Do we need natural capital accounts for measuring the performance of societies towards sustainable development, and if so, which ones?

e past 20 years have seen substantial progress in relation to measuring sustainable development both in the policy eld and in the statistical measurement eld. However, there has been little progress with regard to the fundamental economic theory. is as‐ pect cannot be ignored when considering what sorts of natural capital accounts could be useful for policy making in the domain of sustain‐ able development. is paper presents some conceptual and practi‐ cal limitations in the valuation of natural assets and environmental services. e authors conclude that a ‘narrow’ capital approach (i.e. monetising natural capital and adding it up to a total for wealth with the aim of making statements about past performance of societies) is not adequate for monitoring sustainable development. However, this approach can still be useful for assessment in speci c cases at a smaller scale. Correspondingly, great care is needed when using the term ‘natural capital’ and associated monetary valuation outside of the scienti c debate as it raises expectations that cannot be ful lled and as it carries unintended but powerful connotations. Instead, the fo‐ cus should be on establishing an integrated information system about the state and condition of the di erent components of nature, and the services derived from these components. Such a system could provide indicators for monitoring sustainability and for modelling the conse‐ quences of policy options.