The global ecological crisis has prompted the development of tools that try to redefine
relations between business and nature, among them, natural capital accounting
methodologies. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recently
set standards on which these methodologies are based. Other actors, including the
Big Four audit and accounting firms, developed their own methodologies outside
the scope of ISO. This chapter examines why and how ISO developed natural capital
accounting standards that are likely to compete with other methodologies. From the
assumption that standards are not just technical, but also political instruments, it
argues that they shape the future by creating power relations between actors within
and outside ISO. The chapter suggests that these ISO standards aims at competing
with first-movers’ methodologies, in particular on the power implications resulting
from transparency. It builds the argument on international political economy
approaches to emphasise the link between technical specifications and power
relations in contemporary capitalism.