Inaugural Government Dialogue on Natural Capital hosted in Edinburgh

On the 27th November 2017, Edinburgh hosted the world's first Government Dialogue on Natural Capital. Representatives from 16 countries, the European Commission and a range of non-governmental organisations met to discuss governments’ role in creating an enabling environment for the natural capital agenda.

Roseanna Cunningham MSP, Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, opened the Dialogue with an inspiring speech which reaffirmed Scotland's commitment to natural capital approaches. These commitments are enshrined in the National Performance Framework and Scotland's Economic Strategy, two key documents which set the direction and ambition for future policymaking. The participants then joined a workshop discussion focused on the following main questions; where are you? where do you want to go? what do you want to do together?

From answering these questions, the participants identified three key areas in which intergovernmental collaboration will help to mainstream natural capital approaches. These are to: 

1. Link national natural capital accounting with corporate natural capital assessments.
2. Increase collaboration by government agencies and businesses (both nationally and internationally) and use existing online platforms to share best practices.
3. Develop a positive natural capital narrative.

Due to the success of the meeting, it was agreed that the participants would start collaborating on the three issues identified and to convene again the next year. 

Download the full summary report here or read it below.