ARCHIVE: How do I value the benefits I get from these ecosystem services?

Defra has produced an introductory guide which will help you make a start on valuing the benefits society is getting from ecosystem services you have identified as important to your policy or decision.

The key questions you need to answer are:

  • What are the relevant ecosystem services, and how much are they providing at the moment?
  • What are the potential impacts of policy options on those ecosystem services?
  • What is the size of those impacts for each ecosystem service?
  • How do those impacts affect human welfare?
  • Therefore, what is the value of the changes in ecosystem services?

Defra has also produced more detailed practical guidance on valuing environmental impacts, relating to how to make the most of existing valuation evidence by ‘transferring’ it to your own policy situation:

Value Transfer

Value transfer refers to the use of existing economic valuation evidence in a new policy appraisal context. We have produced detailed practical guidelines which set out best practice for valuing environmental impacts in policy appraisal:     

This practical guidance is backed up by the Value Transfer Strategy that sets out steps to enable better incorporation of valuation evidence into policy and decision making, from developing and consolidating the valuation evidence base to opportunities for raising the capacity of analysts across Government to undertake such analysis.

Further guidance on valuation

We are also in the process of updating our environmental impact guidance which links to the main Impact Assessment Guidance from BRE and will provide a clearer link to valuing ecosystem services.

We have recently reviewed how the environment is accounted for in policy appraisal in Defra and produced a short report of our findings which can help you to improve and increase the use of environmental valuation in your work:

The Government Economics Service is conducting a review of the economics of sustainable development and how it is helping to inform policy decisions.  An interim report (PDF 595 KB) focuses on the economic impacts of breaching environmental limits.

Defra has produced a paper setting out key definitions and broad principles for payments for ecosystems and outlining further work that is planned:

Defra has funded research into the valuation of ecosystem services, which discusses the different techniques you might use and contains some useful information about how you might go about putting all of this information together.

Page last modified: 18 October 2010
Page published: 11 December 2009