ENTI 2010 – Strasbourg

A. MAREK, C. VIAUD-MOUCLIER, J-M. HALLEUX, G. DEVILLET, Université de Liège, Belgique.

Theoretical discussion on economic valuation of greeness: from ecosystem services to green infrastructures.

Discussion théorique sur l’évaluation économique des activités vertes: des services d’écosystèmes aux infrastructures vertes.

Discusión teórica sobre la evaluación económica de los actividades verdes: servicios de los ecosistemas a la infraestructura verde.

Considering the current concern about greenness and the protection of nature, this paper discusses the potential of economic valuation in order to understand the value of natural greenness, i.e. biodiversity and the value of manmade greenness such as green infrastructures.

The first part focuses on Nature through the concept of ecosystem services.

Biodiversity, which is expressed through ecosystem services (ES), provides human society with a large variety of goods such as food, clean air and water, fossil fuels, healthy soil, etc. (Salles 2010). While our well‐being is linked to the existence of these services, they are mainly public goods which are often excluded from our current economic priorities (TEEB 2008). In fact, ecosystem services lack consideration in decision‐making although there is a consensus about the importance of biodiversity in resource management (Nelson 2009). Economic valuation aims to (…) Read more…