According to the Guardian Sustainable Business Blog, companies could use evaluations of their Natural Capital as part of their corporate social responsibility to stimulate sustainability. What is natural capital however? Natural capital can be defined as all environmental factors that contribute to a company’s activities; such as wood from trees, waste etc… The article evokes Puma, and how it has evaluated its Natural Capital to determine how much debt it actually owns to nature so to speak. The numbers around to approx. 145M€ (193.8M USD).

Following Puma’s initiative, an international World Forum on natural capital will be held in Edinburgh on the 21st-22nd of November. The aim of analyzing natural capital of a company is to make companies reflect on their impacts on their environment. The article informs us that although some impacts are caused by production itself, others and sometimes most, are results of faulty supply chains that can be modified to reduce natural capital.

Taking into account natural capital could be a way for companies to increase their corporate social responsibility and work towards sustainability. In conclusion, the article states that this notion of natural capital is still at its early stages but could have a huge future impact.

Link to article:

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/natural-capital-next-generation-csr