The overarching project aim is to analyse how biodiversity conservation in the EU is being reconstructed around the measurement of the economic values of nature using the UK as a case study. The project will address three key research gaps: a) the limited amount of interdisciplinary research on recent trends in market environmentalism to recognize and describe the values of ecosystems and biodiversity, (b) the fact that the UK’s global lead in the application of a market-based approach to conservation is under-researched, and (c) the limited amount of critical empirical research in the developed world and especially the EU.The project will describe the regulatory framework and science underpinning the establishment of an ecosystem services framework and biodiversity offsets in the UK and identify their social and conservation outcomes. It will explain how the establishment of these policies is interlinked with governance rescaling processes influencing the distribution of conservation costs and benefits while analyzing how different actors are enrolled into these policy developments. The result will be evidence-based recommendations for the preconditions and sustainability of the biodiversity economy creating insights into the development of social-ecologically resilient policies. The theoretical approach involves biological and social sciences drawing on the interdisciplinary field of political ecology. The methodological approach is based on social science research methods.This project is innovative with potential to transform interdisciplinary scholarship and policy at what may well be a critical point of cultural transformation in conceptions about relationships between humans and the non-human world, their value, management and governance.The variety and quality of the competencies that the Researcher will acquire will have a major impact on reaching a position of professional maturity and research independence inside and outside academia.