The EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030 acknowledges that, despite substantial EU- efforts to better measure the full value of biodiversity and ecosystems for European socio-economic development, and better integrate this value into decision-making at all levels, further action is needed. EU Member States and -Parliament endorsed in the Strategy a renewed action to ‘Develop methods, criteria and standards to better integrate biodiversity considerations into public and business decision-making and to measure environmental footprint’ (Action 76) .
The EU has historically played a critical role in advancing, sharing, and harmonising global nature valuation, both at a conceptual level as well its application in concrete monitoring and accounting frameworks . The EEA has contributed in many different ways to this work , and continues to have an important responsibility in informing the further development of such methodological frameworks; support their application with key biodiversity data; and communicate findings in to support decision-making .
Accounting for ecosystems, their services, and the values they represent to society and actors within it, is critical to make better-informed decision making. Since 2021 the UN SEEA Ecosystem Accounting methodological handbook (SEEA EA) sets the global standard, of which ecosystem services accounting is an integral part. In July 2022, the European adopted a proposal to amend EU regulation on environmental accounts to introduce new accounts on ecosystems . The overarching objective of this assignment is to scope the feasibility of developing a more integrated EU nature valuation framework that captures all relevant nature values, both instrumental/anthropocentric (e.g. direct and indirect use, option value); intrinsic/biocentric (e.g. existence value); and relational/pluricentric (e.g. cultural, altruist value or bequest value), and herewith help deliver on the EU Biodiversity Strategy’s specific objective of better measuring and integrating the value of nature (Natural Capital Accounting) and herewith the broader objective of enabling transformative societal change towards biodiversity conservation (including restoration).
It aims to do so through three sub-objectives:
1. A description and assessment of the current state of play of integrated nature valuation frameworks that consider and encompass monetary, non-monetary and intrinsic approaches for valuing biodiversity and ecosystem services.
2. An assessment of the feasibility and potential added value of developing an EU-wide nature valuation framework that would provide a more multidimensional understanding of the wide-ranging benefits that ecosystems offer.
3. Consultation with key stakeholders on practical challenges, methodologies, and perceived validity of a framework as envisioned under (2), to help identify priorities for future development in terms of relevance, robustness and usability/cost-effectiveness.
Categories: Environment, Nature and Biodiversity, Nature-based Solutions