Ecosystem valuation

By quantifying, for example, the human welfare benefits of a forest to reduce flooding and erosion while sequestering carbon, providing habitat for endangered species, and absorbing harmful chemicals, such monetization ideally provides a tool for policy-makers and conservationists to evaluate management impacts and compare a cost-benefit analysis of potential policies.

However, such valuations are estimates, and involve the inherent quantitative uncertainty and philosophical debate of evaluating a range non-market costs and benefits.

Applying such preference based approaches has been criticized as a means of deriving the value of ecosystems and biodiversity and for avoiding deliberation, justification and judgment in making choices.

Furthermore, de Groot et al. find that most of their paper's calculated value is "outside the market and best considered as non-tradable public benefits.

For example, the Copenhagen Consensus think tank calculated that stemming the loss of coral reefs by 50 percent by 2030 would return more than $24 for every dollar spent.

The Consensus' founder, Bjorn Lomborg, explains that "coral reefs, which both act as fishery hatcheries and fishing resources while storing abundant numbers of species.

At the same time, coral reefs possess an amazing beauty, which both shows up in large tourism revenues but also in most individuals saying they are willing to pay a certain amount to make sure they continue to exist for our grand children.

"[12] The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) manages the Integrated Valuation Environmental Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) Natural Capital Project.

This open-source tool—although geared towards policy-makers, advocates, and scientists—allows anyone to interact with a map quantifying "trade-offs between alternative management choices" and identifying "areas where investment in natural capital can enhance human development and conservation.”[13] As another example, the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) hosts the Artificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability (ARIES) Project.

As pointed to by de Groot et al., many environmental goods (such as clean air and biodiversity) are simply not traded in established markets.