The core idea of QoL Assessment is that the environment, the economy and society provide a range of benefits for human life, and that it is these benefits or services which we need to protect and/or enhance.
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The Core Idea: Benefits and Services

The core idea of QoL Assessment is that the environment, the economy and society provide a range of benefits for human life, and that it is these benefits or services which we need to protect and/or enhance.

(We use both terms, ‘benefit’ and ‘service’, because neither captures the meaning perfectly on its own.)  For example consider a small mixed woodland on the edge of a town.  QoL Assessment says it’s not the hectares of woodland that matter in themselves, it’s the capacity of the wood to provide tranquil recreation, habitat for rare species, stabilise the soil, retain water, mop up carbon dioxide and local air pollution – and perhaps also support a livelihood in charcoal burning or coppice timber products.

Of course this is not a new idea. The idea that a stock of assets should be safeguarded to ensure a flow of benefits underlies much of economics and previous thinking in this area.  It has guided a great deal of good planning practice for years.  Many development plans, appraisals, planning officers’ reports on proposed developments and such like already apply the ideas behind the QoL Assessment approach.  All that’s new is to set out in a thorough and explicit way what has previously been more piecemeal, partial and implicit, and a methodical framework to make it easier for all practitioners to do thoroughly and consistently what some are already doing.

The advantages this offers are:

  • putting all kinds of social, economic and environmental service – from the most technical and scientific to the most subjective and social – in the same framework
  • combining a range of specialist, technical and community inputs
  • providing a systematic framework for deriving policies or management objectives from them.