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Increased use of annual payments to land managers for ecological outcomes indicates a growing interest in exploring the potential of this approach. In this viewpoint, we drew on the experiences of all schemes paying for biodiversity outcomes/results on agricultural land operating in the EU and EFTA countries with the aim of reviewing the decisive elements of the schemes' design and implementation as well as the challenges and opportunities of adopting a results-based approach. We analysed the characteristics of results-based schemes using evidence from peer-reviewed literature, technical reports, scheme practitioners and experts in agri-environment-climate policy. We developed a typology of the schemes and explored critical issues influencing the feasibility and performance of results-based schemes. The evidence to date shows that there are at least 11 advantages to the results-based approach not found in management-based schemes with similar objectives, dealing with environmental efficiency, farmers' participation and development of local biodiversity-based projects. Although results-based approaches have specific challenges at every stage of design and implementation, for many of these the existing schemes provide potential solutions. There is also some apprehension about trying a results-based approach in Mediterranean, central and eastern EU Member States. We conclude that there is clear potential to expand the approach in the European Union for the Rural Development programming period for 2021-2028. Nevertheless, evidence is needed about the approach's efficiency in delivering conservation outcomes in the long term, its additionality, impact on the knowledge and attitudes of land managers and society at large, development of ways of rewarding the achievement of actual results, as well as its potential for stimulating innovative grassroots solutions.

Demands from land are increasing within the EU. Targets set out under the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) are driving the production of energetic biomass for use within the energy sector and, at the same time, changing populations, diets, and societal preferences are leading to increased demands for other types of biomass including food, feed, and fiber. As an inherently multifunctional natural resource, land is already meeting many of these demands as well as providing a wider range of services to society including clean and reliable water, carbon sequestration, and cultural services. However, as demands from land increase, its continued ability to support a range of different sectors sustainably is called into question.This review considers the EU demand for bioenergy and the biomass used to produce it, to 2020, within the wider land‐use context. It reflects on the different demands facing the EU and global land resources beyond those emanating from the energy sector, their drivers, and the implications for land resources as a central element in the development of sustainable biomass supply chains in the EU. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd