Scotland’s natural capital is worth £273 bn

The Scottish government has put an asset value of £273bn on Scotland’s natural capital.

It said that, for the first time, a comprehensive assessment of the monetary value of Scotland’s natural capital had been carried out and that the £273bn figure, which relates to 2015, equated to 34% of the total UK asset valuation for natural capital.

A quarter of the asset value was attributable to items not directly captured in gross domestic product, namely carbon sequestration, pollutant removal and recreation.

The assessment included information on ten ecosystem services: water abstraction, agricultural biomass, fish capture, timber,, mineral production, oil and gas production, renewable energy generation, carbon sequestration, air pollutant removal, and recreation.

The Scottish government also said that during 2017, water abstraction for public water supply in Scotland fell to its lowest level in the series history, partly due to less leakage.