Abstract
We developed a methodological toolkit for performing resource equivalency analyses in the European Union, supported by European Commission DG Research and Innovation through the REMEDE project (Resource Equivalency Methods for Assessing Environmental Damage in the European Union). The purpose of the Toolkit is to provide users with an overview of resource equivalency methods in the context of the Environmental Liability Directive, Habitats Directive, Wild Birds Directive, and Environmental Impact Assessment Directive. The Toolkit outlines analytical steps that can be used to assess and remediate different types of environmental damages and incidents covered by these Directives.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that primary remediation is not a component of the Toolkit but is described here for completeness.
- 2.
As amended by Directive 2013/30/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 June 2013 on Safety of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations.
- 3.
In some cases, damages may be represented using a single metric for scaling purposes (e.g., hectares of habitat; organism abundance). In other cases, multiple metrics may be employed and the Competent Authority could scale remediation based on the results of a series of equivalency calculations. Finally, compound metrics may also be used in which different measures of resource or service changes are combined into a single metric.
- 4.
If harm accrues into perpetuity, operators must pay for it. However, because a positive discount rate typically is used, perpetuity often can be approximated by a time frame on the order of 50–100 years (depending on the discount rate used).
- 5.
An analogy that has been used to support this argument is that loss of an arm or a leg in an accident does not represent a 25% loss of ‘limb services.’ Rather, full compensation would require wholly restoring the injury.
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Lipton, J., Özdemiroğlu, E., LeJeune, K., Peers, J. (2018). Resource Equivalency Methods in the European Union: A ‘Toolkit’ for Calculating Environmental Liability. In: Lipton, J., Özdemiroğlu, E., Chapman, D., Peers, J. (eds) Equivalency Methods for Environmental Liability. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9812-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9812-2_2
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