IPBES Values Assessment Overview with IPBES Co-Chair Professor Mike Christie

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) ‘Values Assessment’ is arguably the most comprehensive assessment of the diverse values and valuation of nature to date. Produced over four years by 300 experts and drawing on ~13,000 evidence sources, the assessment was approved by the 140 governments of the IPBES Plenary in July 2022.

In this UKNEE webinar, Mike provided an overview of the Values Assessment and its key findings. In doing so, he highlighted how the Values Assessment extends beyond the core focus of TEEB-style assessments and demonstrated how accounting for a wider range of nature’s values can improve decision-making.

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.

About Professor Mike Christie
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, where he has utilised a wide range of non-market valuation methods (choice experiments, contingent valuation, contingent behaviour and travel cost method) to value natural resources in the UK, Asia and Africa. He was an author of the TEEB (2010) and the IPBES 'European and Central Asia' assessment (2018) reports, and a co-chair of the IPBES ‘Values’ assessment'.