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Cost-benefit analysis in the context of ecosystem services for human well-being: A multidisciplinary critique
Global Environmental Change
Special Issue on The Politics and Policy of Carbon Capture and Storage
Short Title: Global Environmental ChangeCost-benefit analysis in the context of ecosystem services for human well-being
Format: Journal Article
Publication Date: 2011/05/01/
Pages: 492 - 504
Sources ID: 87401
Visibility: Public (group default)
Abstract: (Show)
This paper provides a critique of the cost-benefit analysis tool for ecosystem services policy evaluation. We argue that when applied to public ecosystem services, the theoretical assumptions that underlie economic valuation and cost-benefit analysis fail to fully acknowledge the multiple dimensions of human well-being, the plural forms of value articulation, the complex nature of ecosystems, the distributional biases of markets and the fairness implications of spatio-temporal framing. The current monistic utilitarian approach to ecosystem services policy evaluation should therefore be replaced by a pluralist framework composed of a heterogeneous set of value-articulating instruments that are appropriate to the specific context within which decision-making takes place. It is argued that within this pluralist framework cost-benefit analysis may remain an appropriate tool to examine the contingent trade-offs of local policies that have limited impacts on ecosystems and their services.