Assessing Economic Value to the Environment
Too often decisions are made without concern for a project’s environmental impact, and, as the Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services study would argue, this is due in part to the fact that environmental aspects are rarely given monetary values, something that drives the majority of decisionmaking. In collaboration with the Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Initiative and the Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment, Dr. Stephen Polasky, Fessler-Lambert Chair of Environmental Economics, is beginning to assign economic value to the environment to help resolve this issue. Essential requirements provided by
the environment, such as that of drinking water, as well as ecosystems themselves, will arguably factor more readily and comprehensively for decision makers when given these monetary values, an important aid in the actual development of a sustainable society.
|
