Weak and Strong Sustainability Indicators, and Regional Environmental Resources
sources (R) are included. The concept of use values of natural resources (UV) is not limited to
direct economic benefits such as raw materials, consumption goods and scientific benefits.
Preferences for the protection of the resource because of their economic function as fundamen-
tals for recreation and sports are included as well.
Usually cash values for productive and consumptive functions as well as preferences for rec-
reation are derived by means of indirect valuation methods such as the production function
approach, hedonic pricing and travel cost analysis. The basic assumption in all these ap-
proaches is that the demand for a complementary good (e. g. value added in the pharmaceutical
industry, demand for apartments, number of visits to a recreation area) is directly correlated to
environmental indicators like availability and quality of resources for industrial production,
immissions in a certain neighborhood as well as beauty of and biodiversity in the recreation
area.
The second even more important element of the TEV is the nonuse value (NUV) of a natural
resource comprising all values which are derived besides the direct (anthropocentric) use of a
resource. Typically the protection of species is considered mainly as a nonuse value due to
aesthetic or ethical values. NUVs can be divided into the well-known components of existence,
option, and bequest values. While option and bequest values can be seen as premiums assuring
the future existence of the resource for one’s own future use or as a heritage to one’s children,
the existence value is given by preferences for protection of natural resources merely because
they exist (based e. g. on altruist or paternalist motives). Nonuse preferences are valued
mostly by direct measurement methods such as the contingent valuation method (CVM)
founded on welfare economics. Monetary measures for nonuse values include compensating
and equivalent compensation, operationalized by means of willingness-to-pay (WTP) or will-
ingness-to-accept (WTA) bids in a hypothetical contingent market. As there are no markets on
which nonuse characteristics of natural resources are traded, the „complementary“ good of
these values is the consumer’s sacrifice she feels in her wallet when purchasing a satisfying
quality level of the natural resource. This directly connects to the problems of substitutability
and methodological measurement problems discussed in detail below: Besides informational
restrictions, fundamental uncertainties as well as problems of democratic public choice, this