The Sustainable Provision of Environmental Services

This book addresses the ability of market-based instruments to improve the sustainable provision of environmental services. The author combines field research and insights from the multi-stakeholder dialogue at the FAO to analyze the gap between the predictions provided by theory and the corresponding outcomes in practice. In particular, the author challenges the theory behind Payments for Environmental Services (PES), a concept derived from neoclassical welfare economics, by demonstrating that PES projects often lack financial sustainability unless local entrepreneurs make use of the resulting new networks to create innovative markets for environmental goods. The author calls for a shift of focus from regulation to innovation in projects and policies designed to improve the provision of environmental services. Its spotlight on the positive social impacts of companies that engage in hybrid PES schemes will make the book appealing to practitioners and policymakers alike.

“This book is a refreshing challenge to conventional approaches to payments for environmental services. It offers a more realistic framework that accounts for human creativity and innovation in environmental management.”
Professor Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA, USA (Author of the "The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa", Oxford University Press 2011)

"Philipp Aerni offers a most useful critical assessment of the theory and practice of payments for ecosystem services. His book helps us understand why such payments sometimes fail to reach their objectives, and what could be done about it, particularly in less developed countries."

Professor Thomas Bernauer, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

"Drawing on lessons learned from case studies in Kenya, this important book shows what is needed to improve environmental services and sustainability in the developing world."
Paul Slovic, President,  Decision Research and Professor, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

“This book vividly assesses the use and impact of PES (Payments of Environmental Services) in agriculture. Addressing the gap between PES theory and practice in the historical context, valuable lessons are learned from case studies in Kenya. They assist in refining future policies, linking PES to new business opportunities. The book is essential reading in the quest for squaring increasing food production and sustainable development and for the design of future rules of the international trading system.”
Thomas Cottier, Professor of Law, World Trade Institute, University of Bern.

Philipp Aerni is Director of the Center for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (CCRS) and also Professor for Sustainability and Impact Entrepreneurship at the School of Management Fribourg (HEG-FR). He received his Masters Degree in Geography (with Minors in Environmental Science and Economics) from the University of Zurich and his PhD in Agricultural Economics from ETH Zürich. Prior to his position at CCRS, Dr. Aerni worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Institute for Environmental Decisions at ETH Zurich, the World Trade Institute at the University of Berne as well as the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). Philipp Aerni is also a senior lecturer at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. Among numerous other engagements, he is a member of the Jury of the Swiss Family Business Award, the Forum Genetic Research (SCNAT), and Liberethica (a Platform on ethics, business and religion). As an interdisciplinary social scientist he is interested in the role entrepreneurship and innovation as potential driving forces for inclusive and sustainable change.