From a tool user perspective

The NATURE Tool has three assessment pillars (asset, service flow and benefits) and results are summarised in two headline indicators, biodiversity and people. Within the NATURE Tool, biodiversity relates to impacts on wildlife and species resilience (this is captured primarily through BNG assessments). ‘People’ on the other hand relates to the impact of a development on people in the context of ecosystem services and health benefits.

Essentially, the tool user enters the habitat areas before and after an intervention as well as the level of accessibility of the site. The tool then automatically calculates natural capital performance and impact using six key indicators:

  1. Change Score – how will a project impact on the natural capital performance in relation to the baseline (pre-development)?
  2. Potential Score – to what extent has the maximum site potential for natural capital been achieved?
  3. Completeness Score – how complete is the assessment? This is defined as a measure of how detailed the entered habitat categories are and to what extent optional indicators were used.
  4. Policy Priority – the policy priority (high, medium and low) based on national policy or as defined by the objective setter.  The policy priorities determine how ecosystem services and benefits are weighted when aggregated to an overall people (project) score.
  5. All Objectives Met? – will the project achieve the natural capital objectives as defined by the objective setter (see below)? Objectives can be defined for the Change Score, Potential Score and Completeness Score.
  6. Achievements – does the project achieve Net Gain (NG) and/or even a bronze, silver or gold  ‘excellence standard’? This helps you to highlight and communicate really positive natural capital impact.

The NATURE Tool can also be used to assess the natural capital baseline of a site. In this case, the tool calculates (per-ha) baseline scores as well as the potential scores only.

From an objective setter’s perspective

To allow maximum flexibility, an ‘objective setter ‘(e.g. local planning authority or a business) can take the UK NATURE Tool model and create an adapted version. NATURE Tool versions can be created for a specific area such as a local authority or for a business and its landholdings and projects. However, tool versions are also possible for a specific project or project type. This means the NATURE Tool can be adapted to the priorities and objectives of a region or specific development.

There is a back-end to the UK NATURE Tool version where the objective setter can:

  1. Decide which ecosystem services and benefits are mandatory and need to be assessed for each project. Other ecosystem services and benefits can still be assessed optionally by the tool user.
  2. Define biodiversity, ecosystem services and benefit objectives (e.g. a minimum improvement of +15% is expected for recreation). Setting objectives is optional.
  3. Define policy-weights on which basis the People Score is aggregated. These should be based on (local/corporate) policy priorities and/or the natural capital vision/plan for a place. We would recommend involving stakeholders in this process. Scores for each ecosystem service and health benefits will be aggregated based on these weights.