ARTICLE: What Gets Measured Can Be Managed – “Over the past year, we have improved the logic of the Ecological Accounting Protocol,” wrote Tim Pringle, EAP Initiative Chair (Asset Management BC Newsletter, Winter 2017)
What Gets Measured Gets Managed
In November 2015, and with release of Beyond the Guidebook 2015: Moving Toward “Sustainable Watershed Systems, through Asset Management”, the Partnership launched a process to introduce the Ecological Accounting Protocol (EAP) into standard practice.
“EAP is one of the twin technical pillars for the whole-system, water balance approach that would refocus business processes to properly manage watershed systems within the built environment,” wrote Tim Pringle the second of two companion articles published in the Winter 2017 issue of the Asset Management BC Newsletter.
Tim Pringle is the Chair, Ecological Accounting Protocol Initiative.
Getting the Logic Right
“The EAP approach begins by first recognizing the importance of a stream in a natural state and then asking: how can we maintain those ecological values while allowing the stream to be used for drainage.”
“EAP is a method of ascertaining economic values of services drawn from natural assets. It is a tool for practitioners in the local government setting. The purpose of EAP is to help practitioners calculate the opportunity cost of drainage infrastructure.
“If natural assets and derived services variables are not measured, they will not be managed in the context of drainage infrastructure.”
To Learn More:
Download Vision for Ecological Accounting Protocol – A Tool to Calculate the Opportunity Cost of Drainage Infrastructure to read the complete article as published in the Winter 2017 issue of the Asset Management BC Newsletter.
Download Getting the Most from Infrastructure Assets: Ecological Accounting Protocol (Part 2 of 2) to read the article by Tim Pringle as published in the September 2016 issue of the Asset Management BC Newsletter.
Download Getting the Most from Infrastructure Assets: The Idea of Ecological Accounting (Part 1 of 2) to read the article published in the Winter 2016 issue of the Asset Management BC Newsletter.
The graphic below illustrates where the EAP would fit within the provincial framework for Living Water Smart and Building Greener Communities.
