Capabilities as justice: Analysing the acceptability of payments for ecosystem services (PES) through 'social multi-criteria evaluation'

•Payments for ecosystem services require incentives to match plural perspectives.•Incentive schemes should align with capabilities as to improve human well-being.•Social multi-criteria is used to rank management options to reflect complexities.•Even if an option technically outranks another, it might not be socially acceptable.•Middle-ranked options may be more desirable when competing interests are at stake.

'Payments for ecosystem services' (PES) is rapidly becoming a popular governance intervention within natural resource management to align land-use stewardship to conserve critical ecosystem services while simultaneously improving human well-being through the provision of incentives. This paper introduces two novel components for refining the legitimacy of PES in water resource management. Firstly, we broaden consideration of human well-being in PES beyond income effects by considering justice as the freedom or capability to 'do and be' whatever is desired. Secondly, this paper applies social multi-criteria evaluation as a decision-support framework to determine the acceptability and payment vehicle of PES within a set of alternative policy considerations for a complex ecosystem management decision. Through both technical and social evaluations of different management options against a set of criteria, we highlight the legitimacy that different PES designs may have for improving water quality and capabilities for well-being.