Natural Asset Company
Contextual Quote
"NACs will not only allow ecosystems to become financial assets, but the rights to “ecosystem services”, or the benefits people receive from nature as well. These include food production, tourism, clean water, biodiversity, pollination, carbon sequestration and much more. IEG is currently partnering with Costa Rica’s government to pilot its NAC efforts within that country. Costa Rica’s Minister of Environment and Energy, Andrea Meza Murillo, has claimed that the pilot project with IEG “will deepen the economic analysis of giving nature its economic value, as well as to continue mobilizing financial flows to conservation.”
With NACs, the NYSE and IEG are now putting the totality of nature up for sale. While they assert that doing so will “transform our economy to one that is more equitable, resilient and sustainable”, it’s clear that the coming “owners” of nature and natural processes will be the only real beneficiaries."
- WHITNEY WEBB [1]
Description
1. Patrick Wood:
"In September, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced it had developed a new asset class and listing vehicle aimed at “preserving and restoring the natural assets that ultimately underlie the ability for there to be life on Earth.” The vehicle, known as a natural asset company, or NAC, will enable the formation of specialized firms “that own the rights to the ecosystem services produced on a certain piece of land, such as carbon sequestration or clean water.” The natural assets that these NACs commodify will subsequently be maintained, managed, and grown by them.
In the US, Summit Carbon Solutions recently began work on obtaining land in North Iowa for its proposed Midwest Carbon Express pipeline.
Summit Carbon Solutions, an offshoot of Summit Agriculture Group, is behind the $4.5 billion Midwest Carbon Express project. It would be the largest carbon capture project in the world with the goal of sending 12 million tons of CO2 annually to western North Dakota, where it can be stored underground.
Landowners expressed concerns regarding Summit Carbon’s use of eminent domain, which allows the company to build the pipeline on land without consent from the landowner.
Eminent domain is when a government body can acquire private property for public use, with compensation for affected landowners.
While shady deals like these have been happening in the US for decades, these new corporations — soon to be traded on the stock market casino — aren’t going to be largely focused on land looted in the US.
Allegedly, NACs will use the funds from these newly obtained and monetized natural assets to help fight climate change by ‘preserving’ the rain forests, mountains, and lakes mostly abroad. They also vow to change the “conventional agricultural production practices” of farms to make them more efficient and sustainable. But, the creators of NACs concede the ultimate goal is to extract trillions in profits from natural processes such as photosynthesis, apply intrinsic values to natural processes, and then monetize it.
“Our hope is that owning a natural asset company is going to be a way that an increasingly broad range of investors have the ability to invest in something that’s intrinsically valuable, but, up to this point, was really excluded from the financial markets,” said NYSE COO Michael Blaugrund upon the launch of the NAC idea.
On their website the Intrinsic Exchange Group states that they are “using Intrinsic value as the umbrella for values not yet identified or quantified, as well as values such as cultural, social, aesthetic, spiritual, etc.”
2. Intrinsic Exchange Group (IEG):
"IEG is pioneering a new asset class based on nature and the benefits that nature provides (termed ecosystem services). These services include carbon capture, soil fertility and water purification, amongst others.
This new asset class is the foundation of a new form of corporation called a “Natural Asset Company” (NAC). The primary purpose of these companies is to maximize Ecological Performance, the production of ecosystem services, to which they have rights and authority to manage.
In partnership with the New York Stock Exchange, IEG is providing a word-class platform to list these companies for trading, enabling the conversion of natural assets into financial capital. The NAC’s equity captures the intrinsic and productive value of nature and provides a store of value based on the vital assets that underpin our entire economy and make life on earth possible.
We believe that investment in nature via IEG can create financial value for natural asset owners and investors, while providing environmental and social benefits at scale and powering a transition to a truly sustainable, circular economy.
In 2021, we began seeking regulatory approval to bring the first natural asset transactions to the capital markets. Our vision is to bring to market hundreds of Natural Asset Companies representing several trillion dollars’ worth of natural assets."