PROVIDING OPERATIONAL ECONOMIC APPRAISAL METHODS AND PRACTICES FOR INFORMED DECISION-MAKING ON CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENAL POLICIES

This integrated economic appraisal approach is composed innovative models and improved methods, all integrated into a global operational approach, developed with particular attention to the measurement of social acceptance, environmental justice and fairness, climate/environmental damages and extreme events, and to the better consideration of unpriced value and high uncertainty.

First, the Aggregation Model Tool will be used for the “in-depth ex-post evaluation of actual performances of selected climate and environmental policies”. It will then allow for the REMES-EU CGE Model to recalibrate its ex-ante estimates with ex-post results, to be applied to PATTERN case studies (at national and regional scales). In parallel, a set of complementary economic appraisal methods will be improved and demonstrated, to both feed the first layer of the Aggregation Model Tool and complement the REMES-EU CGE Model.

The five case studies’ respective policy evaluation, design and implementation frameworks will be studied. This work will support the delivery of a guidance document for concrete solutions to bridge ex-post evaluation and ex-ante assessments. These solutions will be refined with the case studies’ ex-post evaluations and ex-ante assessments. From these guidelines, Practical recommendations for the bridging of these practices will be consolidated to support practitioners in this exercise, both in methods and practices, after the project ends.

This tailored participatory process is inspired by realistic evaluation and based on a first analysis of stakeholders. The active engagement of policymakers, evaluators and stakeholders will then allow the testing of guidelines in the case studies, leading to the co-creation of robust Theories of Change, with social sciences and technical experts. ToCs will support the identification of most suitable methods for the bridging of ex-ante and ex-post evaluations and will allow the inclusion of social indicators. A Theory of Change Wizard will be added to the PATTERN OSS. The participatory process will be based on advances in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities, with knowledge in behavioural change, social and political sciences providing the basis for the ToCs construction.

To secure the uptake of all results of the PATTERN project, and to gather the different decision-makers of the case studies and beyond, a European CoP on economic appraisal of climate and environmental PAMs, and more largely on environmental and climate policy design, implementation and evaluation will be set up. A launch event will be held after the first year of the project, followed by workshops (both remote and physical). By the end of the project, policy and decision makers, evaluation experts, and stakeholders will be engaged in the CoP. A strong collaboration with existing networks such as the European Evaluation Society and EvalNet will allow for the CoP to have a great outreach and to be maintained after the lifetime of the project.

By reaching the previous objectives, the PATTERN project will provide this comprehensive operational tool for practitioners to benefit from and use the different PRs. The OSS will have 3 interactive components:

First, a decision-support tool on economic appraisal methodologies will allow evaluators to be redirected towards the best models and methods, to be used for the economic appraisal of their PAMs;

Second, a Policy Simulation System will allow policy makers to experiment different socio-economic designs, with the participation of citizens and potentially impacted stakeholders before a public policy is settled;

Third, Steps for improved economic appraisal practices will be provided. With ex-post results from PAMs, composed of market-based, innovative, and traditional measures, “new evidence on the effectiveness of various types of regulatory strategies, instruments and approaches for climate and environmental policies” will be brought. The ex-ante analyses of PAMs will also provide insights for major EU policies. From these raw data and results, Open-access data and lessons learnt will be gathered for future uptake.

Preparatory step for the upcoming methodological improvements and aims to pave the way for the bridging of ex-post evaluation and ex-ante analysis, by working on the alignment of both types of methods and practices, thus closing the loop of climate and environmental policies evaluation.

Methods and practices for an effective involvement of stakeholders in the definition of the collaborative intervention logic, and in terms of expected changes and outcomes of the evaluated policies. The robust methodology created can then be used in the case studies’ analyses and engagement structure for continuous dialogue between stakeholders to understand the social aspects of policies’ evaluation.

Refining the tools for ex-post evaluation of the selected policies. To do so, the first part of the case studies is implemented with partners performing in-depth ex-post evaluation of the actual performance of selected climate and environmental policies at several levels

Optimising ex-ante assessments of climate and environmental policies through the ex-ante part of the selected policies’ case studies. As the end of the Work Package, all results are analysed and evaluated to provide WP5 with ptimized guidelines and tools.

Creation of the decision support tool of the project for enhanced economic appraisal and effective policy design. Compared to previous work packages, WP5 thus mainly aims to ensure the operationality of the proposed tools and to provide proper strategies for the exploitation and improvement of these solutions