We are seeing a global shift towards the ‘Blue Economy’, with recognition that we will increasingly rely on our ocean and coastal environments for critical services including food security, renewable energy, transport, recreation, medicinal products, and the list goes on.

Sustainable and resilient marine environments will underpin this shift.

With this in mind, stakeholders including scientists, decision makers, industry and communities are acknowledging the need to develop frameworks that identify, measure and trade-off the services provided by marine environments, and to do this in a way that is commensurate across environmental, social and economic dimensions.

For example, increasingly, we are seeing marine scientists take an interest in, and applying, economic approaches to measure the value of ecosystem services. With this increasing attention on economic methods, it is key to ensure that such methods are being applied in line with economic theory.

This seminar will provide a brief overview of some of the key considerations that marine scientists should be aware of when interpreting, using and applying economic approaches, with a particular focus on total economic value frameworks.