--- title: what you depend on canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-you-depend-on markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-you-depend-on.md subtitle: "the inward direction: the relations that provide your condition, the value that comes along them, and the account that can pay for it" category: nature-finance --- # what you depend on *the inward direction: the relations that provide your condition, the value that comes along them, and the account that can pay for it* What do you depend on? Ask it about one operation and one place. A water utility's answer is an intake and the forest above it. A ranch on the Crystal River in Colorado depends on its ditch, the snowpack that fills it, the meadow upstream that slows the melt, and the neighbors who keep the headgate working. Every answer is a relation before it is anything else. **What you depend on is the set of relations that provide your condition: the places, people, and purposes you are connected to upstream, upwind, and along the corridor, and the value that comes to you along each one, from water and shade to the care and work of the people who keep them.** Picture one valley. The headwater forest above Marble, the beaver meadow below it, the aquifer beneath the valley, the trout in the cold reach, and the towns downstream that drink from all of them already depend on each other, in both directions, whether or not anyone opens an account. **[Ensurance](/?from=guide)** gives each of them an account so the dependence can carry money both ways. The account is not the forest, and money is only the part of the value an account can carry. ## the list you already wrote ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks and Exposure) maps economic sectors and production processes to the ecosystem services they depend on and the pressures they create. It is the right first pass, and it has found real exposure. Its unit is the sector and the process, so a company still has to bring its own sites to learn which reach sits above which intake. The move from sector score to pathway is made in [the missing object is the graph](/guide/the-missing-object-is-the-graph?from=guide). The second limit is not grain. TNFD's LEAP approach already asks about impacts, what an organization does to nature, as well as dependencies. Who downstream depends on you is a different question, and a report is not an address that can receive anything; [every company depends on places it does not own](/guide/every-company-depends-on-places-it-does-not-own?from=guide) tells the company's side. That is the trap: reading dependency in one direction only. ## relation first, then value, then money An account looks two ways, at what it leans on and at what leans on it ([the first post](/guide/every-account-has-two-lists?from=guide) sets out both). This post takes the inward one, in the order it happens. **Relation.** List one is who and what you are connected to on the receiving side: the forest and the town, the meadow and the ranch, the keeper and the kept. **Value.** Along each relation something moves: water, shade, held sediment, pollination, cold water, and also care, work, knowledge, and meaning. Harm moves the same way. Most of it is never priced. Its worth is intrinsic and [relational](/guide/what-is-relational-value?from=guide), and a price is a bridge to it, not a measure of it. **Money.** Then an account can carry its share of that value. It buys the certificates of the places on its first list and holds or trades the coins of the purposes on it. An **account** is what a place, a group of people, or a purpose holds in its own name. A **certificate** is a share in one named place or line. A **coin** is a currency for a purpose or theme wider than one place. Money follows the relation and the value. It never stands in for them. Ditch companies, land trusts, and water funds already take money for these relations; an account adds an address the living thing can be paid at and a holding anyone can read. *You do not fund nature in general. You fund your first list.* Care is specific: the first check goes to a named place or purpose on your list, not to nature in general, as [how to start paying for the nature you depend on](/guide/how-to-start-paying-for-the-nature-you-depend-on?from=guide) shows. ## three accounts, three first lists ### a people account: the town and its utility Picture a town downstream on the Roaring Fork, related to the forest above its intake, the snowpack, and the reach between. Along them come clean, steady water and the work of those who keep the forest and ditch. Its account can buy a certificate in a place it names where one exists, and the coin for [clean water](/clean-water.ensurance?from=guide). The reaches already have place accounts: [crystal-river.basin](/crystal-river.basin?from=guide) and [roaring-fork.basin](/roaring-fork.basin?from=guide). ### a place account: the ranch below the meadow A ranch on the Crystal is a place, and a place can hold an account. It is related to the beaver meadow upstream and the slope above its ditch. Along them can come a higher water table, a slower melt, and soil that stays on the hill. Its account can buy a certificate in the meadow once the meadow has an account, a place buying a place, and the coin for [erosion control](/erosion-control.ensurance?from=guide). ### a purpose account: cold water for the trout The trout do not buy anything. An account kept for cold water can. A person or group keeps it and signs; the account is an address for the purpose, not title to the river or a claim on the fish. Cold water is related to the shaded reaches and to the purposes it needs, [habitat](/habitat.ensurance?from=guide) and [climate stability](/climate-stability.ensurance?from=guide). Along them come shade, depth, and temperature. Its account can hold the reach certificates and those coins. | account | related to | value that comes along it | what the account can buy | |---|---|---|---| | The town or its utility (people) | The headwater forest, the reach | Clean, steady water; the keepers' work | A certificate in the forest or reach, where one exists; clean-water coin | | The ranch (place) | The beaver meadow, the slope | A higher water table; soil that holds | A certificate in the meadow, once it has an account; erosion-control coin | | Cold water (purpose) | Shaded reaches, habitat, climate stability | Shade, depth, temperature | Reach certificates; habitat and climate-stability coins | Two rows are same-leg relations, place to place and purpose to purpose: expected, not odd. List one also carries harm received. A burned slope sends smoke downwind and, after the first heavy rain, sediment down toward the intake; same relation, reversed sign, and the town can choose to fund the work at the source. :::johnson **what you lean on is a relation first, and only then something you can hold.** Name them at the grain of a named place, say what comes along each, then check what the account holds against them. [see named places with certificates →](/specific?from=guide) ::: ## the test you can run on any account page Holdings reveal alignment. An account that claims a purpose and holds nothing on its first list has a credibility gap, and you can check this on any account, ours included. Every account page has a portfolio tab: the assets and currencies the account currently owns. Take [water-cycle.syndicate](/water-cycle.syndicate?from=guide), a purpose account that, per its own page, coordinates investment in the water cycle across basins. Then ask: 1. **What does the account say it is for?** Its purpose and place are on the page. 2. **What is it related to on the receiving side?** The water, weather, slope, corridor, and people that purpose needs. 3. **What does it hold?** Open [the portfolio tab](/water-cycle.syndicate/portfolio?from=guide). The distance between the second answer and the third is a question to ask, not a verdict. A newly opened account may hold nothing yet, and a holding shows what an account did with its own balance, not whether the place is better for it. ## what an account can do about its list An account can buy a coin, sell a coin, and swap one for another. It can mint a certificate and pay for it from its own balance. Accounts do not create coins or certificates: people mint, accounts suggest. A program kind called **dependency allocation** is meant to support the accounts that provide an account's condition. Today it ranks other accounts by shared place, purpose, and people, and writes a one-line reason on every step, so each trade says why it was made. It moves coins toward the top-ranked accounts; a certificate is still minted by a person. The water, weather, and corridor edges are planned and are not in the ranking yet. A second kind, for related certificates, is meant to stay manual. A person confirms each action unless they have switched a program on, as laid out in [the account proposes, you confirm](/guide/the-account-proposes-you-confirm?from=guide). ## where this leaves you A dependency assessment is a draft of your first list: narrow it to named places, write what comes along each relation, then look for the accounts, or [write to us](/contact?from=guide&topic=both-directions). Then turn around, because something depends on you too: [who depends on you](/guide/who-depends-on-you?from=guide). ## frequently asked questions ### what do you depend on? What you depend on is the set of relations that provide your condition: water and what sits above the intake, weather and what is upwind, slope and soil, pollinators and corridors, and the people who keep each. Most of that value is never priced; an account carries its part by holding those places' certificates and those purposes' coins. ### can a company's account hold a place's certificate? Yes. Any account can hold another account's certificate and coins, and its page shows what it holds. A company's account can mint the certificate of a place on its first list with its own balance; a person at the company confirms unless a program has been switched on. A certificate mint pays that account's funds recipient. A certificate is a policy where the place is titled and a line where it is not. It gives no title to the land and no say over the people who keep it. ### what if the place i depend on has no account? Suggest one under a parent account that already exists, such as water-cycle.syndicate: [co-create the meadow above your intake](/specific/create?mode=suggest&agent=water-cycle.syndicate&name=meadow%20above%20my%20intake&from=guide). A person reviews the suggestion before anything is minted. A place is only worth an account if the people who keep it want one. Meanwhile the coin for the purpose that place serves, such as [clean water](/clean-water.ensurance?from=guide), can already sit on your list. ## sources [ENCORE](https://encorenature.org/) — maps economic sectors and production processes to the ecosystem services they depend on and the pressures they create, at sector level, not parcel level [TNFD, "Guidance on the identification and assessment of nature-related issues: the LEAP approach"](https://tnfd.global/publication/additional-guidance-on-assessment-of-nature-related-issues-the-leap-approach/) — Locate, Evaluate dependencies and impacts, Assess, Prepare ## the series **both directions** — six posts on the two lists every account has: the relations, the value that moves along them, and the money that can follow. 1. [every account has two lists](/guide/every-account-has-two-lists?from=guide) — read first 2. **what you depend on** — you are here 3. [who depends on you](/guide/who-depends-on-you?from=guide) 4. [a bid on both ends of every edge](/guide/a-bid-on-both-ends-of-every-edge?from=guide) 5. [no single funder, no single supplier](/guide/no-single-funder-no-single-supplier?from=guide) 6. [how to write your two lists](/guide/how-to-write-your-two-lists?from=guide)