Municipal Natural Assets Initiative: Results From the First National Cohort – Decision-Maker Summary

Local governments across Canada are focusing on sustainable service delivery – delivering core municipal services in a socially, economically and environmentally responsible manner. Asset management best practices are key to this; they provide a rigorous framework for addressing aging infrastructure assets and rising maintenance costs, and allow local governments to manage risks to reliable and cost-effective delivery of core services such as water, sewage, and transportation.

Natural assets, such as wetlands, forests, and creeks, provide many of the same services to communities as engineered assets. A wetland, for example, provides stormwater management and flood mitigation services that would have to be replaced by an engineered alternative if the wetland was lost. However, while natural assets are key to sustainable service delivery, they are generally not accounted for and/or are undervalued in asset management practices.