Regional value chains in the context of ecosystem services and biodiversity – using the example of a Czech-Polish-Saxon project cooperation

The aim of the research project was to integrate biodiversity-relevant aspects and ecosystem services into regional value chains. This should enable companies to make potential impacts and interactions transparent, to take measures for the positive development of biodiversity and ecosystem services and to communicate these in a customer-oriented way.
For this purpose, the sectors to be considered were selected in the first project phase: Agriculture, forestry, wood processing, food processing and catering, tourism, and beekeeping. In the following phase, the corresponding value chains were analyzed and contact was made with the relevant companies. The project was supported by company representatives from Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. They provided the project team with internal company data and participated in the practical testing of the approach.
The substantive focus of the Institute for Environmental Planning was on determining and presenting the biodiversity performance of farms in the project area. For this purpose, a set of indicators for recording and evaluating biodiversity performance at the farm level was (further) developed and implemented in the farm management software MANUELA, and a concept for integrating this evaluation into the value chain view was developed.

Cooperation partners:
NETSCI GmbH; Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Department of Economics; International Meeting Centre St. Marienthal; J.E. Purkyne University Usti nad Labem; Saxon State Foundation for Nature and Environment; Wroclaw University of Economics.