Session 1  was chaired by Professor Mike Christie (Aberystwyth University). He was joined by Russell Drummond (eftec), Chiara Scotis (LSE), Dr. Stephanie Brockmann (University of New Hampshire) and Daniel Leppert (Durham University).

 

Below is more detailed information on each presentation and speaker.

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The IPBES Values Assessment: The diverse values and valuation of nature for transformative change to a sustainable and just future

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Professor Mike Christie, Environmental and Ecological Economics, Aberystwyth University, UK

 

This paper will provide an overview of the key findings of the IPBES Assessment on the diverse values and valuation of nature.

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The 'Values Assessment' provides a framework to better understand the relations between people and nature through the development of a comprehensive typology of nature’s values. The typology highlights concepts including worldviews and knowledge systems, broad values (social norms and regulations), specific (instrumental, relational and intrinsic) values, and value indicators (monetary, bio-physical and socio-cultural). The assessment also reviewed over 50 valuation methods and approaches and provides guidance for designing and implementing valuation. The assessment also explores tools for embedding the diverse values of nature into decision-making and policymaking and highlights four leverage points that can help catalyse transformation towards sustainable and just futures. 

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About Professor Mike Christie

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Mike Christie is a professor of environmental and ecological economics at Aberystwyth University’s Business School.  His research specialises in the economic and social valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. He has utilised a wide range of non-market valuation methods including choice experiments, contingent valuation, contingent behaviour and travel cost methods. These studies have addressed a wide range of natural resource and environmental issues including both marine and terrestrial ecosystems, water quality, biodiversity, agri-environmental schemes, recreation and tourism.

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He was a lead author of TEEB (2010), the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (2011) and the IPBES European and Central Asia assessment (2018) report, and co-chaired the recent IPBES ‘Values’ assessment.

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Valuing the benefits of species recovery through stated preference methods in a habitat quality framing

 

Russell Drummond, Senior Consultant, eftec, UK

 

We present a novel method for obtaining household preferences and valuations across a variety of species recovery outcomes for England using a stated preference approach. This method portrays species recovery in terms of incremental improvements to habitat quality across a variety of potential habitats and this framing can then be used to present choices to household respondents.

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Using a representative survey of 5,000 households in England as well as a series of focus groups, we find that people can both understand the habitat improvement scale used to represent species recovery outcomes and meaningfully differentiate between habitat types to provide considered responses to a choice task. Out results show that respondents place different values on the recovery of different types of habitats and prefer changes that improve more intact habitats (all else equal) versus improving low-quality habitats. Overall, our research represents a significant addition to the literature by presenting a method for obtaining national-level and transferable policy evidence for species recovery outcomes.

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About Russell Drummond

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Russell is a Senior Consultant at eftec. His focus is the valuation of non-market goods and services for both private and public sector uses. In the past year he has worked on projects estimating public values for environmental goods and services related to a variety of topics, primarily using a combination of deliberative and survey based methods. His work has covered housing development, housing performance, infrastructure projects, habitat and species recovery, and water services. Russell has also contributed to projects that integrate this valuation evidence into value frameworks and appraisal guidance.

Russell completed his MSc in Economics at UCL, where his dissertation focused on congestion pricing policies and road use within the UK. He was a research assistant at Portland State University where he completed a graduate course in environmental and resource economics, and he holds a BSc in Engineering from Colorado school of Mines. Russell was a practicing structural engineer for several years.

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Cost-benefit analysis of spatially coordinated land management

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Daniel Leppert, PhD Candidate in Economics, Durham University, UK

 

Mounting evidence shows that fragmentation due to land use change threatens pollinator communities and that the UK places towards the bottom in European comparisons of pollinator stock capacity. Applying a spatially explicit model of pollinator visitation rates, we find that agricultural land scores significantly lower on habitat suitability than do woodland and grassland. As part of this project, we evaluate an environmental land management scheme allowing farmers to coordinate with neighbours to create ecological corridors across farm boundaries. Surveying 350 English farmers in a discrete choice experiment, we estimate the (preliminary) required bonus payment for coordination with two neighbours at around £54, while requirement with one neighbour was negligible. Previous participation in agri-environment schemes, higher educational attainment, and sharing farm equipment with neighbours were significant predictors of uptake. 

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About Daniel Leppert

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Daniel Leppert is a 3rd year PhD student in economics at Durham University, specialising in environmental economics and applying GIS in environmental policy evaluation. His research is funded by NERC, the ESRC and Durham University Business School. He has previously completed postgraduate work at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and ETH Zurich.

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What is the willingness-to-pay to avoid IQ losses? Evidence from eleven OECD countries

 

Chiara Sotis, PhD Candidate in Environmental Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

 

Exposure to chemicals has been shown to reduce IQ in children. In turn, a person’s IQ is likely to affect their educational achievements, lifetime earnings, probability to commit a crime and, more generally, a person’s quality of life. This study provides a framework to value IQ losses due to exposure to chemicals. We employ a double-bounded contingent valuation approach to estimate the willingness-to-pay (WTP) to avoid IQ losses in eleven OECD countries. Our study accounts for the impact of losing IQ points starting at different baseline IQ (below average, average, and above average) and scope sensitivity was tested for by valuing 5 and 1-point IQ losses. The survey was administered in eleven OECD countries with representative samples of the general population. Among the countries considered, the United Kingdom has the lowest WTP, whereas Poland has the highest average WTP. Men, those with higher education levels and with greater income state a significantly higher WTP. 

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About Chiara Sotis

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Chiara is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She holds a BSc in Economics and Business (cum laude) from LUISS Guido Carli and an MSc in Economics from LSE.

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She previously worked on the joint use of liability rules and regulation in preventing environmental harm at the Rotterdam Institute of Law and Economics (RILE). In her PhD, Chiara is focussing on the behavioural drivers behind people’s support for policies, and exploring how to incentivise pro-social behaviours in the health and environmental domains. She is also a member of the OECD Surveys on Willingness-to-Pay to Avoid Negative Chemicals-Related Health Impacts (SWACHE) group and has extensive teaching experience in postgraduate Microeconomics, Behavioural Economics, and Environmental Economics.

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Valuing biodiversity as an ecosystem service to agroecosystems through endogenous production decisions

 

Dr. Stephanie Brockmann, Economics, University of New Hampshire, USA

 

Often the values of ecosystem services for pest control in agroecosystems are measured by observing the differentials in yields – with and without the ecosystem service – and multiplying by a market price to monetize the value. However, this method of valuation relies on the critical assumption that a producer’s production decisions remain the same in the presence or absence of the ecosystem service. Ignoring the potential endogeneity between the “quantity” of an ecosystem service produced and production decisions may undervalue ecosystem services, especially in low to middle income countries where pest control may alleviate required inputs or labour and allow for different allocations of cash, credit, and time constraints. To assess how ecosystem services affect producer decisions, we develop a general dynamic bioeconomic decision model in which a smallholder producer seeks to maximize expected profits of a crop that is susceptible to damage by a pest, by choosing labour allocation and an integrated pest management strategy. Pest dynamics and the implications of an infestation are dependent on a predator, that relies on surrounding natural forest for habitat. We use management of the coffee berry borer – an invasive beetle that threatens coffee crops worldwide – as a case study. Our work lays the groundwork for further understanding the importance of ecosystem services at the microeconomic level and provides a more detailed framework for developing policy in the arena of conservation.

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About Dr. Stephanie Brockmann

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Dr. Brockmann is an environmental and natural resource economist. Her research is issues-driven and motivated by identifying biases and inefficiencies that exist in policy assessments when heterogenous space, agent responses, or processes across human and natural dimensions are oversimplified or unaccounted for in analysis. She builds and analyses bioeconomic models with a spatial lens in both developed and less developed economy settings to inform policy; recent work includes construction of large scale regional bioeconomic models to identify externalities associated with water quality policy and invasive species mitigation, and smaller scale bioeconomic models to identify support for sustainable production and generation of ecosystem services.

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