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22 February 2024

Accelerating transformation across Europe

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IDEEA Group is excited to let you know that we are part of a consortium that will work to accelerate the use of natural capital approaches in decision making across Europe. By encouraging a critical mass of European businesses, financial institutions and governments to integrate natural capital in their decision making, the consortium is confident of making an important contribution to halting and reversing biodiversity loss both in Europe and globally.

The project is called ‘Accelerating TRAnsformation through Capitals Knowledge’ (A-Track). It will contribute to the European Green Deal and will also build on existing initiatives and best practice to develop, pilot, test, demonstrate and scale innovations in this space.

A-Track is funded by Horizon Europe, the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation.

What will A-Track achieve?

Over the next four years, A-Track will:

  • develop and demonstrate the use of robust information about European biodiversity for use in natural capital accounts
  • strengthen the life cycle assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services that products and organisations create, integrating these with natural capital approaches
  • advance natural capital accounting in businesses, integrating it into decision-making across key sectors and business functions
  • facilitate and incentivize the adoption and scaling of nature-positive business models
  • nurture financial innovations to scale nature-positive finance based on reliable natural capital data and practice.

A-Track will place an emphasis on integration, synthesis and wide engagement across this work. The project will:

  • deliver wider impacts in Europe and beyond through global value chains
  • enhance natural capital and biodiversity
  • make European businesses highly competitive in the new nature economy
  • improve human wellbeing derived from enhanced ecosystem services.

Who is working on A-Track?

The members of the consortium are:

  • Capitals Coalition
  • World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
  • Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)
  • Vlaamse Instelling Voor Technologisch Onderzoek N.V. (VITO)
  • UNEP- World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC)
  • Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL)
  • IDEEA Global
  • Fraunhofer Institute
  • Tecnalia
  • University Of Stuttgart
  • OPPLA

IDEEA Group is primarily working on developing biodiversity information pathways with the aim of demonstrating how the combination of private and public section information can be used to support decision making and various applications at corporate and government levels.

Want to know more?

We’ll provide regular updates as the A-Track project unfolds.

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Director

Mark Eigenraam

Mark has worked in natural capital accounting for over 20 years. He's helped develop environmental markets. And he's worked in academic institutions and government agencies at all levels.
Mark produced Australia’s first set of experimental ecosystem accounts. He also worked at the United Nations in New York on the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) – the international standard.
Mark advises organisations around the world in the application of natural capital accounting. He develops processes and systems that highlight nature-based risks and opportunities.
Mark has a Master of Commerce, Economics, from the University of Melbourne.
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DIRECTOR

Carl Obst

Carl is a global leader in natural capital accounting. He helps organisations around the world measure the benefits of nature.
Carl was the lead author of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) – the international standard.
Carl has a background in national accounts, including five years as head of the Australian National Accounts with the Australian Bureau of Statistics. He uses natural capital accounting to help organisations make effective and sustainable decisions.
Carl has a Bachelor of Economics, Econometrics, from the University of New England (AU).
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Senior Economist

Daniel Whitaker

Dan is an experienced practitioner in economics, science, risk management and finance.
His expertise includes natural capital accounting, non-market valuation, nature- and climate-related risk analysis, sustainable finance, environmental-economic modelling and carbon and energy economics and accounting.
Earlier in his career, Dan worked as a sustainability and climate change consultant in PwC’s Risk Consulting team. He then held a position at the National Australia Bank, where he advised on financial and non-financial risk management. This included considerable work on climate risk scenario analysis.
In his role with IDEEA, Dan supports public and private sector organisations on the use of natural capital data in investment decision-making, risk management and economic analysis.
Dan holds a Master of Applied Economics and Econometrics from Monash University.
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Senior Economic Analyst

Lachlan Dawson

Lachlan is an adaptable, curious and details focused economist with a passion for sustainably managing Australia’s natural capital. His experience encompasses environmental economic accounts, carbon and biodiversity markets and economic modelling.
Prior to joining IDEEA Group, Lachlan worked as a Nature-Climate Solutions Manager with BirdLife Australia and as a Consultant in Environmental Economics with Marsden Jacob Associates.
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Economist

Ziggy Gelman

Ziggy is an experienced economist who is passionate about identifying the contribution that ecosystems have to our economy and society. In his role with IDEEA Group, Ziggy provides technical analysis of economic and environmental data and supports organisations to understand and integrate a natural capital approach into their operations.
Ziggy has experience in compiling accounts in Victoria, having worked on ecosystem accounts for urban Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks, Victoria’s forests and Victoria’s marine and coastal region.
Prior to working at IDEEA Group, Ziggy worked with the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. Ziggy has a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics and Finance) from the University of Melbourne.
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Research Analyst

Maria Angelopoulos

Maria ensures that our client work is accurate, timely and concise. Her broad-reaching research work underpins our natural capital approaches, especially in relation to mapping and collating existing policies and data, and identifying themes.
Maria previously worked as a Research Assistant for Melbourne University’s School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences where she supported the review of the Montreal Process’ Criteria and Indicator framework on sustainable forest management in Victoria.
Maria holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Environment (Master level program) from the University of Melbourne.
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Implementation Support

Michelle Butler

Michelle is dedicated to understanding our clients’ needs and helping them to harness their data to achieve meaningful impact stories and actionable insights.
Her career is marked by a deep commitment to the Victorian landscape and over 30 years in public service, agriculture and the environment sector. Michelle has worked regionally in diverse roles in field science, advised landholders in revegetation and land management, trained teachers, property owners and Landcare facilitators in natural resource management, coordinated statewide grant, crowd-funded and market-based programs, and managed expert teams advising government on biodiversity issues.
Michelle has applied science, teaching and workplace training experience and qualifications.
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Head of Advisory and Solutions

Muheed Jamaldeen

Muheed is an economist who helps governments and companies value nature, natural hazards and climate risk, and use those values to make investment decisions. He leads IDEEA’s advisory practice, covering cost-benefit analysis, business cases, economic modelling and forecasting, ecosystem service valuation, input-output modelling and nature-related disclosure.
Muheed is focused on the interection between climate and nature, and has undertaken studies for both public and private sector clients applying advanced econometric modelling and spatial analytics to tackle some of Australia’s trickiest policy and strategy questions.
Prior to IDEEA, Muheed was a Director at Deloitte Access Economics, where he led the NSW land-use and infrastructure economics practice. Before that he was an Assistant Director at the Federal Treasury, and former Senior Economist at Oxfam. He holds a Master of Economics and a Bachelor of Economics (Hons) from Macquarie University.
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GIS Specialist

Daniel Vardon

Daniel manages IDEEA Group’s spatial data infrastructure, ensuring all geospatial datasets are standardised, catalogued and easily accessible across projects.
Daniel develops and maintains workflows that translate raw spatial data into accounts-ready formats for natural capital and environmental reporting. He is passionate about supporting natural capital accounting with high-quality spatial information and analysis.
Daniel has a Bachelor of Environmental Science from the Australian National University and is currently studying for a Master of Geospatial Science at RMIT.