In NOBEL three types of business models will be considered, a) direct interaction between providers and beneficiaries b) interaction between business companies and providers where companies pay directly to providers and pass the costs (totally or partially) to their clients, and c) interaction between government and providers, where the government pays providers for their services and passes the costs to consumers via taxes or fees. In implementing these business models, alternative mechanisms for the payments will be explored. A special feature for the implementation of these business models is the development of a web-based auctioning platform. We will explore the opportunities to use auctions as an option to elicit payments for forest ecosystem services. Generally web-based platforms have increased the reach of auctions thus potentiating the application of crowd funding schemes to elicit payments for a wide range of forest ecosystem services.
Potential opportunities
- Involvement of interested parties for forest ecosystem services (potential customers / buyers)
- Exploration of the interest of consumers in different management plans
- Calculation of the associated opportunity costs for each plan
- Information about the financial contributions of auction participants to bid for a plan
- Using “Virtual transactions” and “Virtual budgets” allows to represent interests
- Supporting the choice of a management plan with the highest interest and bid