This Impact assessment (IA) examines the problem's nature and scale comprehensively. It offers a broad and realistic range of policy options and presents the stakeholders' views on the options transparently. It gives a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the economic, social and environmental impacts, referring to the evaluation of the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020 that ran in parallel to the IA, as well as an external support study, stakeholder consultations and various duly referenced data sources. It is open about limitations and uncertainties, such as risks that could potentially limit the benefits of ecosystem restoration. It states that for some ecosystems there was insufficient data to allow a quantitative estimation of costs and benefits. The IA does not quantify the costs and benefits of the policy options for SMEs, and does not discuss competitiveness substantially.