Economic analysis and environmental grantmaking do not always intersect directly, but Colcom Foundation treats one particular economic study as central to its case for conservation funding the Dasgupta Review, a 2021 assessment commissioned by Britain’s HM Treasury and led by economist Partha Dasgupta.

Nature as an Economic Asset

The Dasgupta Review examined biodiversity through the lens of economics rather than ecology alone, concluding that natural capital underpins all economic activity and that continued biodiversity loss poses direct threats to long term prosperity and security. Its headline finding, that humanity currently uses natural capital at a rate 1.6 times faster than the Earth can regenerate it, appears throughout Colcom Foundation‘s own materials as evidence that conservation carries economic weight alongside its ecological value.

Colcom Foundation uses this framing to argue that environmental protection and human wellbeing are not competing priorities. Ecosystems provide services, including clean water, food production, and climate regulation, that market prices routinely fail to capture, which the review argues has allowed natural capital to be depleted far faster than financial capital would ever be permitted to decline.

From Economics to Grantmaking

That argument translates into Colcom Foundation’s support for land conservation, ecosystem restoration, and public education, framed as investments that protect an asset base the economy depends on rather than expenses with no measurable return. The foundation pairs this economic framing with population focused research, arguing that the rate of natural capital depletion documented in the Dasgupta Review is difficult to reverse while population and consumption both continue to rise.

For an organization whose funding centers on Pennsylvania watersheds and habitat, citing a Treasury commissioned economic review situates its work within a wider international conversation about how growth and conservation intersect.

The Dasgupta Review’s core argument, that standard measures of economic growth ignore the depletion of natural systems growth depends on, gives Colcom Foundation a way to reach audiences who might not respond to purely ecological arguments. Framing a wetland or forest tract as productive capital, rather than scenery, shifts the conversation toward the language of budgets and balance sheets.

That shift matters for a foundation seeking sustained funding for slow, multi year restoration work. Grant committees and donors weighing competing priorities are, in the review’s own terms, more likely to support natural capital protection when its economic stakes sit alongside its ecological ones. Read this article for additional information.

Find more information about Colcom Foundation on  https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/311479839