Overview
ECOMPASS moves beyond simplistic metrics by integrating biophysical data with valuations grounded in a comprehensive participatory process engaging hundreds of local stakeholders across +4 EU countries and international EU key decision-makers and experts to gather different perspectives and perceptions. We leverage this bottom-up process to define a valuation framework that communicates perceived values to different stakeholder and decision makers, at different levels, incorporating crucial social dimensions like cultural identity, equity, and well-being.
ECOMPASS result? We translate complex information in a clear and visual manner through holistic frameworks such as the Doughnut Economy model, while remaining firmly grounded in scientific evidence.
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Project Objectives
- Develop climate-adjusted assessment of restoration benefits versus the costs of inaction: reveal and avoid the true costs of business as usual under a changing climate, unlocking the holistic value of ecosystem restorations and showing how they deliver both measurable and perceived benefits to society, producing a nature-positive social and economic return on investments. ECOMPASS simulates future restoration scenarios under different climate futures, comparing business-as-usual / inaction with restoration outcomes through ecological and socio-economic lenses and sector-specific assessments, making opportunity costs visible.
- Listening, assessing and quantifying nature restoration cost-benefits: define environmental, economic and non-monetary indicators to spatially link disturbances and interventions and their measured and perceived costs and benefits across different stakeholders. In ECOMPASS we analyse local contexts specificities and identify causal relationships among restoration actions, stressors, and resulting benefits costs, tracing how perceived and measured benefits are distributed across different stakeholders groups.
- Development of an Integrated Framework to Monitor, Predict and Guide Nature Restoration Policies and Actions: ECOMPASS enables supervision and prediction capabilities for policymakers, aligned with the incremental and ambitious progress in nature
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Methods
- ECOMPASS brings a novel scalability approach through the "Landscape Archetypes for Nature Restoration": regions that share similar biophysical and socio-economic traits, turning lessons from local use cases into replicable, continent-wide strategies.
- Nature Restoration Pathways: a shared vision for restoration, defined as thematic directions that reflect local-specific context, territorial challenges, and priorities for use. These Pathways, such as 'Biodiversity and Ecotourism', 'Water Cycle and Water Security', or 'Cultural Landscape and Identity', provide a common language for the three key actors driving restoration: (1) policymakers, (2) investors, and (3) implementers. By focusing on these tangible goals, ECOMPASS moves beyond a one-size-fits-all approach, providing tailored, practical intelligence that directly addresses the specific needs of each user group, bridging the critical gap between policy, finance, and on-the-ground action.
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- Holistic valuation framework for monetary and non-monetary cost-benefit assessment. Quantify where possible and visualise systemic trade-offs, cascading impacts, and co-benefits.
- ECOMPASS deploys a GEDI-aware methodology combining spatial econometric, causal loops diagrams, bottom-up co-creation dialogues and fuzzy logics to handle uncertainty and formalise subjectivity.
Funding
Grant agreement ID: 101291526 under HORIZON-CL6-2025-01-BIODIV-06 - Assessing and modelling socio-economic impacts of nature restoration
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