---
title: what the $44 trillion actually counts
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-the-44-trillion-actually-counts
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-the-44-trillion-actually-counts.md
subtitle: "read the report past the headline. the authors say all businesses depend, and that their method undercounts the supply chain."
category: nature-finance
---

# what the $44 trillion actually counts

*read the report past the headline. the authors say all businesses depend, and that their method undercounts the supply chain.*

The World Economic Forum's US$44 trillion is the share of global GDP, about 51%, generated by industry sectors whose direct operations were rated moderately or highly dependent on nature in 2020. It is a sector-level screening estimate. It is not a count of economic activity that depends on nature, and the report that produced it says so in plain words on the pages after the headline.

The **WEF 44 trillion** figure comes from *Nature Risk Rising*, written with PwC and published in January 2020. The soils, watersheds, pollinators and forests under every one of its 163 sectors keep working whether the sector's score comes out high, medium or low. [*Ensurance*](/natural-assets?from=guide) funds those places; it does not rate them. This post reads the report rather than the headline.

:::johnson
**read past the headline and the report agrees with you.** — "All businesses depend on natural capital assets and ecosystem services either directly or through their supply chains." That is page 13 of the report the US$44 trillion comes from.

[next: the shorter ruler →](/guide/follow-the-supply-chain-and-the-number-climbs?from=guide)
:::

## what the headline says, and what the report says

| the common reading | the report |
|---|---|
| US$44 trillion of economic value generation, over half of world GDP, is moderately or highly dependent on nature | Highly dependent industries generate 15% of global GDP (US$13 trillion); moderately dependent industries 37% (US$31 trillion). The headline covers 163 sectors' direct operations; supply chains are modelled separately (p. 14). |
| Half of GDP depends on nature | Page 12: "The global economy is embedded in Earth's broader ecosystems and is dependent upon them." Page 13 says all businesses depend, directly or through their supply chains; the sentence is in the box above. |
| The other half has low dependence | Page 14: six industries with less than 15% of direct value highly dependent carry hidden dependencies; more than 50% of their supply chains' value is highly or moderately dependent. They are chemicals and materials; aviation, travel and tourism; real estate; mining and metals; supply chain and transport; retail, consumer goods and lifestyle. |
| Low means none | Appendix A, pages 25 to 26: a consolidated sector score above 3.0 is high, 2.0 to 3.0 medium, below 2.0 low. Low is a score, not zero. |

Page and appendix references are to the printed report. Locators are from the founder's check of 9 November 2026; the sandbox this was drafted in cannot reach the source hosts.

## how the number was built

The method takes the ENCORE database, which rates how much each production process relies on each of a list of ecosystem services, and maps those ratings onto 163 industry sectors. Each sector gets a consolidated dependency score and a class. The report then expresses each class as a share of global GDP. That gives you the first tier of production. The report models direct operations and supply chains separately, and the headline number is the direct-operations one. It is a ruler with 163 marks on it, laid along the economy once.

Three things follow. The figure measures sectors, not firms or places; two companies in one sector score the same whatever ground they stand on. It measures direct operations, so what a sector buys is scored somewhere else on the same list. And it classifies by threshold, so a sector at 1.9 is low and a sector at 2.1 is medium, and the headline sums only the classes above the line. None of that is a flaw in the work. It is what a screening estimate is.

## what the 2023 update added

PwC re-ran the exercise in 2023 with newer data and one step further into value chains, and read 55% of GDP, about US$58 trillion. More useful than the new total are two sentences in the same report. First: "All 163 economic sectors analysed by PwC have a portion of their direct operations or supply chain that is highly dependent on nature." Not one sector is independent. Second, PwC's definition of its lowest class: "Low dependence means that economic value comes from business activities that are likely to experience limited material financial effects of ecosystem disruptions." Low is a judgment about the size of the financial effect, not a finding of independence; the source is in the list below.

## what the critics said at the time

Within a week of the 2020 report, Isabel Key and Nathalie Seddon at Oxford's Nature-based Solutions Initiative wrote that "the WEF report concedes that their methods underestimate nature's value, but they should be much clearer that this is the case." That is the whole critique in one line, and it is a critique of emphasis, not of honesty. The report concedes; the headline does not.

## what to do with the figure

Use it as a floor. It is the share of the economy where the dependence is direct enough, and the sector coarse enough, to clear a rating threshold at one tier. Beside it, put the reading from the next ruler down: [follow the supply chain and the number climbs](/guide/follow-the-supply-chain-and-the-number-climbs?from=guide). For a company rather than a sector, the two-list method in [every company depends on places it does not own](/guide/every-company-depends-on-places-it-does-not-own?from=guide) and [nature risk assessment, from TNFD to action](/guide/nature-risk-assessment-from-tnfd-to-action?from=guide) is where the mapping actually gets done; this post does not retell it.

Or [see the places the sectors stand on](/explore?from=guide).

This is research, not investment, legal or tax advice.

## frequently asked

### what is the wef 44 trillion figure?

The World Economic Forum and PwC's 2020 estimate that about US$44 trillion of economic value generation, 51% of global GDP, came from industry sectors whose direct operations were rated moderately (37%) or highly (15%) dependent on nature, using ENCORE dependency ratings across 163 sectors. The report itself says all businesses depend on nature directly or through their supply chains.

### what does low dependence on nature mean?

In the WEF method, a consolidated sector score below 2.0 on a scale that runs above 3.0. In PwC's 2023 words, business activities "likely to experience limited material financial effects of ecosystem disruptions". It is a judgment about the size of a financial effect at the first tier, not a finding that the sector is independent of nature.

### did the wef report say half the economy is independent of nature?

No. Pages 12 and 13 say the global economy is embedded in Earth's ecosystems and that all businesses depend on natural capital and ecosystem services, directly or through supply chains. The "independent half" is a reader's inference, not the report's claim.

## sources

[WEF and PwC, *Nature Risk Rising*, 2020](https://www.weforum.org/publications/new-nature-economy-report-series/nature-risk-rising/) — headline figures; printed pp. 12–14 and Appendix A pp. 25–26 (copy checked at [UNCCD](https://www.unccd.int/sites/default/files/library/1369_WEF_New_Nature_Economy_Report_2020.pdf)). [PwC, *Managing nature risks*, 2023](https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/strategy-and-business/content/sbpwc-2023-04-19-Managing-nature-risks-v2.pdf) — 55%, all 163 sectors, definition of low dependence. [Key and Seddon, Nature-based Solutions Initiative, 22 January 2020](https://www.naturebasedsolutionsinitiative.org/news/the-wef-calls-for-a-shift-towards-nature-positive-economy/).

## the series

1. [the trillion dollar ruler](/guide/the-trillion-dollar-ruler?from=guide)
2. [what the $44 trillion actually counts](/guide/what-the-44-trillion-actually-counts?from=guide)
3. [follow the supply chain and the number climbs](/guide/follow-the-supply-chain-and-the-number-climbs?from=guide)
4. [the economy is a subsystem](/guide/the-economy-is-a-subsystem?from=guide)
5. [the economy is the smaller number](/guide/the-economy-is-the-smaller-number?from=guide)
6. [you cannot diversify out of the plate](/guide/you-cannot-diversify-out-of-the-plate?from=guide)