Imagine if you could put a price tag on how healthy your land is, just like you do with a building or a piece of machinery. This work creates a way to measure the hidden financial value of healthy dirt and the services it provides, like cleaning water or storing carbon. It helps companies and governments treat soil care as a smart investment rather than just a cost.
Soil degradation costs €50 billion annually, yet businesses cannot invest in soil health because there is no standard way to put a financial value on it. This makes it impossible to include soil health in balance sheets or government legislation.
A system of soil health indicators and economic valuation models. This includes new business models that turn soil recovery into a financial asset.
If you are a farm operator dealing with land degradation and falling yields — this project developed a system of soil health indicators that assigns economic value to your land. This allows you to prove the financial return on investing in soil recovery.
If you are an investment group dealing with the difficulty of valuing natural assets — this project developed a valuation system for soil ecosystem services. This enables the creation of financial products and incentives based on measurable soil health improvements.
If you are a mining company dealing with mandatory land restoration requirements — this project developed tools to assess the economic impact of soil interventions. This helps in designing more cost-effective and sustainable recovery strategies.
Based on available project data, specific pricing for the tools is not provided, but the project is supported by a EUR 4,587,468 EU contribution to develop these models.
Yes, the project specifically analyzes the scalability of business models across Europe using 9 study areas across 4 different biogeographic regions.
Based on available project data, the specific licensing terms are not listed, though the project follows open science principles.
The project develops tools that allow public administrations to incorporate the economic value of soil health into official policies and regulatory incentives.
The project period runs from 2023-01-01 to 2026-12-31, indicating that final validated models will be ready by the end of 2026.
The consortium is well-balanced for commercialization, featuring a 37% industry ratio with 7 industrial partners, including 4 SMEs. With 19 partners across 10 countries, the group combines academic research (6 universities, 4 research centers) with practical application from consultancies and farmers, ensuring the resulting tools are grounded in both science and market reality.
Contact the Universidad de Vigo in Spain for partnership inquiries.
Contact us to connect with the InBestSoil consortium for early access to soil valuation tools.
