This principle deals with the nature of values and the values of nature. Despite the extensive amount of research on this topic, policy makers often muddle the different types of value, making ‘category errors’ that result in some strange decision-making with unintended consequences.

This principle deals with the negotiations which take place when there is an environmental harm being produced by one agent that affects another. This is called ‘Coasian bargaining’ after the Nobel Prize winning economist, Ron Coase.