The continued loss of ecosystems and biodiversity is leading to an ever-growing loss of ecosystem services undermining our societal and economic health and wellbeing.
To understand and communicate the scale and importance of the loss a Cost of Policy Inaction (COPI) study was launched by DG Environment of the European Commission looking at the costs of not halting biodiversity loss. The cost of policy inaction was estimated to lead to a loss of ecosystem services equivalent in scale to around 7% of GDP by 2050 for landbased losses alone.
The COPI study was led by Alterra and IEEP, with IEEP being responsible for the economic assessment, and also involved important contributions from partners Ecologic, FEEM, GHK, W&B, UNEP-WCMB and MNP.