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As the ecosystem services (ES) concept and framework is gradually maturing and with increasing uptake by policy makers, one of the debates on moving forward the ES agenda is on whether we need a common framework and classification system. Since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), some developments in the ES framework are becoming increasingly accepted, such as the distinction between intermediate and final ES, and the ‘cascade model’ distinguishing services, benefits and values, which was applied in the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA), the most comprehensive sub-global assessment to date. Increasing support with decision makers for broader progress indicators and natural capital asset assessments has driven the agenda for extending systems of environmental accounting, with the EU Environment Agency driving development of a Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES[1]).

The notion of a single, common classification poses a difficult dilemma for ecological economists. While many of us have adapted ES as a way of expressing human-environment relations, we have stayed acutely aware of the limitations of the concept, and the dangers of it obscuring the complexity of both ecological processes and of the complex plurality of how we know and relate to the natural environment. Statements such as “We cannot manage what we do not measure” (Pavan Sukhdev[2]) illustrate the oversimplification sometimes portrayed by ES advocates. We will never be able to measure and manage the environment in the same way that we can manage production lines: in predictable, measurable quantities. The key ecological economics principle of epistemological and value pluralism suggests that this complexity cannot be reduced to quantitative single indicators and metrics (whether through monetary valuation or non-monetary means, such as multi-criteria analysis), and post-normal science discourse indicates that choices of indicators and metrics in itself are value-laden, blurring boundaries between evidence-generation and decision making.

On the other hand, a degree of standardization or at the very least, a degree of common understanding and parlor between disciplines and cultures about ES is needed if we are to communicate about their state and values. An interesting example of this is the draft conceptual framework of the International Panel on Biodiversity and ES (IPBES)[3], which includes multiple descriptors for individual elements of the framework. For example, ES are also termed ‘nature’s gifts’. The notion of a gift is quite different from that of a service (as is detailed by at least 70 years of anthropological research on the subject since Marcel Mauss[4]!), but this might not be important in the sense that either nature’s gifts or ES in terms of both their materiality and experience are underpinned by what IPBES calls both ‘biodiversity and ecosystems’ and ‘systems of life’.

The question of standardization also closely links to the question of scale. At national and supra-national scales, standardization is important to be able to set and deliver targets at a gross resolution, and to assess whether we are making genuine progress in terms of wellbeing. At smaller scales, a degree of standardization is still needed for practitioners to implement and learn from each other’s management practices, but our conceptualisations can be more flexible in order to recognise regional and cultural differences in how we relate to nature. We might also ask the question whether the desirability of standardisation differs across types of ES. Provisioning and regulating services are perhaps more amenable to positivist production function approaches and other forms of modeling than cultural ES. It might be possible to generate multiple sets of values, some of which are standardized and assessed through quantitative modeling, and others that are idiosyncratic and derived through a more interpretive approach. The big question is then how to bring together plural values and different domains of knowledge together in decision-making.

The second phase of the UK NEA, which will be published late this spring, has tried to take such a pluralistic-pragmatic approach. It includes a range of conceptual innovations, including around cultural ES and shared, plural and cultural values. A difference is highlighted between transcendental values, our principles and end-goals that guide our lives and transcend specific situations, and contextual values that relate to specific situations and objects. These each operate not just at individual but also societal, cultural and communal level. Importantly, different methods are required to assess these, and there is evidence to suggest that group deliberative methods are better suited to assessing these shared values than monetary valuation based on individual surveys. In terms of cultural ES, the conceptualisation of environmental spaces themselves as services provides an avenue for using standardised indicators to assess their status in terms of quantity and quality. Benefits are then derived through the practices and experiences associated with these spaces, Experiences and practices are clearly culturally defined and idiosyncratic, largely defeating standardised classification. While some standard indicators can be assessed quantitatively (e.g. numbers of users and their spending, standardized subjective wellbeing indicators), to really understand their value requires interpretive and narrative-based approaches without ex-ante categories; the NEA follow-on phase uses participatory mapping of special and problematic features, visual arts and storytelling, amongst other techniques. In appraisal of policy and management options, these different domains of knowledge can be brought together through deliberative and deliberative-analytical approaches such as citizen’s juries and deliberative monetary valuation.

In conclusion, comprehensively trying to capture the value of nature through a standard classification is a futile endeavor. However, a common classification can allow development of standardised indicators and accounting for ecosystem services at a large-scale, increasing the potential for recognition in decision-making. Such a framework should have a degree of openness and flexibility, recognising the often place-bound, culturally specific, idiosyncratic nature and plurality of values. Modeling is important, but much of the value of the environment will escape us unless we also use interpretive, deliberative and mixed methods for assessing how we depend on and relate to nature.

Jasper Kenter

[1] http://www.cices.eu

[2] The Guardian 10-2-2010

[3] http://ipbes.net/images/IPBES-2-17%20%20%20-%20%20Advance%20En.pdf

[4] Mauss, M. (1954) The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Norton & Company, New York.

Sustainable development policies or the art to postpone deadlines

by Olivier Petit

The deadline I received to send this text for inclusion in the ESEE electronic newsletter was March 10th, 2014. I was first tempted when I saw the deadline approaching (as many researchers do... I guess) to have the deadline postponed and negotiate for a delay of a couple of weeks. Indeed, it is rather hard to identify what is really a hot topic, and I could not decide, until recently, on which topic I could write several paragraphs which could be of interest for the readers of this newsletter. But I suddenly realised that my own position as a writer was probably the same position adopted by many decision-makers in the field of environment and sustainable development policies.

The 'window of opportunity' in climate change issues

Climate change policies heavily rely on deadlines (2020) and 'windows of opportunity'. In January 2005, Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC stated, according to Elizabeth R. Sawin : “We must have immediate and very deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions if humanity is to survive.” According to the same source, James Hansen, the NASA climate expert stated in September 2006 : “We have a very short window of opportunity to address climate change. No more than a decade at the most.” Recent positions expressed by various climate change experts show that this window of opportunity is quickly closing. Satu Hassi, commenting on the 2013 report of the first IPCC working group said: " The window of opportunity for taking action to reduce our emissions and preventing runaway climate change is closing, yet the EU response to climate change is slowing, rather than strengthening" [1].

Millenium Development Goals : meeting the deadline?

2015 is approaching and it is precisely an important date on the international agenda of development and environmental policies. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted in 2000 by the UN General Assembly identified eight goals to be achieved by 2015. The countdown already started last year, when the UNDP staff announced, in April 2013, that there were only 1000 days left before the deadline. Unfortunately, we all know that many of these goals will not be achieved by 2015, even if the efforts developed during the last decade are really important, compared to the previous decades. The case of water access and sanitation is a good example of the difficulties to achieve the MDGs. These difficulties are mainly due to insufficient funds coming from aid agencies, in an area dominated by private firms where a solvent demand in developing countries is generally lacking.

The European WFD and the 'good status' of Water in 2015

The situation is rather different at the European level in the field of water policy. The Water Framework Directive adopted in October 2000 was a really innovative new one, assigning objectives to European States. The central aim is to achieve a ‘Good Ecological Status’ and a 'Good Chemical Status’ by 2015. In most cases however, the possibility to postpone the deadline to 2021 or 2027 has already been adopted. Some colleagues (Bourblanc et al., 2013) compare the strategies developed by several countries to reach the goals of the WFD as the marathon of the hare and the tortoise. Some countries were really ambitious at the beginning and tend to slow down in the later phases of the process, whereas other less ambitious ones, have started more pragmatically. Will they meet the goals by 2015, 2021 or 2027?

A window of opportunity for Ecological Economics?

All these target-based policies, assigning deadlines, can open a window of opportunity for ecological economists, working at the interface between science, public policies and civil society. We are currently in a phase where several actors realise the difficulties in implementing environmental and sustainable development policies in the short run. If we will not necessarily help them to find solutions to meet the deadlines, we can help them to grasp the consequences of the short-term policies developed in the past years to fill long-term and complex issues. Will it be a short jump or giant leap?

PS: I sent my text on time!

Olivier Petit

[1] http://www.greens-efa.eu/climate-change-10613.html

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