Who gets what in environmental policy?

- Policy analysis cannot ignore how costs and benefits are distributed.
- Distributions should allow for diverging capabilities to benefit.
- Open access limits reliance on consumer sovereignty in policymaking.
- Realization-focused co-production by stakeholders improves results.

This paper shows how anticipated impacts of environmental projects and policies can be valued in terms of money as a common denominator, and costs and benefits assigned in an acceptable distribution. To that effect, a new mechanism design of situational contracting is introduced that generates information on willingness and ability to pay or to cooperate, in a realization-focused capability approach to fairness. The situational contract reveals preferences and merit considerations of the relevant stakeholders and deals with market failure in a structured combination of political guidance, expert opinions and co-production.