What are natural assets?
Local government natural assets refer to the stocks of natural resources or ecosystems that contribute to the provision of one or more services required for the health, well-being, and long-term sustainability of a community and its residents (e.g. water filtration, stormwater management, climate regulation).1MNAI, 2017, Defining and Scoping Municipal Natural Assets, available at: mnai.ca/media/2018/02/finaldesignedsept18mnai.pdf The terms “natural asset” and “green infrastructure” have often been used interchangeably; however, green infrastructure refers to a broader set of assets that includes natural assets, but also includes designed and engineered elements created to mimic natural functions and processes (e.g., green roofs and rain gardens), as illustrated in Figure 1.2Ibid.
Figure 1: After MNAI (2017).
What is natural asset management?
Modern asset management is an integrated system to provide sustainable local government services, rather than efforts focused solely on each asset3See, e.g., Asset Management BC’s 2019 framework describing a systematic approach to managing assets, available at: www.assetmanagementbc.ca/wp-content/uploads/Asset-Management–for-Sustainable-Service-Delivery-A-BC-Framework-.pdf. Natural assets are a critical part of this system that can support local governments in managing service delivery in a manner that is cost-effective and sustainable.
Traditionally, natural assets have not been considered core local government assets and, until recently, there has been little guidance on how to incorporate natural assets into local government asset management planning. This is starting to change as a growing number of local governments in Canada are developing natural asset inventories and implementing natural asset management projects, using asset management planning as an effective platform upon which this work can be based.4See, e.g., Town of Gibsons, 2017, Advancing Municipal Natural Asset Management: The Town of Gibsons experience in financial planning & reporting, available at: mnai.ca/media/2018/01/GibsonsFinancialPlanningReport-WEB.pdf; MNAI, Municipal Natural Assets Initiative: Town of Oakville, available at: mnai.ca/media/2018/07/MNAI-oakville-final.pdf
Local governments that are undertaking natural asset management initiatives provide evidence of the significant value of natural assets and the services they provide. Natural assets are cost-effective, resilient, and can often deliver several local government services more efficiently than costly engineered alternatives.5Ibid.
Case in point: The Town of Gibsons determined that the stormwater services provided by ponds in White Tower Park have a value of $3.5-$4.0 million if they had to be replaced by an engineered asset, a cost that can be avoided through regular maintenance in the Park.
NAI has developed several resources elaborating upon different components of NAM, including:
- defining and scoping natural assets;6Supra note 5.
- developing levels of services for natural assets and the relationship between these and the concept of ecosystem services;7MNAI, 2022, Developing Levels of Services for Natural Assets: A Guidebook for Local Governments, available at: mnai.ca/media/2022/01/MNAI-Levels-of-Service-Neptis.pdf
- working with private landowners in the context of NAM;8Supra note 2. and
- implementing numerous aspects of NAM in a local government context.9See MNAI’s resources for local governments, available at: mnai.ca/resources-for-local-governments/
We encourage readers to review these other resources in order to complement their review of this legal primer.
