Guidance

Enabling a Natural Capital Approach (ENCA): Guidance

Enabling a Natural Capital Approach (ENCA) guidance is a comprehensive document providing information and resources for Natural Capital.

• From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
• Published: 22 January 2020
• Last updated: 4 February 2025 — See all updates

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Enabling a Natural Capital Approach guidance (accessible)

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Enabling a Natural Capital Approach guidance (PDF)

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ENCA guidance

ENCA guidance is a comprehensive document providing information and resources for Natural Capital. It covers:

• the natural capital framework
• economic valuation of the environment
• how project or policy appraisal can incorporate natural capital
• natural capital accounting principles and methods, benefits and challenges
• applying natural capital at a local level

Published 22 January 2020
Last updated 4 February 2025 + show all updates

1. 4 February 2025

   Fixed an error with the numbering of subheadings in the PDF. Clarification on the updates published on 22 January 2025 - these updates included additional guidance on valuing biodiversity (section 2.8), proportionality in appraisal (section 3.4), and generating new income streams (section 5.5).

2. 22 January 2025

   'Enabling a Natural Capital Approach guidance' attachments have been updated.

3. 19 July 2023

   This guidance has been updated to make it clearer, more concise and provide more up to date information.

4. 4 August 2021

   Updated ENCA guidance to reflect changes to reflecting developments in the evidence base and in improvements in response to user feedback. This includes new signposting for users approaching the guidance for the first time, new material included in Section 5 on natural capital planning, mapping and tools and a new Annex 1 showing how ENCA can inform different topics of interest.

5. 2 March 2020

   Updated guidance document with improvements for accessibility.

6. 22 January 2020

   First published.