---
title: a natural asset company does not own the land
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/a-natural-asset-company-does-not-own-the-land
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/a-natural-asset-company-does-not-own-the-land.md
subtitle: it holds a right the landowner keeps the title to
category: nature-finance
---

# a natural asset company does not own the land

*it holds a right the landowner keeps the title to*

A **natural asset company** was designed to be owned by shareholders, and the land it worked on was designed to be owned by someone else. That was not a loophole. It was the design. The landowner keeps the deed. The company licenses **ecological performance rights** — a contractual right to manage a piece of land for ecological outcomes and to hold the value those outcomes produce — and sells shares in itself.

The meadow, the working forest, the wetland, or the field exists either way. It was there before the license and it stays after the license ends. A natural asset company was one serious attempt to price what that land does. It was never a way to own it.

:::johnson
**a nature-based reit would own the land. a natural asset company does not.** — The company holds a licensed right to ecological performance. The landowner keeps the title.

[what a nature-based reit actually is →](/guide/what-a-nature-based-reit-actually-is?from=guide)
:::

## what a natural asset company was built to hold

### what is a natural asset company?

A natural asset company (NAC) is a corporation whose charter makes ecological performance its primary purpose. Intrinsic Exchange Group developed the concept beginning in 2017, and the New York Stock Exchange joined as a listing partner in 2021. The company would hold licensed rights over a defined area of land or water, manage that area for conservation, restoration, or sustainable use, and report two ways: standard financial statements, plus an annual ecological performance report valuing the ecosystem services the land produces.

Shareholders would own the company. The company would own a license. The landowner — a private owner, a public agency, or a sovereign government — would own the land.

### what are ecological performance rights?

**Ecological performance rights** are the rights to the value of a natural asset's ecosystem services, together with the authority to manage that asset for conservation and restoration. In the NAC design they were licensed from the landowner for a term. The proposed listing standard would have required at least ten years, and longer or perpetual terms were expected. The filing described them as analogous to mineral or water rights that run with the land, and would have required disclosure that they were distinct from fee-simple ownership. The analogy was about how the right would attach to the land. The standard still would have set a minimum term, so the right was not a perpetual interest.

Read that carefully, because it is the whole distinction. A mineral right lets you take ore from land you do not own. An ecological performance right lets you manage, measure, and monetize what the land produces ecologically — carbon held, water filtered, habitat kept intact — on land you do not own. The deed does not move.

## rights versus title

| | ecological performance rights (NAC) | fee-simple title (what a REIT would hold) |
|---|---|---|
| who holds it | the company, under license | the owner of record |
| what it is | a contractual right to manage the land and capture its ecological value | ownership of the land itself |
| how long it lasts | the license term | until the land is sold or conveyed |
| what the landowner keeps | the deed, and everything the license did not grant | nothing, once the land is sold |
| what the shareholder owns | equity in a company that holds a license | equity in a company that holds land |

### does a natural asset company own the land?

No. In the listing standards the NYSE filed with the SEC, a natural asset company would have held licensed ecological performance rights. The landowner who granted the license would have kept the title. The company's disclosures would have had to say so. A company in that design could exist only where a landowner chose to grant the license. No grant, no company.

That design had a purpose. It let a landowner participate in an ecological-value market without selling the ranch, the forest tract, or the national park. It also meant the company's shareholders did not own the land they were investing in. Both statements are true at once, and neither one is a criticism.

## what happened to the listing

In September 2021, the NYSE and Intrinsic Exchange Group announced natural asset companies as a new listed asset class, with a Costa Rica pilot supported by the Inter-American Development Bank. In September 2023, the NYSE filed proposed listing standards with the SEC. The comment period drew substantial opposition, including from state attorneys general, state treasurers, and ranching and mining interests concerned about restrictions on land use. On January 17, 2024, the NYSE withdrew the proposal. The rule never took effect.

No natural asset company was ever listed. Intrinsic Exchange Group still advances the concept. What closed was the US public-listing path. The reporting framework outlived the vehicle: in 2025, Fordham University's Gabelli School took stewardship of the Natural Capital Accounting Principles, and a standards board formed around them. The accounting idea kept going. The public equity path did not.

None of that makes the attempt foolish. Pricing what a wetland does, in a form a shareholder can read, is a hard problem someone had to try first. The lesson this series takes from it is narrower: the vehicle was built on rights, and a right over land is not the same asset as the land.

## what each reader was actually being offered

**Landowners.** In the NAC design the landowner would have kept the title. They would have licensed ecological performance rights for a term, received payment under the license, and accepted management restrictions on the land for as long as it ran. When the license ended, the rights would have returned to them. They would not have stopped being the owner of record.

**Investors.** A shareholder would have bought common stock in a company whose principal asset was a license. The return, in the design, would have come from the ecological performance report rising in value, from any monetized services (carbon, water, tourism, regenerative agriculture), and from the market rerating the shares. There was no distribution requirement, and the land itself was not what the company held.

**Land stewards.** A land trust or conservancy managing land it does not own already knows this shape. A conservation easement is a perpetual interest in the real property. A management agreement or a grazing lease is a term right. Each sits over someone else's title, and they are not the same interest. The NAC put that shape inside a listed company. The steward did not become the owner in either case.

## the ownership alternative

Here is the line this series rests on: **A nature-based REIT would own the land. A natural asset company does not.**

A [nature-based REIT](/guide/what-a-nature-based-reit-actually-is?from=guide) would take fee-simple title to the meadow, forest, wetland, or field, hold it so nature-based solutions can keep working there, and pass at least 90% of its taxable income through to shareholders, as any REIT must. If the land earns little, the check is small. That opens a different set of questions — about income, tax tests, and who would buy the shares — and the rest of this series takes them one at a time. This is a public question about a structure, not an offering, and nothing here is investment or tax advice.

Neither wrapper is the living thing. The company held a right to the meadow's performance. The REIT would hold the deed. The meadow is still the meadow, and someone still has to fund its condition. [Ensurance](https://ensurance.app/?from=guide) funds the condition of the land, which neither holding a right nor holding a deed does, whether the title sits with a landowner, a trust, or a REIT.

For the object cut — why the company is not the asset even when it holds the rights — read [a natural asset company is not the asset](/guide/a-natural-asset-company-is-not-the-asset?from=guide) and [what a natural asset actually is](/guide/what-a-natural-asset-actually-is?from=guide).

## sources

[SEC — NYSE proposed rule SR-NYSE-2023-09](https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/nyse/2023/34-98665.pdf) — proposed listing standards for natural asset companies, including the definition of ecological performance rights and the minimum license term

[Cooley PubCo — NYSE withdraws NAC listing standards (January 2024)](https://cooleypubco.com/2024/01/22/nyse-listing-standards-nacs/) — the withdrawal and the comment record

[NYSE and Intrinsic Exchange Group partnership announcement (2021)](https://ir.theice.com/press/news-details/2021/NYSE-and-Intrinsic-Exchange-Group-Partner-to-Launch-a-New-Asset-Class-to-Power-a-Sustainable-Future/default.aspx)

[Fordham Gabelli — Natural Capital Accounting Principles and NAASB](https://www.fordham.edu/gabelli-school-of-business/industry-collaborations/responsible-business-center/natural-capital-accounting-principles--naasb/) — stewardship of the reporting framework after the listing path closed

[Intrinsic Exchange Group — how NACs work](https://www.intrinsicexchange.com/hownacswork)

## the series

1. [what a nature-based reit actually is](/guide/what-a-nature-based-reit-actually-is?from=guide)
2. [a natural asset company does not own the land](/guide/a-natural-asset-company-does-not-own-the-land?from=guide) — this post
3. [where a nature reit would get paid](/guide/where-a-nature-reit-would-get-paid?from=guide)
4. [who would buy a low-yield nature reit](/guide/who-would-buy-a-low-yield-nature-reit?from=guide)