Non-economic Valuation of Cultural Ecosystem Services: A Business Case
In the beginning of 2017, the Corporate Guidelines for Non-Economic Valuation of Cultural Ecosystem Services (DESEC) were applied to a four month-long project. The project included the interaction between: the TeSE team; the bioactive ingredients company Assessa; the community that supplies the raw material from Baleia Beach in Itapipoca-CE; and the facilitating team from Ecotoré Social-environmental Services, supported by the TEEB R-L project.
The objectives of this pilot project were to test the applicability of the method, to support the improvement of the guidelines and, mainly, to generate new business references in the use of CES, contributing to future applications and the advancement of this agenda within the scope of businesses and enterprises.
This business case, therefore, is anchored by DESEC, and seeks to illustrate their purpose through describing the experiences of how they were used in a step-by-step basis, highlighting the challenges and lessons learned in the process, along with partial results and reflections. This case has the intention to serve as a source of inspiration, taking into account that different contexts require specific analyses, applications and reflections.
