--- title: "what is relational value?" canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-is-relational-value markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/what-is-relational-value.md subtitle: the trail is cool because of the creek. the value is between them. category: philosophy --- # what is relational value? *the trail is cool because of the creek. the value is between them.* Relational value is the value of the meaningful relationships and responsibilities between people and nature. That is the definition in the 2022 Values Assessment from IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which sorts the ways people value nature into three broad families: intrinsic, instrumental, and relational. The first two sit inside something. Relational value sits between. Take a trail in Snowmass, Colorado. It is [cool in July because of the aspens](/guide/this-place-matters?from=guide), and the aspens hold that coolness because of [Snowmass Creek and the snow above it](/guide/no-place-is-self-made?from=guide). Those two posts tell the story. This one names what it shows: the trail is worth a great deal to the people who walk it, and much of that worth is borrowed from the creek. The trail and the creek already exist and already work, whether or not anyone names them. What **[ensurance](https://ensurance.app/?from=guide)** adds is a way for the thing you name to be funded to keep working. It is not the trail, and it is not the creek. :::johnson **what you want to ensure is usually a relationship.** The value sits between the things, so the payment should run between them. [see what a place depends on →](/explore?from=guide) ::: ## relational value, in ipbes's words The Values Assessment, formally the *Methodological Assessment Report on the Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature*, was approved in July 2022 at the ninth IPBES plenary in Bonn. Two parts of it matter here. First, the three families. **Intrinsic values** are what nature is worth in itself, apart from what it does for anyone. **Instrumental values** are what nature is worth as a means: the water, the pollination, the timber, the flood that does not reach town. **Relational values** are the meaningful relationships and responsibilities between people and nature: the river a family has fished for generations, the grove a town walks to when it needs quiet, the duty a steward feels for the ground in their keeping. Second, the diagnosis. The assessment finds that decisions about nature have leaned on a narrow, market-led set of values, and it names that habit as a driver of nature loss. Its remedy is plural valuation: hold more than one kind of value at once, and do not collapse them into a single number. That second point is why relational value deserves its own post. It is the family a price handles worst. A price is a property of one thing at one moment. A relationship is neither one thing nor one moment. For the longer walk through all three families, read [instrumental serves intrinsic](/guide/instrumental-serves-intrinsic?from=guide). ## three value families, side by side Here is the same creek read three ways, and where each reading shows up in the app. | value family | the creek, read this way | where it shows up on ensurance | |---|---|---| | **intrinsic** | The creek matters because it is a creek, whether or not anyone walks beside it. | Ambient: in the place media, the art, and the quiet of the design. There is no page that sells it. | | **instrumental** | The creek matters because it waters the aspens, cools the trail, and carries snowmelt downstream. | [Markets](/markets?from=guide): coins, certificates, prices, and pools. The instruments mode. | | **relational** | The creek matters because of what depends on it, who cares for it, and who answers for it. | [Explore](/explore?from=guide): the place-first map, where agents and the links between them are drawn. | Read down the middle column and the usual gap is plain. Most nature finance stops at the second row, because services can be counted. The first row gets a mission statement. The third row, the one that explains why the trail is cool at all, often goes unrecorded. We hold the three in a fixed order. Instrumental value serves intrinsic value; it does not replace it. Relational value is how the two become legible together. A price can be a bridge between them. It is never the claim that a dollar figure [is the worth](/guide/a-valuation-is-not-the-worth?from=guide). ## our extension: value between living things Here we go one step past IPBES, and it is our step, not theirs. The assessment defines relational values between people and nature. We hold that value also sits between living things themselves, with or without a person in the frame. - **The creek and the trail.** The trail is cool because the creek keeps the aspens watered. - **The meadow and the orchard.** The orchard sets fruit because pollinators nest and feed in the meadow next door. - **The forest and the reservoir.** The reservoir fills clean because the forest above it holds the soil and slows the water. None of this is news to ecologists. Pollination, watershed hydrology, and habitat connectivity are long-studied fields. What we add is narrower: the claim that the link itself is something worth funding, and that an account can be built to receive that funding. You can reject that claim and still use the IPBES framework exactly as written. Most places you care about carry both kinds at once. The hiker's attachment to the trail is relational value in the IPBES sense. The trail's dependence on the creek is relational value in ours. One sits on top of the other. ## a payment can follow the relationship If the value lives in the relationship, funding that stops at one end of it misses the point. Money spent only on the trail keeps the endpoint and leaves the source to fend for itself. That is not a knock on what already works. Land trusts, easements, grants, and public budgets protected most of what is protected, and they still do. An account sits beside them. It does not replace them. [Proceeds](/manual/proceeds?from=guide) are relational value made visible: the routes by which value that arrives at one account moves on to another. In practice that can be plain. An account addressed to a place can receive funds. A split can send a set share of what arrives on to an account addressed to the place it depends on. A person sets that share. The share is a decision about support, not a measurement of the relationship. That distinction keeps the idea honest. Relational value is not priced here, and we do not try. What the design does is narrower: name both ends, open a route between them, and let support follow the route. The relationship stays uncounted. The payment just stops ignoring it. Two more limits belong in plain sight. An account addressed to the creek is not the creek's voice, and it is not [legal standing](/guide/the-voice-and-the-land?from=guide); a person signs. And more than one account can serve the same creek. None of them speaks for it, and none replaces the people who already look after it. The map in [Explore](/explore?from=guide) is early, too: it draws known splits beside the agents they pay, and it shows part of the catalog, not all of it. ## so, what do you want to ensure? This series starts from one question: [what do you want to ensure?](/guide/what-do-you-want-to-ensure?from=guide). Relational value changes how to answer it. Ask the hiker and she names the trail. Ask what the trail depends on and she names the creek. What she wants to keep is neither one alone. It is the trail being cool because the creek is running. So name both ends. Not "the trail" but "the trail and the creek that keeps it cool." Not "the orchard" but "the orchard and the meadow its bees come from." Not "the reservoir" but "the reservoir and the forest above it." Once both ends have a name, each can hold an account, and a payment can run from the one people love to the one it draws on. The naming comes first. The account and the route come after. That opens a harder question: how far upstream do you go? The creek depends on snow, and the snow on weather that formed somewhere else. The next post, [the coastline gets longer the closer you look](/guide/the-coastline-gets-longer-the-closer-you-look?from=guide), takes that on. If you are working on a place and can already name both ends of what keeps it alive, [tell us what they are](/contact?from=guide&topic=what-do-you-want-to-ensure). ## frequently asked questions ### what is relational value? Relational value is the value of the meaningful relationships and responsibilities between people and nature, as the IPBES Values Assessment (2022) defines it. It sits beside intrinsic value (nature in itself) and instrumental value (nature as a means). On ensurance we extend the idea, as our own claim, to relationships between living things: the creek and the trail, the meadow and the orchard. ### how is relational value different from ecosystem services? Ecosystem services describe what nature provides: water, pollination, cooler air. That is instrumental value. Relational value describes the connection: what depends on what, and who answers for it. A cool trail is a service. The trail's dependence on the creek, and the care of the people who walk it, are relational. ### can relational value be priced? No, and we do not price it. A price can make a living system legible to capital, but it is a bridge, not the worth. What can follow a relationship is a route for support: name both ends, and proceeds can move from one account to the other at a share a person sets. ## sources [IPBES, *Methodological Assessment Report on the Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature* (the Values Assessment), 2022](https://www.ipbes.net/the-values-assessment) — approved July 2022 at IPBES 9, Bonn. Source for the three value families, the definition of relational values, the diagnosis of narrow market-led valuation, and the call for plural valuation. ## the series 1. [what do you want to ensure?](/guide/what-do-you-want-to-ensure?from=guide) — read first 2. [what is relational value?](/guide/what-is-relational-value?from=guide) — you are here 3. [the coastline gets longer the closer you look](/guide/the-coastline-gets-longer-the-closer-you-look?from=guide) 4. [what the triple bottom line counts](/guide/what-the-triple-bottom-line-counts?from=guide) 5. [form follows function: the agent, the certificate, and the coin](/guide/form-follows-function-the-agent-the-certificate-and-the-coin?from=guide) 6. [eight design principles behind ensurance](/guide/eight-design-principles-behind-ensurance?from=guide)