Since 2019, we have helped measure the state of nature across 9.5 million hectares in Australia.

Our story.

At Accounting for Nature, we believe that what gets measured, gets valued. Born from the understanding that nature underpins every economy, every community, and every future, we set out to solve one of the greatest challenges of our time: how to measure the health of nature with scientific integrity, so decision-makers can invest in it with confidence.

Our journey began with a simple but powerful question — how can we know if we’re truly making a difference for nature? The answer wasn’t another promise or estimate — it was a standard. A scientifically robust, transparent framework that can be trusted, one that transforms environmental impact from assumption into verified performance.

Accounting for Nature builds on more than 15 years of work from the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists in developing the Accounting for Nature® Framework. After 20 years of testing, including five years of operation, across Australia, we believe we have built the foundation for such a global standard.

Through our Accredited Methods and Certified Environmental Accounts, we are creating a trusted pathway for landholders, investors, governments, and businesses to prove their impact, unlock investment, and drive value outcomes for nature — locally, nationally, and globally.

Our vision is to inspire this change and support transparent accountability to create value for nature, everywhere. To make nature count.

Now, we collaborate with like-minded institutions around the world to help realise this vision — setting a new benchmark for how we measure, value, and protect nature.

Come join us to create a future of trusted and real outcomes for the environment and be a catalyst for investment in natural capital.

Our mission.

Our mission is to contribute to the improvement in the state of nature, in Australia and across the world, through enhancing the health of landscapes, both natural and farmed, by providing the most trusted, science-backed framework to measure, verify, and report on the state of nature. To make nature count.

Designed for universal application, our framework empowers assessment of any environmental asset — from ecosystems to landscapes — at any scale, anywhere in the world.

We empower landholders, investors, governments, and businesses to:

- Help them manage nature better

- Prove their impact on nature-

- Unlock new investment in environmental markets-

- Build lasting confidence in nature-based solutions

Nature underpins every economy — yet it’s still too often overlooked, undervalued, or assumed to be healthy. If we’re serious about reversing nature’s decline, we need to transform good intentions into measurable impact. Our natural world is under threat and we believe that forward-thinking ideas are necessary to inspire the change needed to tackle the challenges our planet and people face now and in the future.

While the world is moving toward nature-positive goals, credibility is non-negotiable. We exist to raise the bar, making sure nature markets deliver what they promise that investment flows where it’s truly needed, and that nature’s value is understood simply through science.

And that can’t happen without a science-based, fully transparent standard, one that transforms environmental impact from assumption into verified performance.

The future of nature-positive investment depends on confidence, confidence that every dollar, every action, delivers real outcomes for the landscapes, ecosystems, and species we care about. That confidence can only come from a transparent, science-based standard that turns environmental impact from assumption into verified performance.

Because what gets measured, gets valued — and what gets valued, gets protected.

Our vision.

Our commitment.

We are global, independent, high quality and expert-driven. We use the best available scientific information to inform our Standard and the way we do environmental accounting. We lead conversations about the value of nature optimistically and with positivity. Critically and transparently evaluate our Standard and endeavours. Involve local experts and indigenous peoples in the planning and execution of our methods and guidelines that support our Standard, respecting their culture and expertise. We seek partnerships and collaboration to build imaginative and forward-thinking opportunities to enhance leadership and decision making that factors in nature, and enhance the adoption of our environmental accounting standard. We are a not-for-profit organisation that focuses on making our Standard as accessible as possible and manage funding to the highest standards of accountability. We will look to imaginative thinking to strive for ongoing innovation and improvement in the way we do things.

Our vision is to value nature, everywhere.

Through our world-leading global certification standard for environmental accounting we want to put nature into decision making by measuring, reporting and verifying the change in the state of nature using best practice science.

Our values.

This is who we are. What we remain true to and integrate into all that we do.

Our values reflect those of an idea seeded by scientists and leading experts and inform our integrity, accountability and quality. The approach we take is one of imaginative forward-thinking informed by collaboration.

Integrity.

To be real and real honest. Integrity is at the centre of our organisation and we aim to achieve this through transparency and ongoing improvement to build and maintain trust.

Inspiration.

We want to inspire. Inspire leadership and imaginative forward- thinking innovation to value nature and people.

Accountability.

We take our role seriously and aim to promote responsibility through real, measurable and verifiable actions.

Our promise.

We don’t just certify Environmental Accounts.

We certify trust.

We certify progress.

We certify nature’s true worth.

Accounting for Nature — where nature’s value is verified.

Collaboration.

Through collective genius we collaborate to achieve positive outcomes for nature and value add, whilst maintaining a rigorous standard through independence.

The origins.

In 2008, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists applied a conceptual model to develop a practical and robust method to measure changes in the biophysical condition of environmental assets. Over the course of the subsequent decade, and with the support of approximately 200 scientists, economists, statisticians and other experts, the Accounting for Nature model was successfully applied to native vegetation, agricultural soils and fauna environmental assets, at both the regional (ecosystem) and enterprise (property) scale.

Accounting for Nature Limited acknowledges that the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists created the Accounting for Nature model and developed it during the period 2008 to 2018. From 2018, all further development of the Accounting for Nature model has been undertaken by the not-for-profit organisation, Accounting for Nature Limited.

Accounting for Nature is focused on making the model accessible to landholders, investors and governments so that they are able to measure the condition of environmental assets.

Our origins.

Backed by science, for nature.

Our impact.

What we do.

We certify environmental accounts that meet the science-based requirements of the Accounting for Nature® Standard. Organisations that develop Environmental Accounts earn the right to use the Accounting for Nature® Certified Trustmark.
We provide face-to-face and online training and accreditation of experts in environmental accounting and in the practical use of the Accounting for Nature® Standard.
Our Independent Science Committee accredits Methods for use under the Accounting for Nature® Framework.
We provide coaching and advisory services to help your organisation develop Environmental Accounts under our Standard.
What is environmental accounting?

Environmental accounting provides standardised, quantifiable assessments of the state of nature such as agricultural soils, native vegetation and wildlife, rivers and marine ecosystems. This enables natural resource managers, policy makers, investors and customers to link the condition of environmental assets with economic decision making.
Environmental accounting focuses on establishing the condition of environmental assets within a defined area (e.g. farm or protected area) or at a regional (ecosystem) scale. Importantly, environmental accounting also seeks to determine the change in environmental condition - that is, to show whether or not, and at what rate a resource management activity and underlying investment is making a real and measurable difference on the ground.