Using the Natural Capital approach to calculate the value of National Landscapes and National Parks
Today we're publishing a briefing that starts the process of standardising and assessing the value of natural capital in National Landscapes and National Parks which puts the first (conservative) estimate at around £300 billion.
Our recent series of blogs and think pieces has been looking at what National Landscapes could/should look like in 2050 and how we might get there. This is against a background of a government agenda to get the economy growing, which has led to rehashing old rhetoric that it is either nature or the economy.
However, as the Dasgupta Review points out, “our economies are embedded within Nature, not external to it”. This means that if we can restore and grow our ‘stocks’ of nature, we will grow the economy. Indeed, the UK net zero economy was the fastest growing sector in 2024.
So, when it comes to nature, what are National Landscapes and National Parks worth and how do we even think about how to calculate their value? The Natural Capital approach is probably the best way to look at this.
Think about natural capital assets as the stock of capital, from minerals to animals and plants, along with the fertile soil and pollinators that produce food. Some of this is irreplaceable, whilst others can refill If given the right circumstances and time.
From the Environment Agency's Natural Capital Approach
There is then a flow from the natural capital resources to provide ecosystem services such as food, clean air and energy, which benefits us and creates value. Now this is the crucial bit – if we don’t account for what we are using up and what it is providing, then traditional economics magically creates a lot of its wealth from nothing. And as a result Dasgupta says:
We have collectively failed to engage with Nature sustainably, to the extent that our demands far exceed its capacity to supply us with the goods and services we all rely on.
The UK has begun to address this with the Office for National Statistics producing Natural Capital Accounts for the UK since 2019. The latest release is due to be published mid-November 2025. It is an estimate but does start to bring some light onto the true value of nature. The estimate is that natural capital assets are worth £1.8 trillion but is this a big number?
To put it in context, the UK’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was £2.8 trillion in 2024 and a lot of that will be underpinned by the £1.8 trillion stock. Reduce the stock and then the profits (GDP) will be affected. And if we continue the steady decline of nature (stock), which has been going on for more than 50 years, then there will be an impact on future GDP. But if we start restocking the natural capital, then we can support and grow the economy.
We want to understand what contribution the English National Landscapes and National Parks, which cover 25% of England, to England’s (and the UK’s) natural capital. This is going to be a journey but the first thing we have done is to use the Natural Capital Accounts (2024) and methodology to try and estimate the worth of National Landscapes and National Parks.
In the briefing that accompanies this, the first estimate is that National Landscapes and National Parks have natural capital assets of around £300 billion, or ~23% of England’s natural capital. Is this right?
It is a good first estimate but is likely to be an underestimate. There are different ways to think about natural capital and a large part of this approach is based on extractive products (eg. oil, minerals, timber). It misses others such as biodiversity, natural flood management, culture - ecosystem services that both underpin the Natural Beauty of National Landscapes and National Parks and also contribute to the economy.
This is just the start of the journey for us. The next step will be to do some bottom-up estimates using Natural England’s Natural Capital Atlas. Then we can start to understand the real worth of the National Landscapes and National Parks. Once we know that, we can start to think in a systems-wide way about how the protected landscapes contribute to the economy across all government departments.
But we are living in constrained times and so the final stage will be to develop a standardised approach to understanding natural capital across all the individual National Landscapes and National Parks. This will provide a spatial tool to help landscapes plan in a strategic way to make the most of limited resources.
