Incorporating diverse values of nature in decision-making—theory and practice

1. Introduction

The nature crisis—manifested through high rates of habitat and species loss—reflects that a limited set of values are prioritized in our systems for decision-making, largely favouring market-based instrumental values of nature [1,2]. Various forms of policy interventions have been instituted to amend environmental problems, including those anchored in the Convention of Biological Diversity [3,4]. The nature crisis continues, however, largely unabated [5]. Furthermore, the IPBES ‘Methodological assessment of the diverse values and valuation of nature’ (henceforth 'Values Assessment') [1,6] documents that the problem is not lacking knowledge or methods to assess nature's diverse values [7]. It concerns our ability to consider the broad set of nature's values when making economic and political decisions that impact nature [2].

Navigating through nature's multiple values is challenging due to the great diversity of values associated with different worldviews, knowledge systems and languages. Following the Values Assessment, we refer to nature's values as both broad values (guiding principles and life goals such as care for nature, equity and justice) and specific values (judgements regarding the importance of nature in particular situations) [8]. Specific values may be distinguished as instrumental (nature as a substitutable means to human well-being), relational (nature as a basis for meaningful relationships) and intrinsic (nature as having value in-and-of itself) [1,8–10].

Decision-making geared to a more sustainable and just future requires us to acknowledge the diversity of values and to balance, as well as prioritize, among competing types of values held by different people. However, currently, economic and political decisions rely mostly on a narrow set of values, typically favouring instrumental values as reflected in markets [2]. Moreover, policies geared to support nature are either oriented towards instrumental values, viewing nature as capital offering material benefits, or in some instances focused on intrinsic values generally favouring nature protection at the expense of human use. While relational values play an important part in people's perceptions about and meaningful relationships towards nature (e.g. care, reciprocity, stewardship, etc.), they tend to be overlooked in economic and political decisions [2,9,11]. Acknowledging, balancing and prioritizing across the plurality of values depend on how decision-making processes are instituted: to what extent different societal groups are involved, and how values can be expressed and considered when decisions are made [3,4]. Power relations are an important aspect of this, as the values prioritized tend to favour the interests of more powerful actors [3,12]. Hence, how to manage value pluralism (i.e. recognition of multiple and often conflicting values) with attention to broad values such as intra- and inter-generational justice is a great challenge [13].

Here we aim to expand the insights about the shortfalls of present decision-making systems impacting nature and how they can be addressed. More specifically, we draw on the Values Assessment to develop a values-centred framework to support analyses of decision-making about nature. This framework is first applied in an analysis of the evolution of interventions towards nature protection in market economies. Thereafter it is used to study the role of valuation in bringing nature's values into decision-making. Lastly, we analyse what and whose values underlie the design of key policy instruments for nature conservation exemplified by protected areas and payments for ecosystem services.

2. A values-centred framework of decision-making about nature

Decision-making impacting nature (directly or indirectly) takes different forms. Hence, a framework for analysing such decisions should distinguish between different types of actors and decisions. Moreover, it needs to acknowledge that the ways in which different actors' values influence decisions are complex. The decision-making framework developed here consists therefore of two key elements: a decision-making typology characterizing types of decisions, decision-makers and their interactions, and a representation of how values influence decision-making.

(a) The decision-making typology

The decision-making typology (DMT) addresses the main functions and roles played by decision-makers in a generalized way that may be further nuanced to fit different contexts. Three main types of decision-making regarding nature are considered here. Political decision-making concerns making the formal rules in society including defining rights to natural assets. It typically implies regulating conflicting interests about uses of nature, for example through legal regulations and incentives [14]. Economic decision-making covers production and consumption decisions over goods and services including investments and disinvestments in natural assets given politically established rules [15]. Socio-cultural decision-making processes regard the role of culture in forming, maintaining or changing people's relationships with nature, e.g. related to issues like identity, reciprocity and respect for nature [16]. We note that while any type of decision-making is a process, it is more difficult in this latter category to define exact moments in which decisions are made.

Regarding actors, we identify three general types emphasizing their main roles in society. Political actors hold the authority to define rules for political decision-making as well as for economic activities (e.g. parliaments or community leaders allocating property and use rights, or establishing regulations). Economic actors comprise producers holding rights to natural assets used for production, consumers of the goods and services derived from nature and financial actors. The third type includes civil society, which includes citizens in general, membership-based organizations and social movements organized around goals serving community interests about nature (e.g. for nature protection, recreation, research). Clearly, these are broad categories, and subcategories could be identified in different contexts.

Types of decision-making and types of actors can be combined to identify different kinds of decision spaces about nature (table 1). For instance, while the space for economic actors regards decisions about use of and investment in natural assets, they can also influence political decisions given their control over strategic natural assets and through lobbying for rules favourable to vested interests and values [17]. Political actors are public representatives with specific mandates to make political decisions. However, they also make economic decisions when e.g. allocating budgets for infrastructure developments. Public authorities may also operate as economic actors when running publicly owned companies, for example. The key decision space for civil society is the forming of socially shared values and identities. Civil society also plays an important role in political decision-making through mobilizing people for specific causes and establishing legitimacy to the political process underpinning decision-making about nature.

Table 1. Decision-making typology (DMT). The decision-making typology is based on two dimensions: types of decisions (political, economic and socio-cultural) and types of actors or decision-makers (political, economic and civil society). Definitions of the types of decisions and actors are provided, as well as examples for their combinations. Green cells offer examples of key decisions for each actor type. Given overlaps between types of decisions and roles of actors, fuzziness between the various categories exists.

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There are many examples where the border between e.g. being a political and an economic actor, are transgressed to economically favour political actors themselves [18]. Such transgression denotes corruption, which shows that societies observe the distinctiveness of the above categories and that mixing them raises issues with respect to (lack of) normative legitimacy of decision-making roles of different actors [19].

While the ‘functions’ of actors as defined by the DMT are found in all societies, the roles they play may not always be easily distinguishable. For instance, among Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, roles may be less distinct, but the logic underlying each type of decision remains. While the basic logic of policy-making is to serve the public interest [20], economic decision-making by private firms is typically assumed to favour their own private interests. Of course, there is variation across private economic decision-making units from e.g. individual firms to local communities, where the latter typically also include considerations about how to best maintain social relations [21]. Regarding civil society, there are strong elements of ‘public’ interest in the sense of expressing common interests for specific issues or collectives.

An important element of the DMT regards the forms of interactions between actors, influencing how values are expressed and what role they get in decision-making. We emphasize three interaction formats: 1) Command: an actor has the power to decide over other actors—e.g. the power of political actors to decide on legal measures and to institute economic instruments, the power of companies to command resource use including their employees [15]; 2) Trade: actors exchange goods, services and financial assets in markets demanding a common value denominator [22,23]; and 3) Cooperation: actors work together towards a common goal, which demands dialogue and compromises over common issues. Cooperation is often built on reciprocal arrangements emphasizing a certain level of equality and shared values [24].

These three interaction formats may be combined. For example, command may be based on prior elements of cooperation through deliberations among actors—such as dialogues between the state and civil society actors leading to an agreement that is next commanded. Moreover, conflicts may arise in all interaction formats, which can lead to resistance and various forms of protests [25]. Depending on power relations and the nature of the conflicts, they may persist, be resolved or ended by force [26].

(b) How values influence decision-making

The second element of the framework focuses on factors affecting the way that values influence decision-making processes (figure 1). Decision-making as discussed above is at the centre of the figure. It is foregrounded by a layer of institutions—i.e. conventions, norms and legal rules—and organizations. Institutions define the spaces for decision-making. They encompass ex-ante decisions about the value basis of these spaces, including who should be given the right to participate in decisions [14,27]. Defining the rules for decision-making has a strong impact on what values get to be represented in decision-making and in what form. In other words, institutions execute structural power [12,28,29]. For example, trading nature's values through markets requires value expressions in the form of prices (i.e. a monetary measure of nature's worth) and favours those having more purchasing power. Alternatively, cooperative as well as command formats of interaction may be able to foster other forms of value expressions [30].

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At the same time, discursive power—the influential capacity of discourses, narratives and knowledge production—is key in decision-making. Knowledge production is a way of exercising discursive power in terms of delimiting what is deemed true or false, and thus influencing what counts as legitimate worldviews and knowledge about nature. Socio-cultural processes play an important role in this. Discursive power is crucial for the formation and transformation of values [3,12]. It also often influences which values become hegemonic [31], for example when applying conservation instruments [32]. To illustrate, if decision-makers are attracted by the discursive power of conventional economics—that material consumption is the basis of human well-being—then decisions would most likely be framed on nature's material contributions to people and to some extent on nature's regulating contributions insofar they are understood as important for sustaining the flow of material benefits [9,33]. Similarly, the discursive power of the mainstream conservation movement that primes an eco- or biocentric worldview favouring the idea of ‘pristine’ ecosystems, would imply emphasis on nature's intrinsic values, ignoring many instrumental and relational values held by people living in or around those ecosystems [34,35].

Decisions also impact values and power relations (depicted in figure 1 as feedback arrows between the layers). Decisions may directly affect institutional and organizational structures—for example, who may participate in decision-making and in what capacity. Decisions may also affect the position of certain values (i.e. strengthening or marginalizing values) over time, and changes in values may in turn affect worldviews. The latter is typically gradual and may only be noticeable over longer time horizons [36].

3. Nature's values in market economies

Using the framework to expand our understanding of the nature crisis as a values crisis, we start by analysing the evolution of nature protection in market economies in the period after WWII. We emphasize developments in value priorities, their discursive bases, and how decision-making structures—institutions, actors and interactions involved—that are relevant for decisions about nature's values have evolved.

While there is considerable variation across what we broadly term 'market economies', we find it meaningful to describe the main narratives and policies for use and protection of nature's values in these economies as a progression in four phases. The first phase roughly covers the period up until 1970. This period was dominated by the view that the economy could and should be politically governed [37], reflecting experiences with the global economic crisis of the 1930s and political planning of the economy as important for resource mobilization during the war [38]. The development of the gross domestic product (GDP) indicator to measure the size of the economy was also an important element [37]. Political decisions became geared towards the broad value of human welfare enhancement backed by the goal of sustained economic growth [39]. Important structural changes included the establishment of the Bretton Woods organizations (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the stabilization of exchange rates based on the US dollar, all facilitating a liberalization of international trade [40]. Political actors at state level formulated policies based on a Keynesian discourse, using specific financial and fiscal policies to correct markets, creating a favourable environment for investments and employment. Progress was measured by GDP growth rates, capturing the expansion of market values/trade including the monetary values of nature-based commodities (e.g. traded food, fibre, fossil fuels, minerals, etc.).

This welfarist approach¹ spurred growth in material and energy use, resulting in increased pollution and nature degradation. As these effects became visible, actions—not least by civil society actors including scientists²—brought new understanding into the public discourse, marking the turn to our second period lasting roughly from around 1970 until the beginning of the 1980s. In this period, the field of environmental policy was institutionalized. Political actors expanded their capacities through establishing ministries and agencies for environmental protection, using state command to create national environmental laws as well as engaging in international cooperation to create a set of international environmental agreements [42]. Natural protected areas, which had already existed for some time, expanded substantially during this period, reflecting a similar expansion in the discourse around the need to protect the intrinsic values of nature [43] (see also §5.1). The importance of curbing pollution due to its impacts on human health and the environment also became mainstream [44]. Environmental policies were still mainly additions to a system of economic decision-making based on the more powerful discourse about the benefits of market expansion and growth. So, two systems with different value bases—a dominant welfarist and a subordinate environmental and nature protectionist—came to operate in parallel. A ‘steady state’ narrative also emerged in the 1970s, criticizing present policies for their long-term devastating impacts on nature's ability to sustain human wellbeing [45]. The first international environmental ‘summit’ in 1972—the Stockholm Conference—emphasized the role of political decision-making and governmental planning to fight the unfolding environmental crisis. These narratives were met with substantial resistance by leading political actors and the economic growth paradigm was sustained [46].

By the early 1980s, the idea of politically led expansion of markets had faded, replaced by the discourse that ‘self-directed’³ markets gave superior institutional conditions for allocating resources, including natural resources. This discourse was not new but gained support when the politically led system for stabilizing national currencies broke down, signalling the end of the Bretton Woods era [47]. Throughout the 1980s and −90s, the neoliberal worldview was established and dominated economic and political decisions in most countries, resulting in increased liberalization of international trade and globalizing financial capital movements. Moreover, the value conflict characterizing the 1970s was seemingly dissolved by the creation of a win–win discourse between economic growth and environmental concerns, as epitomized in the Brundtland report introducing the concept of sustainable development [48]. This discourse was also supported by the environmental Kuznets curve narrative—embraced, among others, by the World Bank—stating that growing the economy would eventually result in reduced negative environmental impacts [49,50].

The rapid trade liberalization—while facilitated by political decisions—implied a markedly reduced role for the state in economic decision-making and offered more power to economic actors over the exploitation of nature as a commodity. The establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995 was an important structural representation of this. The logic of ‘market-based’ incentives was further established, via e.g. environmental taxes, tradable quotas and payments for ecosystem services (PES), framing nature mostly in instrumental (market) value terms [14,44,51]. The power of the discourse is also illustrated by the observation that many civil society organizations turned towards market-oriented initiatives (e.g. eco-certifications and eco-tourism), sometimes in cooperation with economic actors, in particular the business sector [52]. However, it is important to acknowledge that most of the trade-oriented initiatives ultimately hinged on state command to define the necessary institutions, including property rights to natural assets, establishing de-jure rights about access to and control over nature [53] (see also §5.2).

In the most recent period, starting after the global financial crisis in 2008, a clearer competition between two narratives is again visible. The economic growth discourse is transformed into ideas about ‘green growth’/’green economy’ [54,55]. While maintaining the focus on growth, there is an increased acknowledgement of the need for political actors (especially states) to engage in formulating environmental policies supporting ‘green’ technologies to combat the climate crisis [54] and scaling up the deployment of environmental fiscal instruments and other mechanisms such as PES [56]. Over time, discourses like degrowth/post-growth and philosophies of good living (e.g. Buen vivir)—as defended mostly by civil society and representa­tives of Indigenous peoples—have brought forward an increased focus on biocultural and relational values of nature [57,58]. Currently the discourse around the green economy is firmly established in international policy fora, with an emphasis on the instrumental values of nature, while post-growth discourses tend to reflect more diverse values and highlight the insepara­bility of social justice issues from environmental sustainability [2].

Table 2 summarizes main characteristics of the above story organized under key concepts from the framework described in §2a.

While some advances have been made to restore and protect the environment by the described strategies, the bigger picture is that the coupled climate and nature crisis continues largely unabated [59]. Problem ignorance and simplistic win–win (green growth) narratives have over­shadowed underlying value conflicts [60]. There are important structural dimensions accompanying this. Political actors continue to mainly facilitate conditions for economic growth firmly framed by the welfarist model and materialized through models of both directed and ‘self-directed’ markets. While the focus continues to facilitate an international trade mode of interaction regarding decisions about nature, there is also support for a multilateral cooperative approach, e.g. through the Convention on Biological Diversity. The latter is the weaker of the two, as seen, for instance, by the failure of the Aichi targets for biodiversity conservation and the Kyoto protocol, as well as the current limited efficacy of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Overall, environmental policies continue to be formulated subordinately to the primary objective of economic growth—not acknowledging the fundamental value conflicts involved.

Even when well-intended, environmental and nature conservation policies face structural barriers in their design and implementation. Given the time delays between economic expansion and realized environmental degradation, the scale of problems caused by growing economies is clearly underestimated. Moreover, when action is initiated to protect the environment, interests linked to previous investments and present consumption patterns typically go against establishing environmental regulations, creating limited space for effective environmental policies [14]. Existing power structures in decision-making about nature, supported by discursive power, limit the potential for values-centred transformative changes to achieve more just and sustainable futures for both people and nature [2]. Shifting institutional and organizational structures is needed to simultaneously consider the instrumental, relational and intrinsic values involved, instead of handling them in sequence by disjoint systems of decision-making.

4. The role of valuation in bringing nature's values into decisions

Having outlined some overarching aspects of the nature crisis as a values crisis, we now turn to a discussion of some specific issues regarding the role of valuation in decision-making. Valuation is defined here as the procedure used to generate information about the values of nature and of human–nature relations to make them more visible to decision-making [7,61]. While everybody (knowingly and unknowingly) undertakes some form of valuing to inform their everyday decisions, valuation—as defined here—is of particular importance for decisions with a societal purpose. Indeed, valuation of nature has been advocated since the 1960s to guide social choices. The aim has been to improve decision-making, particularly related to correct decisions in market economies that do not consider negative impacts on nature well.

Valuation has often been included in economic decision-making conducted by political actors (table 1, first column, second row). Notable examples regard guidelines for social cost-benefit analysis to evaluate impacts on nature as part of approving public infrastructure projects in many countries [62,63]. Valuation also informs political actors on the design of conservation instruments such as PES to promote participation and enhance their effectiveness [64]. Similarly, political actors rely on valuation (based on biophysical metrics, e.g. species red lists) to establish policy priorities in relation to decisions over protected areas (PAs) for biodiversity conservation. In either type of intervention, value pluralism is the exception rather than the rule [35,65] (see §5).

Economic decisions by economic actors have also been a target for valuation of impacts on nature (table 1, second column, second row). In this situation, valuation is typically used by political actors as a basis for adjusting market outcomes by legal regulations or modifying market prices—e.g. product bans or taxation to discourage harmful impacts on nature or subsidies to incentivize production of public goods—to make economic actors (producers and consumers) better integrate values of nature in their economic decisions [66] (table 1, first column, first row). Information from valuation studies has also been used to define mitigation or compen­sation options for harmful interventions, as in the case of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) processes [67].

Three key goals associated with both broad and specific values have motivated nature valuation for decision-making: a) the protection of nature as a goal in itself; b) enhancing the way in which nature supports human well-being; and c) improving justice outcomes of decisions about nature [1,7]. A particular emphasis on any of the three goals reflects an irreducible level of normativity and influences what valuation methods are considered relevant. The same is true of the world­views and knowledge systems that underpin valuation in various realms of decision-making. Together this determines the roles of experts, stakeholders and citizens, the type of data including the form of value information (quantitative biophysical or monetary indicators, qualitative arguments etc.) and how this information is obtained (i.e. participants as data providers, as interest representatives, or as creators of potential solutions) [3,68].

As an example, environmental economics typically relies on value monism (i.e. values can be represented on a common scale (money) to make diverse impacts on people commensurable).⁴ It interprets values as preferences individuals hold that can be aggregated to form a ‘social’ value. People are for the most part seen as rational consumers of nature's goods and services and assumed to make choices to maximize their utility. This reflects a worldview that points towards the superiority of economic valuation methods for eliciting people's values, expressed as ‘willingness to pay (or accept)’ estimates to facilitate analysis of trade-offs in the choices among alternative policy options [69]. The social sciences, more broadly, tend to emphasize the role of social processes in forming the values people hold. They also tend to accentuate value pluralism, stressing the fact that values may be incommensurable and hence not comparable or compatible across different metrics. This has motivated the development of deliberative valuation methods including different forms of mini-publics [70]. Here, the focus is on arguments and common evaluation, including co-learning about different views and the values that are involved with the underlying assumption that it is possible to manage value pluralism and resolve value conflicts through communication [71].

The number of valuation methods is large—e.g. IPBES has assessed about 50 different methods [1,7]. The choice of what method to use is often institutionalized (structurally empowered) in the sense that specific types of assessments—e.g. cost–benefit analyses or public hearings—are demanded when, for example, initiating or evaluating public projects. The choice of valuation method may be understood as purely technical but is actually a key normative element of the valuation process. From the above, we understand that it implies taking a stand between worldviews, including the goals that valuation should seek. Hence there are both discursive and structural power dimensions related to decisions around valuation (figure 1). It follows that valuation regards which institutions (including valuation methods themselves) and which sources of knowledge are seen as legitimate for the different decision spaces—e.g. which types of values are favoured as justification for public spending in infrastructure projects, for identifying compromises between stakeholders in conservation programmes, or for manoeuvring complex trade-offs with high levels of uncertainty [72]. Hence, valuation itself is not value free. It reflects which types of values matter for decision-making as well as which indicators are deemed legitimate when informing decisions. Normative perspectives about value monism versus value pluralism often come into conflict, creating specific challenges for the design of policy instruments for nature conservation.

5. Values embedded in nature conservation instruments

Policy instruments are, like valuation methods, grounded in certain value perspectives. Using the decision-making framework presented above, we illustrate how policy instruments such as protected areas (PAs) and payments for ecosystem services (PES) have traditionally been mostly rooted in the assumption of value monism, but in contrasting ways: for PAs, intrinsic values, for PES, instrumental values. We also contend that such value monism has encountered resistance, especially from local community actors, and that over time new forms of PAs and PES that consider value plurality to some extent are being experimented with. Tracing the history of the two instruments, we consider i) what worldviews have strongly underpinned their reliance on value monism, ii) what key actors have typically been involved in embedding their worldviews into instrument design, iii) what types of interaction among actors are required to implement the instruments, and iv) how power dynamics result in prioritizing certain formats of the instruments and their embedded values.

6. Conclusion

We have presented a framework to support analyses of how decision-making—with its different decision-spaces and power relations—influences whose and which of nature's values are accounted for. Applying the framework to study environmental policies has brought forward several insights. The general economic policy has been found to strongly influence the space for caretaking of the values of nature. The prioritization of the paradigm of economic growth—both discursively and structurally, through the elevation of markets as the key arena for resource allocation—has offered limited possibilities for taking account of the diversity of such values. This is partly the result of a ‘growing first, correcting afterwards' strategy. This has meant that environmental policies have had to operate within rather limited spaces both institutionally and discursively. It is, however, also an effect of value monism. One policy has been to set aside certain areas of high intrinsic values for protection—as a way to distinguish between two spheres: one where market-based economic activities can continue and one where human impact is heavily restricted. Another has been to use the market as a device to protect nature's values through PES programmes. In both cases a monist value perspective has underpinned the strategies.

At the same time, we observe a recent trend towards increasing emphasis on integrating diverse values into protected area and PES programmes. This trend seems to be a response to demands from local communities to better reflect their interests as grounded in worldviews and decision-making procedures that do not fit the externally imposed programmes. Such a shift has demanded a different discursive framing (worldviews, knowledge systems) as well as redefining who should participate in their design and implementation. This has resulted in increased focus on cooperation between local resource users and operators of the policy instruments. The ongoing emphasis on plural valuation [1]—i.e. valuation that recognizes the diversity of values about nature—seems a good travel companion to better design and implement the new generation of conservation policy instruments.

There are two ‘bigger picture’ questions that can be raised. First, one must ask to what extent environmental policies can become at all successful if they continue to be corrections to an economic system that largely emphasizes a set of short-term (market-based) instrumental values. Markets represent an important challenge also in another sense because PAs—often being located in more distant and marginal areas—are vulnerable to a forward movement of the commodity frontier. Second, when looking at the environmental policy instruments used, we are confronted with the (implicit) issue of institutionalizing rights to nature. For example, in protected areas, the global public good of biodiversity conservation can trump the territorial rights of people living and eking out a livelihood from their territories. Similarly, in PES, the ‘Provider gets principle’ may invade the ‘Polluter pays principle’. The rights issue is demanding, as nature conservation implies dealing with matters of fairness—who has the right to pollute/degrade ecosystems or to be protected from such harms. Handling these ‘bigger picture’ issues is in the hands of political actors and transparent procedures are required for civil society to evaluate to what extent discursive and structural power influencing the decision-making processes is both effective and legitimate.

Ethics

This work did not require ethical approval from a human subject or animal welfare committee.

Data accessibility

This article has no additional data.

Declaration of AI use

We have not used AI-assisted technologies in creating this article.

Authors' contributions

A.V.: conceptualization, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing; U.P.: conceptualization, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing; R.C.-K.: writing—review and editing; M.T.: writing—review and editing; P.A.-A.: writing—review and editing; P.B.: writing—review and editing; S.A.: writing—review and editing; T.H.: writing—review and editing; E.L.: writing—review and editing.

All authors gave final approval for publication and agreed to be held accountable for the work performed therein.

Conflict of interest declaration

We declare we have no competing interests.

Funding

U.P. acknowledges the Maria de Maeztu excellence accreditation 2023-2026 (Ref. CEX2021-001201-M), which provided funding via MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033.