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OneNature was delighted to work with the Columbia University Sustainability Management Capstone project over the last semester. The team analyzed existing research and conducted interviews with experts in the field to create a summary of what we know about nature, health, equity, and economic valuation in the United States. Last week, they presented the findings to OneNature and the co-lead of the project, IFAW.
We were incredibly impressed by the work! Some of the initial recommendations were included in our comments to the U.S. Government on including nature in U.S. accounts. And the final results will be included in our continued outreach to the U.S. for the valuing nature initiative and the well-being and equity initiative.
In their final report, they described their scope of work and tasks. “The first task was to create a searchable database with summaries of the literature related to health, equity, and/or economic valuation, all within the context of nature. The Columbia University team established a database team to conduct a keyword-based review and focused on international peer-reviewed academic journals in English that were current, in addition to electronic books, online books, and press releases. After 80+ peer-reviewed papers were collected, the team widened the scope of the research to include related news and reports, or journal papers, with a focus on equity or indigenous people.
The second task of this project was focused on interviewing professionals and researchers that were experts in their fields to get additional data input to peer-reviewed literature. These interviews were conducted by the subsequent interview team within the broader Columbia University team. The combination of first-hand accounts and primary sources enhanced the research.”
They then created a story map that beautifully conveyed the project and the recommendations.
The team found, “Through the research, not one source was found that successfully combined nature, health, equity, and economic value. However, within these categories and the intersections between them, there are areas for improvement. There is a critical need to fill the research gap at the intersection of nature, health, equity, and economic valuation. This project helped identify exactly the nature of the gap by narrowing a broad, ambiguous sector into well-defined categories and the associated state of research available for them.”
We invite you to review the story map and get more detail on the specific interactions among nature, health, equity, and economic valuations, view the research database, and read more about the findings and recommendations.
Thank you to the team for a wonderful project!
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