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Economically led strategies
Published in Jane Penty, Product Design and Sustainability, 2019
Since the publication of Natural Capitalism in 1999, businesses, governments and institutions have moved forward to make natural capital accounting a reality by establishing a framework and valuation based on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB/UNEP) studies. In 2016 the Natural Capital Coalition released the Natural Capital Protocol that finally gives businesses a methodology and tools to integrate natural capital accounting into their strategy and operations.24
Landscape as Infrastructure
Published in Spiro N. Pollalis, Planning Sustainable Cities, 2016
This chapter’s way of defining and decoding Landscape infrastructure aims to point out this challenge. Landscape’s services are often underestimated and neglected when they do not translate directly into economic values, though they provide numerous contributions to human welfare. This is why there is an ongoing effort, through natural capital accounting and ecosystem services economics and assessment, to understand the benefits provided by ecosystems.
Embedding social inclusiveness and appropriateness in engineering assessment of green infrastructure to enhance urban resilience
Published in Urban Water Journal, 2019
Sarah Ward, Chad Staddon, Laura De Vito, Adriana Zuniga-Teran, Andrea K. Gerlak, Yolandi Schoeman, Aimee Hart, Giles Booth
Historically, engineering tools and assessments have included a range of modelling and simulation approaches such as empirical methods, agent-based approaches, systems dynamics, economic theory, network-based or graph theory methods and optimisation. However, most mathematical or quantitative methods present a narrow field of application usually focusing on probabilities (as in risk assessment) or probabilistic approaches (Cousins et al. 2017; Hall et al. 2017; Look and Field 2017; Parsons et al. 2017; Naderpajouh et al. 2017). The priority of design and assessment has predominantly been to focus on the financial and economic, or monetised aspects, usually through cost-benefit analysis (CBA). For example, performance objectives and indicators are currently interpreted and assessed in design guidance documents, such as the Levee Handbook-CIRIA C731; EurOtop: The overtopping Manual; The Flood Estimation Handbook and the Risk assessment for flood and coastal defence systems for strategic planning (RASP) (Parsons et al. 2017). The designs produced through the application of these manuals and guides are then generally subject to CBA (Naderpajouh et al. 2017). This is paralleled in the field of natural resource management, where natural capital accounting has been used since the 1980s to determine whether countries are building or depleting their natural wealth, which will impact their ability to sustain their economic growth (Science for Environment Policy 2017). Methods within this field include payment for ecosystem services (PES), where ecosystem assets (stocks) and services (flows) are quantified in both monetary and biophysical units using tools such as INVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) and RIOS (Resource Investment Optimisation System) (The Nature Conservancy 2018). We will return briefly to PES-style approaches in Section 3, which explores the ‘greening’ of engineering assessment.