Scott Harrison

Valuing the role of ecosystem services in sustainability assessment

Scott Harrison
Environmental Specialist and
BCHydro Liaison Delegate to the World
Business Council for Sustainable Development, Canada

Abstract:
Ecosystem services are the ecological processes and the biological products that enable human societies to survive and prosper. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (United Nations 2005) defined four services that humans acquire from ecosystems:

  • provisioning – the goods and products produced by ecosystems
  • regulating –
    services that control the flow of natural processes
  • cultural – non-material benefits
    obtained from ecosystems, and

    • supporting – ecological processes that sustain other
    ecosystem services.

Businesses also depend on the services that ecosystems provide, and the degradation of ecosystems poses significant risks to companies, suppliers, customers, and investors. In contrast, sustainable management of ecosystem services can create new business opportunities and markets. Accordingly, more companies are recognizing the need to make ecosystem services an integral part of planning and operations. BC Hydro is a Canadian electric-power company with an environmental goal of “no net environmental impact by 2024 over 2004 levels”. BC Hydro also is co-Chair of the Ecosystems Focus Area at The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and, with the World Resources Institute and other member companies, has been developing tools, such as the Corporate Ecosystem Services Review and Ecosystem Valuation framework, to help businesses incorporate ecosystem services into sustainability assessments.

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