The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) highlights the need to recognise the diverse values of nature and its benefits, which different stakeholders hold. The report examines the current predicament of policymaking mostly ignoring the diversity of nature’s values, choosing to focus largely on its economic value, which neglects environmental issues of global importance.

The report recommends policymakers adopt a modified values typology that considers the interconnectedness of economic, social, cultural, moral, and ecological values to address the challenges of the valuation of nature. To leverage transformative change, the report highlights the importance of creating policies that balance economic, social and environmental goals, of building policy capacities across stakeholders, and of reconciling the range of values to enact sustainability-aligned policies and practices.

The report reveals that less than 5% of published valuation studies have resulted in policies informed by nature’s values. The lack of progress on the value integration front is a reflection of knowledge-to-action gaps and resource constraints. However, international initiatives such as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity and System of Environmental-Economic Accounting are promoting the integration of nature’s values into national-level policies, which the report recommends policymakers embrace, in addition to other valuation methods.

The report underlines the importance of embedding nature’s diverse values into policymaking at all stages of the policy cycle through the use of six interrelated values-centred guidelines: contextualisation, design, representation, engagement, legitimisation, and reflection. Policymakers should consider each of these guidelines when developing policies focused on sustainability pathways across scales, involving a wide range of social actors.

This report highlights the critical ESG issues related to the valuation of nature. It emphasises the significance of considering nature’s diverse values, ecosystem functioning, and the relativity of policies to global environmental challenges. The study also highlights the importance of balancing economic, social and environmental goals that can lead to sustainability-aligned policies and practices.

Policymakers should adopt modified typology models that balance economic, social, cultural, moral, and ecological values to address the challenges of valuing nature. Implementation of international initiatives, such as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity and System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, which are promoting nature’s value in national-level policies. Policymakers should employ the six interrelated values-centred guidelines, including contextualisation, design, representation, engagement, legitimisation, and reflection, to embed the diverse values of nature into decision-making and policy-making across all stages of the policy cycle.