Valuing nature

Understanding how nature is valued and how this shapes governance becomes crucial. This matters because how nature is valued influences what becomes visible in policymaking, which harms are treated as acceptable, which protections are considered justified, and whose interests are effectively represented.

EU law and policy already recognise the importance of nature in multiple ways. The challenge is to translate these commitments more consistently into decision-making, especially under conditions of ecological interdependence, biodiversity loss, climate instability, systemic risk, and ecological limits. Furthermore, values that can be measured, monetised, standardised, or traded off often gain more institutional weight than values that are relational, place-specific, ethically significant, ecologically non-substitutable, or difficult to express in common metrics.

Moreover, under conditions of geopolitical instability, economic pressure, industrial competition, and social strain, ecological sustainability risks being reframed as a secondary objective.

Therefore, based on ethical analysis, the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies recommends that EU policymakers should:

• Integrate multiple ways of valuing nature explicitly and consistently into policymaking, so that ecological, ethical, social, cultural, and economic considerations can shape decisions.
• Treat scientifically identified ecological boundaries, and the risks of significant harm as constraints in evaluation, impact assessment, and policy decision-making.
• Establish a legally binding right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment within the EU.
• Strengthen formalised institutional mechanisms so that ecological concerns, including effects on non-human nature, are adequately considered in governance and legal decision-making.
• Use economic valuation within clear ethical and ecological conditions, so that such tools support wellbeing, resilience, ecological integrity, and multiple ways of valuing nature.
• Advance research, responsible innovation, and institutional learning on valuing nature and governing human impacts on nature.
• Strengthen shared responsibilities, ecological literacy, and civic capacities for the protection of nature.
• Embed early, meaningful, and consequential participation in governance affecting nature.
• Ensure coherence between the EU's internal commitments on nature and sustainability and its external action.