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The paper focuses on the question of the extent to which individual preference-based values are suitable in guiding environmental policy and damage assessment decisions. Three criteria for “suitableness” are reviewed: conceptual, moral and legal. Their discussion suggests that: (i) the concept of economic value as applied to environmental resources is a meaningful concept based on the notion of trade-off; (ii) the limitations of the moral foundations of cost-benefit analysis do not invalidate its use as a procedure for guiding environmental decision making; (iii) the input of individual preferences into damage assessment is compatible with the basic foundations of tort law; (iv) using individual preference-based methods provides incentives for efficient levels of due care; (v) determining standing is still very contentious for various categories of users as well as for aggregating non-use values. Overall, the discussion suggests that the use of preference-based approaches in both the policy and legal arenas is warranted provided that they are accurately applied, their limitations are openly acknowledged and they assume an information-providing rather than a determinative role.

The purpose of this paper is to design a preservation policy aimed at safeguarding the Ehden Natural Reserve, a reserve providing shelter to a substantial number of endangered species.

The current paper, offers an approach which merges contingent valuation and cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to design a preservation policy aimed at safeguarding the reserve. Contingent valuation is used to estimate the expected benefits from the reserve for both local residents and tourists visiting Ehden, while using a certainty analysis approach to explore the problem of hypothetical bias. A CBA is then applied to the findings to evaluate a ten year plan to preserve the protected area through a non-profit foundation.

Findings from the analysis support the feasibility of a project of this nature, which shows a positive NPV within the studied period and at an acceptable social discount rate (SDR). The balance between benefit and cost is thus always positive, except in some pessimistic cases when analyzing the sensitivity of the model’s critical variables, particularly the number of visitors, the different WTPs for visitors and locals and the different SDRs.

The paper adds to the scarce research available on the sustainability of protected areas in the Middle East region.

Government agencies have endeavored, with limited success, to improve the methodological consistency of regulatory benefit–cost analysis (BCA). This paper recommends that an independent cohort of economists, policy analysts and legal scholars take on that task. Independently established “best practices” would have four positive effects: (1) they would render BCAs more regular in form and format and, thus, more readily assessable and replicable by social scientists; (2) improved consistency might marginally reduce political opposition to BCA as a policy tool; (3) politically-motivated, inter-agency methodological disputes might be avoided; and (4) an independent set of “best practices” would provide a sound, independent basis for judicial review of agency BCAs.

This study aims to present the perspectives of heterodox economics and Islamic economics on environmental economics, as an alternative to mainstream economics, which takes economic growth as its main objective and argues that environmental problems will largely disappear when economic growth is achieved.

In this study, there was no intention to conduct a detailed analysis of heterodox economic models and Islamic economics. Instead, the approaches to the “environment,” which can be considered as an urgent need of the planet, were evaluated, and the inadequate proposals of the mainstream economics’ environmental approach were theoretically criticized and heterodox economics and Islamic economics were proposed as an alternative model.

Heterodox and Islamic economics offer alternative models of development prioritizing social and ecological justice to address environmental problems, which is in contrast to mainstream economics’ narrow focus on market mechanisms and individual rationality. Thus, engaging in more dialogue in the context of the environment is inevitable for both schools, considering the vast geography inhabited by Muslims and the proposed heterodox economic policies, and moreover, these approaches are modeled for the first time.

This article presents a synthesis of Islamic economics and heterodox thinking in contrast to mainstream economic policy, highlighting their similarities and differences and providing a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities and potential solutions of environmental problems. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this approach has not been previously explored, making it an original contribution to the literature.

With more cities aiming to achieve climate neutrality, identifying the funding to support these plans is essential. The purpose of this paper is to exploit the present of a structured green bonds framework in Sweden to investigate the typology of abatement projects Swedish municipalities invested in and understand their effectiveness.

Marginal abatement cost curves of the green bond measures are constructed by using the financial and abatement data provided by municipalities on an annual basis.

The results highlight the economic competitiveness of clean energy production, measured in abatement potential per unit of currency, even when compared to other emerging technologies that have attracted the interest of policymakers. A comparison with previous studies on the cost efficiency of carbon capture storage reveals that clean energy projects, especially wind energy production, can contribute to the reduction of emissions in a more efficient way. The Swedish carbon tax is a good incentive tool for investments in clean energy projects.

The improvement concerning previous applications is twofold: the authors expand the financial considerations to include the whole life-cycle costs, and the authors consider all the greenhouse gases. This research constitutes a prime in using financial and environmental data produced by local governments to assess the effectiveness of their environmental measures.

The paper aims to present an approach to cost-benefit analysis with stochastic data. Determining the type and the values of alternative’s factors are probably the most important issue in this approach. Therefore, in the proposed approach, a competitive advantage model was built to measure the values of alternative’s factors. Then, a satisfactory cost-benefit analysis model with random data was proposed to evaluate the alternatives. The cost-benefit analysis of each alternative was carried out to obtain the real and satisfactory cost-benefit of the decision-maker.

This paper is orientationally expressed as a mathematical problem in which the optimization problem needs to analyze the approach. This paper is written based on uncertainty linear optimization. Optimization under uncertainty refers to this branch of optimization where there are uncertainties involved in the data or the model and is popularly known as stochastic optimization problems.

As was seen in the purpose part, in this paper, an approach is presented to cost-benefit analysis by the use of competitive advantage with stochastic data. In this regards, a stochastic optimization problem to assess competitive advantage is proposed. This optimization problem recognizes the values of alternative’s factors which is the most important step in cost-benefit analysis. An optimization problem is proposed to cost benefit analysis, as well.

To investigate different aspects of the proposed approach, a case study with random data of 21 economic projects was considered.

Cost–benefit analysis is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits while preserving savings. Cost–benefit analysis is related to cost-effectiveness analysis. Benefits and costs are expressed in monetary terms and are adjusted for the time value of money; all flows of benefits and costs over time are expressed on a common basis in terms of their net present value, regardless of whether they are incurred at different times. As seen the paper using competitive advantage tries to determine the values of alternative’s factor. As competitive advantage model analyze the advantages and disadvantages of alternatives, this paper by the use of this idea tries to determine the costs and benefits. Two stochastic optimization problems in the middle of this approach are proposed, which assess competitive advantage and cost–benefit analysis, respectively.

In this paper, we critically review cost‐benefit analysis, cost‐effectiveness analysis and the guard‐rail approach as decision‐support tools for the choice of climate protection strategies. Our main focus is on the central role of value judgments, which arise from the need to value; first, uncertain environmental benefits from climate protection relative to other goods; second, the consumption of the present relative to future generations; and third the consumption of “poor” relative to “rich” people. Each of the three approaches analyzed has its shortcomings. Cost‐benefit analysis requires a complete and transitive preference ordering, which stands in sharp contrast to scientific uncertainties and valuation problems. Cost‐effectiveness analysis suffers from the difficulty of setting an appropriate climate protection target. Finally, the usefulness of the guard‐rail approach for decision‐makers depends on the extent to which it is possible to limit the choice set.

The use of natural resources and the policy environment surrounding this use are informed by concepts derived from economic theory, extant technology, past uses, common law, statutory regulations, and descriptive ethics influenced by past and present social mores. As such, the uses of natural resources tend to reflect where society has been rather than where it is going. This is especially the case if we consider that existing laws and regulations controlling the allocation and utilisation of natural resources such as land, air, surface water, and groundwater are largely based on utilitarianism reflecting a worldview dating back to Greek antiquity. Given that utilitarianism and a worldview in which nature is perceived as immutable have become part of our legal foundation, technological changes now present ethical and economic problems that threaten part of this foundation. Within a market economy such as that of the United States, the legal environment regulating decisions regarding the use of natural resources contains contradictions that adversely affect the efficiency of allocative decision making. On the one hand, users of resources are urged to find the highest and best use of the resources and are supported by case law and legal precedent, while on the other, statutes based on alternative ethics increasingly prohibit certain uses of natural resources. Additionally, recent legislation, for example, the 1985 Food Security Act, is changing entitlement rules. Concurrently, legal doctrines such as public trust are challenging assumed private property rights. In this article I describe some of these ethical and economic problems while relating them to existing and emerging natural resources law and litigation. While doing so, I review the critical works of Jonas and Rawls. As opposed to utilitarians justifying their actions based on the intrinsic goodness or badness of the end(s) resulting from the action, Jonas and Rawls are ethical formalists seeking rules of right conduct that everyone performs as a matter of principle; see Taylor. In addition, I review the Public Trust Doctrine, and the manipulation of entitlement rules, as “tools” being used to address issues of environmental quality and resource utilisation. For example, see Calabresi and Melamed and Bromley.