How does INFFER relate to Benefit: Cost Analysis and Multi-Criteria Analysis?
INFFER aims to introduce a Benefit: Cost Analysis (BCA) mind-set into environmental decision making, supporting environmental managers to ask the right questions and bring them together in the right way. In our standard procedure for INFFER, we do not require users to provide dollar values representing the economic values of environmental assets, so we cannot complete a full BCA. Instead, we produce a Benefit: Cost Index that allows managers to compare different environmental projects. This involves the manager providing a score between 1 and 100 for the significance of each asset. The score can consider both financial (market) values and intangible (non-market) values. However, if it were possible to replace that score with a dollar value then the output would be a standard Benefit:Cost Ratio, rather than a Benefit: Cost Index. Thus, INFFER is actually quite close to being a BCA. See also FAQ 606 for information on how to convert a BCI to a Benefit: Cost Ratio. An advantage of INFFER
