WRM involved in the KOEVOET project

In 2019, the Global Assessment repot of the International Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) highlighted the fast decline of biodiversity worldwide. In response to this report, the Dutch Government has defined the ambition to reduce the ecological footprint by 50% by 2050. In this light, KOEVOET (Cost-effectively improve size and depth footprint) project aims to identify, evaluate and rank possible interventions for halving the ecological footprint at the lowest possible cost.

Main integrated activities of the project

1. Develop the footprint method
2. Developing ecosystem services and valuation methodology
3. Identifying possible interventions
4. Cost-effectiveness and ecosystem benefits of the possible interventions

Since the development of the ecological footprint, other footprints have been developed, such as the water footprint, the land footprint and the carbon footprint. WRM is mainly involved in the development of footprint family (FF) method which integrates the different footprints into a coherent framework and interprets the size and depth of the footprint (activity 1). The developed framework will be applied on the sugar consumption in the Netherlands.

The project is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV). Wageningen Economic Research (WEcR) and Peter Roebeling is the project leader.

More information about the KOEVOET project can be found on the project page.