Promoting environmental sustainability through the utilisation of an indicator set, ecosystem services perspective and non-market valuation techniques

• Main Author: Cook, David
• Other Authors: Brynhildur Davíðsdóttir, Hagfræðideild (HÍ), Faculty of Economics (UI), Félagsvísindasvið (HÍ), School of Social Sciences (UI), Háskóli Íslands, University of Iceland
• Language: English
• Published: University of Iceland, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Economics 2018
• Subjects: Sjálfbærni; Umhverfisáhrif; Virkjanir; Jarðhiti; Doktorsritgerðir; Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11815/2037

Enhanced understanding and knowledge concerning a nation’s environmental sustainability performance is necessary to ensure the longterm flourishing capacities of economies and critical to the maintenance of human well-being, particularly through the provisioning of multiple ecosystem services. The case study of Iceland is referenced throughout this thesis to explore linkages between environmental sustainability impacts at a national level with environmental and ecosystem service impacts occurring on a project-specific basis, particularly those associated with energy developments. Paper I of this thesis uses the case studies of Iceland and Norway to outline a new methodology for selecting indicators of environmental sustainability specific to the national context. Following a series of focus groups, expert judgment was applied as part of a five-stage process leading to the selection of 23 indicators from an initial pool of 30 possibilities. Easy-to-understand evaluative techniques, in the form of radar charts and traffic-lights, were used to appraise national progress in relation to targets and trend-based objectives respectively. Paper II considers the project-specific nature of environmental impacts in the Icelandic energy sector. On the basis that determining the acceptability of environmental impacts can become a subjective affair skewed by vested interest, an argument is set forth for the use of non-market-valuation techniques to account for environmental costs. This paper discusses the way in which utilitarian values of the environment could be incorporated into the existing decision-making and regulatory apparatus for Icelandic energy projects. Paper III then focuses directly on geothermal energy in Iceland, using an ecosystem services perspective to highlight typical impacts to the quality and quantity of their provisioning through the development of a hightemperature power project. The first thematic classification of ecosystem services in a geothermal energy context is outlined using the Common ...