Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 7th June 2025, 03:22:52pm AoE (anywhere on Earth)
External resources will be made available 30 min before a session starts. You may have to reload the page to access the resources.
Thematic Session 7: Making stakeholders’ decisions easier by: incorporating non-market values in cost benefit analyses (EAAE invited session) (HYBRID)
Time:
Thursday, 19/June/2025:
11:00am - 12:45pm
Session Chair: Jose M Gil, Centre for Agro-Food Economics and Development (CREDA-UPC- IRTA)
Location:Auditorium M: Jan Mossin
Session Abstract
Sustainable innovations (SIs) in the agri-food sector enhancing environmental and social aspects are vital in addressing global challenges, particularly by accelerating the shift toward more sustainable and socially inclusive agricultural systems. The European Union (EU) provides a comprehensive framework of policies to support SIs in the agri-food sector (the European Green Deal setting the path to climate neutrality in 2050, the Eco-Schemes under the Common Agricultural Policy or the Circular Economy Action Plan). Before investing in SIs, it is essential to perform a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to help stakeholders identify the potential returns on investment, prioritize resources effectively, and ensure that the proposed SIs align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Classical CBA falls short when it excludes non-market values in the environmental and social aspects, such as various public goods. Excluding non-market values can lead to an incomplete assessment of an innovation's true impact, undervaluing critical environmental and social benefits. On the other hand, public goods lack direct monetary values, given the absence of related markets to commercialize these services and monetize their economic benefits. As a result, decisions based solely on classical CBA focusing on private benefits may favour short-term financial gains over long-term sustainability.
This session provides three examples of using an extended cost-benefit analysis (ECBA) framework that integrates non-market values with traditional CBA. While the first two presentations are focussed more on the methodological issues applied to specific case studies, the third one explores how this process can be done in a co-constructed way with stakeholders to deliver impact.
Presentations
Cost Benefit Analysis of diversified farming systems across 10 Europe: Incorporating non-market benefits of ecosystem 11 services
Francisco Alcon1, Jose A. Albaladejo-García1, Victor Martínez-García1, Eleonora S. Rossi2, Emanuele Blasi2, Heikki Lehtonen3, Jose M. Martínez-Paz4, Jose A. Zabala4
1Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, Spain; 2Università degli Studi della Tuscia; 3Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luonnonvarakeskus); 4Universidad de Murcia
Crop diversification can enhance farm economic sustainability whilst reducing the negative impact on the environment and ecosystem services related. Despite the market and non-market benefits of crop diversification, monocropping is a widely used dominant practice in Europe. In this context, this works aims to assess the overall economic impact of several crop diversification systems across Europe and compared it to the monocropping system. For this purpose, an economic evaluation by integrating market and non-market values for eight case studies distributed across three different European pedoclimatic regions (Southern Mediterranean, Northern Mediterranean and Boreal) is proposed. The economic valuation was conducted both in the short and medium-long term. For the short-term we conducted a social gross margin analysis, while for the medium-long term a cost-benefit analysis is developed. The results show an improvement in social gross margins for most of the diversification scenarios assessed when environmental and socio-cultural benefits are considered in the short-term. In the medium and long-term the transformation of cropping towards a more diversified agriculture is encouraged by greater economic benefits. These results provide a first insight in global economic performance of diversified cropping systems, whose main contribution relies on the integration of market and non-market values of ecosystem services from crop diversification. They are expected to be useful for guiding policy makers to promote crop diversification practices as a key instrument for building resilience in farming systems for an adaptive management to climate change.
Incorporating Non-Market Values into Extended Cost–Benefit Analysis
Yan Jin1,2, Bouali Guesmi2,3, José M. Gil2,4
1Agricultural Economics and Rural Policy Group, Wageningen University; 2Centre for Agro-Food Economics and Development (CREDA-UPC- IRTA); 3Mograne Higher School of Agriculture, University of Carthage; 4Department of Agri-Food Engineering and Biotechnology, Technical University of Catalonia
We introduce the concept of the equivalent affected population to enhance cost–benefit analysis by integrating non-market values from a discrete choice experiment. To illustrate the practical application of this framework, we conduct a case study evaluating the impact of adopting sustainable innovations in organic apple production in Poland. We estimate citizens’ willingness to pay for carbon emissions (€0.74), biodiversity (€-1.02), and local employment (€0.95) derived from the innovations, revealing a greater societal emphasis on social benefits over environmental benefits. The benefit-cost ratio improves by 4.9%, and net present value rises by 9.5%, underscoring the importance of incorporating non-market values into agricultural policymaking.
Rapid economic assessment of nature-based solutions: illustration of a co-constructed approach
José A. Albaladejo-García1, María D. Medina-Vidal2, Julia Martin-Ortega3, Francisco Alcon1
1Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena; 2Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico (MITECO), Government of Spain; 3Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
Amongst the multiple advantages attributed to nature-based solutions (NBS) over conventional and grey infrastructure, is their characterisation as economically efficient, i.e. that the benefits that they generate outweigh their costs. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid so far to generating quantified evidence to support this claim in the form of comprehensive cost-benefit analysis informing actual and specific environmental decisions in given territories. Without such evidence, current enthusiasm for NBS might result in bad decisions or disappointment and abandonment. In this paper, we provide illustration of a co-constructed approach closely developed with policy-makers and involving a range of stakeholders, in which the well-being impacts of adopting NBS versus non-NBS alternatives for the mitigation of agricultural impacts in the ecologically stressed Mar Menor lagoon (Spain) are formally evaluated, building-up the evidence base of the economic efficiency of NBS. More importantly, the paper illustrates how there is now sufficient existing knowledge (with respect to ecosystem services provision and their values) to undertake rapid economic assessments that, if exposed and co-constructed with a range of stakeholders in participatory processes, can support complex policy decisions in response to climate and environmental emergencies in ways that are robust, transparent and socially acceptable. Such socially supported processes are of particularly critical importance in times of growing polarisation over environmental challenges.
