TEEB

TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) (also TEEB-Initiative, TEEB-Prozess) is a research initiative from which a number of studies have emerged that are intended to identify and implement existing approaches to the economic evaluation of biological diversity and ecosystem services . The stated aim of the study was to make the economic value of the services of ecosystems and biodiversity measurable in order to protect them more effectively from destruction and overexploitation . At the national level, TEEB will be continued in Germany as part of the TEEB DE - Natural Capital Germany project.

history

The TEEB initiative was launched in 2007 in the context of the G8 + 5 meeting in Potsdam . The European Commission was one of the main initiators and donors . The TEEB process consists of three phases:

Phase 1: TEEB Interim Report, presented at the 9th Conference of the Parties to the Biodiversity Convention 2008 in Bonn .
Phase 2: TEEB International, a series of studies under the direction of the former Deutsche Bank manager Pavan Sukhdev , in which the state of the art in the field of economic evaluation of ecosystem services was summarized and assessed.
Phase 3: communication and mainstreaming of the approach at national level; in Germany as part of TEEB DE - Natural Capital Germany . Case studies in developing countries are also carried out during this phase.

TEEB is sometimes seen as an attempt to build on the success of the Stern Report from 2006, which triggered a boost in the climate debate and policy with a forecast of the economic consequences of global warming.

In 2014 UNEP initiated the follow-up program TEEBAgriFood (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food), which aims to apply the TEEB principles to agriculture and food production and consumption.

Report on ecological and economic principles

The second phase of the TEEB process was intended as a synthesis of the current status of the scientific debate on the economic evaluation of ecosystems and biodiversity. As a result, in the first publication of this phase, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Ecological and Economic Foundations , the following recommendations were made:

The basis for evaluating ecosystems should be the term ecosystem services , which enables ecological concepts to be translated into the language of economics.
The evaluation of ecosystems is necessary to prevent further destruction of the biosphere resulting from the economic activities of humanity.
Although environmental and resource economics have long been concerned with the subject, important methodological problems persist, particularly with regard to discounting , valuation methods, the category of cultural values and the treatment of uncertainty .
The involvement of stakeholders in evaluation processes is essential.
Although the precise role of biodiversity in the functioning of ecosystems has not yet been properly understood, it can be assumed that its influence on the stability and yields of environmental goods is large.

Natural capital Germany

In Germany, the TEEB concept is being implemented within the TEEB DE - Natural Capital Germany project. Natural Capital Germany is coordinated at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ in Leipzig . Study director is Bernd Hansjürgens . The project is financed by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation . Other accompanying project partners include WWF Germany , BUND and NABU .

As part of Natural Capital Germany, four thematic reports are to be developed that are intended to provide economic arguments for the conservation of ecosystems . The topics of the individual reports are: natural capital and climate policy, ecosystem services in rural areas, ecosystem services in cities and recommendations on options for action (synthesis report). An important component are also numerous case studies and examples, with the help of which the concrete implementation of the TEEB concept is to be presented.

criticism

In a position paper published in 2010, BUND , now a project partner of TEEB DE - Natural Capital Germany, expressed the fear that the "privatization" of biodiversity protection would lead state actors to withdraw from their political and financial responsibility and market-based criteria would decide whether nature deserves protection. “While the international efforts to protect the UNO Biodiversity Convention (CBD) have so far focused on the generation of financial resources through fund-supported, state funds for protected areas, TEEB pursues financing through market mechanisms.” Two weak points and risks were mentioned in particular: The concept “Nature's services” fall short of the mark because, on the one hand, the functional aspect, nature as a “service provider” to human society, is emphasized. However, from this point of view, important aspects of nature would either be neglected or even classified as 'useless' for humans (and therefore not worthy of further protection). On the other hand, from the point of view of nature conservation and biological diversity, an expansion of limited protected area concepts is overdue. Rather, "nature conservation in the area" is the order of the day.

Barbara Unmüßig from the Heinrich Böll Foundation repeatedly criticized TEEB and the economic evaluation. She accuses the approach of paving the way for the commercialization and privatization of nature. She fears “the embedding of nature and its monetizable services in our capitalist market logic” and “ monetizing nature and its services in the form of tradable certificates and derivatives to such an extent that nature and environmental protection are also compatible for the financial markets” .

The NABU President Olaf Tschimpke is fundamentally in favor of adding value to ecosystems: “The free services of nature must finally be reflected as a factor in economic balance sheets. The earth must no longer be a freely available raw material store for the corporations of this world ”.

The ecological economist Clive Spash criticized TEEB in the article Terrible Economics, Ecosystems and Banking . He claimed that the results of economic valuation studies are arbitrary and without any theoretical basis. He also criticized the explicit goal of the TEEB project to make economic actors aware of the value of ecosystems as failed and useless.

In 2014, some of the scientists involved in TEEB published a response to many of the criticisms made against TEEB. It was recognized that economic valuation is not unproblematic, but it was pointed out that the TEEB reports always addressed problems and limitations of the valuation approach. However, the authors emphasized that communicating the value of nature in a language that most decision-makers can understand is essential for successful nature conservation, and that economic assessments make clear the need for weighing up in the context of nature conservation. In the context of Natural Capital Germany, too, criticisms were repeatedly replied to in a similar manner.

TEEB publications

International

Natural capital Germany

Web links

swell

↑ TEEBAgriFood website , accessed on November 11, 2019.

↑ Head of Studies / Coordination ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the project website, accessed March 3, 2015. @1@ 2

↑ Working group accompanying the project ( Memento of the original from September 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the project website, accessed March 10, 2015. @1@ 2

↑ Project publications ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of TEEB DE, accessed on March 7, 2015. @1@ 2

↑ Studies and case studies ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the project website, accessed March 10, 2015. @1@ 2

↑ Position paper of the BUND On the international discussion about an economy of ecosystems and biological diversity - TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) ( Memento of the original from August 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2

↑ Barbara Unmüßig: On the value of nature. Sense and nonsense of a new economy of nature . Heinrich Böll Foundation, Berlin 2014, p. 4 ( PDF file ).

↑ http://www.nabu.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/index.php?show=1795&db=presseservice

^ Clive L. Spash: Terrible Economics, Ecosystems and Banking . In: Environmental Values . tape 20 , no. 2 , 2011, p. 141-145 , doi : 10.3197 / 096327111X12997574391562 .

^ Pavan Sukhdev, Heidi Wittmer, Dustin Miller: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB): Challenges and Responses . In: Dieter Helm, Cameron Hepburn (Eds.): Nature in the Balance: The Economics of Biodiversity . Oxford University Press, New York 2014, pp. 135-150 . ( PDF file; 4.7 MB ).

↑ Bernd Hansjürgens: To the new economy of nature: criticism and counter-criticism . In: Economic Service . tape 95 , no. 4 , p. 284-291 , doi : 10.1007 / s10273-015-1820-0 .

[1] TEEBAgriFood website , accessed on November 11, 2019.