A new book, written by Bengt Steen, about monetary valuation of environmental impacts has recently been published by CRC Press. The book aims to improve the understanding of sustainable development of production and consumption and provides data on long term monetary values of environmental impacts from human activities. The book also discusses how to use monetary values in sustainable development and the choice of system boundaries. It also includes descriptions of impact models in terms of the relation between emissions and natural goods and services.

We asked the author Bengt Steen (professor emeritus at Chalmers University of Technology) some questions about his new book.

Why did you write this book?
“The new ISO 14008 standard on monetary valuation of environmental impacts and related aspects, published in March this year, offers a harmonized structure to communicate monetary values of environmental impacts. My research on the issue has been difficult to communicate and now there was an opportunity to reach a large audience in a credible way. The dissemination of the standard would also benefit from a concrete example.”

What are the main messages and content of this book?
“The scoping process as lined out by the standard is feasible. The scope has a significant impact on the monetary values determined. The environmental goods that make up the natural capital are identified and valued as well as important impacts and elementary flows.”

Who should read this book and why?
“Anyone who is interested in impacts on the natural capital from human activities or want to find significant aspects of such activities. The data may be used for weighting in LCA and for learning about impact pathways of emissions.”

The full title of the book is Monetary valuation of environmental impacts: Models and Data and can be found here. Congratulations Bengt Steen!

The book will be presented at an internal seminar at Chalmers on December 11 and at a webinar arranged by Swedish Life Cycle Center and within the project Swedish Platform for life cycle perspective during spring 2020.  

Bengt Steen is also chair of the working group Get the prices right and has been involved in many research projects within Swedish Life Cycle Center about monetary valuation of environmental impacts, such as; 
– Nature Capital and Value Creation
– Development of methodology to communicate environmental damage cost data
– Integration of environment and economy – economic valuation (IMP)
– Development of method and application for monetarization

Bengt Steen has also been an expert in the development of the two new SS-ISO 14007:2019 (Miljöledning – Vägledning för bestämning av miljörelaterade kostnader och vinster) and ISO 14008:2019 (Monetary valuation of environmental impacts and related environmental aspects).

Text: Anna Wikström
Photo: CRC Press