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Twenty-five years since foundational publications on valuing ecosystem services for human well-being 1,2 , addressing the global biodiversity crisis 3 still implies confronting barriers to incorporating nature's diverse values into decision-making. These barriers include powerful interests supported by current norms and legal rules such as property rights, which determine whose values and which values of nature are acted on. A better understanding of how and why nature is (under)valued is more urgent than ever 4 . Notwithstanding agreements to incorporate nature's values into actions, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) 5 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals 6 , predominant environmental and development policies still prioritize a subset of values, particularly those linked to markets, and ignore other ways people relate to and benefit from nature 7 . Arguably, a 'values crisis' underpins the intertwined crises of biodiversity loss and climate change 8 , pandemic emergence 9 and socio-environmental injustices 10 . On the basis of more than 50,000 scientific publications, policy documents and Indigenous and local knowledge sources, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessed knowledge on nature's diverse values and valuation methods to gain insights into their role in policymaking and fuller integration into decisions 7,11 . Applying this evidence, combinations of values-centred approaches are proposed to improve valuation and address barriers to uptake, ultimately leveraging transformative changes towards more just (that is, fair treatment of people and nature, including inter- and intragenerational equity) and sustainable futures., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

When governments regulate externalities, they inevitably create, modify or reassign property rights. Although these rights have important distributional implications, they are rarely at the center of economic evaluations of policy instrument choice, where the main focus is on allocative efficiency. This is problematic for two reasons. First, the allocation of rights may not receive the attention it deserves, and decisions about rights and more technical policy advice are easily mixed up. The second reason is a circularity problem: proposed (Pareto) efficient regulations modify the same property rights that determine what economists identify as an efficient environmental target. To avoid these difficulties, we propose a perspective in regulation that brings the allocation of rights to the front. We classify basic regulatory options based on how rights are allocated between polluters and potential victims and across income groups and we outline how these options may be implemented through choice of policy instruments. We then propose a regulatory procedure that takes the interdependence of rights and environmental targets into account. Based on this analysis, we discuss the potential of a rights-centered approach for designing environmental policies with desirable distributional outcomes and assumptions about the rights to environmental resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the expanded role of private actors and markets in environmental governance. The public goods dimension of environmental services renders privatization and trading challenging. To illustrate the key issues involved, a series of privatization efforts and market creations are reviewed. Despite the focus on privatization, the empirical material shows that the role of the state is still very pronounced. It defines the commodities and property rights, and plays a key role in setting up and regulating the markets. In the case of payments for ecosystem services, public authorities even appear as the dominant ‘trader’. Privatization and markets may reduce costs of delivering the service, while this is not universally true. Moreover, the service delivered often is transformed to make trade possible. Finally, high transaction costs may prohibit the creation of markets. The conflict between public goods delivery and private profit motive makes public control both important and difficult. Finally, several distributional issues following this neo-liberal development are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the literature on public responses to climate policies in two ways. We investigate the effect of institutional contexts on attitudes toward policies, and we examine the relevance of political values for these effects. Institutional theory suggests that the institutional context influences whether “individual rationality” (IR) or “social rationality” (SR) frames choices. To investigate the effects of such contexts and political values on attitudes toward policies aimed at reducing private car use, we conducted a survey experiment involving 1500 car owners in Oslo, Norway. One group of respondents received a text emphasizing the individual health gains from reducing local air pollution (IR context), a second group received a text emphasizing the social responsibility for avoiding climate change (SR context), and a control group received no such text. We found effects of the contexts on attitudes toward emission-reducing policies, and found that the effects vary across individuals with different political values. The SR context yielded higher support for an increase in petrol prices among non-individualists only. The IR context yielded higher support for a decrease in space for cars among both non-individualists and individualists. Ways forward regarding expanding this field of research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deliberative processes provide an important alternative input to environmental politics as they may, in contrast to often used market simulations, provide an arena for 1) discussion of lay participants' values, 2) articulating arguments grounded in other values than consequentialistic, and 3) capturing weakly comparable values. A case study of a Citizens' Jury (CJ) on genetically modified plants was used to investigate how the framing of the process affected the attitude formation among the citizens. The formal set up of this specific CJ made value discussions less relevant. While it opened for value plurality, it failed to facilitate the articulation of weakly comparable values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policy-making can be challenging because of lobbying by strong private interests. This results in less consideration about what is best for the wider community. The main goal of this study is to evaluate to what extent it is possible to institutionalize a citizen's role in decision-support processes. While the literature makes a clear distinction between private and social values, very little research is undertaken on how the framing of the instituted process influences which types of value become legitimate. Two deliberative meetings with local inhabitants were conducted in a municipality in Norway focusing on land use policy in coastal areas. The meetings were framed to facilitate dialogue and to emphasize the most important values to protect, given the interests of the wider municipality in the longer run. A large majority of the participants found the framing appropriate. Analyses of the dialogues, letters written by participants before the meetings and individual interviews undertaken afterwards document that the format of the meetings influenced strongly which arguments were found legitimate. The setting favoured the identification and specification of social values for inhabitants of the involved municipality such as public accessibility in conserved nature areas along the coast. The data moreover give insights about how the framing influenced the process. Arguments in favour of private construction interests were present, but were found to be weak in legitimacy. The framing might, however, also have influenced which social values were emphasized the most strongly. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Environmental value transfer needs to be understood in the context of scientific information use in general. This provides a different perspective upon the reasons why benefit transfer in particular appears so controversial and raises concerns over the limited types of validity testing being undertaken by those supporting such applications as ecosystem services valuation. Another key issue, which we emphasise, is the unintentional challenge to standard economic theory raised by the models used to conduct value transfers. Existing value transfer practice reveals the need for a more inclusive approach if environmental values are to be addressed. We argue that there are robust alternative means for including multiple environmental values in decision processes, these cannot be dismissed out of hand, and analysts should be expanding their understanding of the available approaches which include attitude and norm measures, multi-criteria analysis and participatory deliberative institutions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper is about how institutions determine choices and the importance of this for environmental policy. The model of individual rational choice from neoclassical economics is compared with the model of socially determined behavior. While in the first case, institutions are either exempted from or understood as mere economizing constraints on behavior, the latter perspective views institutions as basic structures necessary also to enable people to act. The paper develops a way to integrate the individualistic model into the wider perspective of social constructivism by viewing it as a special form of such construction. On the basis of this synthesis three issues with relevance for environmental economics are discussed. First, the role of institutional factors in the process of preference formation is emphasized. Next, the role of institutions for the choice of desired states of the environment is analyzed. Finally, the effect of various policy instruments to motivate people to produce these states is discussed. It is concluded that the core policy issue is to determine which institutional frameworks are most reasonable to apply to which kind of problem. Issues, which from the perspective of neoclassical economics are pure technical, become serious value questions if understood from an institutional perspective. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Discusses the dispute over nitrogen taxes in agriculture in Europe. Debate over nitrogen fertilizer taxes in Europe as empirical basis; Difficulties involved when introducing the logic of economic efficiency into environmental policy; Influence of disagreements over tax effects on the policy-making process; Vulnerability of environmental policy to confrontations across sectors of responsibility.

• Sustainability demands changes in both political and economic institutions. • Ecological economics should draw on institutional and political theory. • Present environmental policies are not suited to handle systems with tipping-points. • A parliamentary reform could strengthen the role of the future in policy-making. • Creating firms based on social rationality is key in a needed economic reform. Ecological economists are engaged in developing foundations for a sustainable future. To further develop our ability to deliver, I propose that we expand our analyses by a) drawing more on institutional theory and b) include also political processes in our research. The present political-economic system is unable to ensure sustainable futures. The paper argues that the root of the problem lies in its institutional structures. I illustrate possible changes to these that could take societies onto a sustainable development path. Focus here is on creating institutions able to strengthen the role of the future in decision-making. Here I focus on both political and economic institutions, illustrating how a change in these could ensure sustainability. I also discuss changes in environmental regulation strategies. The analyses of different options are used to illustrate what kind of studies are needed to advance sustainability. They form the basis for specifying directions that ecological economics could take to further support a necessary societal transformation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ecosystem services literature rests on the premise that an increased understanding of ecosystems, ecosystem services and, in particular, the value of ecosystem services will feed to decision-making. Yet, there is little evidence for the assumed demand and applicability of valuation knowledge in real-life policy and decision-making processes, and the use of such knowledge has received little in-depth analytical attention. Motivated by these observations, we have conducted an empirical analysis of ecosystem service value knowledge use. Our analysis of policy actors' experiences and expectations regarding value knowledge in Finland's peatland policy draws on ten interviews with eleven policy actors. Focusing on the usefulness and uses of valuation knowledge, we analyze the ways in which values are framed and value knowledge is expected to influence the rights to use ecosystem services. Our analysis shows that policy actors expect a better understanding of ecosystem service values to support the consideration of benefits. Yet, what they view as crucial knowledge needs aligns with their sectoral or organizational position as well as the interests they represent. Hence, valuation does not provide a solution to distributional debates or conflicts over rights, but it can have an important function as the provider of background knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]