Public Sector Ecosystem Services Review
The Ecosystem Services Review (ESR) is a facilitated strategy development and decision-support process where we provide guidance to public decision makers in integrating and aligning developmental and environmental concerns by incorporating an Ecosystem Services Approach into the decision-making process. This approach expands the focus beyond how development & community management affects ecosystems to include how your goals depend on ecosystems.
Simply put, our approach changes the decision-making perspective from focusing on how to protect ecosystems from development, to focusing on how to invest in managing and protecting ecosystems for development. The outcome of an Ecosystem Services Review is the identification of ecosystem-based risks and opportunities related to the decision at hand (including ecosystem-based economic impacts, as appropriate).
Our methodology (which is harmonized with the ESR guidelines published by the World Resources Institute - WRI) helps you understand how ecosystem services (the goods, services, and benefits provided by natural ecosystems) relate to your decision-making efforts and economic development plans. Of particular benefit is the ability to identify and balance tradeoffs between:
- The various ecosystem services at play in your community and their impact on various stakeholder groups
- Varying scenarios and decision points related to land use planning
- Various options for allocating & prioritizing natural resource management funds and resources
- Different stakeholder and constituent groups affected by a development/ management decision you are undertaking – including those who would impact various ecosystem services as well as those who depend on the same ecosystem services
Why is this important to me and my community?
Global scientific audits (including the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) have identified that over half of the planet’s major ecosystem services have been significantly degraded in the last 50 years, with increasing documented disruptions to local & regional communities and various economic and social stakeholder groups. Ecosystem degradation will increasingly dominate headlines in the years to come, proactive communities can use our ESR methodology now to mitigate both social and economic risk. Additionally, forward-thinking organizations have used the ESR methodology to develop entirely new revenue streams for their constituents and help develop new community markets by proactively managing the relationship with the natural environment.
Our methodology helps bridge the worlds of developmental opportunity and environmental responsibility, by providing the first cohesive strategies and tools that link ecosystem health with your community’s economic and social health.
What if we already have an Environmental Management System (EMS)?
Great question! The Ecosystem Services Review was designed to both complement and fill gaps in existing environmental management systems:
- Many environmental management systems do not focus on the specific social and economic risks and opportunities that are caused by the use and degradation of ecosystem services (most environmental management systems focus on impacts, not dependence, and they focus on risks, not opportunities)
- As a result, existing environmental management systems may not identify critical stakeholder dependencies and may leave communities unprepared for risks to critical operations that depend on healthy functioning ecosystem services – and they may also miss out on new sources of revenue
- Our ESR methodology doesn’t just look at environmental assessment or impact – instead it is a tool for proactive strategy development
- Sustainability is more than squeezing efficiencies and cost-reductions out of the value chain! It is about addressing your stakeholders’ strategic dependence and impact on the ecological systems that both business and society depend on!
- ESR can be conducted as a standalone process, or it can be integrated into existing environmental management system(s)
- Organizations that want to play a leading role in promoting sustainability by addressing ecosystem change, or those organizations that want to address an often-overlooked driver of community risk & opportunity, can benefit from conducting an ESR
