A Very Beautiful Place

Welcome to the home of the open source model for

We are developing an open-source framework for pre-budget analysis that integrates real resource constraints, human needs, and planetary boundary impacts into public financial decision-making. By connecting budget allocations to economic activities and environmental pressures, the framework makes the biophysical consequences of fiscal policy visible before spending decisions are made. The aim is to improve government decision-making by aligning fiscal policy with both resource realities and ecological sustainability.

Version 1.6.2 is the first public baseline release of the Real Capital Canonical Data Model. It establishes the core structure for representing real capital, its maturity, stewardship and relationship to financial allocations. It is released for public examination and practical testing. The model is not considered final, and the project invites proposals for improvement.

Why the model exists

Governments manage vast stocks of national wealth—forests, infrastructure, institutions, and skills—yet lack a common language to measure their condition, connect them to budgets, or assess their pressure on the Earth’s life-support systems. The Planetary Health Check 2026 diagnoses that seven of nine Planetary Boundaries are now transgressed, but it stops short of telling us which national budget lines are driving this pressure, or which human needs those expenditures serve.

The Solution: A Canonical Data Model for Real Capital

This site presents a Real Capital Canonical Data Model (CDM). It is a standardized framework designed to integrate the management, measurement, and budgeting of four capital types: Natural, Built, Social, and Human.

A CDM is fundamentally a translation interface. Just as a universal power adapter allows devices with different plugs to connect to a single socket, the CDM allows different authorities (EU, national, regional) to report data using their own enums, languages, and systems, and translate them into a common, comparable format.

The model is built on six architectural modules the ones not yet released are in red.

Core CDM: The master register of assets, objectives, activities, and financial allocations, aligned with ISO 55001.
Module A (MMT): Shifts the budget constraint from financial solvency to real resource availability.
Module B (Translation Layer): Bridges disparate source systems and authority enums.
Module C (Planetary Boundaries): Bridges Earth system science to fiscal policy.
Module D (Borden’s Tetrahedron): Operationalizes democratic provisioning via the ALE (Asset-Liability-Equity) dashboard.
Module E (Circularity): Captures the circular economy capability and performance of built capital.
Module F (Territorial Resilience): Grounds the model in the physical and fiscal reality of real estate and land use.

The Four Key Innovations

1. The Translation Layer (Module B)
Authorities speak different languages. The EU Nature Restoration Regulation uses a 3-state enum (Good, Not Good, Unknown), while the Habitats Directive uses a 4-state enum (FV, U1, U2, XX). The CDM formalizes an EnumMapping and ReconciliationRules layer. It accepts source data as-is, translates it to a canonical maturity scale (1-5), and preserves the original data for audit.

2. Maturity-Based Stewardship (Core)
Rather than valuing capital in money, the CDM measures Maturity—the capability of a capital stock to deliver necessary services. A highway at maturity level 2 (degraded) requires an ENHANCE or RESTORE activity to reach target level 4. This allows budget lines to be linked directly to physical interventions rather than abstract financial depreciation.

3. Module C: The Boundary-Adjusted Budget
Module C introduces five entities that connect national budgets to the Planetary Boundaries: EconomicActivity (NACE), HumanNeed, PlanetaryBoundary, PressureAttribution, and BudgetAllocation. This enables the production of a Boundary-Adjusted Budget—a parliamentary annex that reports every expenditure in both monetary and boundary terms (e.g., “This 3.2B SEK fossil fuel subsidy creates 18.5 MtCO?e of climate pressure”).

4. Module D: The ALE Dashboard
Borden’s four imperatives—Ecological Stability Guarantee, Full Employment Guarantee, Universal Basic Services, Universal Basic Assets—are operationalized via the Asset-Liability-Equity (ALE) dashboard. The asset_target (normative), equity_current (actual), and liability_gap (shortfall) are computed for each capital stock, enabling democratic deliberation over a structured, multi-unit dashboard rather than a single master number.

The Model – Definition of Real Capital

Real Capital is defined as:

Something that is used in the production of goods and services to society, but not used up.

Capital is necessary but not sufficient to provide services; it is utilised within a production system. The value of Real Capital cannot be expressed in money—only the investment needed to keep it mature.

The Four Capital Types

Capital Type	Definition
Natural Capital	The living layer we all rely on, the layer beneath our feet with minerals and substances from the lithosphere, and natural systems like the climate and water cycle.
Built Capital	All man-made things used to provide our basic needs: houses, roads, factories, equipment, tools, and systems like telecoms and payments.
Social Capital	Our organisations and institutions, including the knowledge and capability held within them.
Human Capital	What we as humans command in terms of strength, knowledge, insights, attitude, and capabilities.

Introduce the four capital types, the asset register, maturity, lifecycle activities and the relationship to budgeting.

03 · DOCUMENTATION

Read the baseline 1.6.2 documentation here

04 · PARTICIPATE

Help develop the model

Invite comments, questions, corrections, proposed changes and practical testing.

05 · GOVERNANCE

How the model is maintained

Explain ownership, administration, decision-making, versioning and the review process.

06 · RELEASES

Follow development

Provide the current release, previous releases, proposed changes and the development roadmap.

erDiagram
    AssetPortfolio ||--o{ AssetManagementObjective : "has"
    AssetPortfolio ||--o{ AssetPerformanceRecord : "has"
    AssetPortfolio ||--o{ AssetHealthIndicator : "has"
    AssetPortfolio ||--o{ AssetRisk : "has"
    AssetPortfolio ||--o{ LifecycleActivity : "has"
    AssetPortfolio ||--o{ AssetPressure : "experiences"
    AssetPortfolio ||--o{ AssetMaturityHistory : "tracks"
    
    LifecycleActivity }o--|| AssetPerformanceRecord : "targets (if performance)"
    LifecycleActivity ||--o{ FinancialResourceAllocation : "funded_by"
    LifecycleActivity ||--o{ RealResourceConstraint : "requires"
    LifecycleActivity ||--o{ InflationMonitoring : "monitored_by"
    
    AssetPressure }o--|| EconomicActivity : "caused_by"
    AssetPressure }o--|| UnitOfMeasure : "measured_in"
    
    RealEstate ||--o| AssetPortfolio : "hosts"
    RealEstate }o--|| Region : "belongs_to"
    Region ||--o{ LandUseProfile : "has"
    
    EnumMapping }o--|| AssetPortfolio : "translates"
    ReconciliationRules }o--|| AssetPortfolio : "reconciles"
    
    AssetManagementObjective }o--|| MaturityScale : "targets"
    AssetPortfolio }o--|| MaturityScale : "currently_at"