European comparison of presentation of Environmental benefits in policy trade-offs

The project looks at the use and assessment of environmental benefits information to inform the development and implementation of environmental policy in the Netherlands. The main outcome of the project is to provide an inventory of the types of tools employed across selected case studies to inform policy decisions in different environmental media (e.g. water, air, climate…) and the data sources needed to undertake such assessments (e.g. the use of monetary benefits estimates).

The Dutch Ministry of Public Works and Water Management initiated this research project to seek assistance to carry out an inventory on how various Member States present environmental benefits in policy trade-offs.

The project aims to develop a European wide inventory on

• environmental benefits considered in policy trade offs,
• methodologies Member States take to monetise environmental benefits and to which extend these methodologies are used in policy formulation and decision making (stage of the policy cycle, policy area),
• the approaches member states take to present environmental benefits in policy trade-offs.

This research will further provide input to the ongoing discussion on the use of environmental benefits in policy trade-offs in the Netherlands by assessing and evaluating current use elsewhere of environmental benefits information to inform the development and implementation of environmental policy. This study will help the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management in preparing policy documents in its own domain, e.g. for discussions related to flood protection, the EU Water Framework Directive and the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive. In addition it will also be used in discussions with other ministries to determine one national framework on how to deal with this type of benefits (e.g. in the context of compensation payments to agriculture) that is important but difficult to include in policy analyses with respect to environmental measures.

Use of benefits assessment information in the following countries will be assessed: Austria, Denmark, England, Flanders (BE), France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Bulgaria, Latvia, US, Canada, Malta, Luxembourg, Ireland, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia. An in-depth assessment of selected case studies will be carried out using interviews with relevant authorities and a literature review.