The third webinar of the BioValue series “Unlocking biodiversity value in spatial planning” was held by Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ). The meeting was dedicated to understanding the transformative potential of economic and financial instruments (E&FIs) in spatial planning.
The focus was on the implementation of such instruments across different levels of implementation: individually and in correlation with other instruments (e.g. spatial planning & management instruments, environmental assessment instruments) to channel how biodiversity is affected by investments and ensure negative impacts are avoided as early as possible.
BioValue Results
E&FIs are intended as public or private mechanisms, such as incentives and disincentives, to motivate behavioral changes of various stakeholders toward desired policy objectives. E&FIs can be taxes, subsidies, tradable permits, and green loans.
Given the context, conflicts between private and public interests in conservation might emerge. As of now, opportunities emerge to use E&FIs for implementing nature-based solutions in cities, regardless of given trade-offs between environmental, economic, and social objectives, usually in the form of land value capture tools. In fact, E&FIs alone have limited impacts on transformative potential for spatial planning, whereas solutions for higher transformative potential include the combination of these with other instruments (e.g. regulations).
BioValue research outlines that:
- FIs can mobilize additional biodiversity financing sources
- With careful design, E&FIs can reduce socioeconomic inequalities
- E&FIs can promote biodiversity along with and in addition to the mitigation hierarchy
- The potential of these tools can be further increased thanks to the new EU Sustainable Finance Strategy, focused on increasing transparency of sustainable contributions
Stakeholders dialogue
27 external stakeholders with different backgrounds and expertise actively attended the webinar, including environmental authorities, planning professionals, environmental economists, as well as representatives from the private sector, NGOs, and investment banks, mainly from Italy, Germany, and Portugal.
During the webinar, participants were involved in a thematic working group session on three different topics:
- What instruments have the potential to facilitate biodiversity enhancement in spatial planning? Which are the examples in practice?
- What are the factors preventing the use of economic and financial instruments in spatial development practices?
- Which actors and what types of actions are needed for developing and implementing economic and financial instruments to address current challenges in spatial planning?
Main points of attention
1. Theoretical and practical examples having the potential to facilitate biodiversity enhancement in spatial planning: Stakeholders cited practices such as payments from ES, biodiversity credits, purpose taxes or eco-certificates as a reward for good practices. The examples also included good practices applied in real-world situations, from cities such as Milan, London, and Stockholm, as well as models of grouped forestry management adopted in Portugal.
2. Factors to prevent the use of economic and financial instruments in spatial development practices: stakeholders indicated many different examples, such as
- Cultural aspects and attitudes: hard to change routines
- Highly transition costs
- Institutional barriers, involving multiple levels of governance
- Poor local commitments (e.g. municipalities)
- Lack of strategic thinking
- Difficulties in capturing the economic values of ES
3. Actors and actions needed for developing and implementing E&FIs were identified: Among them, private developers, public administration, public and private companies, and local communities were mentioned.
Read the full report and the webinar slides to find out more.
Watch the recording of the third webinar session:
Photo credits: Freepik
