Impact case study database

Conserving and enhancing nature are integral to the UN biodiversity convention’s Aichi targets and the EU’s 7^th and 8^th Environmental Action Programmes. Yet such targets have been repeatedly missed in the past. Our five research insights (see Section 2) have demonstrated that this is because natural capital (and the services it generates) is thought about too narrowly (Insight 1), that relevant knowledge is not adequately refined for policy Impact (Insight 2) and, consequently, ecosystems are systematically undervalued in contemporary policy analysis and decision making (Insights 3,4,5). Our five insights led the way in remedying this situation by significantly shaping both UK Government and international thinking on biodiversity, natural capital, and ecosystem conservation. These changes in thinking have, in turn, led directly to policy Impact, with multiple benefits for the environment, society and the economy.

National level Impact and leadership

Following the success of the NEA in 2011 (see Section 2), DEFRA launched a National Ecosystem Assessment Follow-on (NEAFO) in June 2014 [S1], its entire raison d’être being to translate the findings of the NEA into lasting Impacts across Whitehall and wider civil society. The NEAFO, co-chaired by Turner and Watson, had three principal aims [S1, page 6]: to “(1) further understanding of the economic and social value of nature; (2) to develop tools and products to operationalise the Ecosystem Approach; and (3) to support the inclusion of natural capital in the UK’s National Accounts.” Our Insight 5 directly informed DEFRA’s decision to appoint Turner (an environmental economist) to integrate social science thinking into its thinking and, through the work of Jordan, onwards into systems of government policy appraisal and land use planning (Insight 3). Bateman and Turner were directly responsible for producing NEAFO’s conceptual framework [published as R5] [S1, page 12]; Bateman and Day produced the central economic model underpinning the entire assessment [S3]; and Bateman, Day, Anger-Kraavi, Turner and Jordan all led or co-led pivotal work packages (thus exemplifying the importance of Insight 5).

A second direct outcome of the NEA was the development of the Treasury/ DEFRA Natural Capital Committee (NCC), established in 2012 to provide expert advice to HM Government. According to DEFRA, Bateman quickly emerged as an especially influential committee member, drawing directly on his NEA and NEAFO work [S4, S5]. The NCC subsequently produced annual state of natural capital reports (thus acting in response to Insight 4) and advised on many other strategic and operational matters (e.g. corporate accounting, cost benefit analysis and long-term policy planning).

A third direct outcome was the Treasury’s 2019 decision to establish the Global (‘Dasgupta’) Review on the Economics of Biodiversity [S6] which reported jointly to the Prime Minister and Chancellor. Watson was a founding member of the Dasgupta Review group, and according to the Deputy Head of National Biodiversity at DEFRA “ UEA [staff] continue to be involved in key ground-breaking research including the [Dasgupta review]. It is expected that this review will draw on the National Ecosystem Assessment (and Follow-On) reports”* [S5].

Achieving these three policy Impacts in turn generated a cascade of other Impacts including impacting new UK plans, policy objectives and policy frameworks post-Brexit. Our research directly informed new policy objectives and policy frameworks. Specifically, the NCC’s second annual report [S7], referred directly to the work package led by Bateman and drew on extensive contributions from several other UEA authors. Its main recommendation was to produce a long-term Environment Plan [S7], directly informed by natural capital/ecosystem services thinking [S5]. The then Secretary of State for the Environment formally accepted that recommendation in July 2017 [S8a] which led directly, in 2018, to DEFRA publishing the UK’s very first 25 Year Environment Plan [S8b]. Page 15 of that Plan directly cited Bateman’s Science paper on the use of ecosystem service research in UK decision making [R8] and Annex 1 contained numerous references to the work of the NCC (e.g., page 6) and the NEAFO (e.g., page 47) [S8b].

According to the Deputy Head of National Biodiversity at DEFRA *“contributions by UEA… include[d] the integrated model [which] provided real-world land-use scenarios that quantified, perhaps for the first time, the economic and environmental impacts of land use choices”.* Moreover, “ the outputs formed a significant component of the evidence base that helped the [NCC] convince Government of the value of a natural capital approach and in turn led to the adoption of that approach as a central tenet of the government’s 25 Year Environment Plan.” [S5]. Furthermore, this plan will be the first in a rolling series of national Environmental Improvement Plans established under the Environment Act, expected to be adopted in 2021, the first UK environment act in a generation. According to a DEFRA Policy Paper ( Environmental Bill: Environmental Targets, dated August 2020) the new Act will only set legally binding long-term targets in four priority areas, one of which will be biodiversity/ecosystems.

Our work also informed internal Whitehall guidance on policy development. DEFRA’s Deputy Head of National Biodiversity confirms that our work informed “findings from the NEAFO more broadly [which] were [in turn] used to support the development of Defra and Treasury guidance on integrating environmental considerations into policy appraisal (Defra’s ‘Enabling a Natural Capital Approach’ and the Treasury ‘Green Book’)” [S5]. It is noteworthy that DEFRA had earlier commissioned a whole work package of the NEAFO - Workpackage 9 ‘Embedding an Ecosystem Services Framework in Appraisal’ [S1, page 60] - (co-led by Jordan) to address the (non) use of ecosystem knowledge in policy appraisal systems. These systems have since been overhauled to inform government spending right across Whitehall [S5].

The Executive Director of UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre ( UNEP’s WCMC; the UN body that coordinated the NEAFO for DEFRA) states that the “research performed at UEA … played a pivotal role in the [NEA] and [NEAFO]… Over the last two decades their research has been critically important in conceptualizing the relationship between nature, ecosystem services and economic and non-economic values” [S4]. Moreover, it “is apparent that these findings influenced the Treasury…. Green Book and the decision to form the Natural Capital Committee….” [S4].

International level Impact and leadership

Watson’s leadership underpinned several related international knowledge exchange exercises, which directly impacted policy development activities in the UK and globally. For example, Watson chaired the international negotiations that led to the formation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in 2012 [S2]. His ideas permeate the conceptual framework that underpins all IPBES’s work [R2, R5], commensurate with Insights 1 and 5 (see Section 2). Watson was also instrumental in inventing the ‘nature’s contributions to people’ approach (see Insight 2) [R2, R4], which is now formally incorporated in the wording of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's strategic plan for biodiversity. IPBES’s first Global Assessment, published in May 2019 [see for example S9], is actively informing the UN’s overarching biodiversity policy framework [S2].

In the words of the Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biodiversity, Watson “played a leading role in the negotiation, governance and work programme of [IPBES] … which is the primary mechanism for providing state of the art and governmentally approved assessments that support policymaking and implementation under the [Convention].” Its Global Assessment was “particularly influential, scientifically, politically and in raising public awareness and understanding… [It] brought much-needed attention to the loss of biodiversity… placing it along-side climate change as an issue that needs to be addressed by the global community with equal urgency” [S2] . Furthermore, the Executive Director of UNEP’s WCMC confirms that many “ UEA… scientists have contributed significantly to the NEA, NEAFO, IPBES, and IPCC assessments, which have played a vital role in national and international policies to conserve and restore biodiversity” [S4].

Meanwhile, the Dasgupta Review published its Interim report in April 2020 [S6], citing Watson’s ideas about nature’s contributions to people [R2, R4] and drawing directly on the NEA and NEAFO [S6]. Its final report will be published in February 2021, but its preliminary findings [S5] were being anticipated in government throughout 2020. For example, the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, attended a preparatory UN Convention on Biological Diversity meeting on 26 September 2020 and announced a brand new UK-wide policy goal to improve ecosystem protection - that 30% of its land and seas will be specially protected by 2030, up 4% from 26% [S10].

Summary

Foundational interdisciplinary research conducted at UEA since 2000 continues to exert a significant impact on many influential knowledge exchange activities at national, EU and international levels [e,g, S2, S4, S5], leading directly to substantial and long-lasting policy and societal Impacts. The foundational Impact of Turner (CBE, 2000), Watson (knighted, 2012; a UN Champion of the World for Science and Innovation) and Bateman (OBE, 2013) has been formally recognised by HM Government and the UN.