Economic instruments for environmentally friendly management

To protect biodiversity and ecosystem services, various policy instruments are being discussed and implemented – regulatory, informational, and economic. Economic incentive instruments influence behavior through financial mechanisms: Positive incentives reward environmentally sustainable economic activity, while negative incentives increase the costs of environmentally harmful behavior – with the shared goal of shaping the framework conditions to encourage more sustainable economic activity overall.

The project systematically identifies and evaluates existing economic incentive instruments in order to develop recommendations for their future application and design. Its central focus is on the question of how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular can be encouraged through economic incentives to voluntarily contribute to the protection and promotion of biodiversity.

The project team first develops an overview and typology of economic incentive instruments for environmentally sustainable economic activity before analyzing and evaluating selected instruments in greater detail. Case studies complement the conceptual work with practice-oriented insights and data from real-world implementation in companies. Based on the findings, policy recommendations are developed and disseminated to political decision-makers and the relevant administrative authorities.