Inaugural lecture: Nils Droste
It is a pleasure to announce that Nils Droste has joined the Department of Food and Resource Economics (IFRO) as Associate Professor in Ecological Economics in the Section for Environment and Natural Resources.
To mark the appointment, Nils Droste will give his inaugural lecture Ecological Economics - from Valuing Nature to Governing Transformation on 18 March, followed by a reception.
About the lecture
Over the past few decades, economic valuation of ecosystem services and natural capital has moved from academic debate to the core of global environmental governance. From agri-environmental schemes and carbon markets to emerging biodiversity offset and credit systems, economic instruments are central to policies addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, and agricultural sustainability.
This lecture argues that in Ecological Economics it not only important how to assess nature’s values but also how valuation practices reshape governance structures. Economic valuation can lead to political decisions that redistribute rights, risks, and responsibilities across actors, sectors, and scales.
Drawing on some of my own research and the wider literature on biodiversity finance, market-based instruments, and transformative change, I ask: Under what conditions do they reinforce incremental adjustments within prevailing land use regimes? When can they catalyze structural transformation?
By situating ecosystem service valuation within a political economy framework, the lecture highlights three interrelated challenges: (1) the distributional effects of sustainability instruments in land use systems; (2) the institutional design requirements for credibility, additionality, and equity; and (3) the governance capacity needed to align climate, biodiversity, and production objectives.
The central proposition is that achieving transformative change in land systems requires moving beyond pricing nature toward redesigning the economic institutions that structure land use decisions. This implies a research agenda that integrates environmental valuation with institutional analysis, and questions of power and legitimacy in sustainability transformations.
Nils comes from a position as Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Lund University (Sweden). He holds a PhD in Public Finance and Ecological Economics (Dr. rer. pol.) from Halle-Wittenberg University (Germany).
His Master’s degree is in Sustainability Economics and Management from Oldenburg University (Germany), following a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Economics from the University of Bremen (Germany).
The event is open to all, no sign-up needed.
We very much look forward to welcoming Nils to IFRO and hope to see many of you on this special occasion.