Initiatives
Restore the Earth Foundation

New Metrics for a New Economy: Restore the Earth’s EcoMetrics™ Model

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

To enable funds to flow into landscape scale restoration projects, we must prove impact and measure the value of ecosystem restoration in financial terms, and make a solid business case for cleaner air, cleaner water and environmental resiliency.

ECOMETRICS™ Model

Our EcoMetrics™ Model uses in-depth analytics to measure the full value for each environmental, social and economic outcome produced by ecosystem restoration, and reports on those outcomes in monetary terms.

We can create $168.3m of integrated value from an initial investment of $5m. Our model enables business leaders to account for and communicate the full monetary value of their natural capital investments in terms of financial, social, and environmental benefits in a transparent and verifiable way.

Restore the Earth provides a formal report to funders in a format ready for third party audit and accounts for intangible assets on the funder’s balance sheet to support the business case for investment. This also allows funders to take credit for GHG offsets, water quality offsets and other environmental benefits produced, in perpetuity; and if desired, they can use the environmental offsets to mitigate the portion of their climate footprint that cannot be offset at source.

The EcoMetrics™ Model is compliant with global standards for ecosystem services, and aligned with:

• Social Value International

• International Integrated Reporting Council’s Framework

• IFC Performance Standards on Environment & Social Sustainability

• Winrock International & ACR Protocols & Methodology

*Adjusted for the loss of economic value. Restoration Value generated over 40 years.

FINANCIAL

Financial capital created by multiple offset credits, revenue from sustainable timber harvests, hunting licenses and sale of restored land to conservation organizations.

SOCIAL AND RELATIONSHIP

Recreational activities in restored environments such as hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing all create social and relationship capital.

MANUFACTURED Natural storm protection and waste treatment systems create valuable manufactured capital in the form of green infrastructure.

HUMAN Jobs directly created by the restoration program and indirectly in the restored environment create long-term human capital.

NATURAL Vast natural capital created from clean air to clean water, stable productive soils, enhanced biodiversity, green house gas and nutrient retention.

INTELLECTUAL

Restoring landscapes creates and expands knowledge, competencies and capabilities and maintains experiences that build valuable intellectual capital.

OUR PARTNERS

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Next OUR PARTNERS NEWS New Metrics for a New Economy: Restore the Earth’s EcoMetrics™ Model New Metrics for a New Economy: Restore the Earth’s EcoMetrics™ Model North America’s Amazon: The Restoration Has Begun North America’s Amazon: The Restoration Has Begun Press Release: Restore the Earth Foundation Breaks Ground on One-Million-Acre Landscape-Scale Restoration Project Press Release: Restore the Earth Foundation Breaks Ground on One-Million-Acre Landscape-Scale Restoration Project REF ON INSTAGRAM Making History in the Mud - Volunteers from @timberlandpro and @vmware clean-up after a muddy day planting trees at our Groundbreaking. For more on this event and our initiative to restore 1 million acres in North America's Amazon, check out our blog! Link in bio. #1MillAcres #CollabFund #RestoreWithUs #REFPaC2016 #pointeauxchenes #Louisiana #restoration #coast #wetlands #coastalwetlands #swamp #marsh #cypress #baldcypress #trees #nature #environment #green #makinghistory Our million-acre goal started as a seed-like dream. After launching the restoration of North America’s Amazon a couple weeks back we are working to make it a reality. We are a small organization that never doubts the power of positive actions even in the face of doubt or adversity. Because we know, that with each passing minute, there is opportunity to grow and spread positivity, much like our newly planted bald cypress trees are doing now. While it can be hard to measure the benefits of such actions bit by bit, or the growth of a tree minute by minute, each is slowly but surely spreading positivity the same way a tree spreads it roots; radiating beyond its origins, making the world a better place. #positiveactions #positivity #bethechange #gooddeeds #planttheseed #seeds #restoration #growth #trees #roots #cypress #wetlands #RestoreWithUs #1MillAcres Repost from @wlfla - “You have our total support,” LDWF Charlie Melancon pledged Thursday to a national organization attempting to restore some 1 million acres of land along the Lower Mississippi River Basin, or as Restore the Earth Foundation calls it, “North America’s Amazon.' . For more on this partnership, check out the press release. Link in bio! . . . #ldwf #saveourcoast #treeplanting #restorethearth #REFPaC2016 #wetlands #restoration #cypress #RestoreWithUs Introducing...Marsh Force One! A big thanks to @megg.hennn for the excellent name. We look forward to many adventures with our new Marsh Master! #REFPaC2016 #RestoreWithUs #1MillAcres #CollabFund #restoration #marshmaster #marsh #swamp #wetlands #Louisiana #onthelevee #Louisiana #nature #restore #earth #fish #birds #waterfowl #cypress #baldcypress Six hundred trees later . . . fabulous work by volunteers yesterday, launching the restoration of North America's Amazon! Thanks for all your hard work! . . . #REFPaC2016 #volunteer #wetlands #swamp #marsh #restoration #cypress #baldcypress #trees #forests #restoration #RestoreWithUs #CollabFund #1MillAcres #climateaction Made history in the mud today! We had an amazing team of volunteers who got 600 trees in the ground in under 2 hours! In a few years, the open landscape behind the REF team in photograph will be towering with bald cypress trees. Thanks to all partners, volunteers, friends, and family who helped make this happen today. Stay tuned for more photos from the day, winner of the Marsh Master Naming Contest & follow the restoration as we work towards our million acre goal! . . . #RestoreWithUs #REFPaC2016 #1MillAcres #CollabFund #restoration #Louisiana #pointeauxchenes #cypress #trees #forests #public #private #partnerships #partnershipgoals #blueskies #cloudy #wetlands #swamp #marsh #marshmaster #volunteers #makinghistory #makinghistoryinthemud Birds eye view of Louisiana's wetlands. A beautiful sight, but the historical land mass coverage compared to now is daunting. All the more reason to take swift action to restore Louisiana's coast. After this perspective of the area, we're more eager than ever to get in the mud and break ground to restore 4,000 acres of forested wetlands in Pointe-aux-Chenes, the first step to reaching our million acre goal. . . . #1MillAcres #CollabFund #RestoreWithUs #REFPaC2016 #Louisiana #wetlands #marsh #water #birdseye #restoration #action #InTheMud #photooftheday #instagood #nature #flying #plane #seaplane #roomwithaview❤️ The Marsh Master is officially on it's way! Shane from @wlfla is heading down with the newest member of our restoration team. Thanks to everyone who joined the Marsh Master Naming Contest. Stay tuned to find out what we're naming this baby, TBD at the Groundbreaking Thursday! . . . #REFPaC2016 #wetlands #marsh #marshmaster #restoration #Louisiana #RestoretheEarth #RestoreWithUs #1MillAcres #cypress #trees #forests #resilience #breakingground Be part of the Groundbreaking, wherever you are! This Thursday we will reveal our newest addition to the restoration team, the Marsh Master. This amphibious vehicle prepares sites for restoration, allowing us to be more dynamic and efficient when we go to plant. It's going to be such an important part of our 1 million acre restoration, so we think it deserves a name. And we want to hear what you think! Comment below to enter the Marsh Master Naming Contest now! .

MDIA/TVA ... PBS - FINANCIAL
FINANCIAL
Financial capital created by multiple offset credits, revenue from sustainable timber harvests, hunting licenses and sale of restored land to conservation organizations.

NDIA/TVA ... PART PEOPLE / PART PBS-INTANGIBLE
SOCIAL AND RELATIONSHIP
Recreational activities in restored environments such as hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing all create social and relationship capital.

MDIA/TVA ... PBS-PHYSICAL
MANUFACTURED
Natural storm protection and waste treatment systems create valuable manufactured capital in the form of green infrastructure.

MDIA/TVA ... PEOPLE
HUMAN
Jobs directly created by the restoration program and indirectly in the restored environment create long-term human capital.

MDIA/TVA ... NATURE
NATURAL
Vast natural capital created from clean air to clean water, stable productive soils, enhanced biodiversity, green house gas and nutrient retention.

MDIA/TVA ... PBS-INTANGIBLE
INTELLECTUAL
Restoring landscapes creates and expands knowledge, competencies and capabilities and maintains experiences that build valuable intellectual capital.

New Metrics for a New Economy: Restore the Earth’s EcoMetrics™ Model 15 Nov 2016 00 10.27.16 Restore the Earth tree planting and coastal restoration kick off of their project to restore 4,000 acres of freshwater-forested wetland in the Pointe-aux-Chenes Wildlife Management Area. Montegut, Louisana Marshall makes opening remarks at Restore the Earth’s Groundbreaking ceremony on October 27th, launching the restoration of our initiative to restore 1 million acres in the Mississippi River Basin — North America’s Amazon. By P.J. Marshall, Co-founder & Executive Director, Restore the Earth Foundation The New Economy has begun. One year into a world where global leaders have agreed to act on 17 concrete Sustainable Development Goals, and where the full force of law is now behind the international agreement on climate change, we are speeding toward a bright future for business that creates value for people, the planet, and the economy. But as the old adage says, we can’t manage what we can’t measure. We need new models for metrics that allow business to quantify sustainability value—in real financial terms—to integrate people and the environment into core business decisions. This week, I will be speaking at Sustainable Brands’ New Metrics conference, which is gathering a diverse group of leading thinkers—from brand strategists to financial analysts, supply chain managers to IT executives—to share ideas and case studies for smarter, more accurate, and more inclusive business metrics that create value for all stakeholders. At Sustainable Brands, I will be speaking about Restore the Earth’s innovative EcoMetrics™ Model, which allows companies to validate their offsets for carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen, and phosphorus based on the value generated from our landscape-scale restoration projects. Over the past 50 years, 60 percent of the Earth’s ecosystems have been damaged or destroyed. Our projects—including our signature initiative to restore one million acres in the lower Mississippi River Basin (“North America’s Amazon”)—generate significant benefits by rebuilding ecological health and integrity at the ecosystem level. These benefits include mitigating climate change, recharging groundwater, providing critical habitat, buffering against sea level rise and supporting flood control, and preventing storm damage. But how do we measure and report on these benefits in a way that encourages business investment? At Restore the Earth, we use our EcoMetrics™ Model, which proves that every $1 invested in landscape-scale restoration generates more than $9 in environmental, social, and economic value. In the collaborative spirit of Sustainable Brands, I’m sharing our model here. Here’s how it works. We start by taking stock of the holistic economic, environmental, and social benefits of landscape-scale restoration. These vary depending on the project, but they usually include the following categories: Financial: Financial capital is created by multiple offset credits, and revenue from sustainable timber harvests, hunting licenses, and the sale of restored land to conservation organizations. Social and relationship: In restored environments, recreational activities such as hunting, fishing, and wildlife-viewing all create social and relationship capital. Manufactured: Natural storm protection and waste-treatment systems create valuable manufactured capital in the form of green infrastructure. Human: Jobs created directly by the restoration program and indirectly in the restored environment create long-term human capital. Natural: Vast natural capital is created from clean air to clean water, stable productive soils, enhanced biodiversity, and greenhouse gas and nutrient retention. Intellectual: Restoring landscapes creates and expands knowledge, competencies, and capabilities, and it maintains experiences that build valuable intellectual capital. We measure the value created by collecting data using field measurements and monitoring related to each category above. All information is collected under the guidelines of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)’s Integrated Reporting Framework and is vetted through the Social Value International (SVI) Assurances Standards, allowing us to translate the data into financial indicators of each category for each project site. For each business investor, Restore the Earth provides a formal report—in a format ready for third-party audit—that accounts for and communicates the full monetary value of their natural capital investments in terms of financial, social, and environmental benefits in a transparent and verifiable way. This allows funders to take credit for greenhouse gas offsets, water-quality offsets, and other environmental benefits produced, in perpetuity. And because our model aligns with international standards, it’s easy for companies and stakeholders to compare performance. Our ability to measure and report on these benefits has attracted a diverse group of businesses—including Shell, Entergy, CITGO, VMware, Veolia, Latham & Watkins, Eileen Fisher, and others—to support and invest in our landscape-scale restoration projects. The advent of our New Economy is an exciting development, but we need new metrics to set, reach, and outperform our goals in sustainable business. I’m excited to share Restore the Earth’s approach at Sustainable Brands and to hear how others are reinventing metrics to support and enhance sustainable business. Learn more about Restore the Earth Foundation and its EcoMetrics Model™ at http://restoretheearth.org/.