A paper co-authored by recent EEM Professional Degree graduate Giovanna Monti and Professor Jonathan Deason was published the September 2012 issue of the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. The paper, entitled “Applying an Ecosystem Services Approach to Supplemental Environmental Projects,” defines an ecosystem services approach to guide stakeholders through the major steps of the Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) program of the US Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental offices.
The SEP program is focused on implementing “environmentally beneficial” projects that compensate the environment and the community for adverse effects of violations of environmental regulations. A literature review by Monti and Deason revealed that the federal program is greatly under-used by violators despite its enormous opportunities to enhance the environment-human relationship.
The SEP program shares major commonalities with ecosystem service concepts and these can be leveraged to define a structured framework wherein ecosystem services can play a key role for formulating, evaluating, selecting, implementing and assessing SEPs. Concepts set forth in the paper represent a first step towards mainstreaming ecosystem services approach in the SEP program.
The citation for the paper is Monti, G. and Deason, J.P., “Applying an Ecosystem Services Approach to Supplemental Environmental Projects,” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Volume 55, Issue 8, 2012, pages 1047-1057.
A copy of the paper can be seen by clicking on this link: Ecosystem Services Paper