and/or producing new environmental economic valuations for GHGs, land use change (deforestation), water use including the impact of scarcity events, pollination, soil health, food provisioning and reforestation.
The results
NC P&L review with recommendations for improvements to existing methods.
Natural capital income statement and natural capital balance sheet for 2018 and 2019 with appropriate notes and caveats.