RASE Natural Capital Award

Meet the sponsor

Trinity Natural Capital Pro Council is an enabling, and inclusive membership organisation, founded and governed by a group of complementary institutions. Its purpose is to launch and deliver the Natural Capital Century through, leveraging the combined capabilities of its member institutions to provide innovating efficient strategies and solutions that maximise the performance, profitability and health of the agriculture sector and the resilience of the food and farming supply chains.

The Council is proactively creating the provision for best practise dual reporting of natural capital accounting and valuation and innovative financial products and services which are compliant with the highest industry standards and methodologies, including IPCC2019, ISO14064-2, ISO14067, SBTi FLAG and GHG Protocols.

Members of the Trinity Natural Capital Pro Council recognise:

• The significant financial, social, and environmental value of integrating natural capital into the economic and societal decision making
• The fact that Natural Capital, the world’s stock of natural assets, is fundamental to all economic activity and that reporting and communicating this in credible and understandable ways is critical to economic and societal decision making.
• The pivotal role of best practice protocols and standards, credible measurement, valuation, management, and restoration of natural capital in delivering a society that is food-secure, just and equitable, sustainable and resilient, and that eliminates “greenwashing”, pseudo-science, miscalculation and misrepresentation of the agricultural sector that has to date inhibited the efficient flow of the significant capital that’s needed for Agriculture’s increased prosperity and transition.

Founding Members of the Council: 

Chavereys | Fisher German | Knight Frank | Mills & Reeve | Oxbury Bank | Royal Agricultural Society of England | Saffery | Scottish Land & Estates | Trinity Natural Capital Group

Award criteria

The RASE Natural Capital Award will be presented to an individual whose farm meets the below criteria:

• Soil health management - The farm builds soil organic matter, actively monitors and reduces soil erosion, enhances nutrient cycling, increases water retention.
• Biodiversity preservation and enhancement - The farm supports a diverse range of plant and animal life through best practice management of the farm’s productive areas, maintenance of field margins and headlands, habitat conservation, maintaining pollinator-friendly habitats and preserving species of conservation concern.
• Water protection - The farm implements practices to protect and conserve water, including ensuring nitrogen uptake efficiency, and reducing nitrate leaching and sediment loss to water catchments.
• Net carbon balance - the farm actively minimises its carbon footprint, including taking steps to capture and store carbon in soils and vegetation, and its net carbon balance is in or near the top quartile of the farm’s self-best, scientific potential for a majority of its products.
• Energy efficiency - The farm reduces non-renewable energy use through several measures such as improving efficiency, adopting renewable energy sources, minimising tillage, optimising operations, etc.
• Innovation quotient - The farm utilises new, experimental, or cutting-edge sustainable techniques that increase environmental benefits and farm productivity.
• Economic resilience - The farm maintains and preferably improves its economic profitability and resilience to challenges such as changing climate conditions, market fluctuations, and pest or disease outbreaks, ensuring that the business can be maintained over the medium to long term. This can also include diversification of income sources, such as agrotourism or direct-to-consumer sales.
• Natural capital valuation enhancement and goal setting - The farm credibly measures and values natural capital metrics and indicators, and achieves growth in the value of its natural capital; defines its long-term sustainability vision, sets clear targets and goals for improving the value of its natural capital, and tracks progress over time.
• Community and supply chain engagement - The farm works to educate, involve and support the local community and the sector through partnerships, demonstrations and educational programs through in-person and digital knowledge sharing and collaboration platforms; and promotes credible sustainability measures and practices across the farm's supply chain, such as working with input suppliers, processors and distributors.
• Replicability of practices - The farm’s practices should be replicable or adapted by other farms so as to propagate their positive environmental and economic impact. The practitioner adopts a ‘technical’ mindset in implementation and assessment and communication of practices, taking active steps to continuously analyse practice effectiveness and replicability.