Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities 3031182677, 9783031182679

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Funding Support Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Boxes
1 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities: Past and Present Entanglements
2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation
Transforming Evaluation
Five Overarching Evaluation Transformations
From Project Thinking to Systems Thinking
From Theory of Change to Theory of Transformation
From Closed-System Linear Thinking to Open-System Complexity Understandings
From Evaluation Silos to Cross-Silos Integration
From Evaluation Independence and Neutrality to Skin in the Game
Five Principles For Evaluation Agility
An Ethical Framework for Transformational Evaluation
Equity
Sustainability
Interdependence of Equity and Sustainability
Utilisation-Focused Evaluation
Conclusion
Evaluation and Evaluators as Part of the Transformation Process
References
3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National Carbon Footprint Programs
Introduction
Theoretical Frameworks and Methods
National Carbon Programs
Costa Rica
France
Italy
Japan
New Zealand
South Korea
Sweden
Thailand
UK
Discussion
Conclusion
Future Research
References
4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban Transformations
Sustainability Transformations, Governance, and Democracy
Nature-Based Solutions: More Democratic, More Innovative?
NBS and Sustainability
More Democratic?
More Innovative?
‘Re-Naturing’ Cities with NBS
Knowledge, Context, and Inclusion
Innovation, Efficiency, and Scale
Co-Production and Accountability
Reorientation and Examination
New Content, or just New Packaging?
Urban Challenges and Ecological Scales
Leveraging the Potential of NBS
References
5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability
References
6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially Constrained Contexts
Introduction
An Accounting of Environmental Accountabilities During just Transitions
An Analysis of Solar Rollout in Two Financially Constrained Contexts
Rajasthan
Portugal
Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially Constrained Contexts
References
7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics for Environmentally Accountable and Transformative Policy in a Changing Climate: The Case of Australia’s EPBC Act
Introduction
Environmental Accountability for Biodiversity Conservation in a Changing Climate
Examining the EPBC Act
Design and Operation of the EPBC Act
The EPBC Act and Environmental Accountabilities
Three Problematics
Between Human and Ecological Cultures
Between Science, and Policy and Practice
Between Sectoral Scopes of Policy
Steps Towards Overcoming Problematics for Environmental Accountability
References
8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging Disciplinary Traditions on Collaborative Governance, Coproduction, and Comanagement for Organising Just and Effective Sustainability Transformations
Introduction: Governance, Collaboration, Accountability, and Sustainability
Coproduction and Comanagement—Defining, Differentiating, and Relinking Concepts
Coproduction: Descriptive and Normative Understandings
Collaborative Knowledge Production: Science in Service of Society
Comanagement: Extending from Coproduction into Implementing Collaborative Governance
Comanagement and Coproduction
Methods
Case Descriptions
Kayan Mentarang National Park (KMNP), East Kalimantan, Indonesia
Kutai National Park (KNP), East Kalimantan, Indonesia
White Mountains Stewardship Project (WMSP), Arizona, USA
Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI), Arizona, USA
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
References
9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability Through Environmental Stewardship: A Case Study in East Gippsland, Australia
Introduction
Background
Enabling Sustainability Transformations
What Role for Environmental Stewardship?
What Role(s) of Researchers?
Case Study: Enabling Local Action and Stewardship in a Rural Coastal Community
Contextual Setting
Living Bung Yarnda
Experiments in Mobilising Local Action and Place-Based Knowledge
Preparation and Network-Building
Co-creating Shared Understandings
Generating and Harnessing Place-Based Knowledge
Working Across Boundaries
Reflections on Enabling Local Sustainability Transformations
Understanding Existing Socio-Ecological Relations
Making Pathways for Action Visible
Leadership, Humility and Adaptability
Conclusion
References
10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint of Food Systems: How “Transformative” Is the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy?
Introduction to the EU Farm to Fork Strategy
Exceptionalism and Post-exceptionalism in EU Agricultural Policy
The Effects of Incrementalism: Can F2F Transform the EU Agri-Food Sector?
Conclusions: Imagining the Future of the EU Agri-Food Sector for Both Farmers and the Environment
References
11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action
Introduction
Can Transitions Be ‘Just’?
The Global Agenda and Socio-Ecological sustainability—A Place for Smart Specialisation?
Transition and Smart Specialisation in Gippsland
Smart Specialisation, Just Transitions and the Sustainability Agenda
References
12 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities: Emerging Opportunities
Reference
Index

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSFORMATION, TRANSITION AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities

Edited by Beth Edmondson

Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability

Series Editor Beth Edmondson, School of Arts, Federation University, VIC, Australia

The monographs and edited collections published in this series will be unified by interdisciplinary scholarship that considers and interrogates new knowledge of opportunities for sustainable human societies through environmental transformations, transitions and accountabilities. These publications will integrate theoretical debates and perspectives in the natural and social sciences with sustained and detailed analysis of local, regional and international initiatives responding to environmentally driven imperatives such as climate change, fresh water, energy resources, food security, and biodiversity.

Beth Edmondson Editor

Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities

Editor Beth Edmondson Trafalgar, VIC, Australia

ISSN 2523-8183 ISSN 2523-8191 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability ISBN 978-3-031-18267-9 ISBN 978-3-031-18268-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Diephosi/gettyimages This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This book began with a conversation and generously proffered ideas. Bringing it to publication has provided repeated reminders that apparently serendipitous events and interactions can bring new ideas and opportunities. While writing, authors and their loved ones have experienced a host of challenges, disruptions, losses and joys. Some have experienced long periods of isolation from loved ones. Some have found themselves writing in hotel rooms for months-long periods—unexpectedly caught in transit between their established and new homes. Some have welcomed new children into their families. Some have buried loved ones. Some have experienced horrible health challenges. I am both grateful for and admiring of their determined contributions. There are a great many reasons to feel optimistic about the future when new knowledge is so readily shared. It is because of their work, integrity and grace that this book brings hopes and visions for the future, with due acknowledgement of current and continuing challenges.

v

vi

Acknowledgements

Funding Support Acknowledgements The research that underpins Chapter 4, Nature, Democracy and Sustainable Urban Transformations, is part of a project that received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 730426. The research that is considered in Chapter 6, Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially Constrained Contexts, was funded by the Research Council of Norway, project number 314022, project name ASSET (Accountable Solar Energy Transitions). Beth Edmondson

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities: Past and Present Entanglements Beth Edmondson

1

Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation Michael Quinn Patton

15

The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National Carbon Footprint Programs David Foord

39

Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban Transformations Sarah Clement and Ian C. Mell

79

Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability Beth Edmondson

121

vii

viii

6

7

8

9

Contents

Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially Constrained Contexts Siddharth Sareen, Shayan Shokrgozar, Renée Neven-Scharnigg, Bérénice Girard, Abigail Martin, and Steven A. Wolf Overcoming Segregation Problematics for Environmentally Accountable and Transformative Policy in a Changing Climate: The Case of Australia’s EPBC Act Josephine Mummery and Jane Mummery Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging Disciplinary Traditions on Collaborative Governance, Coproduction, and Comanagement for Organising Just and Effective Sustainability Transformations Candice Carr Kelman Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability Through Environmental Stewardship: A Case Study in East Gippsland, Australia Patrick Bonney, Jessica Reeves, and The Community of Bung Yarnda

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint of Food Systems: How “Transformative” Is the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy? Charlene Marek and Jale Tosun 11

12

Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action Lars Coenen and Bruce Wilson Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities: Emerging Opportunities Beth Edmondson

Index

141

167

197

231

265

299

327

333

Notes on Contributors

Bonney Patrick is a Research Fellow within the Research and Innovation Capability at RMIT University. His research is located at the intersection of science, society and environment, with current interest in exploring the scientific and democratic prospects of citizen science and place-based research in environmental governance. Carr Kelman Candice studies collaborative approaches to solving sustainability problems. Collaborative governance, actionable science, knowledge coproduction, and community-based conservation are her key areas of interest. She is clinical faculty at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, where she also conducts grant-funded research through the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes. Clement Sarah is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. Her research has two main streams: (1) governance in the Anthropocene, particularly with respect to biodiversity, climate change and wildfire, and (2) how the use of nature-based solutions can support efforts to address social-ecological challenges.

ix

x

Notes on Contributors

Coenen Lars is Professor in Innovation and Sustainability Transitions. His research interests converge around the geography of innovation, in particular related to urgent societal challenges and missions such as climate change. From 2017 to 2020, he has been the inaugural ‘City of Melbourne Chair of Resilient Cities’, at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Edmondson Beth is an Independent Researcher based in Australia. Her research focuses on international responses to global climate change, the possibilities for order in the international political system, the nature of sovereign states and the scope of international law in constructing governmental capacities. Foord David is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Management at the University of New Brunswick. He conducts research in science and technologies studies, history of science and technology-based industries, and management of technology and innovation. Girard Bérénice is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Media and Social Sciences at the University of Stavanger. She defended her Ph.D. in Sociology in 2019 at the EHESS Paris. Her current research focuses on the role of small and medium enterprises in shaping energy transitions at different scales. Marek Charlene has been a Scientific Researcher at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Heidelberg since November 2020. Her research interests currently focus on the governance and regulation of agriculture, food and environment. Her doctoral dissertation analyses the role of states and civil society in increasing organic agriculture worldwide. Martin Abigail is Research Fellow in Just Transitions at the University of Sussex and visiting faculty at University of California-Berkeley and University of Stavanger. Her research examines the political economy, political ecology and environmental governance of energy transitions, with a focus on biofuels, unconventional hydrocarbons and solar PV. Mell Ian C. is a Reader in Environmental & Landscape Planning at the University of Manchester. His research focusses on green infrastructure policy, practice and finance. His research has been funded

Notes on Contributors

xi

by the EU (Horizon 2020) and the UK government (Defra/Natural England), and he has been part of the team developing the National Green Infrastructure Standard for England. Mummery Jane is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow with Federation University. She is an ethical and political philosopher and cultural theorist with long-standing interests and multiple research publications examining activism, democracy and justice, ethical constructions of individual and social identity, human-animal relations, climate change policy and governance, and social change. Mummery Josephine is a Research Fellow, University of Canberra, with interests in how climate change science can enhance decision-making for societal resilience. She chairs the Steering Committee, Climate Systems Hub and National Environmental Science Program and previously had senior executive roles leading climate change adaptation and science initiatives in Australian Government departments. Neven-Scharnigg Renée is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Media and Social Sciences, University of Stavanger. She holds a master in Energy Environment and Society from this university. Her research focuses on Accountable Solar Energy Transitions, with specific attention to justice effects during multi-scalar solar rollout. Patton Michael Quinn is Professor of Practice in the Claremont Evaluation Centre and former President of the American Evaluation Association. He is author of eight major evaluation books including a 5th edition of Utilization-Focused Evaluation ( 2022) and Blue Marble (Global) Evaluation (2020) and co-author of Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed . He is recipient of the Myrdal Award for Outstanding Contributions to Useful and Practical Evaluation Practice, the Lazarsfeld Award for Lifelong Contributions to Evaluation Theory, the 2017 Research on Evaluation Award and the 2020 Transformative Evaluator Award. Reeves Jessica is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental and Sustainability Science at Federation University’s Gippsland campus. Her research involves long-term environmental change and more recent human impact. She is particularly interested in exploring lived experience of

xii

Notes on Contributors

place and ways of knowing country, and how this can be interwoven into natural resource management. Sareen Siddharth is Associate Professor in Energy and Environment at the University of Stavanger and Associate Professor II at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation in Bergen. His research addresses the governance of energy transitions, from bustling cities to extractive zones, examining how changing energy infrastructure impacts social equity. Shokrgozar Shayan is a Ph.D. Fellow at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen. His research addresses the role of care, justice and dignity in lower-carbon energy rollout, particularly how alternative energy imaginaries can allow for the provision of decent living within socio-ecological limits. The Community of Bung Yarnda, in East Gippsland, Australia, is home to the GunaiKurnai people. It is also sometimes called Lake Tyers. Tosun Jale has been a Professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Heidelberg since March 2015. Her teaching and research focus mainly on the comparative study of regulation of environment, energy and climate change, as well as distributive conflicts within the European Union and the influence of the EU on regulatory measures in third-party states. Wilson Bruce is Director of the European Union Centre of Excellence at RMIT. He leads the Centre of Excellence on Smart Specialisation and Regional Policy. He also leads a Jean Monnet Network on the EU’s engagement with the SDGs in Asia Pacific, a partnership project that was recognised recently as an outstanding global example of the role of universities in implementation of SDG 17. He was a founding CoDirector of Pascal (Place, Social Capital and Learning) International Observatory and a member of the Advisory Board and Committee of the Hume Global Learning Village. He has long experience in working with all levels of government on organisational and social change, and is committed to linking researchers and policymakers with city and regional

Notes on Contributors

xiii

governments on social and economic policy, innovation, lifelong learning and environment. Wolf Steven A. is Associate Professor, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University, and Visiting Professor at University of Stavanger. His expertise is environmental governance with a special focus on efforts to secure public goods—carbon sequestration, water quality, biodiversity—from landscapes characterised by strong private property rights claims.

List of Figures

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 5.1

Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3

Fig. 5.4

Carbono invertario label Hierarchy of mobility Personal mobility, industry & housing Bilans infographic for vacations Carbon footprint Italy label Carbon reduce and net zero labels Toit¯u GHG calculator EPD footprint product infographic TGO footprint label Cool mode label Infographic on life cycle assessment for aluminum can Functional features of sustainability transformations supporting institutions States’ moral duties for sustainability transformations Sustainability transformations and environmental accountability: Adaptation, mitigation and social transitions Sustainability transformations superstructure

53 54 54 56 56 58 59 61 62 63 63 126 132

133 135

xv

xvi

Fig. 8.1

Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2

Fig. 9.3

Fig. 9.4 Fig. 9.5 Fig. 9.6 Fig. 9.7 Fig. 10.1

List of Figures

Coproduction and comanagement are forms of collaborative governance that lead to greater public accountability Map of Lake Tyers and townships: Nowa Nowa, Lake Tyers Beach and Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust (LTAT) Local community groups (inner circle) and external organisations (outer circle) supporting the work of Living Bung Yarnda Community mapping enabled the project to focus on issues and activities most relevant to the local community Community photographs exhibited at a Oneonta and b NGV Waterfront Program Establishing sites for water quality monitoring at Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust Training events and workshops organised through Living Bung Yarnda for the Lake Tyers community Planned Burn Fire Forum organised through Living Bung Yarnda Flow of policy expectations for reaching F2F Strategy goals

209 239

242

248 249 249 251 253 281

List of Tables

Table Table Table Table

3.1 3.2 4.1 8.1

Table 8.2 Table 9.1 Table 9.2 Table 9.3 Table 10.1 Table 10.2

Table 10.3

Institutional fields (Geels, 2006; Scott, 1995) Summary of cases NBS interventions in Urban GreenUP Disciplinary differences in the usage and understanding of comanagement and coproduction Case study outcomes and assessment for key attributes Examples of possible roles of researchers in sustainability transformations 2021 census data for the communities surrounding Lake Tyers, in comparison to the State of Victoria Overview of environmental governance responsibility across Lake Tyers F2F Strategy goals as listed in the F2F factsheet Summary of opportunities and challenges discussed in F2F Strategy, Section 2.1 ensuring sustainable food production (pp. 5–8) Outline of the EU Action Plan for organic farming; COM(2021) 141 final/2 from 19 April 2021

45 52 99

202 217 237 239 241 267

268 282

xvii

xviii

Table 10.4

Table 10.5

List of Tables

Summary of actions the EU Commission will take to encourage conversion to organic agriculture, COM(2021) 141 final/2 from 19 April 2021, p. 13 CAP 2023–2027 components where environment and climate action are discussed

283 287

List of Boxes

Box 4.1 Box 4.2 Box 4.3

NBS definitions with co-benefits in bold Potential Contribution of NBS to the SDGs IUCN principles and their link to governance

83 86 88

xix

1 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities: Past and Present Entanglements Beth Edmondson

This edited collection has been written as global climate change and other environmental transformations deepen the insecurity of sustaining current human populations and lifestyles, and escalating numbers of non-human species risk extinction. Indeed, many have already lost their race against species extinction and countless ecosystems have experienced new threats through fire, floods, land-clearing and drought, in the time it took to bring this book together. Yet more have passed beyond recovery tipping points in the period elapsed between the production of this book and your reading of these sentences. In the middle of 2022, as these chapters were being finalised, the northern summer brought unprecedent temperatures across many parts of the Northern Hemisphere. New record temperatures were set, for B. Edmondson (B) Trafalgar, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_1

1

2

B. Edmondson

instance, in India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, the new United States, France and Spain. During these weeks of extreme heat, many thousands of people died. In Spain, France and Portugal, massive fires destroyed forests and many of their inhabitants, farms and homes. In London, fire threatened the outer city, as extreme temperatures melted and buckled airport tarmacs, roads and railway lines. While these circumstances starkly show the fragility of current human societies, they bring little new attention to the hazards experienced by non-human populations. These events followed closely behind a couple of years of dramatic social upheavals with dramatically different environmental impacts. As the Covid-19 pandemic briefly curtailed international travel, it also disrupted global and national production and distribution networks, effectively reducing annual carbon emissions to an extent that decades of negotiations, bargaining and target-setting rounds had been unable to achieve. This global threat to people, societies and economies also triggered new patterns of mass production and consumption. For instance, new mass production and global distribution of disposable face masks, rapid antigen testing kits, personal protection suits, gowns, gloves and face shields, vaccine containing temperature-controlled packaging, vials and syringes for mass vaccinations became part of the ‘new normal’ international economy. Debates about the nature and possible scope of inter-relations between human and non-human species might have seemed likely to find new grounds for expansion as the origins of Covid-19, or in earlier decades, bird flu outbreaks, briefly pre-occupied those concerned with global pandemic risks, these have, to date, remained of fleeting broad interest. In each instance, attention has remained firmly fixed on the health management of human populations, and returning to business-as-usual has remained the central aim, even when very large numbers of people have died or experienced life-changing health consequences. While a brief period of reduced carbon emissions attracted attention, the rapid enormous expansion in resource allocations to manage the spread and ongoing consequences of Covid-19 have been largely backgrounded. The complex entanglement between past and present that is often just below the surface of everyday relations and social-ecological systems dynamics has created the current contexts of environmental upheavals

1 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions …

3

and ecosystems tipping points that characterise the current world. The implications of these are by no means limited to the consequences for human societies that are the primary focus of these chapters. However, by focusing on social transitions and environmental transformations as interlinked sustainability challenges, these chapters develop new insights into the conceptual, systemic and institutional contexts required for durable and scalable sustainability transformations at this critical juncture. Throughout, attention is paid to the double-edged opportunities and disruptive implications and effects of sustainability transformations for current human societies, forms of organisation and production. **Understanding how sustainability transformations are linked with social transitions and environmental accountabilities requires attention to how orderly social transitions can support new environmental accountabilities, and their capacities to promote sustainability transformations. Understanding these processes and dynamics is essential for new knowledge to resolve current uncertainties regarding the conditions that influence their emergence, impacts and durability. In recent circumstances, global sustainability transformations might have been expected to become over-riding political, economic and social imperatives, as governments, intergovernmental organisations, economic corporations, smaller-scale producers and consumers across the world sought new ways of working, living with new uncertainties and sustaining their social connections. At this point in the twenty-first century, it is evident that social transitions and environmental accountabilities influence the breadth, depth and intensity of sustainability transformations. Each of the chapters that follow presents timely consideration of some key challenges and opportunities for current societies as they seek to untangle past and present systems, institutions and perspectives to shift the current trajectories of environmental decline towards potential sustainability transformations. Some of the cognitive, structural and agency-related dimensions of environmental sustainability practices and perspectives are examined in the chapters that follow. Some chapters focus on the emergence of new environmental accountabilities that might drive and/or arise from shifting awarenesses of environmental changes and their implications for where, how and whether people can continue to live well into the

4

B. Edmondson

mid-late twenty-first century. In various ways, they each consider links, tensions and interplay between human-institutional-knowledge-driven sources of sustainability transformations and responses to them. Each of these is important for the emergence of new environmental accountabilities, and perhaps most especially for the normative frameworks that underpin their roles in sustainability transformations. Among the challenges in this situation is the uncertainty surrounding what sustainability entails and for whom. Additionally, sustainability transformations entail shifting away from what we know—towards what we don’t know. These conditions present deeply confronting challenges for people and governments whose societies are based upon high levels of certainty and beliefs in the benefits of their established systems and practices. In short, sustainability transformations involve shifting away from what we can confidently predict as future outcomes from recent and current practices—towards hoped for outcomes from new practices. Unsurprisingly, these realities present huge sets of conceptual and circumstantial challenges that can only be resolved through new knowledge and new acceptance of environmental accountabilities. This book therefore examines why sustainability transformations matter. It brings together diverse approaches to understand how sustainability transformations can promote orderly transitions and how essential social transitions and environmental accountabilities are for the emergence and durability of sustainability transformations. Importantly, it do so against a backdrop of transforming environments. These are timely discussions because there are real-world consequences of changing ideas regarding how best to achieve effective sustainability transformations. These chapters examine how diverse social transitions variously promote, enable, constrain and diffuse sustainable social-ecological systems, and consider the economic and political structures that are created and maintained within them. They examine the roles of social transitions for societies pursuing orderly and managed adjustments from one form of organisation and/or production practices. They draw upon diverse knowledge to consider the conditions that influence whether social transitions provide buffering periods as new social-ecological systems dynamics drive sustainability transformations.

1 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions …

5

Throughout, authors systematically examine links and tensions between diverse approaches and understandings of sustainability transformations, social transitions and environmental accountabilities. They aim to improve understandings of current and anticipated environmental transformations and to extend capacities for orderly social transitions towards sustainability transformations. They pay sustained attention to whether and how understandings and applications of accountability can improve international sustainability transformations and the mechanisms and institutions that will influence them. These chapters consider some pressing questions concerning social transitions and environmental accountabilities: how can they contribute to sustainability transformations, how do they influence the scalability of sustainability transformations, and how can such sustainability transformations become durable? Sustainability transformations present opportunities to extend and preserve the adaptation capacities of societies, environments and species. The chapters that follow consider accountability as an attribute of sustainability transformations. They recognise how important it will be for security, equitable access to resources, cost and burden sharing and intergenerational protectionary imperatives as global climate change and other environmental degradation consequences impact social and social-ecological systems. They also contextualise current accountability approaches of various kinds and consider their influences at different levels as local, national and international sustainability transformations experiments are undertaken. These discussions also recognise the influence of normative expectations that have historically been attached to reciprocal accountabilities and which can delay or disrupt sustainability transformations. This edited collection brings together diverse approaches to understanding how environmental accountabilities and social transitions influence (and intersect with) sustainability transformations. Overcoming or avoiding the obstacles and pitfalls that limit sustainable social-ecological systems rests upon understanding why and how social transitions and environmental accountabilities influence sustainability transformations. This is a timely project because changing ideas and knowledge about

6

B. Edmondson

social-ecological systems, social, political and economic agents and structures that can both support and constrain sustainability transformations have real-world consequences. These chapters engage with real-world and theoretical challenges, setting these within multi-disciplinary scholarly frameworks to examine their consequences for social transitions, environmental accountabilities and sustainability transformations. They aim to extend knowledge regarding different ways of understanding sustainable social-ecological systems, environmental sustainability and sustainability transformations. They consider how new knowledge and different understandings, and perspectives matter for whether, when and how people, governments, corporations and international organisations seek and pursue solutions to social-ecological challenges and sustainability dilemmas. These real-world and theoretical political dilemmas also challenge ideas about independent sovereign states and the institutionalised impediments they might now pose for effective sustainability transformations expectations among informed citizens. These dilemmas are also altering the rights and responsibilities of governments, intergovernmental organisation and key economic actors because environmentally responsible social and economic transitions rely upon states’ acceptance of increased environmental accountabilities. As institutions that underpin orderly societies, states are responsible for sustainability transformations and the social transitions and environmental accountabilities associated with them. Current and impending global climate change impacts and related environmental challenges now demand those states both individually and collectively accept increased responsibilities for developing and implementing sustainability transformation strategies. The chapters that follow present new multi-disciplinary knowledge and insights to address these complex problems and to outline new ways of progressing solutions to the dilemmas and wicked problems of social-ecological systems risks arising from interlinked climate change and environmental degradation. From multiple perspectives, they seek to integrate different forms of knowledge to address these complex problems. The approaches they adopt and the perspectives they outline seek to identify new opportunities for progressing sustainability transformations, supporting environmental accountabilities and enabling just social

1 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions …

7

transitions through local, national and international efforts. They also incorporate knowledge and evaluate the significance of the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development with particular attention to how and why these 17 sustainable development goals depend upon new knowledge-based strategies to address wicked and super-wicked problems. In Chapter 2, Michael Quinn Patton argues that transformation involves systems interventions and major systems changes. He grapples with some of the knowledge and process problems that have prevented the development and adoption of better transformation evaluation approaches. This chapter highlights how project accountability protocols, logic models and theories of change which focus on narrowly specified SMART goals largely miss the point of evaluating transformations. He advocates for them to be replaced by a theory of transformation that guides both the design and evaluation of transformations with attention to transformation accountabilities. He outlines some of the ways that new principles-focused developmental evaluations can also enhance and deepen transformational trajectories. Most especially, this chapter examines how transforming evaluation approaches by setting new principles-focused developmental evaluation efforts within an overarching utilisation-focused evaluation framework would better suit the challenges and demands of sustainability transformations, social transitions and environmental accountabilities. In Chapter 3, David Foord examines how national carbon footprint and labelling programmes are influencing consumer practices and shaping new sociotechnical transitions and ethics. He utilises an array of frameworks to examine the design of selected national carbon counting and labelling programmes. By employing sociotechnical transition imaginary, rationalisation, standardisation and ideal type frameworks to examine the design of nine carbon counting and labelling programmes, Foord examines the meanings and values that are presented within them. This study suggests that there is more old than new in the construction climate ethics pertaining to these programmes. This chapter presents new knowledge regarding the meanings and values of these programmes and examines their respective practices of reporting, calculation and public

8

B. Edmondson

display of emissions, the social observation of these signs and the performance of private and public practices to accord personal, household, mobility and workplace behaviours with state goals. Perhaps most importantly, Foord finds that the traits associated with these practices include belief in the legitimacy of state institutions and its climate and efficiency goals, confidence in the robustness and accuracy of its measurement practices, desire for both internal consistency among personal practices and these state goals, as well as to be recognised for this consistency. This chapter finds that participation in these measurement systems involves rationalisation, modern mastery through technology and learning of new systems of numeracy, ironically in the service of the re-enchantment of the natural world. It sets this multi-disciplinary knowledge in a broader context by incorporating an examination of standard setting historiography of other social practices to consider ongoing implications for sustainability transitions. Sarah Clement and Ian C. Mell examine nature-based solutions, environmental and socio-economic transformation in Chapter 4. They outline how nature-based solutions (NBS) have been proposed as a core option for addressing a wide range of social, economic and ecological problems in cities and regions, featuring centrally in international policy as well as many national and sub-national discourses. They recognise that such an idea is appealing in an era where austerity and shrinking tax bases mean engineered options are prohibitively expensive. They also consider NBS can address these problems while also addressing the crisis of confidence in democracy, focusing on tailored solutions that are ‘co-produced’ and ‘co-designed’ with the communities who will benefit them. Examining a wide range of case studies and international policy documents, their chapter explores two key promises of NBS: (1) that they offer democratic solutions to sustainability crises in urban areas, and (2) that NBS interventions offer new and innovative solutions to these crises. In doing so, the chapter reveals a mismatch between the ways NBS are framed as ‘solutions’ to both material and existential problems, and the reality of how NBS are implemented in practice. Their promise as a means of addressing environmental and socio-economic transformation is discussed with reference to live case studies in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. In particular, the mismatch between

1 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions …

9

this promise is examined in depth with relation to collaborative and deliberative forms of governance. Ultimately, this analysis finds that the promise of NBS as a means of addressing environmental and democratic challenges is strongly constrained by a number of governance variables, including organisational culture, accepted policies and norms, and current financing options, which influence the quality of design, implementation, and monitoring and—most importantly—stultify progress in using NBS to address society’s greatest challenges. Chapter 5 focuses on collective environmental accountabilities as an attribute of sustainability transformations. It positions sustainability transformations as presenting new opportunities for governments, intergovernmental organisations, corporations and other economic entities to preserve the adaptation capacities of societies, environments and species. It recognises that multiple social-ecological systems are currently experiencing systemic, relational and structural upheavals. It addresses current patterns, relationships and accountabilities that extend beyond determining ecosystems dynamics, adaptation and mitigation opportunities, as they rapidly become key determinants of the success or failure of sustainability transformation efforts. In Chapter 6, Siddharth Sareen, Renée Neven-Scharnigg, Bérénice Girard, Abigail Martin and Steven A. Wolf examine accountable solar energy transitions in financially constrained contexts. They argue that environmental accountabilities are contingent on societal commitment to particular visions of rapid low-carbon transition. This commitment is in turn underpinned by the socio-economic conditions and political entitlements of ordinary people and the degree to which these are brought to bear on the governance of carbon-intensive sectors like energy. This chapter considers environmental accountabilities and societal transitions in financially constrained contexts, namely Portugal in Europe and the Indian state of Rajasthan, with a specific focus on solar energy rollout for which they offer prime geographies and ambitious energy policies. It thoughtfully examines how real-world issues such as energy poverty, as well as the political economy of ownership and control over energy infrastructure at multiple scales, shape environmental accountabilities in these financially constrained contexts at different development levels. The new knowledge that is outlined in this chapter highlights the salience

10

B. Edmondson

of societal commitment and political legitimacy as influences upon the likely nature of accountability relations for transitions policies. According to Josephine Mummery and Jane Mummery, in Chapter 7, recognition of the need for environmental accountabilities and sustainability transformation is growing in the face of Australia’s changing climate and collapsing biodiversity, but starting transformation processes that build socio-environmental accountability and human, non-human and ecological community resilience is proving more elusive. These authors argue that this likely results from long-standing, problematic tendencies of segregation—between (a) human and ecological cultures; (b) science, policy and practice, including between science and its implementation; and (c) policy scopes of practice. They point to long-established governmental preferences for incremental, risk averse models for change rather than transformative change as proving difficult to counter. This chapter examines these difficulties and proposes one path through them towards environmental accountability, sustainability transformation and socio-environmental resilience. More specifically, it explores these issues via examination of Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act)—the Australian Government’s key legislation for protecting and managing nationally and internationally important flora, fauna, ecological communities, and heritage. Although the EPBC Act has been in place since 2000, it has achieved little of its stated aims. It is currently under review, the recipient of extremely critical reports. In this chapter, we examine the current Act as a demonstration of the problematic of segregation, as well as explore how it could better support environmental accountability, sustainability transformation and socio-environmental resilience. Of particular interest is use of the EPBC Act as a basis to identify and outline how legislation framed through relational rather than segregated understandings might enable pathways to socio-environmental transformation and resilience. Chapter 8, by Candice Carr Kelman, examines collaborative approaches to the production of science, policy and management as means for creating more accountable environmental governance. It pays particular attention to the inclusion of frequently underrepresented voices in the community, as well as the importance of several other key

1 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions …

11

elements in collaborative governance approaches, including institutions, polycentricity and networks. It contributes to the increasingly important discussion around how to best conduct collaborative conservation and sustainable development by focusing on the public accountability of both policy programmes and scientific inquiry. Thus, this chapter considers both co-management and co-production of knowledge as models that provide accountability to policy and science, respectively, providing a novel perspective on these increasingly important practices. Best practices of co-production are discussed, and key examples of collaborative governance of forests on public lands in the USA and Indonesia are examined with attention to public accountability and sustainability transformation. In Chapter 9, which focuses on environmental stewardship for sustainability transformations, Patrick Bonney and Jessica Reeves argue that local communities are key actors for addressing sustainability transformations, particularly in rural and regional areas. According to Bonney and Reeves, change must be rooted in ‘place’ if it is to be effective because this enables it to respond to the specific social and environmental settings it is seeking to enhance. They examine the role of environmental stewardship in achieving the necessary transformations towards environmental sustainability and social change, focusing on a unique collaborative case study—Living Bung Yarnda. This chapter shows how Living Bung Yarnda allows a platform for community voices and knowledge to be considered alongside scientific data and policy for transformational sustainability of Lake Tyers in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. In this chapter, Bonney and Reeves highlight how this place-based project enables community members to contribute knowledge and concerns about their place through various means, including observations and photographs, artworks and soundscapes, scientific data collection and stories of place. They also consider the centrality of two-way knowledge exchange with management agencies for enabling a deeper understanding of the interconnections that drive the lake and its community. Their work identifies how this project made significant steps to repair deep divides within the various proponents of the community, and between community and management agencies about how best to care for this beautiful place, by empowering community members to act as environmental stewards.

12

B. Edmondson

In Chapter 10, Jale Tosun and Charlene Marek evaluate how transformative the European Union’s Farm to Fork Strategy might be in tackling the environmental and climate footprint of food systems. They examine the European Union’s (EU) commitment to becoming climate-neutral by 2050. To attain this goal, the EU adopted the European Green Deal, which lays out an ambitious research agenda that resonates with what the EU committed to achieve within the framework of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The European Green Deal strives to attain sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Throughout this chapter, Marek and Tosun examine how and why addressing food systems is especially crucial for achieving climate, environmental and economic goals and consider how the Farm to Fork Strategy has introduced a reform agenda for the EU food system. From a practical viewpoint, however, they find that inclusiveness could potentially come at the expense of transformative change for sustainable food systems as they assess whether the Farm to Fork Strategy is better equipped than previous policies for bringing about transformative changes in the European agri-food sector. They also astutely consider the likely trade-off between the transformation of food systems and the inclusion of farmers in this process. Chapter 11 focuses on the implementation of Smart Specialisation and Foundational Economy approaches in Europe and Australia as opportunities to address some of the challenges of enabling a just transition for workers and communities as urgent actions are taken to reduce carbon emissions. Throughout this chapter, Lars Coenen and Bruce Wilson examine how Smart Specialisation has evolved to become a key means of assisting regions and communities as they are restructured and questions of how to ensure that people have access to decent livelihoods become critical. They find similar value in the Foundational Economy which focused on the importance of everyday activities to sustaining local economies. Coenen and Wilson maintain that together, these approaches to just transition can inform decisions to develop place-based innovation systems to assist regions and communities. They draw attention to

1 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions …

13

integrating initiatives that promote both economic and socio-ecological innovation. Their chapter provides a detailed case study of the closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired electricity generator, following which the Latrobe Valley Authority (LVA) in Gippsland, Australia, experimented with Smart Specialisation to develop a placed innovation system. Coenen and Wilson’s work found that balancing both ‘smart’ and ‘foundational’ innovation that is supported by industry with community, research and government action is a key inclusion for just transitions. Chapter 12 revisits the necessities of emerging opportunities for social transitions, environmental accountabilities and sustainability transformations. It argues that new insights into the interlinked dynamics of environmental accountabilities and social transitions can identify mechanisms that can support sustainability transformations. It pays attention to systemic feedback loops as sources of learning and opportunities for transformational change. It draws upon diverse approaches to highlight opportunities for rethinking assumptions about social-ecological systems to bring fresh approaches to environmental and social sustainability in the twenty-first century. It revisits the diverse perspectives and approaches outlined by other chapters to examine emerging new opportunities for sustainability transformations through social transitions and environmental accountabilities. It concludes that sustainability transformations can only be achieved when supported by multi-scaled and institutionally integrated commitments by sovereign states, intergovernmental organisations, industries, corporations and societies. Orderly and equitable sustainability transformation transitions can only be achieved through shared responsibilities and common goals of ensuring the longevity of human societies. These necessitate new approaches to economic and social policies and new structures to support their implementation. Together, these chapters present new knowledge and insights regarding opportunities to improve sustainability transformations as environmental, ecosystems and interspecies interdependency-related challenges deepen, raising new challenges for structures, processes, ideas and values concerning rights, responsibilities and authoritative capacities.

14

B. Edmondson

They consider these combined challenges as constituting a multifaceted conceptual and practical crisis for sustainability transformations—whereby environmental accountabilities are effectively integrated into social transitions. In various ways, they expand understanding of why and how increased accountabilities can strengthen mechanisms for sustainability transformations.

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation Michael Quinn Patton

The clarion call of our times is for transformation. Transformation means major, deep, broad, and enduring change in systems. Agenda 2030 is a bold transformative agenda across 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) areas including ending poverty and hunger, ensuring gender equality, mitigating climate change, stopping pollution of land, water, and air, and living sustainability. Many people, organisations, and networks are working to ensure that the future is more sustainable and equitable. Global efforts are underway to transform food systems, alleviate hunger, and mitigate climate change. The rhetoric is visionary, hopeful, and inspiring. The reality is that most of these transformationaspiring initiatives have been designed, implemented, and evaluated M. Q. Patton (B) Blue Marble Evaluation, Utilization-Focused Evaluation, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_2

15

16

M. Q. Patton

under an outdated and inadequate paradigm based on linear models of command and control. The turbulence, uncertainties, unpredictability, and uncontrollability of engaging with complex dynamic systems require fundamentally different approaches to leadership, design, management, and, the focus of this chapter, a different approach to evaluation.

Transforming Evaluation The theme of the 2019 conference of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) was Evaluation for Transformational Change and it generated a book with the same title (Berg et al. 2019). A subsequent IDEAS book was entitled Transformational Evaluation for the Global Crises of Our Times (Berg et al., 2021). The journals of the African Evaluation Association, American Evaluation Association, the Canadian Evaluation Society, and the European Evaluation Society have published several articles on the urgent necessity of transforming evaluation to meet the challenges of system transformation (AfrEA, 2021; Bourgeois, 2021; Larsson, 2021; Loud, 2021; Ofir, 2021; Patton, 2021a; Uitto, 2021). Evaluators are commissioned to assess the fidelity and impacts of hypothesised transformational initiatives and trajectories. But transformational initiatives offer new challenges for the design, implementation, and use of evaluations. The premise of this chapter is that evaluating transformation requires transforming evaluation. I’ll offer five overarching evaluation transformations I believe are needed: moving from project thinking to systems thinking; from theory of change to theory of transformation; from simple linear thinking to engaging seriously with the implications for evaluation of complexity; from evaluation silos to cross-silos integration; and from evaluator independence and neutrality to acknowledging interdependence and having skin in the game.

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

17

Five Overarching Evaluation Transformations From Project Thinking to Systems Thinking Transformation is not a project or programme. Transformational initiatives are not targeted to achieving SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Transformation means changing systems to be more just (equitable) and sustainable (resilient) (Patton, 2020a, 2020b; 2021a, 2021b). This means dealing with complexity dynamics in a world characterised by turbulence, uncertainty, unpredictability, and uncontrollability (Furubo et al., 2013; Hodgson, 2020). The focus of evaluation, the evaluand in our jargon, becomes transformed systems. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the flow of private sector funds into systems transformations (TIIP, 2020; Olazabal, 2021). We’re seeing emphasis on systems change wherever serious actors are addressing the climate emergency. For example, the global financial investment community has been highlighting changes in their sphere as discussed in Assessing System-Level Investments (Lydenberg & Burckart, 2020). As that report shows, trillions of dollars are being directed at systems-level change and social impact investors are seeking new approaches to assess such changes. The Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group of the American Evaluation Association spent two years identifying the principles that constitute systems thinking: focusing on interrelationships, perspectives, boundaries, and dynamics (Systems in Evaluation, 2018). Among many other things, the global pandemic powerfully demonstrated the interconnections among health systems, school systems, community systems, economic and finance systems, entertainment systems, and political systems. A critical evaluation skill, then, is being able to see the interconnections among systems and the implications of those interconnections. Let me share an example in practice. The United Nations held a global Food Systems Summit on 23 September 2021. Building up to the Summit, more than 1000 ‘Independent Dialogues’ were held around the world. The synthesis of those Dialogues confirmed the importance of taking a systems perspective and

18

M. Q. Patton

seeing the interconnections of food systems with health, climate, social justice, and information systems. There are nearly 690 million people in the world who are hungry, or 8.9 per cent of the world population—an increase of 10 million people in one year and nearly 60 million in five years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the problem. Food systems transformation involves changing systems. The importance of thinking in terms of systems permeated the Dialogues. The pandemic gave rise to many discussions of the interconnections between health systems and food systems, including the significant increases in food insecurity and hunger due to COVID-19. The Food Systems Summit elevated and focused attention on food systems, not just food. The very framing of the Summit, and therefore the framing of the Independent Dialogues, being a Food Systems Summit drew attention to food systems, not just food production and consumption. As a result, the language of systems permeated the Dialogues. The Food Systems transformation Dialogues were occurring during the coronavirus pandemic and increased evidence of the Climate Emergency with increased incidence of severe weather episodes, fires, droughts, and floods. Progress on the SDG indicators was often reversed, as great numbers of people experienced food insecurity, hunger, and deepened poverty. Dialogue participants often observed that the potential for food systems transformation was inevitably and intrinsically tied to the transformation of climate and health systems. Dialogues addressed broad ranges of the needed systems transformation from national-level systems to community-level systems, including marketing systems, seed bank systems, land tenure systems, and finance systems (Patton et al., 2021). However, while the Food Systems Summit elevated and focused attention on food systems and the language and rhetoric of systems were noticeably in the ascendant, the report observed that thinking in systems was noticeably absent. The transition from simple, linear project and programme thinking to systems thinking constitutes a substantial change in worldview. It is a paradigm shift of major proportions (Patton et al., 2021). Systems thinking means designing, implementing, and evaluating transformation initiatives with attention to the interdependencies among humans and nature, and among producers, distributors, and consumers

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

19

of food. Systems thinking maps and incorporates diverse perspectives within and across ecosystem, political, economic, social, and cultural boundaries. Systems thinking identifies and monitors the dynamic interactions of multiple factors and relationships in the production and consumption of food, attending to iterative interconnections, feedback loops, leverage points, momentum dynamics, critical mass transitions, networked interactions both formal and informal, and cross-silo interconnections among multiple stakeholder constituencies: governments, private sector actors, civil society and non-government organisations (NGO), advocates and activists, researchers and university scholars, philanthropic donors and social impact investors, international and domestic agencies involved in various aspects of food systems, and managers and evaluators of transformational initiatives. Applying systems thinking includes understanding and acting on the interdependent nature of land, air, and water systems and the knowledge that food systems transformation is connected to climate change, health systems, sustainable ecosystems, weather systems, and healthy landscapes and seascapes. Transforming complex systems interconnections requires a theory of transformation, the second overarching evaluation transformation.

From Theory of Change to Theory of Transformation The second evaluation transformation is moving from theory of change conceptualisations to theory of transformation thinking. A theory of change specifies how a project or programme attains desired outcomes. Transformation is not a project. It is multi-dimensional, multi-faceted, and multi-level, cutting across national borders and intervention silos, across sectors and specialised interests, connecting local and global, and sustaining across time. A theory of transformation incorporates and integrates multiple theories of change operating at many levels that, knitted together, explain how major systems transformation occurs. Programme theory aims to explain why a particular programme approach should work to achieve desired results. This involves making explicit and then testing a programme’s theory of change. In 1995, Carol H. Weiss, an applied sociologist and pioneering evaluation theorist who

20

M. Q. Patton

helped create the field of evaluation, wrote an article for the Aspen Institute about the importance of basing community interventions on a solid theory of change. Her article was entitled: ‘Nothing as practical as a good theory’ (Weiss & Connell, 1995). She was reacting to the emergence of large-scale community initiatives funded by philanthropic foundations and government agencies that poured millions of dollars into community change efforts with no knowledge of the relevant social science research that should have been informing such efforts. Her article became one of the most influential, if not the most influential, articles in the history of programme evaluation. Today, we would say it went viral. But transformation involves a different order of magnitude and speed than project-bounded changes—and, correspondingly, requires a different kind of theory. The language of transformation suggests major systems change and rapid reform at a global level. A transformational trajectory would cut across nation states, across sustainable development goal (SDG) and sector silos, and connect the local with the global (using the Blue Marble principles of evaluation discussed in my book on the subject). The language of transformation has emerged across the globe wherever people convene to contemplate and initiate collective action to deal with global issues. A vision of transformation has become central to international dialogues about the future of the Earth and sustainable development. A theory of transformation emerges from studying major transformations of the past and examining current challenges and patterns that portend future possibilities. Transformations that are instructive include the end of colonialism, the end of apartheid, the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism, turning back the AIDS epidemic, the WorldWideWeb (Internet), and, today, social media. It is instructive to understand how these systems emerged into dominance in the first place, for none of these transformations occurred due to a centrally conceptualised, controlled, and implemented strategic plan or massive coordinated initiative. These transformations occurred when multiple and diverse initiatives intersected and synergised to create momentum, critical mass, and ultimately tipping points. New kinds of initiatives and new forms of intervention will be needed that can respond to the challenges of global problems, including

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

21

designing and evaluating systems transformations. Transformation flows from an understanding that the status quo is not a viable path forward and that networked action on multiple fronts using diverse change strategies across multiple landscapes will be needed to overcome the resistance from those who benefit from the status quo. Multiple interventions are required to multiply effects, creating streams of diverse interventions flowing together to generate critical mass tipping points and mammoth change in global systems. Thus, transformation is simultaneously and interactively global and local at the same time and contextually sensitive and rooted, while being globally manifest and sustainable. Transforming systems must be multi-faceted, multi-dimensional, multisectoral, multinational, and multiplicative. Tracking these new, transformational initiatives will require a complex global systems change approach to evaluation. Transformation is a sensitising concept that has to be given meaning and specificity within the context where transformation is targeted. Evaluation of transformation begins by examining whether an initiative, or more likely a set of initiatives and interventions, constitutes a trajectory towards transformation. Asking the trajectory question changes the evaluation focus from transformation having occurred (or not) to transformational engagement. That is the reframing formulated by the influential Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank (IEG, 2018; IEG, 2020a, b). Assessing the trajectory towards transformation is what most funders, decision-makers, and implementers of initiatives are looking for from evaluation. Transformational engagement is an intervention or a series of interventions that helps achieve deep, systemic, and sustainable change with large-scale impact in an area of a major development challenge. These engagements help clients remove critical constraints to development; cause or support fundamental change in a system; have large-scale national or global impact; and are economically, financially, and environmentally sustainable. (IEG, 2016, p. 1)

The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the World Bank evaluated a sample of 20 transformational engagements varying in form, size,

22

M. Q. Patton

the development challenges they address, sector, and region, as well as country context. In addition, IEG reviewed a purposeful and selective sample of country-level engagements. Their comparative and synthesising analysis exemplifies systems transformation evaluation (IEG, 2018; see also Heider, 2017; IEG, 2016). The Global Alliance for the Future of Food formulated a theory of transformation aimed at stimulating and integrating local and global food systems transformations. The Global Alliance is formed of 30 philanthropic foundations that collaborate to support the transformation of food and agricultural systems. Transformation means realising healthy, equitable, renewable, resilient, and culturally diverse food systems shared by people, communities, and their institutions. In January 2020, the Global Alliance formally adopted a theory of transformation that informs its activities and provides a basis for evaluating its products, activities, and impacts through the lens of transformational engagement (Global Alliance, 2020). The synthesis of Independent Dialogues generated by the UN Food Systems Summit also generated a theory of transformation that integrates 22 guiding themes that together hypothesise how to mobilise and accelerate food and agricultural systems transformation (Patton et al., 2021). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to present a theory of transformation. I would simply reiterate that a theory of transformation synthesises multiple theories of change. Any specific theory of change concerns how to produce desired results targeted by a particular intervention. Transforming systems requires aligning, networking, and integrating multiple and diverse theories of change to build critical mass transformational tipping points. Transformation, then, is not an intervention, it is rather a movement creating synergies among multiple interventions (Patton, 2020a).

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

23

From Closed-System Linear Thinking to Open-System Complexity Understandings The two evaluation transformations discussed above—moving from project thinking to systems thinking and moving from theory of change to theory of transformation—are grounded in complexity understandings. Evaluation is dominated by linear causal modelling and thinking. The dominant action paradigm is one of control: plan your work, work your plan. Complexity theory involves and addresses nonlinearities, emergence, and lack of control (inherent dynamic complex system uncertainties). Informing and infusing evaluation with complexity understandings is the third evaluation transformation needed. Evaluation under conditions of complexity is different from traditional linear static models of interventions and evaluation (Bamberger et al., 2016; Patton, 2011, 2020a). In March 2020, I wrote in a blog about the implications of the pandemic for evaluation from a complexity perspective. I noted that evaluators would have to be prepared to pivot, adapting evaluation plans and designs, and become capable of responding to complex dynamic systems. This means being prepared for the unknown, for uncertainties, turbulence, lack of control, nonlinearities, and for emergence of the unexpected. This is the current context around the world in general and this is the world in which evaluation will exist for the foreseeable future (Patton, 2020b). This means agility rules. Here are principles I propose to inform and undergird evaluation agility.

From Evaluation Silos to Cross-Silos Integration A silo is a tower on a farm used to store a single kind of grain. In development, the Silo Mentality constitutes an approach and mindset where all the focus is on what is happening within a single sector, intervention, issue, or problem area without regard to interrelationships and interconnections across those focused domains of action. This silo mentality in international development and, correspondingly, in monitoring and evaluation (MandE) is manifest in single-issue funding streams, tightly

24

M. Q. Patton

focused project logic models, and narrowly defined SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Thinking and working across silos challenge this dominant paradigm. Silos take many forms. Siloed problem areas can include sectors (education, health, housing), issues (crime, immigration, poverty), performance indicators (income, nutrition, school graduation rates), goals (equity, sustainability, economic growth), and traditional programme areas (agriculture, schools, clinics). To evaluate transformation, evaluators must be able to engage across silos which means assessing the extent to which global systems change efforts address interrelated factors across problem areas and evaluate interconnected outcomes. This means designing and evaluating initiatives to integrate and coordinate interventions across sectors, SDGs, and traditional programme areas. Let’s look at the implications of this cross-silos principle for the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development framework. The 17 sustainable development goals have yielded 169 targets and 230 indicators, 90 of which are mandated to be reported on periodically. Technical specialists measure and report on CO2 emissions, rates of school attendance and graduation, poverty levels, numbers of refugees, agricultural productivity statistics, changing demographics, energy consumption, and nutrition indicators. A massive infrastructure has been created within each SDG to collect data and report progress towards targets on indicators. The monitoring of indicators is important, but targeting performance indicator by indicator, nation by nation, scarcely begins to tap into and make use of the potential of evaluation to inform and assess global system changes, both processes and results, in support of strategic leadership decisions and collective action. Doing so requires analysing the interconnections among goals and indicators across SDGs. A particularly informative and useful guide to SDG interactions was published by the International Science Council (Nilsson et al., 2018). The framework developers take seriously the conceptualisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a holistic agenda—an ‘indivisible whole’ integrating the three ‘pillars’ of economic development, social development, and environmental protection as intertwined and cutting across the entire Agenda. Evaluating the interactions among

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

25

SDG targets and indicators, both actual and aspirational, positive and negative, and short-term and long-term offer significant opportunities for transformation thinkers, doers, designers, and evaluators to contribute to Agenda 2030.

From Evaluation Independence and Neutrality to Skin in the Game Having skin in the game means you have a personal stake in the outcome. It means you are a stakeholder. When it comes to the survival of humanity and the planet, we all have skin in the game as we and our loved ones are in the world that is under threat. We are not outside looking in. We are part of the global system and there’s a good chance that we are each, in our own way, part of the problem. This gives us a quite different stance than is typically expected. Evaluators are virtually always outside the programmes or projects they evaluate. Acknowledging and facing the realities of the need for major systems changes transform the position of evaluators from external observers of change to internal participants in change. Traditionally, the evaluator’s credibility flows from independence and neutrality. Evaluation for transformation changes the evaluator’s role and credibility, based on interdependence and being involved. There is no external, independence stance in a pandemic. Everyone is affected. Everyone has a stake, including evaluators. We are facing immense global challenges rooted in the legacies of colonialism and white supremacy. Extractive and exploitative practices have led to deep inequalities based on race, geography, class, gender, and many more divisions and also a rapidly changing climate that threatens biodiversity and humanity itself. What, then, is the role of evaluation in addressing these challenges? It begins with a recognition that evaluation is not (and has never been) value-neutral. Eminent evaluation scholar Robert Stake (2004) published a provocative article that asked: ‘How Far Dare an Evaluator Go Toward Saving the World?’. His question raised the issue of what role evaluators’ values play in the design and conduct of evaluations. Facilitating clarification

26

M. Q. Patton

of intended users’ values as a foundation for designing and enhancing use of evaluations is a central feature of utilisation-focused evaluation. A second dimension of valuing concerns what role evaluators’ values play. A third dimension concerns how values adopted by the evaluation profession are brought into the design of evaluations as discussed earlier. We all have a stake in a more just and sustainable world. Bob Stake asked how far an evaluator dare go towards saving the world. A broadening of that question in the context of our current pandemic and climate emergencies becomes: how far dare we, collectively, as an evaluation profession go in changing the world? Are we prepared to transform evaluation to play our role in evaluating transformation? (Patton, 2021b).

Five Principles For Evaluation Agility 1. Timely data rules. Channel a sense of urgency into thinking pragmatically and creatively about what data can be gathered quickly and provided to evaluation users to help them know what’s happening, what’s emerging, how needs are changing, and consider options going forward. At the same time help them document the changes in implementation they are making as a result of the crisis—and the implications and results of those changes. You may be able to gather data and provide feedback about perceptions of the crisis and its implications, finding out how much those affected are on the same page in terms of message and response. That’s what developmental evaluators do. 2. Be adaptable. Expect change. Programme goals may appropriately change. Measures of effectiveness may change. Target populations may change. Implementation protocols may change. Outcome measures may change. This means that evaluation designs, data collection, reporting timelines, and criteria will and should change. Intended uses and even intended users may change. Expect change. Facilitate change. Document changes and their implications. That’s your job in a crisis, not to go on in a comfortable business-as-usual mindset. There is no business as usual now. And if you don’t see programme adaptation, consider pushing for it by presenting options

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

27

and introducing scenario thinking at a programme level. Take risks, as appropriate, in dealing with and helping others deal with what’s unfolding. 3. Think globally, act locally. We all know that context matters for every evaluation, but what is involved in contextual assessment has now expanded to a global level. Global patterns and trends intersect with and affect what happens locally, including evaluations at whatever level you are operating. Zoom out to understand the big picture of what’s happening globally and zoom in to the implications locally, where locally means whatever level you’re working at. The whole world is now part of our evaluation context. The Global South and Global North will be intertwined as never before as the global health emergency deepens and broadens. 4. Prepare to make the case for evaluation’s value. Expect proposals to cut back evaluation funding. One of the first targets for budget cuts in recessions and political turmoil has historically been evaluations. Prepare to make evaluation all the more useful so that the evaluation value proposition reframes evaluation as an essential activity not as a mundane bureaucratic or luxurious function when times are good. Define, conceptualise, articulate, and demonstrate the essential utility of evaluation when judgements are premature, and when the facts are uncertain. Refrain from expressing uninformed or premature judgements, and urge others to do likewise. 5. Advocate for better data. Reports of the incidence and prevalence of the coronavirus appeared to be problematic in many cases. Ongoing systematic stratified random sample testing will be needed to establish population infection rates. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of epidemiological statistics as well as other indicators relevant to any particular crisis.

An Ethical Framework for Transformational Evaluation Moving from project thinking to systems thinking, from theory of change to theory of transformation, and from simple linear causality

28

M. Q. Patton

to complex dynamic systems understandings provides an analytical and conceptual framework for evaluating transformation and transforming evaluation, but what remains is to ensure that the transformational engagement is ethically grounded and appropriate. For evaluators, there are two sources that express shared professional and ethical values: (1) global commitments and values manifest in the Global Agenda 2030, the sustainable development goals (SDGs), along with treaties and declarations protecting the rights of marginalised populations and (2) the standards and principles adopted by the evaluation profession. Those two sources together have made equity and sustainability the cornerstones of the global common good. In the new 5th edition of Utilization-Focused Evaluation, all evaluators are called on to address equity and sustainability as universal evaluation criteria (Patton & Campbell-Patton, 2022, Chapter 18).

Equity Calls for transformation flow from two streams: one values-based and visionary, and the other crisis-focused and fear-of-calamity-driven. Transformation as a values-based vision flows from the hopes expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted in 1948) and subsequently in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (adopted in 1959). Global diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI ) norms and values are expressed and codified in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the International Women’s Bill of Rights. All people, all of humankind, young and old, have the right to food, water, sanitation, security, shelter, respect, and dignity. As expressed in the ambitious sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015, entitled Transforming Our World , transformation means leaving no one behind (Segone & Tateossian, 2017). Caroline Heider, as former Director General Evaluation at the World Bank Group, has considered this criterion and its implications in depth: Although the [OECD-DAC] evaluation criteria appear to be neutral and should be applied as such, they were informed by a set of values.

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

29

The post-2015 agenda has declared its intention to be more inclusive, respecting underprivileged groups of people, which means we as evaluators need to reflect whether the criteria suit these intentions. Being able to shape norms that are more inclusive of diversity rather than judging everyone through more limiting norms will be a necessity if 2030 is to become the world we want. (Heider, 2017, p. 5).

UNICEF and other international agencies have promoted equityfocused evaluation based on human rights and the rights of children (Bamberger & Segone, 2011). This vision for evaluation’s role in the world was articulated in the theme of the 2014 annual conference of the American Evaluation Association (AEA): Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future. Two important evaluation thought leaders, Stewart Donaldson and Robert Picciotto (2016), edited a book on Evaluation for an Equitable Society. The Equitable Evaluation Initiative (2021) promotes the use of evaluation as a tool for advancing equity. Equitable evaluation encourages evaluators to consider four aspects in their evaluation practice, all at once: diversity of evaluation teams (beyond ethnic and cultural); cultural appropriateness and validity of evaluation methods; ability of evaluation designs to reveal structural and systems-level drivers of inequity; and the degree to which those affected by what is being evaluated have the power to shape and own how evaluation happens (Dean-Coffey, 2018; Equitable Evaluation Initiative, 2021). Developed by Khalil Bitar (2021), a leader of EvalYouth, the Social Equity Assessment Tool (SEAT) for Evaluation consists of 13 equity dimensions that assess ‘the equitable treatment of relevant community members and right-holders/right holder groups within the broad geographical area the intervention covers and meaningfully involving them in the intervention design and implementation. The SEAT consists of eight demographic aspects (geographical, economic, gender, racial and ethnic, religion, age, sexual orientation, and disability) and five cross-cutting aspects (intervention team, evaluator/evaluation team, data collection/analysis/reporting, environmental justice, and unintended consequences)’ (pp. 6–7).

30

M. Q. Patton

This tool and framework for applying and assessing equity criteria are meant to be used universally whether the intervention has explicit equity goals or not. Indeed, Bitar asserts, ‘it is even more necessary to use a SEAT when the intervention does not have equity-related objectives’ (p. 7). Doing so ensures that attention to equity is a universal evaluation criterion.

Sustainability As noted earlier, the theme of the 2019 conference of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) in Prague was Evaluation for Transformative Change. At the conclusion of the conference, participants from around the world adopted a ‘Declaration on Evaluation for Transformational Change’. The Declaration, adopted 4 October 2019 in Prague, included a commitment to address sustainability in all evaluations. In all our evaluations, we commit to evaluating for social, environmental and economic sustainability and transformation, including by assessing contextual factors and systemic changes. We commit to assessing and highlighting, in all evaluations, unintended negative social, economic and environmental effects. (Item 6 of 10 in the Declaration. For the full declaration, see IDEAS, 2019)

All evaluations, with an emphasis on ALL, are mandated to include attention to sustainability, that is, ecosystem sustainability. The global climate emergency, according to the IDEAS Declaration, requires action and engagement by everyone, everywhere, including evaluators. Adaptive ecological sustainability has emerged as a priority criterion for evaluation (Ofir, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2018d; Patton, 2021a; Rowe, 2019; Uitto, 2019). A volume of New Directions for Evaluation is focused on sustainability (Julnes, 2019).

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

31

Interdependence of Equity and Sustainability Equity and sustainability are not competing criteria. They intersect and overlap and are mutually reinforcing. Sustainability and equity, combined, are the foundation for transformation. This relationship links sustainability to equity and transformation. For example, Amnesty International established tackling the climate crisis by supporting a ‘human rights-centered transition to a green economy’ as its top priority for 2020. Evaluation as a profession suffers its own history of racism and white supremacy. Going blue (Blue Marble Evaluation) and green (environmental sustainability as a criterion) does not exempt us from dealing with Black, Brown, and White. Quite the contrary. To decolonise evaluation (Chouinard & Hopson, 2015; McKegg, 2019; Smith, 1999), culturally responsive (Chouinard & Cram, 2019; Hood et al., 2015) and equitable evaluation has to be part of an evaluation commitment to and engagement with sustainability for human survival on Earth. So, concern for sustainability of the Earth and humanity is connected to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Evidence abounds that the most marginalised and vulnerable populations are those who are and will continue to be most negatively affected by climate change. UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake introduced a report on the impact of climate change on children, entitled Unless We Act Now, with an overview of the threat to children experiencing poverty worldwide: In every crisis, children are the most vulnerable. Climate change is no exception. As escalating droughts and flooding degrade food production, children will bear the greatest burden of hunger and malnutrition. As temperatures increase, together with water scarcity and air pollution, children will feel the deadliest impact of water-borne diseases and dangerous respiratory conditions. As more extreme weather events expand the number of emergencies and humanitarian crises, children will pay the highest price. As the world experiences a steady rise in climatedriven migration, children’s lives and futures will be the most disrupted. (UNICEF, 2015, p. 6)

32

M. Q. Patton

Utilisation-Focused Evaluation Utilisation-focused evaluation is driven by the obligation and opportunity to meet the information needs of primary intended users to enhance use of evaluation and extend evaluative thinking. Now, however, in the face of the pandemic, climate emergency, global social justice uprising, worldwide food systems failures, and the dramatically increasing gap between the haves and have-nots, the active-reactive-interactive-adaptive framework of utilisation-focused evaluation includes addressing the criteria of equity and sustainability. Facilitation must undergo what amounts to a paradigm shift. Evaluators are not just responsible for meeting the information needs of primary intended users. We now have the additional obligation to bring before primary intended users the larger societal issues of sustainability and equity. This obligation flows from adoption by evaluation professional organisations of updated statements on our professional responsibilities because of what’s at stake for humanity, not just for primary intended users. The implication for utilisation-focused evaluation is that evaluators present to primary intended users the emergence and importance of equity and sustainability as evaluation criteria and facilitate discussion of how those criteria can be addressed in the evaluation by making a commitment to promoting each of them as intended uses of the evaluation. Utilisationfocused evaluation going forward commits to making contributions to equity and sustainability as criterion of both programme and evaluation excellence and success (Patton & Campbell-Patton, 2022). Evaluating transformation requires solid ethical grounding (Patton, 2022). The ethics of transformation involve interconnections between personal ethics (transforming our own behaviours), professional ethics (actively advocating a transformational stance among professional evaluators), societal ethics (examining evaluation’s role in support of the public good and democratic processes), and global ethics (ensuring attention to and engagement with the global emergency by incorporating transformational criteria of equity and sustainability into all evaluations based on human rights). This chapter has examined the implications of transformative ethics for evaluation theory, practice, and methods.

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

33

Conclusion Evaluation and Evaluators as Part of the Transformation Process The premise of this chapter is that evaluating transformation requires transforming evaluation. A systemic approach to evaluation, beyond closed-system project thinking, is needed to align with systems transformation initiatives and interventions aimed at achieving progress in meeting SDGs. This chapter has identified and discussed five fundamental evaluation transformations needed to align with systems transformation interventions: from project thinking to systems thinking; from theory of change to theory of transformation; from simple linear approaches to complexity understandings; from siloed thinking about SDGs to cross-silos integration of SDGs; and from evaluator independence and neutrality to acknowledging interdependence and having skin in the game. Beyond methodological and technical developments, evaluating transformation must be ethically grounded by incorporating the criteria of equity and sustainability. The greatest danger for evaluators in times of turbulence is not the turbulence itself—it is to act within yesterday’s paradigm without adapting evaluation to the challenges of a changed and changing world. Transformational initiatives offer new challenges for the design, implementation, and use of evaluations. The nature of the transformations that emerge will be mediated by context. The evaluation architecture which determines the demand, supply, and nature of evaluative products is quite varied. But the need for transformation at some level in some ways to meet the challenges of creating a more just and sustainable world is universal. A team of internationally-recognised experts, including Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and well-known climate economist Nicholas Stern, came together to assess the economic and climate impact of taking a green route out of the pandemic crisis. They catalogued more than 700 stimulus policies into 25 broad groups and conducted a global survey of 231 experts from 53 countries, including senior officials from finance ministries and central banks. Their analysis of whether

34

M. Q. Patton

COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages will accelerate or retard progress on climate change portrays the interconnection between the coronavirus pandemic, economic policies, and environmental consequences which, taken together, illustrate the transformations necessary to attain a more sustainable and equitable future (Hepburn et al., 2020). The global climate conference (COP26) held in Glasgow in November 2021 spotlighted the need for global, longer-term sustainability transformation. The global pandemic health emergency has constituted a short-term crisis within the larger and longer-term global climate emergency. This health crisis has revealed both the importance and possibility of systems transformation. This crisis illuminates the scale, scope, and urgency of systems transformations needed worldwide to create a more sustainable and equitable future. We each have a personal and professional responsibility to reflect on our role in transformation. Balancing long-term threats to the future of humanity with the urgent demands of short-term, crisis-generated interventions demands in-depth transformative evaluative thinking. Evaluators, individually and collectively, need to be prepared to contribute to finding and following pathways and trajectories towards transformations for a more equitable and sustainable future.

References AfrEA (2021). Made in Africa Symposium. https://afrea.org/made-in-africa-eva luation/ Bamberger, M., & Segone, M. (2011). How to design and manage equity-focused evaluations. UNICEF. Bamberger, M., Vaessen, J., & Raimondo, E. (2016). Dealing with complexity in development evaluation: A practical approach. Sage. Berg, R. V., Magro, C. and Mulder, S.S. (Eds.) (2019). Evaluation for transformational change: Opportunities and challenges for the sustainable development goals. Exeter, UK: IDEAS. https://ideas-global.org/wp-content/ uploads/2019/11/2019-11-05-Final_IDEAS_EvaluationForTransformation alChange.pdf

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

35

Berg, R. V., Magro, C. and Adrien, M-H. (Eds.) (2021). Transformational evaluation for the global crises of our times. Exeter, UK: IDEAS, https://ideas-global.org/ideas-book-transformational-evaluation-forthe-global-crises-of-our-times/ Bitar, K. (2021). A social equity assessment tool (SEAT) for evaluation. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349623379_A_social_equ ity_assessment_tool_SEAT_for_evaluation Bourgeois, I. (2021). Editor’s remarks. Canadian Journal of Programme Evaluation. 36 (2, Fall): v. Chouinard, J. A., & Cram, F. (2019). Culturally responsive approaches to evaluation: Empirical implications for theory and practice. Sage. Chouinard, J. and Hopson, R. (2015, December). Decolonizing international development evaluation. Canadian Journal of Programme Evaluation, 30 (3), 248–276. Dean-Coffey, J. (2018). What’s race got to do with it? Equity and philanthropic evaluation practice. American Journal of Evaluation., 39 (4), 527–542. Donaldson, S. I., & Picciotto, R. (Eds.). (2016). Evaluation for an equitable society. Information Age Publishing. Equitable Evaluation Initiative (2021). Equitable evaluation framework. https:// www.equitableeval.org/ee-framework Furubo, J.-E., Rist, R. C., & Speer, S. (Eds.). (2013). Evaluation and turbulent times: Reflections on a discipline in disarray. Routledge. Global Alliance for the Future of Food (2020). Transforming food systems to improve human, animal, and planetary health. https://futureoffood.org/ourapproach/systems-thinking/ Heider, C. (2017). ReThinking evaluation. Washington, DC: The World Bank Independent Evaluation Group. http://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/sites/ default/files/Data/RethinkingEvaluation.pdf Hepburn, C., O’Callaghan, B., Stern, N., Stiglitz, J., and Zenghelis, D. (2020). Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change? Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 36 (Supplement_1): S359–S381. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/graa015 Hodgson, A. (2020). Systems thinking for a turbulent world: A search for new perspectives. London: Routledge. Hood, S., Hopson, R., & Frierson, H. (Eds.). (2015). Continuing the Journey to reposition culture and cultural context in evaluation theory and practice. Information Age Publishing. IDEAS (2019). Prague declaration on evaluation for transformational change. International development evaluation association, adopted on Friday 4

36

M. Q. Patton

October. https://ideas-global.org/wp-content/uploads//2019/10/Prague-Dec laration-4-October-2019.pdf IEG (Independent Evaluation Group). (2016). Supporting transformational change for poverty reduction and shared prosperity—lessons from the World Bank experience. World Bank. IEG (Independent Evaluation Group). (2018). Evaluation of GEF support for transformational change. Washington, DC: Global Environmental Facility. https://doi.org/file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Transformation/ DAC%20criteria/transformational-engagement-2017-brief.pdf IEG (Independent Evaluation Group). (2020a). Evaluative resources and lessons to inform the COVID-19 response. Washington DC: The World Bank Independent Evaluation Group. https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/topic/covid-19coronavirus-response?=fee9c85338-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020a_05_04_ 05_44_COPY_03and=0_fc6e7f2a32-fee9c85338-113584913 IEG (Independent Evaluation Group). (2020b, April 1). ‘Bowling in the dark: Monitoring and evaluation during COVID-1. Independent Evaluation Group blog. https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/blog/mande-covid19 Julnes, G. (Ed.) (2019). Evaluating sustainability: Evaluative support for managing processes in the public interest. New Directions for Evaluation, No. 162 (Summer). Larsson, M. (2021). Using environmental evaluation systems and their contribution to sustainable development. Evaluation, 27 (4), 453–472. Loud, M.L. (2021). Transforming evaluation practice for ‘business unusual’. Canadian Journal of Programme Evaluation. 36 (2, Fall): 117–119. Lydenberg, S. and Burckart, B. (2020). Assessing system-level investments: a guide for asset owners. The Investment Integration Project. https://www. tiiproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Assessing-System-Level-Invest ments_FINAL_04-21-2020.pdf McKegg, K. (2019). White privilege and the decolonization work needed in evaluation to support indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. Canadian Journal of Programme Evaluation, 34 (2, Fall): 357–367. https://doi. org/10.3138/cjpe.67978 Mertens, D. (1999). Inclusive evaluation: Implications of transformative theory for evaluation. American Journal of Evaluation, 20 (1), 1–14. Nilsson, M., Griggs, D., Visbeck, M. Ringler, M., C., & McCollum, D. (2018). A guide to SDG interactions: From science to mplementation. International Science Council.

2 Evaluating Transformation Means Transforming Evaluation

37

Ofir, Z. (2018a, February 15). Updating the DAC evaluation criteria, Part 5. Non-negotiable criteria. Evaluation for Development blog. http://zendaofir. com/updating-dac-evaluation-criteria-part-5/ Ofir Z (2018b, July 31). Evaluation for development blog. http://zendaofir. com/zendas-top-ten-tips-for-yees-2/ Ofir, Z. (2018c, August 28). The NICE framework, Part 1: Where culture and evaluation meet. Evaluation for Development blog. Ofir, Z. (2018d, June 8). Made in Africa Evaluation, Part 2: ‘Africa-rooted’ evaluation. Evaluation for Development blog. Ofir, Z. (2020). Transforming evaluations and COVID-19. Evaluation for development. 4 blog posts, March 29-April 20. https://zendaofir.com/transf orming-evaluations-and-covid-19-part-4-accelerating-change-in-practice/ Ofir, Z. (2021). Evaluation in transition. Canadian Journal of Programme Evaluation. 36 (2, Fall): 120–140. Olazabal, V. (2021, November 9). Presidential plenary remarks, American Evaluation Association conference. Patton, M. Q. (2011). Developmental evaluation: Applying systems thinking and complexity concepts to enhance use. Guilford Press. Patton, M. Q. (2020a). Blue marble evaluation: Premises and principles. Guilford Press. Patton, M.Q. (2020b, March 23). Evaluation implications of the Coronavirus global health pandemic emergency. Blue Marble Evaluation blog. https://bluemarbleeval.org/latest/evaluation-implications-coronavirusglobal-health-pandemic-emergency Patton, M. Q. (2021a). Evaluation criteria for evaluating transformation: Implications for the coronavirus pandemic and the global climate emergency. American Journal of Evaluation, 42(1), 53–89. Patton, M. Q. (2021b). How far dare evaluators go in changing the world? American Journal of Evaluation, 42(2), 162–184. Patton, M. Q. (2022). Evaluation ethics in desperate times. In R. D. van den Berg, P. Hawkins, & N. Stame (Eds.), Ethics for evaluation (pp. 235–255). Routledge. Patton, M. Q., & Campbell-Patton, C. E. (2022). Utilization-focused evaluation: Premises and principles (5th ed.). Sage. Patton, M. Q., Podems, D., and Wildschut, L. (2021). Synthesis of independent dialogues, Report 3 UN Food systems summit. New York: United Nations. https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/unfss_independent_dia logue_synthesis_report_3_0.pdf

38

M. Q. Patton

Rowe, A. (2019). Sustainability-ready evaluation: A call to action. In G. Julnes (Ed.) Evaluating sustainability: evaluative support for managing processes in the public interest. New Directions for Evaluation, No. 162 (Summer): 29–48. Segone, M., and Tateossian, F. (2017). No one left behind. In M. Bamberegr, M.Segone, and F. Tateossian (Eds.), Evaluation for agenda 2030: Providing evidence on progress and sustainability, pp. 23–34. https://ideas-global.org/ wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Chapter-2.pdf Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. New Zealand: Zed. Stake, R. E. (2004). How far dare an evaluator go toward saving the world? American Journal of Evaluation, 25 (1), 103–107. Systems in Evaluation. (2018). Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation. Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group, American Evaluation Association. https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/resources/ principles-effective-use-systems-thinking-evaluation#:~:text=%E2%80% 9CTo%20apply%20the%20%E2%80%9Coverarching%E2%80%9D,% 2C%20perspectives%2C%20boundaries%20and%20dynamics TIIP (The Investment Integration Project) (2020, May 12). Who is doing well, who isn’t: Evaluating the performance of asset managers against systemic social and environmental progress. Online panel discussion. Uitto, J. I. (2019). Sustainable development evaluation: Understanding the nexus of natural and human systems. In G. Julnes (Ed.), Evaluating sustainability: Evaluative support for managing processes in the public interest. New Directions for Evaluation, 162: 49–67. Uitto, J. I. (2021). Surviving the Anthropocene: How evaluation can contribute to knowledge and better policymaking. Evaluation, 27 (4), 436–452. https:// doi.org/10.1177/13563890211034539 UNICEF (2015). Unless we act now: The impact of climate change on children. Geneva: UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/reports/unless-we-act-nowimpact-climate-change-children Weiss, C.H. and Connell, J.P. (1995) Nothing as practical as good theory: Exploring theory based evaluation for comprehensive community initiatives for children and families. In: New approaches to evaluating community initiatives: Concepts, methods, and contexts, Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute, pp. 65–92.

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National Carbon Footprint Programs David Foord

Introduction National greenhouse gas (GHG) emission measurement and labelling programs are seeking to normalise carbon counting as another daily practice of a productive and healthy life, like keeping track of time, calories, money, steps or sleep. The UK-based Carbon Trust was the first national government to introduce a carbon footprint label in 2007, followed by France and Japan in 2008 (Gadema & Oglethorpe, 2011). Other national programs have been launched in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Italy, New Zealand, Peru, Sweden, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand (Liu et al., 2016). As well, numerous private carbon labelling initiatives have been developed by firms and non-profit organisations. Industry surveys D. Foord (B) University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_3

39

40

D. Foord

of consumers have shown strong support for carbon labelling of products (Carbon Trust, 2020). However, these surveys have also found that while consumers consider carbon product labels important, their influence on purchasing decisions varies by region, with—for instance—low influence in Canada and higher influence in European states (Adagha & Francis, 2018; European Commission, 2009). Moreover, the number of registered products in voluntary national schemes has been quite low to date, with the exception of France’s mandatory program. Social science research has focused on consumer attitudes, effectiveness and influence of carbon programs (Caputo et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2016; Wong et al., 2020). To the negative, researchers have found that although consumers in the UK and Japan desire labels that display sustainability credentials, GHG labels have the lowest preference among recycling, environmental source material and eco-friendly packaging labels (Guenther et al., 2012). In decision-making about food purchases, carbon labels were found to be of low importance in a German study (Emberger-Klein & Menrad, 2018). A study of carbon labels in the tourism industry concluded that the labels were seen as incoherent and lacking in persuasive communication (Gössling & Buckley, 2016). Even in countries developing new counting systems, such as the UK, the tools for carbon estimation have been found to be fraught with disparities in units of measurements and common methodologies (Ekundayo et al., 2012). Researchers have concluded that the adoption of carbon footprint schemes is likely to remain limited in the short-to-medium term (Bowlig & Gibbon, 2009). They have also highlighted the uncertainty in calculating the carbon footprint of even relatively straight-forward products like a pint of milk (Ormond & Goodman, 2015; Schaefer & Blanke, 2014). Moreover, the authors of a carbon food labelling study concluded that a truly useful program will require all products to be carbon foot-printed, which they called utopian (Gadema & Oglethorpe, 2011). Critics of ‘hitting the carbon numbers’ would call it dystopian (Hulme, 2019). To the positive accounts in the social science research literature (Acampora et al., 2022; Zhao & Geng, 2021), carbon counting has been seen to enable action on climate change by making explicit the numbers and ‘politicizing climate change as a matter of public infrastructure and not

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

41

private consumption’ (Beuret, 2017). A comparative study of Japanese and UK consumers concluded that carbon labelling of fruits was ‘one of the most important attributes for both countries’ consumers’ (Tait et al., 2016). A 2020 Carbon Trust survey of approximately 10,000 adults in Western Europe and the US found two-thirds of consumers consider carbon labelling a good idea. To their influence on consumer behaviour, carbon labels have been found to shift norms and public opinion in favour of sustainable transportation (Brooks & Ebi, 2021). They have been found to affect the willingness to purchase low carbon products (Dihr et al., 2021), although with significant differences based on consumer values, age, income and education (Li et al., 2017). Likewise, consumers have been found to give preference to carbon-labelled products, especially among those already purchasing sustainably (Broeckhoven et al., 2021; Edenbrandt & Lagerkvist, 2021; Rondoni & Grasso, 2021; Wong et al., 2020; Zhao & Zhong, 2015). These consumers have also been found to be willing to pay more for carbon-labelled products (Valenciano-Salazar et al., 2021; Xu & Lin, 2021). Within literatures on political consumerism, carbon labels have been questioned for their simplification and closure of meanings of the good life. In using the market as an arena for politics (Micheletti, 2003), political consumerism assumes that buyer-driven corporations will consider climate change values in their production and distribution practices (Micheletti & Stolle, 2008). This assumption has been criticised for failing to consider the ‘inertia of ordinary consumption and the moral complexities of everyday life’ (Jacobsen & Dulsrud, 2007). Others have identified the narrowness and inflexibility of carbon counting mechanisms for questions of the ‘good life’ and ‘ideal citizen’ within democracies, allowing for a ‘“good” carbon neutral product that was made by immigrant labour under poor working conditions’ (Randalls, 2011). Moreover, it can also miss the big picture of carbon emissions, for instance, in Tesco’s counting of GHG emission reductions in new store construction, while also projecting growth in new store construction that increases overall emissions (Ormond, 2015). Alternatively, political consumerism researchers have found carbon labels to provide a useful means for ideal-type citizen consumers to quantify an important value (Spaargaren & Oosterveer, 2010) and to green

42

D. Foord

consumption (Nye, 1999) and retail supply chains (Ormond, 2015). Similarly, researchers have found that ethical labelling schemes can help to humanise business (Hartlieb & Jones, 2009). As well, projects to design sustainability indicators have been characterised as experiments in quantification, aimed to transform (albeit slowly) citizen knowledge, identities, relationships and institutions in democracies (Miller, 2005). I build on this latter research in examining how sustainability indicators have been incorporated into nine national carbon footprint labelling programs. The focus is on how the new values and meanings of the good life in these programs seek to shape citizen ethics and practices. In this novel research, I ask what new meanings, morals and materials have been produced to express the new visions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in carbon measuring societies. I also ask whether a new ideal type is emerging to provide a practical guide for social life. One contribution to the literature on sustainability indicators is to show the new state-sponsored meanings of the good life. For consumers and citizens, the emission numbers emphasise a connection between the personal and societal; for example, France’s national target of about two tonnes per year of personal GHG emissions integrates citizens into the national GHG goal. In this way, the good life of the citizen is aligned numerically with national aspirations for climate change action. Likewise, the UK Carbon Trust calls for rapid change to net-zero emissions for the state and its subjects (McCauley & Heffron, 2018), albeit with the acknowledgement that not everyone can meet these new universalist visions of sustainable citizenship (Hooper, 2021). A second contribution is to the literature on political consumerism and environmental citizens (Spaargaren & Oosterveer, 2010). Like other work on the emergence of environmental or climate ethics, the focus on carbon programs emphasises a new relationship to the natural world (Nolt, 2011; Regan, 1981; Routley, 1973). It is a relationship mediated, in part, through numbers developed in life cycle assessments by carbon organisations (Curran, 1996; Nair, 1998). These organisations calculate, report and publicly display signs on emissions. Consumers participate in new social practices to read these signs and change their performance of private and public practices to align one’s self, household, mobility and workplace behaviour with the wider state and societal goals. Grounding

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

43

these practices are long-standing modernist beliefs in the legitimacy of the state institutions and its efficiency goals, confidence in the robustness and accuracy of its measurement practices, desire for both internal consistency among personal practices and these state goals as well as to be recognised for this consistency. The third contribution is to identify in these carbon labelling programs a specific ideal type called the net-negative ethic. Net negative means more human-caused removal of GHGs than human-caused emissions (IPCC, 2021). It is a goal of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), after net-zero emissions are reached around 2050. The policy rationale is to ‘stabilize human-induced global temperature increase at any level’ (IPCC, 2021). This ideal type is both a climate model and a product of scientific climate modelling, and thus not a statement of precise future realities. It is concerned with the meaning of human existence, as all human existence involves carbon dioxide emissions. As a motivator of action, it has already found demonstration in concepts of net-negative economies (Bednar et al., 2021), cities (Kennedy et al., 2018) and agriculture (Northrup et al., 2021). Among the most influential works (Gates, 2016) to motivate household action in counting and reducing GHG emissions is the late David MacKay’s book Sustainable Energy—without the hot air (2008), emphasising ‘numbers, not adjectives’, so readers can do their own arithmetic to evaluate public policies or social practices, such as whether they should turn down their thermostats or eat a more vegetarian diet. The following section introduces the theoretical framework and method to investigate this social shaping of citizen ethics. I present this study in the context of institutional theory and use sociotechnical transition imaginary, rationalisation and ideal type frameworks to examine the national carbon programs. Semi-structured interviews and document analysis were conducted for each of the cases. The cases are examined in Sect. 3.3, followed by the discussion, conclusion, future research and reference sections.

44

D. Foord

Theoretical Frameworks and Methods This study follows from insights on regime transformation in sociotechnical transitions. In a study of the transition from cesspools to sewers in the Netherlands, Geels (2006) used institutional theory to show the cognitive, normative and regulative dimensions of system change (Scott, 1995). A general hypothesis for further research was that ‘cognitive changes and learning processes preceded big normative and regulative changes’. These cognitive changes in his paper included the development and translation of bodies of knowledge such as miasma and germ theory by the medical community and sanitary reform coalitions to articulate the problem and potential solutions. With growth in social movements that linked waste, hygiene and public health problems and extension of the general right to vote to most men in 1917 and most women in 1919, formal rule changes followed. Thus, the critical pressure for the new sewer systems came from cultural changes and public opinion. Along with cognitive changes emerged new values, norms and identities among the Dutch public as they embraced new ideals of cleanliness as virtuousness, respectability and civilisation. New social practices such as hand washing and soap-use emerged. Taken-for-granted smells of human excrement on city streets became intolerable stenches to modern noses. In the present study, climate science, demonstrating correlations between GHG emissions and climate change, has helped inspire new regulations and standards for carbon labelling programs. I focus my examination on the design of programs to shape new norms, meanings and codes of conduct of carbon counting and reduction. Table 3.1 compares the institutional fields in the sewer system and carbon counting transitions. In this paper, I focus on the design of programs to influence norms in the carbon case and the underlying meaning of its climate ethics. I use sociotechnical imaginaries to examine materials from national labelling programs. Jasanoff and Kim originally introduced national sociotechnical imaginaries as ‘collectively imagined forms of social life and social order reflected in the design and fulfilment of nation-specific scientific and/or technological projects’ (Jasanoff & Kim, 2009). They are futuristic, but feasible norms, discourses and metaphors that help produce systems of meaning. These imaginaries shape interpretations

Belief systems, models of reality, bodies of knowledge, guiding principles, search heuristics Perception of disease through medical statistics, demonstrating correlations between hygienic conditions and infectious disease, and Pasteur’s micro-organism theory, articulating underlying causation Perception of climate change through climate science, demonstrating correlations between GHG emissions and climate change

Examples

High carbon to low carbon counting systems

Dutch Cesspools to sewer systems

Cognitive

Sociotechnical transition

Table 3.1 Institutional fields (Geels, 2006; Scott, 1995)

From filth and stench as nuisance-to-be-tolerated to hazard-to-health, from annual washing to scrubbing with soap, from politics of serving elites to addressing social issues, emergence of new civic and philanthropical spirit Emergence of meanings of carbon emissions-as-progress to hazard, beginnings of GHG emissions numeracy, from politics of serving citizens to also addressing climate change and environmental issues

Values, norms, role expectations, duty, codes of conduct, social practice, identity

Normative

E.g. for New Zealand’s Toitu¯ Enviro-care: International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14,065, Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050 (2011), licensed by the UK Environment Agency

Public Health Act (1848), the Constitution (1848), the Municipal Law (1851), Medical and Health Laws (1865), and constitutional changes to widen the right to vote (1887, 1896, 1917, 1919)

Laws, regulations, standards, procedures, incentive structures, governance systems

Regulative

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

45

46

D. Foord

of social realities and political communities. They provide standards for collective behaviour and change established patterns of life, such as choices of housing, diet, transportation, vacation and recreation (Jasanoff & Kim, 2013). While associated with active exercises of state power, such as the investment in GHG measurement processes and labelling infrastructures, they also transcend national borders, illustrated by proliferation of national carbon footprint programs in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Jasanoff (2015) subsequently expanded the definition beyond the nation state to capture the many ways new visions enter into social life. In brief, visions become imaginaries as they become communally adopted. Moreover, they extend beyond science and technology to shared understandings of good and evil and how life should or should not be lived. Following Durkheim and Weber, these visions express shared common narratives of who we are and where we are headed. Her redefinition of sociotechnical imaginaries is ‘collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures, animated by shared understandings of forms of social life and social order attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and technology’. I use this definition in this essay. To understand the construction of these carbon counting programs, I draw on Weber’s concepts of rationalisation, formal rationality and ideal types. His view of early twentieth-century Western society was that it possessed an irreconcilable conflict between behaviour characterised by formal rationality, ‘logically calculated, efficient, and objective’ and substantive rationality, ‘based on personal devotion, tradition, piety, and custom’ (Cockerham et al., 1993). He saw his times as characterised by rationalisation, intellectualisation and disenchantment, meaning the retreat from public life of sublime values (Weber, 1958). Instead of enchanted magic and mysterious powers to implore and master spirits, modern mastery occurred through technology and calculation. While offering the potential for enlightenment and liberty, Weber characterised the outcome negatively: rationalisation and the Protestant quest for salvation through labour and restraint from pleasure led to the last men of history and the iron cage (Mommesen, 1987). In Weber’s model of rationalisation, science ‘contributes to the technology of controlling

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

47

life by calculating external objects as well as man’s activities’ (Weber, 1946). It is the laboratory that is ‘the crucible of precision measurement’ and ‘the factory’s historical Doppelganger and unindicted co-conspirator in the development of the iron cage of vocational humanity’ (Brain, 2001). Science’s extension of measurement from the laboratory to new sites of cultural practice helped transform values of long-standing practice to those based on calculation, empirical observation, mathematical measurement and testing. In the case of factory production, workers become ‘cogs in a large system’ and ‘objects of measurement, measured with instruments derived from the very machines they tended’ (Kalberg, 1980). The introduction of new systems of measurement and counting provided an aura of value-neutrality and coherence for new social practices that might be fraught with disagreement and conflict, such as its application in factory production. This use of rationalisation stands in contrast to social construction and actor-network approaches that inquire into social group and user mutual creation of artefact meaning and society. In addition to his view as science as a co-conspirator of rationalisation, Weber also had an alternative vision of the role of social measurement and labour that did not impose artificial conditions on workers. He sought to develop a method of measurement from a study of workers’ attitudes and states of mind on their own terms. The research method for the new social measurement was to study workers in their fields, factories and offices, documenting their labour practices and explaining it in sociological terms. A similar view of bottom-up methods of indicator construction is seen in Miller’s aforementioned research on the co-production of new civic epistemologies of quantification. In contrast to the view of indicators as points-ofconnection in networks with weak ties (Porter, 2020), Miller sees public numbers as carriers of social meaning produced within communities. In this study, I have sought to investigate rationalisation as both a top-down design to extend International Organization for Standardization (ISO) GHG life cycle assessment methods and calculations to the shaping on new social and cultural practices, as well as social practices at the national and organisational level. I also use Weber’s concept of ideal types to define the idea of the good life in carbon measuring societies. The ideal types are ‘conceptually

48

D. Foord

constructed events, which, in “ideal purity” are seldom, or even not at all, to be found in the historical reality of any particular time’ (Weber & Schneider, 1975). At the same time, they are derived from experience, have ‘cultural significance’ (Weber, 1949, 1977) and are useful for analysis and representation of diverse empirical realities. There are both historical and sociological ideal types (Giddens, 1971; Hekman, 1983; Roth, 1975; Watkins, 1952). The historical ideal types may subordinate historical persons or organisations (or elements of them) under general concepts. Well-known examples include the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism (Eliaeson, 2000). As a causal factor, the ideal type occupies a position between materialist and ideal forces, and provides a means to understand how the practical elaboration of ideals or meaning acts as guiding forces in social life (Huff, 1984). As used in this study: ‘(1) the ideal-type is a model, (2) its content is derived from the content of a particular culture, (3) it exaggerates, (4) it is concerned with meanings, (5) it emphasizes the internal relations between the several individual traits of meaning, (6) it demonstrates how these meanings motivate action’ (Lindbekk, 1992). The ideal type examined is a model of decarbonised everyday life which emphasises not only a new relationship to the climate, but also a familiar relation to government or governmentsupported programs of testing, reporting and display of measurements of healthy living. The research methods also draw on Foucault’s concepts of rational discipline and technologies of production, signs, power and the self. Foucault shares with Weber an interest in the use of science to subject humanity in the name of rational discipline (O’Neill, 1986). Both also see long chains of causation in the development of the practices of rational discipline. For Weber, its origin is the army, whereas for Foucault the direct line of causation for industrial discipline and social control runs from monastic discipline through Luther and Calvin to bureaucracy and scientific management. For Foucault, the development of the hermeneutics of the self is historically contiguous with both Greco-Roman philosophy of the early Roman Empire and Christian spirituality and the monastic principles developed of the late Roman Empire (Foucault, 1988). From these sources, modern rational discipline

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

49

diffused through the prison to factories, schools, the army and hospitals (Foucault, 2012). State disciplining in the eighteenth century served to sweep away the feudal order and to institute the necessary discipline of the new industrial labour force, and then subsequently to accommodate demands from labour through passage of factory legislation and softening domination with education shared by humanitarian, paternal and religious welfare in helping the poor, sick, criminal and ignorant. For Foucault, these ‘disciplinary institutions were conceived to open up a field for the practices of evaluating, recording and observing large populations in order to administer them through the therapeutic institutions of health, education and penality’ (Kalberg, 1980, p. 53). As such, the uniformities of knowledge systems and practices of modern subjectivity occurred through the gradual historical diffusion of disciplinary techniques, formal standards of modern organisations and norms. From this diffusion, four types of technologies often function together to discipline and dominate subjects. Technologies of production produce, transform or manipulate things. Technologies of sign systems permit use of signs, meanings, symbols or signification. Technologies of power objectify subjects by determining their conduct, submitting them to certain ends or domination, such as factory punch clocks in the case of time measurements. Technologies of the self allow individuals to transform themselves to attain new attitudes and virtues (Foucault, 1988; Ormond, 2015). In this study, these include national carbon registries, life cycle assessment models for determining GHG emissions, carbon labels and personal carbon footprints calculators. In the discussion section, I explore the use of these technologies in the design of the carbon counting and labelling programs. The methods used in the research also draw on Marcuse’s work on rationalisation. For Marcuse, the process of rationalisation transforms individuals into the objects of large-scale organisation and coordination, with individual achievement changed into performances motivated, guided and measured by external standards based on predetermined tasks and functions (Marcuse, 1982). This occurred via a gradual submergence into technological processes that spread a new rationality over society, different from the revolutionary rationalism of the Enlightenment. Marcuse uses the example of long-distance automobile travel to

50

D. Foord

show how the combination of roads, parking spots, highway maps, signs and posters melds together business, technology and nature into one rational and expedient mechanism that does the thinking for the traveller. In this study, I identified state-sponsored mechanisms to make up the new rationality of carbon-conscious societies. The research questions were prepared in the light of the theoretical frameworks. Following Foucault, I asked what new technologies of production, signs, power and self-function have been designed to discipline subjects by creating and communicating new measurement systems to determine attitudes, thoughts, conduct and ways of being to attain a certain carbon footprint? From Marcuse, I asked how do these technologies form part of larger mechanisms in new carbon counting regimes? From sociotechnical imaginaries, I asked what new meanings, morals and materials have been produced to express the powerful visions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in carbon measuring societies? Following Weber, and building on the examination of carbon counting mechanisms and technologies, I asked what new ideal types are emerging to provide a practical guide to new meanings and social life? To examine this model and to develop and test the methods and questions, case studies of knowledge production and normalisation were reviewed. I limited the case studies to only state-sponsored carbon counting and labelling agencies, of which there were nine. Twenty-four semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from state carbon labelling agencies. Fifty-six primary documents were coded from the nine state agencies, as well as additional materials from their websites.

National Carbon Programs In this section, I summarise for each of the nine carbon labelling programs their origins, objectives, visions, technologies, materials and programs. The following Table 3.2 presents an overview of the case studies. Of the nine programs, all were established between 2007 and 2018. They all have modest numbers of participating companies and number of products registered, with the exception of France’s Bilan

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

51

Carbone. Label types vary with most using Type III quantification labels, employing third-party certification of firm-provided data. Type I labels provide third-party certifications for environmentally certified products without quantitative information, such as the new Carbon Trust label. Type II provides self-declarations based on company made standards and is not a part of any of the nine cases. All nine bodies use ISO standards for their life cycle analysis. Most report publicly on all organisation and product carbon footprints. Five of the nine surveyed national bodies made available educational materials for individuals, and four have online calculators for personal or organisational carbon emission counting.

Costa Rica The origin of Costa Rica’s National Carbon Neutrality Program was in a 2004 government executive decree to prepare greenhouse gas emissions mitigation policies that support national sustainable development goals. Formation of a Climate Change Directorate in 2010 led to creation in 2012 of the Carbon Neutrality Program. The program provides a voluntary mechanism for organisations, events, products and communities to measure and verify their GHG emissions. Its objective is to support the country’s commitments on climate action under a national plan and the Paris Agreement. This includes sensitising citizens on climate change decarbonisation of the country’s economy and promoting climate action (André & Valenciano-Salazar, 2020). The program has five graduated carbon labels. The first, illustrated in Fig. 3.1, recognises reporting of GHG emissions. The second is awarded for implementation of actions to reduce emissions. For the third, organisations must go beyond established requirements. The carbon neutrality sign means the organisation has zero emissions, whether through mitigation and/or purchase of carbon credits. The highest level, carbon neutrality plus, recognises additional measures beyond net zero, such as negative carbon emissions or improvements beyond established requirements.

49 & 19 III ISO

63,650

5,280 + 4205 NA ISO & national Yes

Yes

Yes

107

-

I ISO & national -

Yes

No

Public reporting Education material Online calculators

7

2012

2012

No

No

Yes

2018

-

-

2004

Italy

In development Year established No. of registrants No. of products Label type LCA method

France

Carbon Bilans Carbon Neutrality Carbone Footprint

Costa Rica

Name

National Program Information

Table 3.2 Summary of cases

No

No

-

1,708 & 398 I & III ISO

Ecoleaf & Carbon Footprint 1998 & 2008 2002 & 2012 NA

Japan

Yes

Yes

Yes

I ISO

No

Yes

Yes

III ISO

2,269

285 +

500 + 3,200 +

2009

-

Carbon Footprint

South Korea

-

2001

Toitu¯ Envirocare

New Zealand

No

No

Yes

III ISO

3,500 +

700 +

1997

1997

EPD

Sweden

Yes

Yes

Yes

III ISO

5,030

863

2007

2007

TGO

Thailand

Yes

Yes

I ISO & PAS Yes

-

-

2007

2001

Carbon Trust

UK

52 D. Foord

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

53

Fig. 3.1 Carbono invertario label

The documentation associated with the program expresses visions of a new hierarchy of values and priorities. Decarbonisation is expressed as the greatest present-day mission, with appeals to national pride to be the first or among the first to achieve it. This mission is presented as complimentary to goals of economic development and international competitiveness. The overall vision is for more non-powered mobility and public transportation, densification of cities, creation of new banking and insurance facilities for zero emission technologies, smart power grids, energy efficiency programs, composting and wastewater conservation and industrial transformation through reduction of carbon intensity. It includes a three-step plan to introduce the visions, from setting foundations during 2018 to 2022, implementing deep institutional changes to achieve carbon neutrality from 2023 to 2030 and normalising the changes through mass deployment from 2031 to 2050. The materials of the Carbon Neutrality Program are rich with illustrations. Figure 3.2 presents the hierarchy of mobility, with walking at top and personal automobiles at the bottom. Figure 3.3 shows bad and good forms of personal mobility, industry and housing.

France In 2010, the French government under the ‘National Commitment to the Environment’ published the principles of its GHG inventories. The carbon accounting system is administered by the French Bilan Carbone. Its objective is to publish GHG emissions of its registered members

54

D. Foord

Fig. 3.2 Hierarchy of mobility

Fig. 3.3 Personal mobility, industry & housing

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

55

and to identify and mobilise means to reduce these emissions. It maintains a database of emission factors, with shared governance among its stakeholders. To date, it has over 63,000 registered members, more than 9,000 validated emission factors and GHG inventories and 19 sector guides. It operates under ISO standards and local legislation. Establishment of inventories is obligatory for companies with more than 500 employees (250 if overseas), collectivities with more than 50,000 inhabitants and public establishments with more than 250 employees. Inventories are made public and updated at least every three years. Thus, instead of a carbon label, users can search online registries which show GHG emissions separated by carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. These include sections for organisational action plans, presentations and sustainable development policies. Bilan also presents the larger vision for this accounting. It states that at present each French individual is responsible for an average of 9 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, and that to prevent climate change from hurtling further out of control that figure must be reduced to about 2 tonnes by 2050. Noting that the main sources of domestic GHGs are household heating and car travel and that every action counts, it has produced infographics for citizens to visualise new low carbon meaning, moralities and values, including for diets, mobility, households and recreation. Figure 3.4 provides an example for GHG emissions associated with vacations and seeks to educate citizens on carbon footprint numeracy.

Italy Created in 2018, Carbon Footprint Italy is a national voluntary program to communicate GHG emissions of products and organisations. Participating organisations are responsible to obtain accredited third-party verification statements of their GHG emissions and reductions, if mitigation measures are implemented. Verifications use ISO standards. To date, 7 organisations, 49 carbon footprints and 19 carbon neutrality products have been registered. Registered companies and products are licensed to

56

D. Foord

Fig. 3.4 Bilans infographic for vacations

use the Carbon Footprint Italy mark, presented in Fig. 3.5, to communicate their organisation or product emission values or reductions. In contrast to the Costa Rican and French programs, there is little in the way of publicly available material to express new visions of individual meanings and morality of living with climate change.

Fig. 3.5 Carbon footprint Italy label

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

57

Japan The development of the Japanese EcoLeaf environmental label began in 1998 by the Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry (JEMAI). JEMAI is a non-profit corporation, organised among 700 member companies. It was founded in 1962 as an association of air pollution control managers. With support from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), trial programs ran from 1999 to 2001. JEMAI commissioned the Environmental Label Program in 2002. In 2008, METI conducted a preliminary feasibility study for the carbon footprint label, followed by a national pilot project from 2009 to 2012. In 2012, METI established guidelines for a footprint label and transferred it to JEMAI to launch it as a private venture. The JEMAI process for approval and registration of footprint labels consists of company applications followed by working group discussions and review by LCA specialists and, if approved, publication on the EcoLeaf website. In 2022, the carbon footprint label had 1,708 registered products and EcoLeaf had 398 registered products. Like the Italian program, there is little emphasis on change of meanings and morals in the JEMAI documents. It instead uses conventional marketing and sales materials to promote applications for new labels.

New Zealand Formed in 2001, New Zealand’s Toit¯u Envirocare is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a government-owned Crown Research Institute. It has a broad vision to realise environmental change using science-based tools and evidence. Its mission includes ‘stepping up for positive change and helping businesses be more sustainable’ (Toit¯u, private correspondence with author, 2022). The organisation has two core programs that it audits and provides certification against. The first is focused on carbon reduction with three tiers, ‘carbon reduce’, ‘net carbon zero’ and ‘climate positive’ that certify an organisation, product, service or event. Their second program, ‘enviromark’, is an environmental management system (EMS) certification that has three tiers, ‘Bronze’, ‘Gold’ and ‘Diamond’.

58

D. Foord

Fig. 3.6 Carbon reduce and net zero labels

They are issued based on meeting and exceeding the requirements of ISO standards. The ‘carbonreduce’ and ‘net carbon zero’ are illustrated in Fig. 3.6. The ‘carbonreduce’ certificate is also licensed by the UK’s Carbon Trust as an equivalent scheme to its own label. Toit¯u Envirocare has issued over 3,200 carbon certificates to more than 500 clients. It has verified more than 213 million tonnes of GHG emissions. Like Costa Rican and French carbon footprint programs, Toit¯u Envirocare publications seek to shape new meanings and values among its citizens and society. It features advice to reduce carbon emissions at home and work, including workshops on how to drive sustainably. It runs campaigns on social media to raise awareness of carbon footprints. These messages are often framed by quantitative indicators, with the major goal of achieving net-zero GHG emissions and limiting global warming to well below 2 °C. Put into a personal and family context, Toit¯u offers online calculators for average New Zealand household and travel GHG emissions. The household calculator is shown in Fig. 3.7. It also acts as a marketing and sales platform for carbon offset credits (as shown in the calculator) and its certificate holder products.

South Korea The carbon footprint labelling system of the South Korea Ministry of Environment was launched in 2009. It is run by the Korean Industry and Technology Institute (KEITI), a quasi-government organisation affiliated

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

59

Fig. 3.7 Toitu¯ GHG calculator

with the Ministry of Environment. KEITI’s carbon footprint mission is to contribute to sustainable development through technology development, industry maturing and eco-friendly lifestyles. It does this through consumer-led purchasing of low carbon goods, as a means to incentivise firms to sell these goods and reduce GHGs. The certification system is voluntary. It has three phases of certificates: for carbon emissions, low carbon products and carbon neutral products. Unlike the Costa Rica and New Zealand labels, the South Korean labels provide emission figures. As of 2022, there were 2,269 products certified from more than 285 companies. The promotion of eco-friendly industries and lifestyles is structured through point-based incentive systems, with points convertible into cash or gift cards. Firms that use carbon footprint-labelled materials for building projects get extra points for green building certification, with

60

D. Foord

more for low carbon materials. In some cases, the voluntary certification has become effectively mandatory, such as green building certification for new and remodelling buildings, which are obligatory. For consumers, there are eco-money points for purchasing labelled products with green credit cards, as well as state rewards on climate change.

Sweden The operator of the Swedish carbon authority is EPD International. Originally formed in 1997 by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and industry as a global environmental product declarations programme, it changed ownership in 2014 to become a limited company registered in Sweden. It is also a subsidiary of IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, an independent, non-profit research institute owned by a foundation jointly established by the Swedish Government and Swedish industry. EPD International’s main objective is to report third-party, verified data on the environmental performance and lifecycles of products and services in accordance with ISO standards. EPD International currently has more than 3,500 environmental product declarations, published by more than 700 firms in approximately 50 countries. In 2021, more than 12,000 construction sector environmental product declarations were published. Figure 3.8 provides an example of a product environmental infographic. Unlike national programs operated for the benefit of state decarbonisation initiatives, the EPD is primarily oriented to business clients. EPD International’s technical committee and international advisory board members are largely drawn from industry with expertise relevant to its business areas, such as construction, manufacturing and mining. For its channels, it uses a network of ten independent licensees.

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

61

Fig. 3.8 EPD footprint product infographic

Thailand In 2007, the Thailand government established under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment the Thai Greenhouse Gas Management Organization (TGO), a public, administratively independent organisation. Its objectives include creating and administering a market of GHG registration and trading, and acting as an information centre for GHG operations. The TGO in collaboration with the National Science and Technology Development Agency developed standards for quantification of the carbon footprints in accordance with ISO requirements. The footprint program was launched by the TGO in 2009. Its program objectives are to promote the use of carbon footprint labels (Fig. 3.9), increase the competitiveness of Thailand industries and support Thailand industrial sectors in implementing the low carbon products. It reported 5,030 initial carbon footprints for products and 702 for organisations, although only about 30% of the organisational registrations and 40% of the products were still registered in 2021 (Sureeyatanapas et al., 2021). The largest number of reported products is in the food and beverage category. The Thai Greenhouse Gas Management Organization’s mandate to promote use of carbon footprints includes raising consumer awareness

62

D. Foord

Fig. 3.9 TGO footprint label

about GHG emissions in making purchasing decisions and disseminating carbon footprint labelling information. In seeking to change consumption values and practices, it has created carbon footprint personal calculators for individuals and organisations. It markets a national carbon offsetting program and positions carbon offsetting as a tool to create demand for carbon credits generated from its voluntary emission reduction program, and published in online product catalogues. It has published e-books to promote behaviour change in GHG conscious consumption. This includes developing and promoting labels for textiles, as shown in Fig. 3.10, designed to reduce sweating among office workers in buildings that routinely run hotter than 25 degrees Celsius (and given the failure of earlier national campaigns to encourage office workers to stop wearing suits to meetings). The TGO has also produced numerous infographics to educate Thai consumers on carbon counting, such as the aluminium can example in Fig. 3.11.

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

Fig. 3.10

Cool mode label

Fig. 3.11

Infographic on life cycle assessment for aluminum can

63

UK The Carbon Trust was set up by the UK government in 2001 to accelerate the state’s move to a low carbon economy by cutting carbon emissions and driving low carbon innovation. Its establishment was premised on the belief that environmental sustainability and economic prosperity

64

D. Foord

can be complementary. Its mission is to accelerate the move to a zerocarbon future. In 2004, it began development of its carbon management programs for companies and public sector organisations. It launched the world’s first national carbon footprint label in 2007, providing thirdparty assurance of carbon claims against ISO and Publicly Available Specification (PAS) standards. It has subsequently expanded to 30 countries in five continents. It has broadly exercised its mission by expanding into operating wind accelerators, green business funds, clean energy generation deployment in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, green energy bonds and customer survey research. The Carbon Trust emphasises the robustness of its carbon footprint certification process and the confidence and reassurance it offers to customers on climate change. This has served the Carbon Trust in both expanding internationally and convincing its public to trust in its indicators. The Carbon Trust also emphasises the public communication of measuring and reducing carbon emissions. Public communication is, along with reducing GHG emissions to limit global warming, its primary reason for the carbon footprint program. The major change in the labels since introduction of the program has been to remove reference to the number of grams of carbon dioxide emitted. Current carbon footprint labels indicate whether the product’s carbon footprint has been measured and certified, reduced, significantly lowered than the market dominant product, or carbon neutral. From consumer testing, the Carbon Trust learned that consumers did not understand what the carbon number means, nor whether it was good or bad. Also, there were issues with the accuracy of the labels on packaging when changes were made to reduce the product’s carbon emissions. Carbon Trust’s industrial customers advised that emission numbers can reduce quickly and there is often a considerable time lag and expense required in updating the number on packaging. Although indications are that the decision to not include numbers was settled, it has remained a consideration for certain products. For instance, the options for aluminium include a label declaring the number of grams per tonne of carbon dioxide, a second which includes no numbers but a statement of ‘lower CO2’, and a third that shows no numbers but has a

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

65

colour rating from A to G, with ‘A’ as the lowest carbon and ‘G’ as the highest carbon.

Discussion The modest numbers of participating companies and products registered for all but France’s Bilan Carbone are attributable to the non-mandatory nature of the programs. Given the optional registration mandates, these other organisations are less like national nutritional labelling bodies than small marketing agencies; their work is to design and license trademarked logos for commercial branding. This is also reflected in the motivations of clients that transact with carbon authorities. In a study of Thai manufacturers’ implementation of carbon labelling programs, researchers found that firm motivation to in-license the carbon dioxide logo was to enhance their green image, increase their sales and reduce costs (Watkins, 1952). However, the manufacturers found no benefit in sales due to the lack of social awareness of the label, beyond a small niche of low carbon consumers. Although manufactures achieved reductions in production costs due to use of less carbon-intensive manufacturing methods and found higher employee satisfaction, the high costs and the complicated assessment process presented considerable obstacles to increased usage. The authors concluded that more environmental awareness and understanding of the label’s meaning were needed for long-term positive impact. An initiative such as the European Commission’s expected program for an EU-wide food labelling scheme that includes carbon footprints would presumably signal such as shift in awareness and understand of meaning (European Data Journalism Network, 2021). The current experimentation in program design is characteristic of a strategic niche management approach (Kemp et al., 1998). In this context, national labelling programs form niches or ‘protected spaces that allow the experimentation with the co-evolution of technology, user practices, and regulatory structures’ (Schot & Geels, 2008). These niches act as the starting spaces for evolution of differing practices of carbon

66

D. Foord

labelling (Peng & Bai, 2018), eventually leading to selection of standards for broader societal changes. The experimentation has resulted in industry-oriented programs, such as the Swedish EPB, as well as those focused on changing values among citizens, including the New Zealand Toit¯u Envirocare. It has also led to variation in labels, whether quantitative or qualitative, or in the case with the French Bilan Carbone, no label and instead a digital registry containing quantitative data. This experimentation within niches provides the context for the translation of visions into imaginaries and standardisation of a field of practice for evaluating, recording and observing large populations to administer them through the institutions, meanings and morals of climate change. These institutions include new government and non-profit sector offices responsible for life cycle assessment calculations, label licensing organisations and communication groups responsible for production of guides and infographics to new individual and social meanings and practices. The institutions are also intangible and civil, beyond state operations, but reflecting state carbon assessments and shaping of individual and collective practices. These include technological mediated forms of relationship, such as apps like Oroeco and Joulebug, allowing users to share carbon footprints in social networks and compete in carbon reduction challenges. While the niche level experimentation has led to new standards, technologies, materials and meanings, problems remain for the scaling of these systems. In addition to the questions of whether to make these systems mandatory and how to not leave people or regions behind, there are issues with accurately calculating carbon emissions. Making all GHG calculations consistent among various boundary actors leads to the inscription of ‘different meanings to a product’s carbon footprint in accordance with their specific subjectivities, commercial desires and epistemic framings’ (Ormond & Goodman, 2015). For instance, the emission profile of an apple varies not only with the operations of its orchard and packaging operation (and changes thereto), but also with associated transportation emissions to the location of consumption. Further, the meanings of the figures themselves may also be far from obvious, as illustrated by the consumer research of the Carbon Trust and

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

67

its decision to change from Type III quantitative labels to Type I qualitative labels. Even given assumptions about consistent calculations and reading of labels, the labels remain open to widely varying interpretation based on political orientation, such as symbols of climate change guilt and pride that increase consumer sustainability (Antonetti & Maklan, 2014), or governmental overreach into the private lives or consumers, or governmental inaction in condoning the sale of carbon-intensive products and failing to mobilise decarbonisation in areas that lie beyond political consumerism. Notwithstanding these issues, the technologies of production in development within these niches (such the life cycle assessment methods) are being used now to produce GHG emission numbers and transform carbon into calculable products for licensing to firms and use by individuals. Technologies of sign systems use the life cycle assessments to produce new cultural ideals. These include the carbon labels, online catalogue of products and the infographics that educate users on how to think about carbon emissions as consumables. Technologies of power, currently small and modest, can be seen in the mandatory carbon disclosure forms used to objectify organisations by emission figures. Technologies of the self allow individuals to acquire new attitudes, virtues and guilts. Carbon footprint counters, for instance, encourage measurement of individual and household carbon footprints and comparison of their numbers against average emissions in their state. For carbon bodies that make available educational and public information materials, elements of Marcuse’s process of rationalisation are beginning to emerge. There is the intent to transform individual behaviour through large-scale organisation and coordination, with individual action changed into performances motivated, guided and measured by carbon emission standards. These include fuel economy and carbon standards and labels, reported to be one of the most effecting tools in controlling oil demand and GHG emissions (Atabani et al., 2011). Like Marcuse’s example of automobile travel, the goal of low carbon mobility systems is to provide expedient and totalising combinations of transportation infrastructure. Images from the Costa Rican carbon agency, for instance, show systems of pedestrian-only streets, public transportation, bike lanes, electric vehicle charging stations, low carbon designed parking and new

68

D. Foord

mobility maps. Like the early twentieth-century highways, much of the thinking is done for the carbon-conscious individual. Life cycle assessments are done by expert agencies, signs are created by industrial designers and new mobility systems are planned by engineers. In the case of France, the life cycle assessments were performed as part of the Global Climate Action Agenda of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The project assessed company climate strategies in a number of industries, including transport and automotive, and scored sectors in terms of acquisition of carbon labels, and preparation and execution of low carbon transportation strategies. Carbon measuring societies are now employing new technologies and materials to express a net-negative ethic. The current emphasis in the programs is on consumption of GHG emissions and the connection between the personal and societal ideals of the low carbon good life, as in the French Bilan’s material about state and citizen carbon emission goals. The Costa Rican approach forms part of the leading edge of the movement, with its category of ‘carbon neutrality plus’, recognising activities that go beyond net zero to more removal than emission of GHGs. This illustrates one of the paths to expand the ethic from political consumerism to citizen action, with carbon registries expanding beyond product labels to quantification and promotion of GHG removal activities. In this way, it follows an approach familiar to governments that promote healthy living through not only quantification of products, e.g. nutrition and calorie labels, but non-consumer activities, such as building walking paths and hiking trails.

Conclusion There is much that is old and new in these visions of carbon counting. Echoing Weber, behaviour is characterised by formal rationality in the logical, objective and value neutral calculation of emissions, allowing for decisions of what carbon-intensive practices to eliminate or reduce. As well, participation in these measurement systems involves rationalisation, modern mastery through technology and intellectualisation in learning new systems of numeracy, ironically in the service of the re-enchantment

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

69

with the natural world. Weber wrote in the Protestant Ethic that ‘The God of Calvinism demanded of his believers not single good works, but a life of good works combined into a unified system…[and] subjected to a consistent method for conduct as a whole’ (Weber, 1992). There is a similarity in the visions of the state carbon counting programs, in asking for a life of good works combined into a unified system. Here, the consistent method for conduct is based on GHG life cycle assessments. But what transformative potential is there in a social transition shaped by carbon emission awareness and accountability? How can this influence sustainability? Returning to the examination by Geels on hygienic transition from cesspools to sewer systems (Nolt, 2011), it was cognitive changes and learning processes that occurred first and was followed by big normative and regulative changes. The cognitive changes and learning processes in this paper include the ability to read carbon labels and appreciate a relatively higher or lower quantitative value. With growth in social movements that link awareness of carbon emissions to climate change and just transitions, there is the basis for co-production of new civic epistemologies of quantification, and thus a stronger basis for subsequent regulative change. While carbon labelling systems are introduced to promote informed consumer choice, they also help coproduce the public opinion and pressure for regime transformation. Along with cognitive changes, new values, norms and identities emerge among publics as they embrace new ideals of decarbonisation as virtuousness, respectability and decency. Taken-for-granted smells of automobile exhaust on city streets became intolerable stenches to modern noses. Climate science finds application in the minds of citizens through quantification of carbon emissions and eventually to the senses, helping making visceral the motivations for change in sustainability transitions.

Future Research Sociotechnical imaginaries research has emphasised the diversity of sources in construction of new regimes, departing from earlier scholarship. Energy transition research has sought out distributed, diverse and counter-cultural visions to offer more humble, reflexive and responsible

70

D. Foord

foundations for sociotechnical transformations (Longhurst & Chilvers, 2019). Instead of studies primarily focused on expert discourses in the formation of collective social visions, current research has sought to understand ‘what is morally right/wrong, what is rational, and what is in the self interest of the society’ by people from all different walks of life (Tidwell & Tidwell, 2018) and with competing ideas and visions (Mutter, 2019). One of the limitations of this initial study is that I have examined norm-making in state bodies and have not sought materials from other social actors to illustrate the variation in carbon system construction. Nor have I described how values, norms and practices have changed in connection with these programs or the ongoing process of normalisation. Future research should examine how practices emerge, disappear and resurrect, and the experience of users in interpretation, creation and shaping of new values, roles and practices. The present research has not examined knowledge production of the carbon measurement or life cycle assessment systems. This too is a subject that should be studied, like scholarship that is uncovering the making of corporate (versus product) carbon footprints (Walenta, 2021). We know that common international standards are in place to measure GHG emissions, but we do not have a robust account of their invention, development and improvement to the present. The cognitive forces behind the development of ISO methodologies should be examined in developing this fuller account of how social change occurs in carbon counting regimes. Last, there is an opportunity to study and develop theoretical frameworks for comparative analysis of the design and emergence of counting regimes in other sectors, such as keeping track of time, calories, money, steps and sleep.

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

71

References Acampora, A., Ruini, L., Pratesi, C. A., & Lucchetti, M. C. (2022). Towards a carbon labelled world?. In carbon neutrality in the agri-food sector (pp. 155– 176). Springer, Cham. Adagha, O., Francis, R. (2018). Shades of gray: Consumer attitudes toward a low-carbon economy in Canada. The Conference Board of Canada. André, F. J., & Valenciano-Salazar, J. A. (2020). Becoming carbon neutral in costa rica to be more sustainable: An ahp approach. Sustainability, 12(2), 737. Antonetti, P., & Maklan, S. (2014). Feelings that make a difference: How guilt and pride convince consumers of the effectiveness of sustainable consumption choices. Journal of Business Ethics, 124 (1), 117–134. Atabani, A. E., Badruddin, I. A., Mekhilef, S., & Silitonga, A. S. (2011). A review on global fuel economy standards, labels and technologies in the transportation sector. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 15 (9), 4586–4610. Bednar, J., Obersteiner, M., Baklanov, A., Thomson, M., Wagner, F., Geden, O., … & Hall, J. W. (2021). Operationalizing the net-negative carbon economy. Nature, 596(7872), 377-383. Beuret, N. (2017). Counting carbon: Calculative activism and slippery infrastructure. Antipode, 49 (5), 1164–1185. Bowlig, S., & Gibbon, P. (2009). Counting carbon in the marketplace: Part I– overview paper. In Global Forum on Trade and Climate Change, Paris (Vol. 9). Brain, R. M. (2001). The ontology of the questionnaire: Max Weber on measurement and mass investigation. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 32(4), 647–684. Broeckhoven, I., Verbeke, W., Tur-Cardona, J., Speelman, S., & Hung, Y. (2021). Consumer valuation of carbon labeled protein-enriched burgers in European older adults. Food Quality and Preference, 89, 104–114. Brooks, J. R., & Ebi, K. L. (2021). Climate change warning labels on gas pumps: The role of public opinion formation in climate change mitigation Policies. Global Challenges, 5 (10), 2000086. Caputo, V., Nayga, R. M., Jr., & Scarpa, R. (2013). Food miles or carbon emissions? Exploring labelling preference for food transport footprint with a

72

D. Foord

stated choice study. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 57 (4), 465–482. Trust, C. (2020). Product carbon footprint labelling. Carbon Trust. Cockerham, W., Abel, T., & Lüschen, G. (1993). Max Weber, formal rationality, and health lifestyles. The Sociological Quarterly, 34(3), 413–428, 414. Curran, M. A. (1996). Environmental life-cycle assessment. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 1(3), 179–179. Dihr, M., Berthold, A., Siegrist, M., & Sütterlin, B. (2021). Consumers’ knowledge gain through a cross-category environmental label. Journal of Cleaner Production, 319, 128688. Edenbrandt, A. K., & Lagerkvist, C. J. (2021). Is food labelling effective in reducing climate impact by encouraging the substitution of protein sources? Food Policy, 101, 102097. Ekundayo, D., Perera, S., Udeaja, C., & Zhou, L. (2012, September). Carbon review and qualitative comparison of selected carbon counting tools. In RICS COBRA Research Conference. European Commission. (2009). Eurobarometer: Europeans’ attitudes towards the issue of sustainable consumption and production. Directorate-General for the Environment, Brussels, Belgium. European Data Journalism Network. (October 22, 2021). Sustainability labels and the carbon footprint of foods. https://www.europeandatajournalism. eu/eng/News/Data-news/Sustainability-labels-and-the-carbon-footprint-offoods Eliaeson, S. (2000). Max Weber’s methodology: An ideal-type. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 36 (3), 241–263. Emberger-Klein, A., & Menrad, K. (2018). The effect of information provision on supermarket consumers’ use of and preferences for carbon labels in Germany. Journal of Cleaner Production, 172, 253–263. Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault. University of Massachusetts Press. Foucault, M. (2012). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage. Gadema, Z., & Oglethorpe, D. (2011). The use and usefulness of carbon labelling food: A policy perspective from a survey of UK supermarket shoppers. Food Policy, 36 (6), 815–822. Gates, B. (2016). Remembering David MacKay. Gatesnotes. https://www.gatesn otes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Remembering-Sir-David-MacKay

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

73

Geels, F. W. (2006). The hygienic transition from cesspools to sewer systems (1840–1930): The dynamics of regime transformation. Research Policy, 35 (7), 1069–1082. Giddens, A. (1971). Capitalism and modern social theory: An analysis of the writings of Marx. Cambridge University Press. Gössling, S., & Buckley, R. (2016). Carbon labels in tourism: Persuasive communication? Journal of Cleaner Production, 111, 358–369. Guenther, M., Saunders, C. M., & Tait, P. R. (2012). Carbon labeling and consumer attitudes. Carbon Management, 3(5), 445–455. Hartlieb, S., & Jones, B. (2009). Humanising business through ethical labelling: Progress and paradoxes in the UK. Journal of Business Ethics, 88(3), 583–600. Hekman, S. J. (1983). Weber’s ideal type: A contemporary reassessment. Polity, 16 (1), 119–137. Hooper, K. (2021). Zoning in on net zero: A just transition that leaves no one behind . The Carbon Trust. Huff, T. E. (1984). Max Weber and the methodology of the social sciences. Transaction Publishers. Hulme, M. (2019). Climate emergency politics is dangerous. Issues in Science and Technology, 36 (1), 23–25. IPCC (2021). Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M. I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T. K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press, p. 15. Jacobsen, E., & Dulsrud, A. (2007). Will consumers save the world? The framing of political consumerism. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 20 (5), 469–482. Jasanoff, S., & Kim, S. H. (2009). Containing the atom: Sociotechnical imaginaries and nuclear power in the United States and South Korea. Minerva, 47 (2), 119. Jasanoff, S., & Kim, S. H. (2013). Sociotechnical imaginaries and national energy policies. Science as Culture, 22(2), 189–196. Jasanoff, S. (2015). Future imperfect: Science, technology, and the imaginations of modernity. Dreamscapes of modernity: Sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of power, 1–33.

74

D. Foord

Kalberg, S. (1980). Max Weber’s types of rationality: Cornerstones for the analysis of rationalization processes in history. American Journal of Sociology, 85 (5), 1145–1179. Kemp, R., Schot, J., & Hoogma, R. (1998). Regime shifts to sustainability through processes of niche formation: The approach of strategic niche management. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 10 (2), 175–198. Kennedy, C., Stewart, I. D., Westphal, M. I., Facchini, A., & Mele, R. (2018). Keeping global climate change within 1.5 C through net negative electric cities. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 30, 18–25. Li, Q., Long, R., & Chen, H. (2017). Empirical study of the willingness of consumers to purchase low-carbon products by considering carbon labels: A case study. Journal of Cleaner Production, 161, 1237–1250. Liu, T., Wang, Q., & Su, B. (2016). A review of carbon labeling: Standards, implementation, and impact. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 53, 68–79. Lindbekk, T. (1992). The Weberian ideal-type: Development and continuities. Acta Sociologica, 35 (4), 285–297. Longhurst, N., & Chilvers, J. (2019). Mapping diverse visions of energy transitions: Co-producing sociotechnical imaginaries. Sustainability Science, 14 (4), 973–990. MacKay, D. J. C. (2008). Sustainable energy—without the hot air. UIT Cambridge. Marcuse, H. (1982). Some social implications of modern technology. In A. Arato & E. Gebhardt (Eds.), The essential frankfurt school reader, Continuum Publishing Company, 138–168. McCauley, D., & Heffron, R. (2018). Just transition: Integrating climate, energy and environmental justice. Energy Policy, 119, 1–7. Micheletti, M. (2003). Political virtue and shopping: Individuals. Palgrave Macmillan. Micheletti, M., & Stolle, D. (2008). Fashioning social justice through political consumerism, capitalism, and the internet. Cultural Studies, 22(5), 749– 769. Miller, C. A. (2005). New civic epistemologies of quantification: Making sense of indicators of local and global sustainability. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 30 (3), 403–432. Mommesen, W. (1987). Personal conduct and societal change: Towards a reconstruction of Max Weber’s concept of history. 35–51, 41. Trans. R. Wells. Ed. S. Lash and S. Whimster, Max Weber, rationality and modernity, Allen & Unwin, Boston, 1987.

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

75

Mutter, A. (2019). Mobilizing sociotechnical imaginaries of fossil-free futures– Electricity and biogas in public transport in Linköping, Sweden. Energy Research & Social Science, 49, 1–9. Nair, I. (1998). Life cycle analysis and green design: A context for teaching design, environment, and ethics. Journal of Engineering Education, 87 (4), 489–494. Nolt, J. (2011). Nonanthropocentric climate ethics. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2(5), 701–711. Northrup, D. L., Basso, B., Wang, M. Q., Morgan, C. L., & Benfey, P. N. (2021). Novel technologies for emission reduction complement conservation agriculture to achieve negative emissions from row-crop production. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(28), 1–7. Nye, D. E. (1999). Consuming power: A social history of American energies. MIT Press. O’Neill, J. (1986). The disciplinary society: From Weber to Foucault. The British Journal of Sociology, 37 (1), 42–60. Ormond, J. (2015). New regimes of responsibilization: Practicing product carbon footprinting in the new carbon economy. Economic Geography, 91(4), 425–448. Ormond, J., & Goodman, M. K. (2015). A new regime of carbon counting: The practices and politics of accounting for everyday carbon through CO2e. Global Environmental Change, 34, 119–131. Peng, Y., & Bai, X. (2018). Experimenting towards a low-carbon city: Policy evolution and nested structure of innovation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 174, 201–212. Porter, Theodore M. (2020). Trust in numbers. Princeton University Press. Randalls, S. (2011). Broadening debates on climate change ethics: Beyond carbon calculation. The Geographical Journal, 177 (2), 127–137. Regan, T. (1981). The nature and possibility of an environmental ethic. Environmental Ethics, 3(1), 19–34. Rondoni, A., & Grasso, S. (2021). Consumers behaviour towards carbon footprint labels on food: A review of the literature and discussion of industry implications. Journal of Cleaner Production, 127031. Roth, G. (1975). Socio-historical model and developmental theory: Charismatic community, charisma of reason and the counterculture. American Sociological Review, 40 (2), 148–157. Routley, R. (1973, April). Is there a need for a new, an environmental ethic. In Proceedings of the XVth World Congress of Philosophy (Vol. 1, pp. 205–210).

76

D. Foord

Schot, J., & Geels, F. W. (2008). Strategic niche management and sustainable innovation journeys: Theory, findings, research agenda, and policy. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 20 (5), 537–554. Schaefer, F., & Blanke, M. (2014). Opportunities and challenges of carbon footprint, climate or CO2 labelling for horticultural products. ErwerbsObstbau, 56 (2), 73–80. Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations. Sage Publications. Spaargaren, G., & Oosterveer, P. (2010). Citizen-consumers as agents of change in globalizing modernity: The case of sustainable consumption. Sustainability, 2(7), 1887–1908. Sureeyatanapas, P., Yodprang, K., & Varabuntoonvit, V. (2021). Drivers, barriers and benefits of product carbon footprinting: A state-of-the-art survey of thai manufacturers. Sustainability, 13(12), 6543. Tait, P., Saunders, C., Guenther, M., Rutherford, P., & Miller, S. (2016). Exploring the impacts of food label format on consumer willingness to pay for environmental sustainability: A choice experiment approach in the United Kingdom and Japan. International Food Research Journal, 23(4), 1787–1796. Tidwell, J. H., & Tidwell, A. S. (2018). Energy ideals, visions, narratives, and rhetoric: Examining sociotechnical imaginaries theory and methodology in energy research. Energy Research & Social Science, 39, 103–107. Valenciano-Salazar, J. A., André, F. J., & Soliño, M. (2021). Paying for sustainable coffee in a developing country: Consumers’ profile in Costa Rica. Sustainability, 13(16), 9360. Walenta, J. (2021). The making of the corporate carbon footprint: The politics behind emission scoping. Journal of Cultural Economy, 14 (5), 533–548. Watkins, J. W. (1952). Ideal types and historical explanation. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 3(9), 22–43. Weber, M. (1949). The methodology of the social sciences, trans (p. 78). The Free Press. Weber, M. (1977). Critique of stammler, trans (p. 109). The Free Press. Weber, M. (1992). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, trans (p. 117). Routledge. Weber, M., & Schneider, L. (1975). Marginal utility theory and the fundamental law of psychophysics. Social Science Quarterly, 56 (1), 21–36. Weber, W. (1946). The disenchantment of modern life. Trans. In H. H. Gerth & C. W. Mills (Ed.), Max Weber: Essays in sociology (pp. 129–156). Oxford University Press. Weber, W. (1958). Science as a vocation. Daedalus, 87 (1), 111–134.

3 The Net-Negative Ethic: Rationalisation and National …

77

Wong, E. Y. C., Chan, F. F. Y., & So, S. (2020). Consumer perceptions on product carbon footprints and carbon labels of beverage merchandise in Hong Kong. Journal of Cleaner Production, 242, 118404. Xu, M., & Lin, B. (2021). Leveraging carbon label to achieve low-carbon economy: Evidence from a survey in Chinese first-tier cities. Journal of Environmental Management, 286 , 112201. Zhao, R., & Geng, Y. (2021). Carbon labeling and its related issues. In Carbon labeling practice (pp. 1–20). Springer. Zhao, R., & Zhong, S. (2015). Carbon labelling influences on consumers’ behaviour: A system dynamics approach. Ecological Indicators, 51, 98–106.

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban Transformations Sarah Clement

and Ian C. Mell

Sustainability Transformations, Governance, and Democracy Cities represent both challenge and opportunity for sustainability transformations. We are living not just in the Anthropocene, but in what has been called the Urban Age (Loorbach et al., 2016), with half the S. Clement (B) Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Department of Geography and Planning, School of Environmental Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK I. C. Mell Department of Planning and Environmental Management, School of Environment, Education and Development (SEEDS), University of Manchester, Manchester, England e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_4

79

80

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

world living in urban areas and nearly 70% of the population projected to reside in cities by 2050 (United Nations DESA, 2019). Many environmental issues stem from urban development, so many sustainability challenges are pervasive, evident, and urgent in cities. For this reason— and the fact that they are often provide a practical scale at which to innovate and implement transformative development agendas—cities have the potential to be a frontier for experimenting with ways to turn negative environmental impacts into positive ones (Sassen, 2010). Cities are also an important arena because governments, publics, and other actors have the capacity and power to address sustainability challenges. It is no surprise, then, that understanding how to leverage the potential of cities has become a focal point for scholars interested in systemic change for sustainability (Wolfram et al., 2016). Progress has been slow; however, and development policies, even when progressive, are insufficient to leverage the deeper, systemic changes that are required (Loorbach & Shiroyama, 2016). Consequently, the drivers of environmental problems persist, despite decades of policies, plans, and goals aimed to achieve sustainability. There are many elements that could provide the building blocks for more radical changes, but this chapter focuses on two areas as potential leverage points: democracy and innovation. Both are critical ingredients in governance for sustainability. Governance considers who decides, how decisions are made, and where and why we intervene to confront environmental challenges (Clement, 2021). Governance reform is notoriously difficult to orchestrate, and radical change even more so than incremental change. Here, democracy and innovation are discussed as potential leverage points, but scholarly understanding of where the levers are and how to press them is still speculative and difficult to prove causally. Whilst small-scale changes can under certain circumstances trigger more radical change (Andrachuk et al., 2018; Ansell, 2011; Clement et al., 2015), it is possible that achieving sustainability will require transformation of whole economic systems and social norms as well as radical governance and policy shifts (Abson et al., 2017; Newig et al., , 2019). Governance factors such as inclusion, effective knowledge brokering, and social learning are also posited as important for facilitating transformative change (Wolfram et al., 2016). Pluralism and

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

81

diversity in governance are also common themes, with the idea that changing who is engaged, where knowledge comes from, and how it is used can leverage change in the way actors think, enhance learning, and open up possibilities for new solutions (Abson et al., 2017; Berkes, 2017). There is also an emerging view of cities as ‘living laboratories’ where experimentation with new governance forms, demonstration projects, and grassroots innovation can test novel forms of action on sustainability agendas (Bulkeley et al., 2019). Democracy and innovation are thus complementary themes that run through this literature. Sustainability represents both crisis and opportunity for democracy. On the one hand, sustainability calls into question the rights of the individual, which form the basis of many liberal democracies (Heidenreich, 2018). On the other hand, sustainability transformations have profound effects on citizenries, so functional democracies that allow for discussions about new courses of action for the common good are needed. Although not universal, there is an increasing crisis of confidence in democracy (Wike & Fetterolf, 2018), and it is possible fostering more democratic practices could revitalise urban democracies, although this potential is largely unrealised (Béal, 2012). Pragmatically, the goal of sustainable policies is to radically change behaviour, and those changes are more likely if the public is involved and accepts policies as legitimate. More inclusive, democratic forms of governance have been proposed to break the ‘glass ceiling’ in sustainability politics, offering a way to collectively decide on new ways to take action and facilitate the deeper cultural transformations required (Hammond, 2019). The transformative potential of grassroots movements in cities has been highlighted as a way to tackle the root causes of unsustainability, or at least elevate them in the political agenda (MacGregor, 2019). However, in practice sustainability is often governed by top-down, expert-driven initiatives (i.e. a meritocracy or a technocracy) because the causes and solutions are complex and sometimes technical. There are thus important questions about when political initiatives should call for inclusive, participatory engagement or focus on advice from experts about what is needed (Heidenreich, 2018). The notion of ‘co-production’ and similar concepts, discussed in Sect. 4.2, offers one way to think about how scholars have tried to combine the

82

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

benefits of both to facilitate more democratic governance in sustainability research. Principles of democratic governance also underpin calls for more innovative approaches to tackling sustainability challenges. It is important to note that innovation is not the same as invention; and ideas, practices, and things are considered to be innovative when they are ‘perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption’ (Rogers, 2003, p. 12). Innovation also need not be a material object, but it can also be an approach that is novel, relative to context. The city scale seems a fitting scale for innovation, with cities considered centres for experimentation to tackle a wide range of sustainability challenges. Capable of taking on a leadership role and becoming hubs of radical sustainability agendas, cities are self-governing entities where socio-economic and technical solutions can push the boundaries and facilitate policy change (Loorbach & Shiroyama, 2016). Returning to the idea of cities as living laboratories, successful experiments can introduce innovative solutions, governance approaches, and challenge modes of production and consumption either within existing structures (incremental change) or exert the pressure needed to fundamentally change these structures (radical change) (Evans et al., 2016). Effective city-scale action could, in theory, act as a springboard for introducing the innovations needed to trigger larger scale change. This chapter explores the potential for nature-based solutions (NBS) to facilitate sustainability transformations by examining whether they are more innovative and more democratic. The examination is first general and then more specific. After outlining the origins of NBS and exploring their potential to help catalyse sustainability transformations in cities, the chapter then explores two key promises of NBS: (1) that they offer democratic solutions to sustainability crises in urban areas, and (2) that NBS interventions offer innovative solutions to these crises. An illustrative case study highlights key issues to inform a discussion of how the concept might be reoriented and adapted to leverage its transformative potential more effectively.

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

83

Nature-Based Solutions: More Democratic, More Innovative? NBS are an umbrella concept that includes a variety of ‘natural’ and engineered greening interventions that are framed as innovative ways to systemically (and systematically) address complex sustainability challenges (Box 4.1). Enhancing green infrastructure (GI) in cities has long been central to sustainable urban agendas, praised not just for enhancing biodiversity values in cities but also for its multi-functional benefits including improved air quality, reduced heat island effect, and improved water management (Benedict & McMahon, 2006; Mell, 2010) and social benefits such as increased physical activity, improving public health well-being (Hoyle et al., 2017; Southon et al., 2018), and increasing property values (Bockarjova et al., 2020). These co-benefits draw attention to the potential for greening to tackle a wide range of sustainability challenges. The promises in the NBS literature are even more ambitious, as they are said to address a wide range of environmental, economic, and social problems. Box 4.1. NBS definitions with co-benefits in bold IUCN defines nature-based solutions (NBS) as: ‘… actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems, which address societal challenges (e.g., climate change, food and water security or natural disasters) effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits’ (p. xii) (CohenShacham et al., 2016). NBS in Europe are ‘…solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience. Such solutions bring more, and more diverse, nature and natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes, through locally adapted, resource-efficient and systemic interventions’ (European Commission, 2015).

84

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

Although the origin of NBS is outside of cities, there is now particular enthusiasm for their potential to transform urban landscapes (Huddart Kennedy et al., 2014; Punzo et al., 2019). Whilst the concepts that are captured under the NBS umbrella are much older, NBS are a relatively new term that is meant to represent a step-change in urban planning and environmental management. The idea of NBS is that they should align development with the interests of biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation, although the former is, as yet, underdeveloped in current NBS policy and practice (Clement, 2022; Seddon et al., 2021). Closely related to such concepts as GI and natural capital, the idea has potential to act as a boundary object that allows actors with different values, disciplinary backgrounds, and perspectives to bridge divides and work together to make places more sustainable and resilient (Hanson et al., 2019; Rizzo et al., 2021). Although NBS are related to and can draw on the strengths of these related ideas, the concept is meant to address any perceived reductionism in them and to provide a more allencompassing concept that addresses problems systemically and in an integrated way (Nesshöver et al., 2017). Whether it does in fact offer something substantially different will depend on how the concept and its principles are translated into policy and practice in different contexts (see Sect. 4.3). NBS originated in the international policy realm in 2002 via the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is now central the organisation’s research and action agenda. The European Commission (EC) has also invested millions of Euros into research and demonstration projects, in an aim to position the European Union (EU) as a global leader (Davies et al., 2021). The approaches and framing of NBS at the international level and the EU level are somewhat divergent, however. The IUCN adopts a fundamentally ecosystems-based approach informed by nature conservation principles (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016), whilst the EC definition focuses more on innovation, efficiency, and co-benefits (see Box 4.1). The concept now has global appeal, forming a major part of international and national environmental programmes. NBS have at its core what could be called a transformative agenda. In line with the literature on transformation and governance, it aims

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

85

to address environmental challenges on the systemic level. NBS are presented almost as a panacea, offering the best of both worlds, where ‘nature’ is not just a public good but can be the target of investment in cities. Moreover, that investment can be framed as innovative, economically efficient, and capable of confronting some of the most intractable societal challenges. It thus makes a fitting concept for examining innovation and democracy. Conceptually, NBS flowed out of the idea of ecosystem services, which focuses on the benefits that nature provides to people rather than nature conservation as intrinsically valuable. With this view of nature as a tool that can be used to solve problems, it is perhaps no surprise that as the term has gained purchase in research and policy, what constitutes a ‘problem’ that can be ‘solved’ with nature has quickly broadened out well beyond biodiversity and climate change. The concept is now framed as a way to address a sweeping set of problems, with emphasis placed on the co-benefits of nature restoration and enhancement, including social justice, community cohesion, economic development and green jobs, participatory governance, and much more (Raymond, Frantzeskaki, et al., 2017; Raymond, Pam, et al., 2017).

NBS and Sustainability Although the concept of NBS seems to fundamentally align with conceptions of sustainability, to what extent it represents an advancement in that arena is worth interrogating. Even though the IUCN and the EC frame NBS differently, they both suggest that NBS could provide ways to comprehensively address environmental challenges whilst also addressing the social and economic pillars of sustainability. Its roots are not in sustainable development; however, the concept did later expand to embrace sustainable development goals (SDGs) (Eggermont et al., 2015; Pauleit et al., 2017). The fact that NBS are multi-functional and can provide a wide range of co-benefits means that they are positioned as potentially contributing to an equally wide range of SDGs (Gómez Martín et al., 2020; see Box 4.2). If NBS projects were shown to effectively address all of the promises outlined in the literature, as well as the ambitions set out in the IUCN’s Global Standard (IUCN, 2020),

86

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

then they could make a significant contribution to achieving the SDGs. However, so far these ambitions have not been met and there are a number of pitfalls that need to be addressed, including those relating to financing, equity and inclusion, scale, scope, negative externalities, weak regulations, and more (Barquet et al., 2021; Clement, 2021; Mell, Clement, & O’Sullivan, 2022; O’Sullivan et al., 2020; Seddon et al., 2021). Box 4.2. Potential Contribution of NBS to the SDGs A recent study (Gómez Martín et al., 2020) assessed the contribution of NBS to the SDGs by analysing trade-offs and synergies between co-benefits across different intervention scenarios in a major river restoration project. It found that NBS could contribute to at least ten SDGs, but that the extent to which they can effectively do so requires carefully balancing co-benefits and minimising trade-offs between these co-benefits (e.g., increases in property value can negatively affect social cohesion and social justice). Importantly, it also found that governance factors, such as institutional collaboration, were important for achieving these SDGs (Gómez Martín et al., 2020). A clear message of this research is that such considerations must be considered at the outset if NBS are to be an effective against the metric of the SDGs and associated indicators. This includes fundamental considerations of what NBS is meant to achieve and how to achieve it, from collaboratively defining which ‘problems’ the NBS are meant to solve, development of goals that explicitly link interventions to the SDGs, and consideration of how the design and governance of NBS can minimise trade-offs between different benefits. This study was also based on expert elicitation about future potential benefits, so more research is needed that monitors and measures the contribution of different types of NBS in different contexts to SDGs and indicators.

Whether NBS as a concept are aligned with weak or strong sustainability is also an open question that has implications for achieving both the SDGs and, more broadly, catalysing urban transformations. It depends in part on how they are framed, linked to broader socio-political systems, and implemented in practice. Weak sustainability sees natural

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

87

capital as either abundant or substitutable with different forms of capital (e.g. man-made, social, financial) and assumes that, with enough investment in other forms of capital, sustainability goals are almost guaranteed (Neumayer, 2003). In contrast, strong sustainability sees natural capital as finite and essential for sustaining social and ecological systems and does not consider natural capital as substitutable with other forms of capital. Even strong sustainability is not necessarily enough to achieve sustainable development (Neumayer, 2003), let alone facilitate transformation. The way that NBS are framed in the IUCN programme of work suggests a strong notion of sustainability, but in the EC approach there is equal emphasis on other forms of capital that do not enhance natural capital at all, including job creation, property values, and so-called nontechnical interventions (e.g. public art, community events) under its conception of sustainability. Although this may raise awareness of NBS, it suggests the concept is more closely associated with weak sustainability. This is further illustrated by the development of the EKLIPSE framework (Raymond, Frantzeskaki, et al., 2017; Raymond, Pam, et al., 2017), which places environmental, social, and economic dimensions on equal footing. The framework is influential in the EU because the EC requires cities to use it when monitoring the benefits of NBS in all its funded demonstration projects (Sect. 3.1).

More Democratic? Of particular interest for this chapter is the tacit assumption that NBS will be governed more democratically. It is evident in each of these principles—and the literature on NBS more generally—that there is a hope NBS could offer a more democratic approach to resolving urban challenges than standard planning and development practice. NBS have been said to offer way to transform the relationships between human and natural systems so long as they adopt a core framing that is inclusive, collaborative, interconnected, and diverse (Welden et al., 2021). This aspiration is certainly captured in the global standard for NBS, e.g. the fifth criterion states that NBS be ‘based on inclusive, transparent and empowering governance processes’ (IUCN, 2020, p. 14). The eight

88

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

principles developed via the IUCN programme (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016, 2019) and adopted in the standard all point to democratic principles of good governance, such as inclusion, equality, and transparency and consideration of trade-offs and the common good (Box 4.3). Box 4.3. IUCN principles and their link to governance 1. NBS embrace nature conservation norms (and principles). This requires mainstreaming these norms and principles across urban planning and policy, and a reframing of the ways in which decisions are normally made (i.e. governance). 2. NBS can be implemented alone or in an integrated manner with other solutions to societal challenges (e.g., technological and engineering solutions). Governance arrangements are often fragmented and directed at particular sectors, as are the power, authority, and accountabilities to take action. If NBS are to be multi-functional, then they require a more integrated system of governance that understands sustainability challenges cross sectors, scales, organisations, and political portfolios. 3. NBS are determined by site-specific natural and cultural contexts that include traditional, local and scientific knowledge. This points to the need for more effective knowledge co-production and integration of diverse perspectives, which will require reformed knowledge governance (Van Kerkhoff, 2014). 4. NBS produce societal benefits in a fair and equitable way in a manner that promotes transparency and broad participation. Notions of fairness, transparency, and inclusiveness are among the core democratic principles of good governance (Lockwood, 2010). 5. NBS maintain biological and cultural diversity and the ability of ecosystems to evolve over time. This principle points to the fact that urban NBS exist within novel and changing contexts, and how to adapt interventions to that context requires governance systems that are reflexive and responsive to local conditions and needs. 6. NBS are applied at a landscape scale. Strategic interventions at this scale require collaborative forms of governance that include multiple stakeholders in the planning, implementation, and maintenance of interventions.

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

89

7. NBS recognise and address the trade-offs between the production of a few immediate economic benefits for development, and future options for the production of the full range of ecosystem services. This principle explicitly calls attention to the tensions outlined previously that could inhibit the transformative potential of NBS. For governance, it is also important to note that NBS call for fair and transparent processes to discuss and negotiate trade-offs between ecosystem services. 8. NBS are an integral part of the overall design of policies, and measures or actions, to address a specific challenge. This allows for the explicit recognition of NBS in formal institutions and policies and suggests that successful NBS implementation needs to be system-wide and not just limited to the realm of environmental management.

Accountability is also highlighted several times in the global standard, and both the EC and IUCN discuss the need for collaborative and participatory forms of governance that integrates knowledge from multiple sources. One way that NBS programmes seek to be democratic is to call for tailored solutions that are ‘co-produced’, ‘co-designed’, or ‘co-generated’ with the communities who will benefit from them. These co-concepts draw attention to the need to involve not just subject matter experts, but also a wide range of actors (including citizens) with local knowledge and who stand to benefit from NBS. Co-production refers to how context-specific knowledge is produced by bringing together diverse types of expertise, knowledge, and actors through iterative and collaborative processes (Norström et al., 2020). Although the democratic value of co-production has not been robustly tested (Verschuere et al., 2018), coproduction might support democratic processes, insofar as it emphasises a focus on inclusion, collaboration, integration, reflexivity, and usability of knowledge in solving collective problems (Hakkarainen et al., 2021; Polk, 2015). Co-production and co-design have become central to NBS projects in Europe (Davies et al., 2021) and have been offered as a means of confronting several of these issues, especially relating to diversity, inclusion, and the desire to incorporate plural knowledge systems.

90

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

Most of the existing policy-relevant documents call for co-production and meaningful community engagement in the design and delivery of NBS. For example, the EKLIPSE Framework (Raymond, Frantzeskaki, et al., 2017; Raymond, Pam, et al., 2017) used in the EU emphasises the importance of co-creation, knowledge co-production, community engagement, and socially inclusive NBS, among other principles. The global NBS standard links democratic governance (Criterion 5) with coproduction in its indicators (IUCN, 2020). One of the reasons that co-production has featured so heavily is that NBS are meant to be place-based, locally adapted solutions (Dorst et al., 2019; Pauleit et al., 2017) that are also developed and implemented in transparent, participatory processes (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2019). In practice, however, co-production and co-design of NBS projects have not always lived up to these declared ideals, in part because of the way these projects are governed, funded, and managed. This chapter considers a case study with eight partner cities in Europe, Asia, and South America to understand where co-production is (and is not) occurring as part of a broader exploration of democratic dimensions of the project (Sect. 4.3).

More Innovative? In addition to being framed as more democratic, the innovative potential of NBS could support sustainability transitions in cities, if they provide more effective and efficient ways of addressing urban challenges. As noted previously, innovation is different to invention, so although NBS incorporate many traditional approaches, they could potentially be considered innovative by cities if they have little experience with urban greening. Diffusion of innovation theory draws attention to the idea of relative advantage, which is the perceived improvement the innovation offers as compared to current practices (Rogers, 2003), so it is partly about whether cities feel that NBS offer something better than their current approaches to greening. Communication is central to this perception because whether an innovative idea or object is adopted is said to be less dependent on the merit of the idea or technology

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

91

itself, and more dependent on how potential adopters perceive the individual or organisation communicating about the innovation (Rogers, 2003). Innovation is also said to be faster if the communicator and the adopter are like each other, which becomes important when one considers the diverse network of cities that has formed out of the EU’s hefty investment in NBS. Even larger global networks are emerging as well, including the Nature-based Solutions for Urban Resilience in the Anthropocene (NATURA) that has received $2-million in funding from the US National Science Foundation and links networks in Africa, Asia– Pacific, Europe, North and Latin America (NATURA, 2021). The ways in which cities interpret what constitutes innovative NBS, and the way they communicate with their networks about their ideas and experiences, thus becomes an important factor in whether and how NBS contribute to sustainable urban transformations globally. The potential for NBS to offer innovative solutions to sustainability challenges is central to arguments for their use, at least in the EU where they are central to both the definition and the research agenda. The IUCN definition, principles, and standards place less emphasis on these aspects, but they are mentioned in the global standard, where NBS are said to offer economically viable options for landscape management through innovative solutions and creative financing options (IUCN, 2020, Criterion 4). Although innovation does not necessarily mean creating something that is truly new, there are still apparent tensions in calls for innovation and calls to adhere to nature conservation principles. The IUCN puts biodiversity front and centre in the definition, and the concept has strong roots in ‘traditional’ nature conservation practices that are not necessarily technically innovative, including the ecosystem approach, forest landscape restoration, ecosystem-based adaptation, protected areas, and ecological restoration (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2019). In the EU approach, innovation is much less wedded to these traditional approaches, although there are many articles that reframe ‘traditional’ conservation, restoration, and GI enhancement projects as NBS and therefore innovative. The emphasis on innovation via engineered solutions, e.g. designed ecosystems and technological advances such as biomimicry and new engineering materials (Maes & Jacobs,

92

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

2017) do not always require fewer resources and can include unsustainable conventional materials such as concrete and plastic, as well as potentially favouring short-term benefits over longer term gains and ecosystem integrity (Seddon et al., 2021). These tensions are certainly evident in the case study that follows.

‘Re-Naturing’ Cities with NBS Given the messy realities of implementing any sustainability initiative in the ‘real world’, it is helpful to explore a case study to understand where NBS projects might struggle or succeed to meet these aspirations for democracy and innovation. What follows is based on action research undertaken as part of one of the NBS demonstration projects, Urban GreenUP, funded under the EC’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, which aims to translate theoretical ideas about how NBS can resolve societal challenges into practice, and test the effects over a five-year period. Urban GreenUP aims not just to ‘renature’ urban areas, but also to develop a transferable methodology for implementing NBS in other cities. Most of the investment is in three ‘front-runner’ cities: Valladolid, Spain; Izmir, Turkey; and Liverpool, United Kingdom. There are also five ‘follower’ cities which are meant to draw on lessons from these three cities, testing the methodology in a sort of living laboratory model to see if the approach can be replicated in very different contexts. There are two European follower cities (Mantova, Italy and Ludwigsburg, Germany) and three non-European cities (Chengdu, China; Medellin, Columbia; and Quy Nhon, Vietnam), who have implemented NBS and are involved to varying degrees in testing the tools and strategies produced by the front-runner cities. There are also 22 cities which comprise the project’s ‘network of cities’, the purpose of which is to disseminate knowledge about implementation of NBS outside of the aforementioned cities (Urban GreenUP, 2022). Both the overall project approach and illustrative examples from Liverpool are included to understand the interplay between higher level governance factors and urban realities. Participant observation over the course of the project is the main source of data; however, workshops, surveys, interviews, and documents

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

93

have also informed the insights discussed here. More information on methodologies and results can be found in Urban GreenUP deliverables (Urban GreenUP, 2022) as well as in the academic publications to date (Clement, 2021; Croci & Lucchitta, 2022; Croeser, Garrard, Thomas, et al., 2021; Croeser, Garrard, Sharma, et al., 2021; O’Sullivan et al., 2020; Preston, 2020). It should be noted that Urban GreenUP is not fundamentally a research project, but a demonstration project, where the focus is on developing and implementing a series of NBS interventions in each city. To test the impact of these interventions on environmental and social challenges, each city monitored conditions one year before and two years after these interventions were implemented to determine if they had a quantifiable effect across a range of indicators (Sect. 3.1). Izmir, Liverpool, and Valladolid offer significantly different contexts for implementing NBS, with different governance systems, climates, urban morphologies, and sustainability challenges. Although the types of NBS are similar in each city, they are different enough to allow testing of a range of approaches, and lessons learned inform action across the follower cities in designing their NBS as well as a transferable methodology for the planning, design, delivery, and monitoring of NBS in other cities. The participation of these two tiers of cities—as well as the broader network of cities—has the advantage of providing a diverse set of conditions for these urban experiments. The project involves 25 partners from the public and private sectors. Although centrally coordinated by Cartif, a construction and project management firm, local governments are responsible for project management in their own cities and most partners were not NBS experts. The expertise and experience with urban greening in each of these cities was also variable, and each of the cities experienced different barriers to implementation that have been well documented in project deliverables (Urban GreenUP, 2022). Key lessons relating to the democratic and innovative aspects of the project are outlined below.

94

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

Knowledge, Context, and Inclusion Knowledge in Urban GreenUP was distilled down to the evaluation and monitoring aspects of NBS, in part because the EC has made these elements central to their investment. To ensure consistency across all cities, the EC had developed a means to monitor ‘success’ in NBS projects through their EKLIPSE mechanism, an approach where they draw on global expertise to respond to a particular research challenge. All projects, including the Urban GreenUP project, funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme, are required to use the NBS framework developed by EKLIPSE to monitor the impacts of various interventions. This document outlines possible benefits across ten challenge areas that can be monitored for impacts (Raymond, Frantzeskaki, et al., 2017; Raymond, Pam, et al., 2017): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Climate mitigation and adaptation; Water management; Coastal resilience; Green space management (including enhancing/conserving urban biodiversity); Air/ambient quality; Urban regeneration; Participatory planning and governance; Social justice and social cohesion; Public health and well-being; Potential for new economic opportunities and green jobs.

The focus of all challenge areas is on the benefits directly provided to humans, even for those that are ostensibly environmentally focused (e.g. air quality improvements provide human well-being benefits). Strong sustainability was thus not a major focus, with efforts focused on implementing a series of specific interventions and measuring their impact on key performance indicators (Urban GreenUP, 2019). From a democratic perspective, a key issue is that the partners in each city chose which challenge areas they were focused on independently and without involvement of diverse experts, stakeholders, or the general public.

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

95

Although the EC introduced a requirement to ‘co-produce’ knowledge and ‘co-design’ interventions, this was after the proposal and design phase. This made it difficult to engage in meaningful discussions about both the nature of the problems in each city and how they should be addressed, as well as meeting the ideals that co-production processes be context-based, pluralistic, goal-oriented, and interactive (Norström et al., 2020). Whilst each city had their own set of interventions and challenges they were addressing, these were defined in the project proposal without broad engagement, with significant deviations from the original plans requiring a process of formal negotiation and amendment with the EC. This affected the extent to which the NBS could be further adapted to local context, engage with a plurality of stakeholders, revise goals based on feedback, or ongoing interaction and adjustment to where, when, and how the cities would address the EKLIPSE challenges. Whilst it is true that each of the cities had some information on what were considered priorities based on prior experience and policy documents, this is not equivalent to co-production, co-design, or any other form of joint problem framing and democratic problem-solving. Feedback from the public and businesses was generally positive because greening is viewed as a good thing that can help respond to a range of challenges (Mell et al., 2022), but they were being asked to respond to what was proposed rather than engaging in a democratic purpose to discuss NBS in their cities. The fundamental premise of NBS is that they contribute to resolving problems and deliver benefits to urban publics. But there were no transparent and inclusive conversations about what the public, experts, and other stakeholders perceive as the key problems and how they felt they should be solved by nature (or indeed if they even preferred nature as the solution). Whilst the project used the EKLIPSE framework, which gives a great deal of attention to democratic principles and participatory governance, in practice these aspirations were reduced to simplified indicators and surrogate endpoints. One reason was that EKLIPSE is not so much a framework as it is a collection of ideas about how NBS might positively impact the environment, society, and the economy based on theory and prior empirical research. Partners in Urban GreenUP thus had to

96

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

decide collectively on a range of ‘core’ indicators that would be monitored in each of the front-runner cities, despite few resources being devoted to socio-economic monitoring, limited expertise in this area, and also very different biophysical and socio-economic contexts in each city. Of the 29 core indicators, none mention governance or learning, and social dimensions are reduced to accessibility and citizen perceptions, and a puzzling term of ‘Green Intelligence Awareness’ that refers only to the number of citizens attending events or viewing social media and publications (Urban GreenUP, 2019). The City of Liverpool did incorporate social learning into its indicators, which emphasised understanding how the lessons from the project are fed back into policy and practice. Whilst there have been several examples of this occurring, they are small victories (e.g. changes in tendering processes, integrating NBS into planning documents) and have yet to impact the underlying logics of decision-making or even challenge most existing habits and routines. Even seemingly democratic ideas that are in the indicators, e.g. citizen participation in the development and delivery of interventions, were in actual fact only measuring whether citizens were aware of the NBS interventions, without monitoring their involvement (Urban GreenUP, 2019). Ultimately, these indicators were designed using a mix of pragmatism about what could be done with project resources, what matched up with the planned interventions, and what was easily measurable. However, there is a question about whether the project is counting what counts across two domains: (1) understanding the impact of the project on addressing the challenges it proposes to address, and (2) measuring what matters to the people who stand to benefit from the NBS interventions. It is likely Urban GreenUP was not alone in this struggle to both meet and measure ambitions for NBS as a vehicle to enhance democratic governance, based on other projects implementing NBS across the globe (Naturvation, 2022). Although analysis of pre- versus post-intervention monitoring data is currently incomplete, preliminary results reveal minor improvements across most indicators, and few meaningful improvements across the socio-economic and governance indicators. This could be related to the limited size, location, or scope of their interventions, and the lack of their connection to broader development processes or institutional

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

97

and economic structure. However, it is difficult to know, given the fact that knowledge generation was focused primarily on understanding the immediate and highly localised impacts of the interventions. The basic structure of a project that tests the impact of NBS as individual interventions is also not useful for understanding how these interventions relate to the broader rules, norms, and institutional structures that drive urban development. However, Urban GreenUP, much like other Horizon2020 projects, had its own institutional constraints that made a more democratic approach to planning, design, and implementation unfeasible within the funding parameters. This has implications not just for efforts to test the democratic potential of NBS, but also for learning, experimentation, and ultimately innovation.

Innovation, Efficiency, and Scale The word ‘innovative’ is central in almost all project documents, but whether it achieves that ambition depends largely on whether they are new within the particular cities involved. A core principle that is said to make NBS innovative is that they should embed both the principles and norms of nature conservation into interventions, including a focus not just on greening grey landscapes, but on contributions to landscape-scale conservation and enhancement of ecosystem function (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2019). The project has published several reports that are informative in terms of understanding how NBS as a concept is translated to developed urban landscapes, which seems to depart significantly from the principles outlined in IUCN documents. From this it seems that NBS can include dozens, if not hundreds, of different types of interventions that go from the building and street scale (e.g. green walls and roofs, planting trees, pollinator verges), to the city scale (e.g. floodable parks) to the regional scale (e.g. green corridors connecting parks) (Urban GreenUP, 2018). Many of these interventions involve the use of traditional, often unsustainable, materials (e.g. concrete, plastic) and resources (e.g. additional energy, water). Whilst there is an effort to highlight the importance of biodiversity, for example by encouraging the use of local species and a diverse mix of species, most of the interventions

98

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

are at smaller scales that will only enhance highly localised biodiversity rather than ecosystem integrity or root causes of ecological decline. There is a clear focus on construction materials, urban design principles, and ‘greening’ hard surfaces, rather than nature conservation principles. There has been a clear focus on engineering innovation and efficient interventions that can conform to the character of ‘hard’ urban spaces. Costs and benefits and ideas about delivery of ecosystem services form the focus of one of the work packages, but these are focused on modelled potential impacts. There are no mechanisms for evaluating the benefits or efficiency gains achieved from these small-scale NBS interventions as compared to ‘traditional’ engineered solutions, but instead a focus on the co-benefits that greening can offer above and beyond the latter. Beyond the catalogue that purports to provide an exhaustive list of possible NBS (Urban GreenUP, 2018), the actual interventions in the three front-runner cities are relatively small in scale, in opportunistic locations, and mostly disconnected from each other rather than connected across the cities’ landscapes (Table 4.1). Most of these interventions are already used frequently GI projects and/or sustainable construction projects, although there have been a few innovations, such as the combining sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDs) with urban trees (tree SUDs) that are discussed further below. Of particular note here is that the ‘non-technical interventions’ were also largely not innovative even within the context of each city. They generally represented standard practice in communications (e.g. sharing on social media), community engagement (e.g. open days to present plans), or were a continuation of pre-existing projects (e.g. forest schools). There were a few more innovative approaches, particularly in Liverpool, such as a forest bathing pod, ‘bioblitzes’ and biodiversity apps where citizens were asked to record biodiversity observations, and a ‘pop up’ forest. Although these creative forms of engagement were received positively, dedicated research in Liverpool revealed that participants generally felt ‘community engagement’ was constrained to information sharing and contributing to project aims (i.e. endorsing pre-existing plans for interventions), and that there was a significant lack of opportunities for what might be termed as meaningful participation in the project (Preston, 2020).

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

99

Table 4.1 NBS interventions in Urban GreenUPa Type of Intervention

Liverpool

Izmir

Valladolid

Cycling and pedestrian routes Planting treesb Parklets and “green resting areas” “Re-naturing parking” (i.e. planting trees in parking lots) Smart soils Pollinator verges, roofs, walls, modules Green walls, fences, noise barriers, vertical gardens (vertical GI) Floating gardens, green shelters and shading structures, green roofs, filter areas (horizontal GI) SUDs (including tree SUDs) constructed wetlands, grassed swales, rain gardens, and water retention ponds Pavements (permeable, porous, green, and cool types) Urban farming Non-technical interventions (i.e., education, coaching other cities, engagement, art)

• •

• • • •

• • •

•

• •

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

• •

•

a Photos

and explanations of all these categories are available on the project website (Urban GreenUP, 2022) b Broken down into several categories called “urban carbon sink”, “planting and renewal trees”, shading trees, and cooling trees

Although many of the interventions are not innovative in a global sense, as noted earlier it is valid to consider whether such approaches are innovative in context. The Liverpool experience suggests that, even in a city where there had been over a decade of dedicated GI projects, many of the NBS interventions proved difficult to implement because they tested the limits of existing procurement and planning department procedures, requiring a great deal of negotiation to get through. A key finding was the critical importance of key individuals in progressing NBS within local governments. The project manager in Liverpool is what is described in the governance literature as an ‘institutional entrepreneur’, which refers to an actor who actively work to transform existing institutions or create new ones (Battilana et al., 2009; DiMaggio, 1988). They are agents of change who can help challenge the status

100

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

quo and perform leadership functions that are critical to transformation (Clement, Moore, Lockwood, & Morrison, 2016), using strategies such as mimicry (making new practices seem familiar), routinising and embedding (infusing new norms into routine practices), and undermining assumptions and beliefs to make new practices seem less risky (Lawrence et al., 2009). The project manager in Liverpool used all these tactics and more. Institutional entrepreneurs can be critical for diffusing innovations within an organisation, but whether they are successful in extending that across organisations and beyond, into policies and practices, is a long-term game and at this stage these outcomes are unknown. In this case, there are small signs of change with information about NBS in the public realm strategy and local plan, but how this will impact the form of urban development and the future of Liverpool is not yet known. There are also questions about whether tension between the aim to be ‘innovative’ and the risk aversion and path dependency that characterise urban bureaucracies led to interventions that did not quite reach the levels of scale and efficiency needed to be most effective and deliver on the promise of NBS. In Liverpool, most of the approximately 40 NBS interventions are small scale, such as tree plantings in containers, floating habitats, pollinator verges, small-scale SUDs, rain gardens, cycling paths, and green walls. They are spread across three demonstration areas that include two areas in the city centre (the business improvement district and the Baltic Triangle, a revitalised creative quarter that includes former warehouses) and an area in and around the city’s biggest urban park, Sefton Park. Although some interventions seek to improve existing green space or its connectivity, the interventions are largely disconnected. A key reason for this is that Liverpool is a post-industrial, fairly compact city that is already fully developed, with a great deal of ‘grey’ infrastructure that is difficult to green because of issues such as property ownership and unfavourable conditions (e.g. narrow pavements, underground utilities). In some areas, substantial portions of the budget were spent just surveying areas, only to find it was not possible to implement the planned interventions, even for seemingly simple interventions such as tree planting. Meanwhile, there have been other more grassroots approaches to greening cities, even within Liverpool, that spend very little money but arguably achieve similar outcomes (e.g. wildflower

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

101

plantings on verges and vacant land). The interventions were also focused on areas where there were opportunities and willing partnerships, and it avoided areas where there might be more community resistance or where implementing NBS was perceived as too risky within the constraints of the project. This meant avoiding some areas most in need of greening (e.g. the north of the city) where sustainability challenges are even more acute. Given these constraints, it is possible that limiting both the geographic scope and the actors involved constrained innovation and the extent to which participation was democratic.

Co-Production and Accountability There is a stated requirement from the EC to ‘co-produce’ and ‘co-design’ the interventions; however, there are several ways in which this requirement was challenging to meet in practice. In particular, the practicalities of proposing, funding, and then managing these projects limits the extent to which the project can be context-based, pluralistic, and interactive. The investment in NBS in Europe is admirable in that it seeks to test whether NBS live up to its promises when implemented in the real world, which will do a great deal to advance the concept. However, the fact that these are funded with stringent conditions that inhibit flexibility and capacity to be fully interactive and develop context-driven solutions in collaboration with multiple publics. Whilst making accountability to the EC clearer, these conditions significantly constrain cities’ capacity to adhere to co-production principles. Demonstration projects like Urban GreenUP generally must outline what they are going to do before they do it. Engaging widely with stakeholders and the broader public before funding is in place would not only be a huge risk if the application was unsuccessful, but also in and of itself requires substantial resources that are not generally available. Once the funding is received, there is room for minor deviations from these plans, but most substantive deviations require an involved process of seeing an amendment to the grant. There is also scant guidance for what is expected in terms of co-production and co-design, and they are not given dedicated resources or criteria to evaluate ‘success’ against this metric.

102

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

What this means in practice is that partners on a project need to design a series of NBS interventions before they receive the funding—that is to say, before they have done a full diagnosis of the areas that are in most need, and before they are able to fully explore what is most feasible in their cities and, crucially, before engaging a wide variety of stakeholders. This process not only precludes meaningful public and stakeholder engagement before the project is implemented, but it also precludes such meaningful engagement during the project, as most of the decisions have already been made and are codified in the funding agreement. For most of the cities, this means the applicants (e.g. local authorities, private companies, NGOs) undertook most of the groundwork before funding had been acquired, choosing the demonstration areas, scoping the interventions, and identifying potential willing partners without the co-production said to be so central to NBS. It also encourages choices that are not necessarily ideal in terms of the ‘problem-solving’ aspects of NBS. When conditions are attached to successful implementation, it is reasonable to choose places where there are more favourable social, economic, and environmental conditions for the interventions. This ultimately meant choosing areas that had more green space (e.g. the south of the city) or where few people actually live (e.g. the city centre). Whilst rational and valuable for providing proof of concept, it does undermine what NBS are meant to do. Liverpool is one of the most socio-economically deprived cities in the UK, and it also has green space that is inequitably distributed, with the most economically deprived areas of the city having less access to green space and lower quality green spaces (Urban GreenUP, 2017). Notable for both innovation and democracy, the north of the city was not included in the project, where there is both a need for more multi-functional GI and the presence of several challenges that could be addressed via NBS. This project set-up raises democratic questions well beyond Liverpool or the Urban GreenUP project itself about how accountability (or a lack thereof ) might intersect with efforts to transform cities. Accountability considers: • the allocation and acceptance of responsibility for decisions and actions; • the extent to which a governing body is answerable to its constituency;

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

103

• the extent to which a governing body is answerable to ‘higher- level’ authorities; and • allocation of responsibilities to those institutional levels that best match the scale of issues and values being addressed (Lockwood, 2010, p. 759). There are two issues relating to accountability in relation to Urban GreenUP and NBS projects more generally. First, even though there was the desire to co-produce and co-design interventions, it is not clear who would be responsible for the outcomes of decisions made through coproduction. This is an area of neglect in the co-production literature, but it is important for accountability, trust, and legitimacy. A lack of clarity about accountability leads to fear about who to blame, leading governments to want to maintain control over decision-making for fear that they will be blamed if the outcomes are unsuccessful. This can undermine trust between government organisations and the public (Fledderus, 2018). Despite calls for accountability from the EC and IUCN, for Urban GreenUP there were no clear requirements relating to go beyond statutory consultation requirements. Liverpool fulfilled these but in a practical sense this was information-giving, with pragmatic needs about attending to the needs of stakeholders with power to get the interventions in place or keep the project moving forward overshadowing the loftier ambitions in the NBS literature. This can have flow on effects for legitimacy, where decisions require acceptance of the polis (Lockwood, 2010). Whilst there were only minor expressions of opposition, these relate only to specific interventions, given the absence of a broader participatory process. Second, upward accountability to the EC did not allow the cities to be responsible to their constituents (downward accountability) or allocate responsibilities to the appropriate level, as there was a desire for control from the project coordinator (who holds a high degree of financial accountability) and the EC. Seeking greater control to manage risk is a well-known phenomenon in the public service, but these controlling mechanisms not only constrain autonomy and discretion; but also diminish performance, thereby creating more mistrust and a call for greater controls, creating a vicious cycle (Ansell, 2011). These interlinked issues of trust, accountability, and legitimacy then have a flow on effect on the innovation that the EC is eager to cultivate.

104

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

Reorientation and Examination In theory, NBS seem a ‘win–win’ opportunity that allows the environment to take centre stage in urban development. For NBS to solve sustainability challenges, they need to offer more than just another name for making places greener, and they certainly need to be more than a new label for old practices to play a major role in transformative agendas. In the case of Urban GreenUP, it is possible that by focusing on innovation, it was easy to lose sight of the desired outcomes, and partners spent a great deal of time and energy getting new but often quite small-scale interventions implemented. Although presenting interventions as ‘innovative’ might help with communication and diffusion of new practices, it is not clear that any NBS interventions achieved better outcomes than ‘traditional’ GI or restoration/conservation projects would have. The novelty of some interventions may potentially catalyse other changes; but unless NBS offer a competitive advantage whilst also providing better substantive outcomes than traditional greening options, it is unlikely to facilitate transformation. In the case of Urban GreenUP, the NBS interventions in some cases adhere to the basic definition of an innovation (i.e. new in their particular context), and the project certainly conforms to the notion of cities as living laboratories. However, whilst experimentation can break path dependency when it makes existing patterns of development untenable, its effect is less transformative when it is limited by socio-technical constraints (Evans et al., 2016). In fact, it is prudent to question whether innovation is the right target for NBS at all. Innovation does not automatically mean an improvement, and just because something is new in a particular context also does not make it a better approach than pre-existing approaches to greening cities. If NBS were implemented ‘by the book’, the notion of innovation may simply be a bonus on top of a comprehensive way of approaching cities as systems, where nature can help confront socio-economic, governance, and ecological challenges in a meaningful, connected way. There is also a tension between innovation and accountability (and thus the democratic quality of NBS projects). Urban GreenUP was subject to control-oriented accountability, which can undermine organisational performance (Salamon & Robinson, 2008) and blocks reflexive

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

105

learning and innovation (Clement et al., 2015). Discretion is necessary for solving problems and can facilitate the collaborative forms of governance that the NBS literature aims to achieve (Clement, Moore, & Lockwood, 2016). Future funders and higher levels of governance should consider giving cities ‘accountable autonomy’, a concept borne out of case studies in public schools and community policing (Fung, 2004). Accountable autonomy strives to achieve a balance between centralised support and local autonomy to avoid the problems of both extremes, with an emphasis on building competence to achieve public ends (Fung, 2004). Cultivating responsibility within local government organisations could provide a replacement for narrow, external accountability (Ansell, 2011), but would require surrendering control and trusting cities to implement context-based solutions informed by evidence, which is particularly difficult for cities that have little experience implementing NBS.

New Content, or just New Packaging? There several related issues drawing on the Urban GreenUP experience that are important for other cities considering NBS. First, there is the question of what ‘counts’ as an NBS. In an urban context, there are several similar concepts already said to offer a range of benefits (e.g. GI). If NBS are to move beyond adding ‘green stuff ’ to landscapes where there is none, then there is a need to think more seriously about what the unique selling points of NBS are and their relative advantage to existing approaches not just in theory, but also in practice and as it relates to sustainability outcomes. There has been some discussion of the conceptual differences (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016; Dorst et al., 2019; Hanson et al., 2019), but the implementation of NBS in Europe has been so different to NBS’s ecosystem-based origins that it is difficult to compare the two. Though the fact that NBS are an umbrella concept is considered a positive attribute, they are in danger of meaning everything and nothing at the same time, as everything from a few street trees in a container to restoring a chain of coastal wetlands are being called NBS. The devil, as usual, is in the details. Elevating biodiversity and climate

106

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

change in NBS policy and practice could potentially reorient the concept towards strong sustainability and re-aligning the concept with its ecological roots could see it as a key tool for achieving the SDGs. This could have the added benefit of enhancing its transformative potential, particularly, if it changes the logics of decision-making (Clement, 2021) and becomes embedded in urban governance. There is a further tension revealed by this examination of Urban GreenUP relating to economic efficiency and sustainability outcomes. The hope of the NBS projects being funded by the EU under a scheme focused on innovation is that they will be legitimised under current principles of economic rationality, with economic efficiency providing proof of a return on investment for implementing NBS in urban areas. Any bit of nature that could confront such a wide range of social, economic, and environmental challenges would be of enormous benefit to society, even if not centrally focused on environmental dimensions of sustainability. There is reason to be sceptical, however, as there is still scant evidence that NBS live up to its supposed potential (Kabisch et al., 2016). Whilst NBS contribute to having a greater range of tools for the sustainability toolkit and has global applicability (Dorst et al., 2019), the way that tool is used in the different contexts is important. Even at this early stage, projects such as Urban GreenUP provide reasons to be cautious, and it is worth scrutinising whether NBS are truly more innovative than other ways of greening cities.

Urban Challenges and Ecological Scales Another issue that flows from this, is that in Europe, many of the NBS interventions do not leverage, restore, or enhance existing ecosystems to address societal challenges. Most are a hybrid of traditional and ecological engineering approaches or ‘designer’ ecosystems, and many rely at least in part on materials that are not always sustainable. They have thus far proven to be very expensive interventions. Given their ‘designer’ status, there are also reasonable questions to be asked about whether many of the current NBS projects meet the global NBS standard (IUCN, 2020). This is perhaps understandable in many cases, including in Urban GreenUP.

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

107

The project start preceded the standard; but more than that, the cities involved would have struggled to meet its stringent requirements, which do not consider the practical and political contexts of cities. Developing self-sustaining and resilient ecosystems that contribute to climate resilience as well as social justice, democratic governance, etc., is a tall order in urban environments where human impacts are constant and in the context of wider political and democratic challenges. This presents perhaps an even bigger economic problem than a nature conservation problem, however, particularly in the case of cities such as Liverpool, which has experienced years of austerity and the de-funding of green space management (Mell, 2020). Finally, the principle of landscape-scale interventions is essential, both from the perspective of ecosystem function and for resolving the many and varied challenges in the EKLIPSE framework. Transformation may be possible with NBS, but it is unlikely to be fostered one streetscape at a time. Yet large-scale ambitions are exceedingly difficult to achieve in many urban areas. It may be reasonable in newer cities, as in the case of Izmir, but in older, industrial, and highly urbanised areas like Liverpool, it can take enormous time, resources, and technical surveys to determine where a few trees can be planted—an ostensibly simple process that is deeply complicated on account of the city’s long history of urban development, narrow streets, procedural inadequacies, and lack of pre-existing green space in some areas that can provide anchor points for larger interventions. This example of ‘squeezing’ small NBS interventions, such as the planting of trees and the creation of floating habitats into urbanised spaces, shows just how challenging it can be to realise the principles of NBS in practice, even with the best of intentions. Whilst the level of investment in NBS across Europe is laudable, information gained from the many projects across Europe should take the issue of whether the level of investment in NBS as conceived at present is commensurate with the level of benefit well beyond the life of these projects. They should also be compared to alternatives within cities that could equally enhance biodiversity, climate resilience, and more, such as improved funding for effective management of parks.

108

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

Leveraging the Potential of NBS Despite decades of environmental policy aimed at sustainability, many current approaches are failing. This chapter outlined the many ways in which NBS seem to offer both a promising new approach to making cities more sustainable and more democratic. However, such ideas rarely adhere to their noble origins, and there has already been a marked departure from how NBS were originally envisioned to their current conception, perhaps in part because of where they have most quickly attracted significant public investment. The EU’s investment in demonstration projects is laudable, and the impacts of that investment are still not fully understood, particularly as they relate to transformation in urban areas. However, NBS have already taken on a very different form so far in Europe than what is outlined in the IUCN principles, with both the democratic and innovation aspects taking a back seat to traditional approaches to greening that are perceived as less risky and able to be implemented within existing restrictive governance systems. There are several potential explanations for why the concept of NBS has been transformed in the process of implementation in Europe. First, the shift towards seeing nature as a tool to solve societal challenges to the benefit of both people and biodiversity is only a shift for those who do not see nature as a resource to be shaped by humans. For the EU, biodiversity is characterised as equivalent to the word nature, and it is unreservedly utilitarian in focus, so it is no surprise that the functionality of NBS at the scales that matter (e.g. landscape scale) is not a focus in Urban GreenUP. This may be based in part on the primary emphasis being on solving urban challenges. In urban environments lacking in biodiversity, gains are not difficult to achieve. Any introduction of nature in this context is a quantifiable benefit, and EU typologies of NBS tend to focus more on the degree of engineering of biodiversity, rather than the restoration of nature for the benefit of ecosystems (Eggermont et al., 2015). Even against this backdrop, integrating a strong conception of sustainability into the NBS research and action agenda would be a significant improvement, even if it does not lead to radical change. A related issue is whether the NBS concept itself is too vulnerable to co-option to make a significant contribution to urban transformation. As

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

109

with other similar umbrella concepts that act as boundary objects, NBS have already proven vulnerable to co-option (van der Jagt et al., 2021), and the idea of what ‘nature-based’ and ‘natural’ mean is generally illdefined (Osaka et al., 2021). Although posed as a more palatable framing of addressing unsustainable development practices than its predecessors (e.g. GI, Ecosystem Services, natural capital), it is possible that this palatability makes NBS as a concept more vulnerable to co-option by special interests. It is already clear that the concept is evolving and what constitutes ‘innovative’ or even an NBS at all varies across different contexts, depending on who is involved in promotion, implementation, and management of interventions. In some cases, it has led to a narrow framing of what constitutes ‘nature’, and in the process can undermine potential biodiversity benefits and oversell the capacity to deploy nature as ‘solutions’ to systemic patterns of unsustainable development (O’Sullivan et al., 2020). This idea of nature as a tool for humans might be another reason NBS are vulnerable to simplification and dilution. Rather than that ‘subtle but important shift’ proposed by the IUCN, the notion of nature being deployed to solve societal problems may be too subtle to be important, reinforcing the view that investment in urban nature is not valuable in and of itself. The idea that some people view nature as a tool to be used for human ends is not new and has been discussed as one of the defining characteristics of environmental values systems in the literature for decades (Abrams et al., 2005) and as part of the debate about shallow versus deep ecology (Naess, 1973). In a shallow approach to ecologically responsible policy (which we would now call ecological sustainability), degradation and pollution are to be fought against for the advancement of the health and affluence of developed countries (Naess, 1973). In this sense, the framing of NBS as a set of innovative tools to solve societal challenges is an extension of the dominant paradigm that has existed for some time in developed countries, where nature is a tool to be ‘developed’ to serve human ends, and science develops techniques that harness natural process, with change being valuable in and of itself (Devall, 1980). It should perhaps come as no surprise, then, that presenting NBS in this way can reinforce existing practices and dominant paradigms, rather than provoking a profound shift in perspective or even a shift away

110

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

from ‘business as usual’ in any systemic way. Again, this raises the issue of framing, as it depends on which aspects of the concept are elevated. Whilst one framing is that NBS are fundamentally about putting biodiversity and nature conservation at the heart of climate adaptation, there is another framing that elevates ‘societal problem-solving’ element. This latter framing may be more palatable; but whether it can foster transformation is questionable, particularly considering the ways in which investment has occurred so far. This latter framing aligns with how the concept has been used so far in many cities, and certainly within Urban GreenUP. All concepts, even transformative ones, are reinterpreted in context, and the ‘nature as a tool’ narrative can reinforce the hubris that created the Anthropocene in the first place. Yet it also fits with the framing of Anthropocene as a potential opportunity for reorienting society on a more sustainable trajectory (Clement, 2021). Whilst it might oversell our capacity to solve complex challenges with nature, there is potential merit in reframing nature as a solution, rather than focusing solely on its loss, which is precisely what the literature on transitions towards a ‘good’ Anthropocene (McPhearson et al., 2021) calls on us to do. In some places, NBS may simply be a new way to reframe the many human-oriented conceptions of nature that have long dominated approaches such as landscape planning, GI, cultural landscapes, and rural development measures, all of which seek to accommodate biodiversity and socio-economic objectives. The fact that NBS have its origins in ecosystem services is also potentially meaningful, in that ecosystem services are framed as a very utilitarian concept that focuses on what nature does for humans (sometimes attaching monetary figures to that value), rather than as a means of delivering benefits to the environment for its own sake (Batavia & Nelson, 2017; Borie & Hulme, 2015). Though there have been ongoing efforts to address these shortcomings (Davidson, 2013) within the EU context, the fact that there is little intact biodiversity left and a long history of use in the region has meant that the utilitarian interpretation of NBS has been unassailable. Although this does not have to be the case in other regions of the world, the EU’s positioning as a global leader and inclusion of global cities in its funded work mean that its model has already expanded well beyond the European continent.

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

111

If NBS are to add value, they need to offer more than just material innovations, but also a means to leverage more systemic and widereaching changes than approaches to greening cities so far. There may also be an opportunity to leverage previous failures, taking advantage of new opportunities to reform governance regimes (Abson et al., 2017; Newig et al., 2019). NBS might be able to do this if they address the weaknesses in other similar concepts, but to do so NBS projects need to aim for systemic change across multiple sectors, scales, and policy, which is indeed an aspiration in much of the NBS literature. NBS aim to reorient development to put nature at its heart, calling attention to both ecosystem function and the kind of ecosystem services that people value. There is theoretical potential for NBS to foster transformation in ecosystem management (Nesshöver et al., 2017), by fundamentally changing relationships between human and natural systems (Welden et al., 2021). It is too early to say whether NBS will be the guiding concept for sustainable transformations in the urban frontier, but so far they mainly provide another way to incrementally progress the greening agenda in cities. Ultimately the sustainability-related outcomes of NBS depend on the ways they are framed in policy and practice, which will inevitably vary by context and who is driving the initiatives. Whilst there is a clear aspiration for NBS to provide a more democratic and innovative way of greening cities, the ways in which they are implemented can either conform to the existing environment (i.e. fit and conform) or undermine the status quo and exert pressure that changes the institutional environment (i.e. stretch and transform) (Smith & Raven, 2012). Aligning conservation of biodiversity and climate change adaptation with goals relating to innovation, economic growth, and job creation, as in the case of NBS in Europe (European Commission & DirectorateGeneral for Research and Innovation, 2015) is expedient because it aligns with existing frames rather than stretching them. The global scope of these projects could also more effectively leverage cities as experimental spaces. Urban NBS projects are global and occur in very different contexts, with sometimes dramatically different governance regimes, climates, economies, and socio-economic conditions. Difficult trade-offs and choices are inevitable, and different elements of this agenda will be

112

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

elevated whilst also competing and potentially merging with different urban agendas. This could lead to quite different solutions that could be systematically tested, if given the opportunity to emerge rather than be planned in a technocratic process. The potential for NBS to transform urban landscapes for the better has been linked to the fact that this concept explicitly calls for multi-functional solutions that address multiple goals (Nesshöver et al., 2017); but the weight that is put onto each of those goals, how those goals are determined, and how they are framed are important determinants of the transformative potential of NBS. If this potential is to be realised, these questions—and the tradeoffs and synergies between goals—will need to be made explicit, carefully considered, and sometimes set aside top-down ambitions for material novelty. Yet there is still a great deal of room for governance innovations. Governance provides the arena for discussion and debate, yet the NBS concept has no explicit link to governance features that can facilitate sustainable transformations (Cohen-Shacham et al., 2019). Among the linked democratic and governance challenges that limit transformation on this front include ‘who is governing, whose framings count (in terms of system, problems, goals, sustainability), and what is the relationship with democratic institutions, incumbent regime actors, and dominant discourses’ (Wittmayer & Loorbach, 2016, p. 15). The consequence of ignoring these challenges is that even experiments involving dozens of innovative interventions can maintain the status quo, particularly if the systemic governance issues that reinforce unsustainable behaviours and development patterns in cities remain.

References Abrams, J., Kelly, E., Shindler, B., & Wilton, J. (2005). Value orientation and forest management: The forest health debate. Environmental Management, 36 (4), 495–505. Abson, D. J., Fischer, J., Leventon, J., Newig, J., Schomerus, T., Vilsmaier, U., … Lang, D. J. (2017). Leverage points for sustainability transformation. Ambio, 46 (1), 30–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-016-0800-y

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

113

Andrachuk, M., Armitage, D., Dung Hoang, H., & Van Le, N. (2018). Building blocks for social-ecological transformations: Identifying and building on governance successes for small-scale fisheries. Ecology and Society, 23(2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10006-230226 Ansell, C. (2011). Pragmatist democracy: Evolutionary learning as public philosophy. Oxford University Press. Barquet, K., Leander, E., Green, J., Tuhkanen, H., Omondi Odongo, V., Boyland, M., … Osano, P. (2021, June 7). Spotlight on social equity, finance and scale: Promises and pitfalls of nature-based solutions. https://doi.org/10. 51414/SEI2021.011 Batavia, C., & Nelson, M. P. (2017, May 1). For goodness sake! What is intrinsic value and why should we care? Biological Conservation, 209, 366–376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2017.03.003 Battilana, J., Leca, B., & Boxenbaum, E. (2009). How actors change institutions: Towards a theory of institutional entrepreneurship. The Academy of Management Annals, 3(1), 65–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/194165209030 53598 Béal, V. (2012). Urban governance, sustainability and environmental movements: Post-democracy in French and British cities. European Urban and Regional Studies, 19 (4), 404–419. Benedict, M. A., & McMahon, E. T. (2006). Green infrastructure: Linking landscapes and communities. Island Press. Berkes, F. (2017). Environmental governance for the anthropocene? Socialecological systems, resilience, and collaborative learning. Sustainability (Switzerland), 9 (7). https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071232 Bockarjova, M., Botzen, W. J. W., van Schie, M. H., & Koetse, M. J. (2020). Property price effects of green interventions in cities: A meta-analysis and implications for gentrification. Environmental Science & Policy, 112, 293– 304. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ENVSCI.2020.06.024 Borie, M., & Hulme, M. (2015). Framing global biodiversity: IPBES between mother earth and ecosystem services. Environmental Science and Policy, 54, 487–496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.05.009 Bulkeley, H., Marvin, S., Palgan, Y. V., Mccormick, K., Breitfuss-Loidl, M., Mai, L., … Frantzeskaki, N. (2019). Urban living laboratories: Conducting the experimental city? Article. European Urban and Regional Studies, 26 (4), 317–335. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969776418787222 Clement, S. (2021). Governing the Anthropocene: Novel ecosystems, transformation, and environmental policy. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-603 50-2

114

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

Clement, S. (2022). Nature-based solutions for urban biodiversity. In E. Croci & B. Lucchitta (Eds.), Nature-based Solutions for more sustainable cities—A framework approach for planning and evaluation (pp. 33–45). https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-636-720211004 Clement, S., Moore, S. A., & Lockwood, M. (2016a). Letting the managers manage: Analyzing capacity to conserve biodiversity in a cross-border protected area network. Ecology and Society, 21(3), 39. https://doi.org/10. 5751/ES-08171-210339 Clement, S., Moore, S. A., Lockwood, M., & Mitchell, M. (2015). Using insights from pragmatism to develop reforms that strengthen institutional competence for conserving biodiversity. Policy Sciences, 48(4), 463–489. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-015-9222-0 Clement, S., Moore, S. A., Lockwood, M., & Morrison, T. H. (2016b). A diagnostic framework for biodiversity conservation institutions. Pacific Conservation Biology, 21(4), 277–290. Cohen-Shacham, E., Andrade, A., Dalton, J., Dudley, N., Jones, M., Kumar, C., … Walters, G. (2019). Core principles for successfully implementing and upscaling Nature-based Solutions. Environmental Science & Policy, 98, 20–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.04.014 Cohen-Shacham, E., Walters, G., Janzen, C., & Maginnis, S. (2016). Naturebased solutions to address global societal challenges. IUCN. Croci, E., & Lucchitta, B. (Eds.). (2022). Nature-based solutions for more sustainable cities. https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/Nat ure-Based-Solutions-for-More-Sustainable-Cities/?k=9781800436374 Croeser, T., Garrard, G. E., Thomas, F. M., Tran, T. D., Mell, I. C., Clement, S., … Bekessy, S. (2021a). Diagnosing delivery capabilities on a large international nature-based solutions project. Npj Urban Sustainability 2021a 1:1, 1(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-021-00036-8 Croeser, T., Garrard, G., Sharma, R., Ossola, A., & Bekessy, S. (2021b). Choosing the right nature-based solutions to meet diverse urban challenges. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 65, 127337. https://doi.org/10.1016/J. UFUG.2021.127337 Davidson, M. D. (2013). On the relation between ecosystem services, intrinsic value, existence value and economic valuation. Ecological Economics, 95, 171–177. Davies, C., Chen, W. Y., Sanesi, G., & Lafortezza, R. (2021, July). The European Union roadmap for implementing nature-based solutions: A review. Environmental Science and Policy, 121, 49–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.env sci.2021.03.018

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

115

Devall, B. (1980). The deep ecology movement. Natural Resources Journal , 20, 299–322. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/narj20& id=329&div=31&collection=journals DiMaggio, P. J. (1988). Interest and agency in institutional theory. In L. Zucker (Ed.), Institutional patterns and organizations: Culture and Environment (pp. 3–21). Ballinger Pub Co. Dorst, H., van der Jagt, S., Raven, R., & Runhaar, H. (2019). Urban greening through Nature-Based Solutions—Key characteristics of an emerging concept. Sustainable Cities and Society, 101620. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. scs.2019.101620 Eggermont, H., Balian, E., Azevedo, J. M. N., Beumer, V., Brodin, T., Claudet, J., … Le Roux, X. (2015). Nature-based solutions: New influence for environmental management and research in Europe. Gaia, 24 (4), 243–248. https://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.24.4.9 European Commission, & Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. (2015). Towards an EU research and innovation policy agenda for nature-based solutions & re-naturing cities : final report of the Horizon 2020 expert group on ‘Nature-based solutions and re-naturing cities’ : (full version). http://doi.org/ 10.2777/479582 Evans, J., Karvonen, A., & Raven, R. (2016). The experimental city. In J. Evans, A. Karvonen, & R. Raven (Eds.), The experimental city (pp. 1–12). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315719825 Fledderus, J. (2018). The effects of co-production on trust. In T. Brandsen, T. Steen, & B. Verschuere (Eds.), Co-production and co-creation: Engaging citizens in public services (pp. 258–265). Routledge. Fung, A. (2004). Empowered participation: Reinventing urban democracy. http:// books.google.com.au/books?id=xtYU8wvuYUYC Gómez Martín, E., Giordano, R., Pagano, A., van der Keur, P., & Máñez Costa, M. (2020). Using a system thinking approach to assess the contribution of nature based solutions to sustainable development goals. Science of the Total Environment, 738, 139693. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2020. 139693 Hakkarainen, V., Mäkinen-Rostedt, K., Horcea-Milcu, A., D’Amato, D., Jämsä, J., & Soini, K. (2021). Transdisciplinary research in natural resources management: Towards an integrative and transformative use of co-concepts. Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2276 Hammond, M. (2019). Sustainability as a cultural transformation: The role of deliberative democracy, 29 (1), 173–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/096 44016.2019.1684731

116

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

Hanson, H. I., Wickenberg, B., & Alkan Olsson, J. (2019). Working on the boundaries—How do science use and interpret the nature-based solution concept? Land Use Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019. 104302 Heidenreich, F. (2018). How will sustainability transform democracy? Reflections on an important dimension of transformation sciences. GAIA, 27 (4), 357–362. https://doi.org/10.14512/GAIA.27.4.7 Hoyle, H., Hitchmough, J., & Jorgensen, A. (2017). All about the ‘wow factor’? The relationships between aesthetics, restorative effect and perceived biodiversity in designed urban planting. Landscape and Urban Planning, 164, 109–123. Huddart Kennedy, E., Krahn, H., & Krogman, N. T. (2014). Are we counting what counts? A closer look at environmental concern, pro-environmental behaviour, and carbon footprint, 20 (2), 220–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13549839.2013.837039 IUCN. (2020). IUCN global standard for Nature-based solutions, version 1.0. Gland, Switzerland. Kabisch, N., Frantzeskaki, N., Pauleit, S., Naumann, S., Davis, M., Artmann, M., … Bonn, A. (2016). Nature-based solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban areas: Perspectives on indicators, knowledge gaps, barriers, and opportunities for action. Ecology and Society, 21(2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-08373-210239 Lawrence, T. B., Suddaby, R., & Leca, B. (2009). Institutional work. Cambridge University Press. Lockwood, M. (2010). Good governance for terrestrial protected areas: A framework, principles and performance outcomes. Journal of Environmental Management, 91(3), 754–766. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman. 2009.10.005 Loorbach, D., & Shiroyama, H. (2016). The challenge of sustainable urban development and transforming cities. In Governance of urban sustainability transitions (pp. 3–12). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55426-4_1 Loorbach, D., Wittmayer, J. M., Shiroyama, H., Fujino, J., & Mizuguchi, S. (2016). Governance of Urban Sustainability Transitions: European and Asian Experiences. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55426-4 MacGregor, S. (2019). Finding transformative potential in the cracks? The ambiguities of urban environmental activism in a neoliberal city, 20 (3), 329–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2019.1677224

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

117

Maes, J., & Jacobs, S. (2017). Nature-based solutions for Europe’s sustainable development. Conservation Letters, 10 (1), 121–124. https://doi.org/10. 1111/conl.12216 McPhearson, T., M. Raymond, C., Gulsrud, N., Albert, C., Coles, N., Fagerholm, N., … Vierikko, K. (2021). Radical changes are needed for transformations to a good Anthropocene. Npj Urban Sustainability, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-021-00017-x Mell, I. C. (2010). Green infrastructure: concepts, perceptions and its use in spatial planning. Mell, I. C. (2020). The impact of austerity on funding green infrastructure: A DPSIR evaluation of the Liverpool Green & Open Space Review UK. Land Use Policy, 91, 104284. Mell, I. C., Clement, S., & O’Sullivan, F. (2022). Engineering naturebased solutions (NBS)—Examining the barriers to effective intervention. Engineering Sustainability, in press. Naess, A. (1973). The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement: A summary. Inquiry (United Kingdom), 16 (1–4), 95–100. https://doi.org/10. 1080/00201747308601682 NATURA. (2021). Nature-based solutions for urban resilience in the Anthropocene. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://natura-net.org/ Naturvation. (2022). Urban nature atlas. Nesshöver, C., Assmuth, T., Irvine, K. N., Rusch, G. M., Waylen, K. A., Delbaere, B., … Wittmer, H. (2017, February 1). The science, policy and practice of nature-based solutions: An interdisciplinary perspective. Science of the Total Environment, 579, 1215–1227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitot env.2016.11.106 Neumayer, E. (2003). Weak versus strong sustainability: Exploring the limits of two opposing paradigms, third edition. In Weak versus strong sustainability: Exploring the limits of two opposing paradigms, Third Edition. https://doi.org/ 10.4337/9781849805438 Newig, J., Derwort, P., & Jager, N. W. (2019). Sustainability through institutional failure and decline? Archetypes of productive pathways. Ecology and Society, Published Online: Feb 25, 2019. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES10700-240118 Norström, A. V., Cvitanovic, C., Löf, M. F., West, S., Wyborn, C., Balvanera, P., … Österblom, H. (2020). Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research. Nature Sustainability, 3(3), 182–190. https://doi.org/ 10.1038/s41893-019-0448-2

118

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

O’Sullivan, F., Mell, I. C., & Clement, S. (2020). Novel solutions or rebranded approaches: Evaluating the use of nature-based solutions (NBS) in Europe. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 2, 53. https://doi.org/10.3389/FRSC.2020. 572527/BIBTEX Osaka, S., Bellamy, R., & Castree, N. (2021). Framing “nature-based” solutions to climate change. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.729 Pauleit, S., Zölch, T., Hansen, R., Randrup, T. B., & van den Bosch, C. K. (2017). Nature-based solutions and climate change–four shades of green. In Nature-based solutions to climate change adaptation in urban areas (pp. 29– 49). Springer, Cham. Polk, M. (2015). Transdisciplinary co-production: Designing and testing a transdisciplinary research framework for societal problem solving. Futures, 65, 110–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2014.11.001 Preston, S. (2020). Examining the role of community engagement in nature-based solutions. University of Liverpool. Punzo, G., Panarello, D., Pagliuca, M. M., Castellano, R., & Aprile, M. C. (2019). Assessing the role of perceived values and felt responsibility on pro-environmental behaviours: A comparison across four EU countries. Environmental Science & Policy, 101, 311–322. https://doi.org/10.1016/J. ENVSCI.2019.09.006 Raymond, C. M., Frantzeskaki, N., Kabisch, N., Berry, P., Breil, M., Nita, M. R., … Calfapietra, C. (2017a). A framework for assessing and implementing the co-benefits of nature-based solutions in urban areas. Environmental Science and Policy, 77 (June), 15–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.env sci.2017a.07.008 Raymond, C. M., Pam, B., Breil, M., Nita, M. R., Kabisch, N., de Bel, M., … Calfapietra, C. (2017b). An impact evaluation framework to support planning and evaluation of nature-based solutions projects. In EKLIPSE Expert Working Group report. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.18682.08643 Rizzo, A., Habibipour, A., & Ståhlbröst, A. (2021). Transformative thinking and urban living labs in planning practice: A critical review and ongoing case studies in Europe. European Planning Studies, 29 (10), 1739–1757. https:// doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2021.1911955 Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (Fifth). The Free Press. Salamon, S. D., & Robinson, S. L. (2008). Trust that binds: The impact of collective felt trust on organizational performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(3), 593–601. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.93.3.593 Sassen, S. (2010). Cities are at the center of our environmental future. Revista de Ingeniería (31), 72–83. https://doi.org/10.16924/revinge.31.8

4 Nature, Democracy, and Sustainable Urban …

119

Seddon, N., Smith, A., Smith, P., Key, I., Chausson, A., Girardin, C., … Turner, B. (2021). Getting the message right on nature-based solutions to climate change. Global Change Biology, 27 (8), 1518–1546. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/gcb.15513 Smith, A., & Raven, R. (2012). What is protective space? Reconsidering niches in transitions to sustainability. Research Policy, 41(6), 1025–1036. https:// doi.org/10.1016/J.RESPOL.2011.12.012 Southon, G. E., Jorgensen, A., Dunnett, N., Hoyle, H., & Evans, K. L. (2018). Perceived species-richness in urban green spaces: Cues, accuracy and wellbeing impacts. Landscape and Urban Planning, 172, 1–10. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2017.12.002 United Nations DESA. (2019). World Urbanization prospects: The 2018 revision (ST/ESA/SER.A/420). New York. Urban GreenUP. (2017). D3.1 Report on the diagnosis of Liverpool . Liverpool. Urban GreenUP. (2018). D1.1 NBS catalogue. Valladolid, Spain. Urban GreenUP. (2019). D5.3: City diagnosis and monitoring procedures. Valladolid, Spain. Urban GreenUP. (2022). Urban GreenUP. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from www.urbangreenup.eu Van Kerkhoff, L. (2014) Knowledge governance for sustainable development: a review. Challenges in sustainability, 1(2), 82–93. https://doi.org/10.12924/ cis2013.01020082 van der Jagt, A. P. N., Kiss, B., Hirose, S., & Takahashi, W. (2021). Nature-based solutions or debacles? The politics of reflexive governance for sustainable and just cities. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 2, 65. https://doi. org/10.3389/frsc.2020.583833 Verschuere, B., Vanleene, D., Steen, T., & Brandsen, T. (2018). Democratic co-production: Concepts and determinants. In T. Brandsen, T. Steen, & B. Verschuere (Eds.), Co-production and co-creation: Engaging citizens in public services (pp. 243–251). Routledge. Welden, E. A., Chausson, A., & Melanidis, M. S. (2021). Leveraging Naturebased Solutions for transformation: Reconnecting people and nature. People and Nature, 3(5), 966–977. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10212 Wike, R., & Fetterolf, J. (2018). Liberal democracy’s crisis of confidence. Journal of Democracy, 29 (4), 136–150. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2018. 0069 Wittmayer, J. M., & Loorbach, D. (2016). Governing transitions in cities: Fostering alternative ideas, practices, and social relations through transition management. In D. Loorbach, J. M. Wittmayer, H. Shiroyama, J. Fujino, &

120

S. Clement and I. C. Mell

S. Mizuguchi (Eds.), Governance of urban sustainability transitions: European and Asian experiences (pp. 13–32). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-554 26-4_1 Wolfram, M., Frantzeskaki, N., & Maschmeyer, S. (2016). October 1). Cities, systems and sustainability: Status and perspectives of research on urban transformations. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 22, 18–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.01.014

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability Beth Edmondson

Sustainability transformations and environmental accountability warrant attention as the challenges and risks of social-ecological systems upheavals extend collective environmental accountabilities. This chapter argues that social-ecological systems dynamics underpin collective environmental accountabilities, and that tacit recognition of these has characterised global climate mitigation and adaptation strategies for several decades, albeit with limited practical success. It pays attention to the roles of (and evolutions in) environmental accountabilities that might promote or constrain sustainability transformations. As environmental changes alter societies, communities, institutions and corporations, a broad range of social, economic and political systemic changes are also necessary. B. Edmondson (B) Trafalgar, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_5

121

122

B. Edmondson

This chapter regards accountability as an attribute of sustainability transformations that extend security, equitable access to resources, cost and burden sharing and intergenerational protectionary imperatives. It positions sustainability transformations as presenting opportunities to preserve the adaptation capacities of societies, environments and species. It also contextualises current accountability approaches and the normative expectations attached to reciprocal accountabilities, which can delay or disrupt sustainability transformations. It argues that sustainability transformations underpinned by environmental accountabilities are now essential for adaptation capacities of societies, environments and species. Current patterns, relationships and accountabilities are determining the ecosystems dynamics and capacities of organisms to adapt, migrate or otherwise respond to the environmental challenges they face. Consequently, they are also thereby determining the success or failure of sustainability transformations efforts. New and diverse perspectives and approaches concerning interplay between environmental and sustainability transformations are important for understanding the characteristics of sustainable social-ecological systems. Such understanding is essential for supporting their attainment in response to the environmentally and climatic challenges that currently constitute major risks and/or tipping points towards unthinkable collapse across social-ecological systems. Understanding the characteristics of social-ecological systems and identifying the ways that contemporary governments and societies can transform themselves towards sustainability is now essential for averting a series of cascading ecological and societal crises. At present, social-ecological systems are deeply challenged by an array of environmental degradations and declining sustainability within and across multiple ecosystems. Complex and rapid environmental degradation and/or climatic changes have previously triggered societal collapses and/or mass relocations in human populations. Contemporary multi-scale environmental challenges, which have been unfolding for several decades, have already triggered changes in the locations and structures of human societies as access to arable land, fresh water and rising sea levels have reduced the overall areas of land that are well suited for human habitability. At this historical juncture, the durability of current settlements and

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability

123

human populations, especially large, urbanised societies, confront new challenges. Historically, it has sometimes been possible for societies to make orderly and managed adjustments from one form of organisation and/or production practices as transformations have occurred. However, such transitions have not previously involved the range of systemic and structural global complexities or the tight timescales of current circumstances. Environmental transformations are key triggers of change in the compositions, locations and structures of human and non-human communities. While it is conceptually possible for human societies to make orderly and managed adjustments from one form of organisation and/or production practices to others, the urgent timescales and contemporary of highly integrated political, economic, social and socialecological systems present unprecedented practical challenges. Many non-human communities also rely upon longer buffering periods for successful adaptation transitions, without which ecosystems collapse and species extinctions occur. Natural systems and societies are dramatically altered by environmental challenges that present immensely disruptive implications for all species, systems and structures. Accountability is an important attribute of effective sustainability transformations mechanisms. It is central to the wellbeing, security and prosperity of human populations; determines their equitable access to resources, cost and burden sharing; and determines both present and future intergenerational protectionary imperatives. It is, arguably, a defining central feature of many government systems. Internationally, holding others to account is part of the mainstay package of attributes of contemporary states. All states seek to ensure that others are accountable to them. Recognising the limits of states’ territories and jurisdictions and expecting others to contribute to orderly international relations are part of the routine deportment of rules-based accountability that characterises the modern international political community. Respect for territorial integrity holds such centrality to the decisions and authoritative capacities of the international political community that it might now provide access points for establishing sustainable development practices to support sustainability transformations. Notably, more recently

124

B. Edmondson

established climate governance and sustainable development mechanisms display higher levels of functional transparency and collective accountabilities than their predecessors. Accountability implies transparency in terms of being able to see and measure who is accountable, what is being accounted for, who is held to account and by whom. Emerging international sustainability transformations mechanisms enmesh states in networks of mutual accountability— and these are not always universally welcomed by governments, corporations, intergovernmental organisations and individuals. For example, greenhouse gas emissions targets and related international agreements sometimes struggle to be implemented or to meet key targets because some or all parties are pre-occupied with clarifying the measures by which they might be held to account. Of itself, accountability does not guarantee that meaningful targets are set or met. Discussions towards defining or refining mutual accountabilities can delay or disrupt international agreements. The long path to the Kyoto Protocol provides a ready example. Nonetheless, accountability processes have been essential for the mitigation and adaptation strategies that have been outlined for addressing greenhouse emissions and global climate change consequences. As central sources of authority in the international political system, states provide unique sites of accountability for global, regional and local sustainability transformations. Sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities governance entail new responsibilities for all political and economic entities. Not least of these relate to the collective global climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies of the twenty-first century. These bring a contingent range of accountabilities for achieving the goals that have been set and monitoring the actions taken towards achieving them. Accountabilities are fundamental to states supporting global sustainability transformations initiatives. Enforcement and compliance remain basic problems for states and the international organisations they create to manage, monitor and respond to increasingly urgent environmental challenges. While environmental accountabilities can support sustainability transformations, it would be naïve to anticipate smooth, rapid and unwavering universal acceptance

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability

125

and systematic pursuit of these. To date, the vast majority of international environmental agreements permit, for instance, only limited enforcement. Indeed, many, rely heavily upon goodwill-based monitoring mechanisms with periodic embarrassment or public shaming of those that repeatedly fail to comply with the terms of environmental agreements or to meet agreed environmental protection targets. While enforcement and compliance have achieved greater centrality in international environmental agreements since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the overwhelming majority continue to settle for relatively weak enforcement and compliance mechanisms. Effective sustainability transformations mechanisms can accommodate and ameliorate some of the unpredictabilities and uncertainties that arise from diverse policy sources, climate and environmental changes, adaptation approaches and knowledge paradigms. By establishing and maintaining routines and setting iterative goals, they contribute both predictability and flexibility for knowledge sharing and policy-making. In turn, these dynamics contribute to the development of adaptive and resilient institutions that arise to implement collective goals and support sustainability transformations (Armitage et al., 2008; Hollins, 2010). In coming decades, effective sustainability transformations mechanisms will be necessary for strengthening accountabilities among parties and implementation agents. The complex problems of sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities demand multi-scale initiatives that incorporate adaptation and mitigation strategies alongside flexible and durable implementation and monitoring plans. In the international political community, as well as within individual states, a key function of accountable sustainability transformations mechanisms is to support authorities and governance systems to equip them for effectively dealing with uncertainties. This function of accountable sustainability transformations mechanisms supports individual governments and intergovernmental organisations as they endeavour to create and implement policies that support the wellbeing of their societies and maintain orderly international relations. One of the ways that accountable sustainability transformations mechanisms support governance systems is by increasing the institutional transparency of intergovernmental environmental organisations. This promotes confidence

126

B. Edmondson

Environmental accountabilities

•Inclusive membership •Knowledge sharing •Anticipatory policies •Responsibilities based decision-making •Concurrent issues management •Social-ecosystems responsibilities

Just transitions values

•Scalable solutions •Distributive sensitivites •Responsiveness to changing conditions •Dispersal of new knowledge •High levels of compliance •Collaborative policy-making and implementation

Resilience features

•Flexible membership •Responsive targets •Collaborative institutions •Anticipatory adaptation •Systemic and structural flexibility

Fig. 5.1 Functional features of sustainability transformations supporting institutions

that sustainability transformations institutions can balance risks and navigate uncertainties, while also promoting learning and knowledge sharing within and beyond formal organisational parameters. Accountable sustainability transformations mechanisms consolidate collective and individual accountabilities through their compliance and monitoring undertakings. Resilient institutions accommodate new learning into their functions. Indeed, they learn from their experiences and accommodate new knowledge into their routines and functions. In doing so, they enable both unexpected and anticipate challenges to be absorbed and/or responded to through their collaborative policy and knowledge sharing networks. These processes reinforce their adaptive resilience and responsiveness to changing conditions. As a result, durable adaptive resilient institutions emerge—and these are the very institutional forms that are now best placed to lead global sustainability transformations (see Fig. 5.1 below). Until relatively recently it has been difficult to confidently identify the institutional forms and functional characteristics that seem best placed to promote global sustainability transformations. Earlier work to progress knowledge in this area tended to focus on organisational flexibility or institutional durability—and these areas of interest largely reflected the relative immaturity of many quite newly formed

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability

127

intergovernmental organisations and other international environmental governance mechanisms. These are both now more established. Additionally, many governments have now experienced several shocks as some of the social, economic and political consequences of global climate change and environmental degradation have impacted their capacities and abilities to protect their societies from harm. In these decades of cascading ‘predictable surprises’, international institutions that support sustainability transformations will play increasingly important roles as climate change and social-ecological systems disruptions impact human communities and their economic and governance systems. It is now clear that resilient adaptive institutions that are responsive to multilevel interplay dynamics will be among the most important of these. This is partly because adaptive capacity and resilience are linked attributes for social-ecological systems. Equally, importantly, adaptive capacity and resilience are also interlinked attributes of institutions that support sustainability transformations (Gallopín, 2006). Their positive influences in dealing with uncertainty enables adaptive institutions to absorb and respond to fluctuating levels of unpredictability as climate change and other environmental challenges impact human societies. Adaptive resilient institutions can accommodate some of these unpredictabilities in their adaptation approaches and knowledge paradigms. Among their accommodation capacities and learning responsiveness features, adaptive resilient institutions recognise that social adaptation occurs at different levels of society and in different ways across different societies, as well as across diverse social-ecological systems. Transparent organisational structures, shared knowledge, identified goals and stable coalitions of interests promote resilience and adaptive capacities. Within the intergovernmental organisations and across the international political community more broadly, rule structures create order and underpin collective decisions and governance mechanisms. Their importance for durable sustainability transformations cannot be over-estimated. Without resilient adaptive institutions and collectively supported mechanisms to implement policies that take account of socialecological systems interplay and environmental accountabilities, sustainability transformations will likely remain limited to local or small-scale

128

B. Edmondson

initiatives. Their broader successes depend upon broader leadership and organisational capacities. The structural and organisational dimensions of responding to international governance, knowledge sharing and uncertainty navigating challenges posed by global climate change, social-ecosystems and environmental degradation in coming decades should present relatively simple tasks for contemporary governments and intergovernmental organisations. They are well accustomed to creating both formal and informal rules to structure their shared values and beliefs—and routinely utilise these to inform their collective responses to challenges that impact them. At core, they are unified in their responsibilities for ensuring the livelihood of their citizens and maintaining social, political and economic order. Meeting these goals requires governmental and intergovernmental acceptance of collective obligations to support adaptation and mitigation policies that prioritise the global wellbeing of social-ecological systems to ensure the survival of human societies into the future. It is, then, a relatively small step to extend these expectations to sustainability transformations. The ethical capacities and political values that states hold can be drawn upon to set new environmental accountabilities among them in relation to sustainability transformations. Just as these ethical capacities and political values have underpinned their maintenance of borders and recognition of jurisdictional authority of others, they can also support sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities (Edmondson & Levy, 2019). When states share political visions and values as sovereign authorities, they readily achieve agreements concerning the nature and benefits of a common good and take collective decisions and actions to support them. They also enable states, and the international organisations they establish, to impose collectively recognised punishments against individual states for breaches of the terms of collective agreements. In a sense, each act of compromise that states take in dealing with each other reflects their recognition of their rights and responsibilities for establishing and imposing accountabilities upon each other. States’ rights and responsibilities are supported and actualised in diplomatic norms,

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability

129

international law and institutions, including regimes and their contingent organisations. Human rights instruments, sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities mitigation, adaptation and management strategies and collective security arrangements provide meaningful examples of states’ acceptance of mutual and reciprocal accountabilities. The international political community is at a new juncture in relation to the ethical capacities and political values that are demanded of environmentally accountable states. Both individually and collectively, states are grappling with new aspirations of sustainable development and adaptation to enable sustainability transformations—because their societies, forms of production, access to fresh water, agriculturally productive land and energy sources risk potential collapse in the near or intermediate future. In doing so, they are also establishing new internal and external environmental accountabilities. Without shared ethical values that are supported by international law, the international political community will be unable to achieve just distributions of resources or maintain just institutions as states grapple with intensifying environmental threats (Buchanan, 2007; Harrington, 2022). Advocates of international justice find encouragement in observing how sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities impacts have presented new ethical debates that have led to matters of intergenerational protection and management of territory and resources becoming common themes in international political debates (Low & Gleeson, 2001; O’Neill, 2009). These arise, at least, partly from the prerogatives of statehood and the ethical exercise of state authority. As a consequence, ideas about sovereignty might be expected to change as governments, intergovernmental organisations, economic actors, civil society, social movements and individuals respond to twenty-first century environmental concerns. The roles of states as authoritative agents will likely change as responses to climate change and its effects shift towards sustainability transformations. International institutions that enable collectively accountable contemporary states to share information also establish terms and parameters of acceptable forms of behaviour that subsequently guide determinations and assessments of legitimate actions (Brennan & Buchanan, 1985).

130

B. Edmondson

These expectations and decision-making cycles within international institutions create standards of behaviour among collectively accountable contemporary states. In turn, these international standards ensure collectively accountable contemporary states’ behaviour is relatively predictable and stable and broadly conforms to internationally established expectations. International sustainability transformations mechanisms are emerging from sustained efforts to expand the sustainability ‘superstructure’ of climate change governance. They are also linked with sustained efforts to provide policy networks with new opportunities to act as sources of resilient adaptation strategies and governance mechanisms. In part, these mechanisms have become possible because of the learning and knowledge sharing roles of established international institutions. These have shown that institutional resilience is characterised by continuing regard for systems-individual sensitivities and highlighted multi-scale vulnerabilities. In combination, these lessons have reinforced understandings of the capacities of international institutions to offer predictive assessment of new risks, especially within adaptive resilient institutions underpinned by broader interlinked collaborative policy networks. Learning from these developments and dynamics has also reinforced recognition by resilient institutions regarding their limits. In the context of global climate change and its consequences, resilient adaptive institutions also recognise that not all systems can be made resilient to all types of change. This is part of the reason that contingent shifts have occurred in the monitoring and reporting required by parties in newer climate change governance mechanisms. Notwithstanding these institutional limits, newer climate change governance mechanisms provide examples of how uncertainty can provide adaptive policy catalysts for resilient institutions with integrated policy networks endeavouring to respond to current challenges and impending social-ecological systems crises. While the 2015 Paris Agreement did not reach the heights of success that were initially heralded, it nonetheless provided a watershed in extending international recognition that the obligations of governments are both rights-based and rights-promoting. It set a new foundation

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability

131

for intergovernmental acceptance that obligations exceed contractual requirements. It incorporated new inalienable moral obligations into its scope and thereby incorporated new international environmental accountabilities and responsibilities for global sustainability transformations. In short, the Paris Agreement established new environmental accountabilities and new responsibilities for governments, intergovernmental organisations and international institutions. As shown in Fig. 5.2 below, the Paris Agreement affirmed the moral duties that all states have in relation to justice for all citizens, and simultaneously affirmed states’ environmental obligations and socialecological systems accountabilities. By transforming values into policy, the Paris Agreement outlined new moral and political responsibilities for environmental accountabilities and established collective obligations for sustainability transformations. By emphasising states’ duties towards all peoples, the Paris Agreement provided a new foundation for environmentally accountable governance. This shift in collective environmental accountabilities was possible because of earlier efforts by international policy-makers, state and nongovernment representatives and experts of various kinds. By 2015, they had spent more than 20 years experimenting with institutional designs and policy frameworks that might consolidate the environmental accountabilities and improve the functionalities of climate change institutions and organisations (Edmondson & Levy, 2013). As reflected in Fig. 5.3 below, they had clearly identified key features of policy frameworks and institutional design models that lend support to sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities. The Global Environment Foundation, Adaptation Policy Framework, Clean Development Mechanism and Climate and Development Knowledge Network provide examples of sustainability transformations institutions that have established mechanisms to incorporate open technology transfers and emissions trading initiatives. They recognise institutional, regime based, collective responsibilities to identify mechanisms that might enable more just distributions of the economic burdens of environmental accountabilities and sustainability transformations. These mechanisms have incorporated ideas of global commons, or common heritage principles, into their continuing efforts to achieve effective

132

B. Edmondson

Recognition

Consent

Duties

Representation

Contracted authority

Political and moral obligation

Fig. 5.2 States’ moral duties for sustainability transformations

and durable sustainability transformations. They have focused on environmental accountabilities as the basis of agreements and institutions that might support sustainability transformations through environmental accountabilities.

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability

133

Multi-scale solutions

Internal and external responsibilities based policies

Knowledge sharing communities

Collective environmental accountabilities

Transformational capacity building

Interlinked policy networks

Transition focused leadership

Fig. 5.3 Sustainability transformations and environmental accountability: Adaptation, mitigation and social transitions

Internationally standardised expectations, norms and institutions also provide collectively accountable contemporary states with advance notice of the range of actions that others might individually or collectively accept. These expectations also enable collectively accountable contemporary states and the international political community more broadly to condemn ‘those that fall below the standard’ (Luard, 1990, p. 202). International institutions establish accepted forms of behaviour that legitimise certain behaviours, thereby creating standards that increase predictability and facilitate orderly relations between collectively accountable contemporary states.

134

B. Edmondson

Through these processes, collectively accountable contemporary states construct international norms and institutions that formally and informally govern the actions of members of the international political community. Identifying shared long-term expectations and aspirations are vital to these processes and outcomes. These dynamics provide foundations for environmentally accountable social transitions and durable sustainability transformations. Within negotiation and environmental accountabilities, political visions based on shared long-term aspirations enable compromise between diverse actors and policy reconciliation among collectively accountable contemporary states (Barry, 1986; Hurrell, 2007; Young, 2002). Creating and maintaining international agreements, such as treaties, regimes and international institutions, involve states in collective and individual environmental accountabilities. The decisions and judgements they take inevitably affect present and future relations with their own citizens and the social and political structures of their societies. They also impact upon the governmental capacities of other collectively accountable contemporary states and the life choices engaged in by their citizens (Archibugi, 2001). These parallel developments have established and reinforced relationships between organisational and institutional members and stakeholders in collaborative policy networks. Monitoring, reporting and review routines have been created and now provide opportunities for predictable communications among parties. A benefit of the predictability afforded by their ongoing communications is the reinforcement of relationships and acceptance of iterative policies as potential sources of effective problem-solving. Their routines and iterative goals provide predictability and contribute flexibility to knowledge sharing and policy networks. They also support adaptive resilient institutions by enhancing their flexibility especially ‘during times of disturbance’ and boost’ their capacities for ‘anticipatory action’ and enhance accountabilities (Tschakert & Dietrich, 2010, p. 22). As shown in Fig. 5.4 below, these attributes positively contribute to collective environmental accountabilities and shared social-ecological systems awareness. Ethical decisions to support sustainability transformations and environmental accountability thereby establish grounds for recognising that

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability

135

Enhance adaptive capacity

Strengthen resilience

Reduce vulnerability

Fig. 5.4 Sustainability transformations superstructure

sovereign collectively accountable contemporary states hold unique responsibilities and enable collectively accountable contemporary states to seek the fulfilment of their visions of a good society (Barnett, 2004; Bonanate, 1995). While there is no international consensus regarding a specific form or universalised composition of a good society, there are, nevertheless, established shared visions of good collectively accountable contemporary states. For instance, good collectively accountable contemporary states maintain and respect borders, preserve sovereign authority, protect their territories and peoples from threat (Edmondson & Levy, 2008). Good collectively accountable contemporary states contribute to international order by interacting with other states, influencing international economic relations and participating in international political decision-making (Edmondson & Levy, 2008; Krasner, 1999). Their roles reach considerably further than exercising authority over territory and citizens, and these more recent expectations require balanced assessments of potential gains and risks that take account of others. While collectively accountable contemporary states hold ubiquitous interests in self-preservation, they also hold equally pressing responsibilities arising

136

B. Edmondson

from these interests and their accommodation of them (Edmondson, 2011). Contemporary states have long engaged in formal and informal regulatory efforts that have been underpinned by collectively accountable ethical judgements. They have repeatedly created shared practices in treaty formation, diplomatic engagement and punishments for breaches of laws (Edmondson & Levy, 2008; Nardin, 1983). International law arises from the ethical capacities and political values of collectively accountable contemporary states which establish the most fundamental principles for international political conduct and structures. Collectively accountable contemporary states are both legally and morally entitled to their expressed rights of independence, legal equality and self-defence (Edmondson, 2015; Markowitz, 2012). Alongside these rights, corresponding responsibilities can be identified for ensuring that treaties are observed, human rights are respected and protected, peaceful resolutions and dispute settlements are sought when conflicts arise. The collective accountabilities of states were evident in their efforts to negotiate solutions to the international environmental crisis that emerged through the problems of ozone depletion and projections of global sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Haas et al., 1993). These efforts to identify and develop responses to new transboundary problems raised new questions concerning the roles of collectively accountable contemporary states, the scope and relevance of their authority. Their capacities to establish, maintain and accept the authority of international organisations were instrumental in enabling international agreements and supporting their implementation (Young, 2002). These international institutions provided new opportunities for identifying and establishing their national interests and priorities, and now, as mature institutions, might support collective initiatives to promote sustainability transformations through shared environmental accountabilities. The relationship between the ethical capacities and political values of collectively accountable contemporary states and their status as sovereign bodies is broadly similar to the citizenship responsibilities accorded individuals through citizenship status (Bonanate, 1995; Doty, 1996). While the nature of citizenship and the forms of rights and responsibilities that

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability

137

arise from them depend upon the political framework and authority enacted by each state, the ethical capacities and political values of collectively accountable contemporary states arise from, and depend upon, their functional status as sovereign bodies (Barnett, 2004; Barry, 1986). Hence, collectively accountable contemporary states express their ethical capacities and political values in their decisions and actions, including through their efforts to create and maintain social order, and preserve political rights for their people. In international negotiations and discussions concerning the management of global sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities, collectively accountable contemporary states continue to preserve themselves as sovereign authorities but also aspire to shift political concerns from ‘inward-looking self-interest to outward-looking concern for themselves and others’ (Edmondson & Levy, 2013, p. 295). In these and other endeavours, collectively accountable contemporary states are responsible for managing uncertainty and threats to the wellbeing of their people. These imperatives are likely to push and pull collectively accountable contemporary states towards the creation of new governance mechanisms that extend their ethical decisions and achieve their collective goals (Eckersley, 2005; Edmondson & Levy, 2013). As these dynamics intensify, effective international sustainability transformations will rely upon collective recognition of environmental accountabilities and widespread efforts towards orderly social transitions. The ethical capacities and political values of environmentally accountable contemporary states are premised upon their established responsibilities. Governments hold ethical capacities and political values because they act as authoritative agents. Their rights to exercise judgements, to determine their own interests, secure their territorial and legal embodiment are reflected in their social formation and functions. These same capacities and values, and their functional significance in establishing states’ rights, also bring inherent multi-scale responsibilities for states. Environmental accountabilities and responsibilities for sustainability transformations are among these inescapable governmental responsibilities. The formation and activities of global environmental and climate management institutions reveals the ethical capacities and political values

138

B. Edmondson

of collectively accountable contemporary states. They highlight their recognition that unfolding environmental and social-ecological systems challenges have unevenly distributed impacts that matter for sustainability transformations imperatives and have environmental accountabilities consequences.

References Archibugi, D. (2001). The politics of cosmopolitan democracy. In B. Gleeson & N. Low (Eds.), Governing for the environment: Global problems, ethics and democracy. Palgrave. Armitage, D., Marschke, M., & Plummer, R. (2008). Adaptive co-management and the paradox of learning. Global Environmental Change, 18, 86–96. Barnett, M. F. (2004). Rules for the world: International organizations in world politics. Cornell University Press. Barry, B. (1986). Can collectively accountable contemporary states be moral? International morality and the compliance problem. In A. Ellis (Ed.), Ethics and international relations. Manchester University Press. Bonanate, L. (1995). Ethics and international politics. Polity Press. Brennan, G., & Buchanan, J. M. (1985). The reason of rules. Cambridge University Press. Buchanan, A. (2007). Justice, legitimacy, and self-determination: Moral foundations for international law. Oxford University Press. Doty, R. L. (1996). Sovereignty and the nation: constructing the boundaries of national identity. In T. J. Biersteker & C. Weber (Eds.), State sovereignty as social construct. Cambridge University Press. Eckersley, R. (2005). Greening the nation-state: From exclusive to inclusive sovereignty. In J. Barry & R. Eckersley (Eds.), The state and the global ecological crisis. The MIT Press. Edmondson, B. (2011). Collective responsibilities: New principles for order in the 21st century. The Global Studies Journal, 3(4), 11–20. Edmondson, B. (2015). Collective responsibilities: A basis for order in the 21st century. In S. Litz (Ed.), Globalization and responsibility. Common Ground Publishing.

5 Sustainability Transformations and Environmental Accountability

139

Edmondson, B., & Levy, S. (2008). International relations: Nurturing reality. Pearson Education. Edmondson, B., & Levy, S. (2013). Climate change and order: The end of prosperity and democracy. Palgrave Macmillan. Edmondson, B., & Levy, S. (2019). Order and accountability in governing transforming environments. In B. Edmondson & S. Levy (Eds.), Transformative climates and accountable governance. Palgrave studies in environmental transformation, transition and accountability series. Palgrave Macmillan. Gallopín, D. C. (2006). Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity. Global Environmental Change, 16 , 293–303. Haas, P. M., Keohane, R. O., & Levy, M. A. (1993). Institutions for the Earth: Sources of effective international environmental protections. MIT Press. Harrington, A. (2022). Just transitions and the future of law and regulation. Palgrave studies in environmental transformation, transition and accountability series. Palgrave Macmillan. Hollins, L. (2010). Dealing with change, complexity and uncertainty in global sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities negotiations—is adaptiveness the answer? MSc. Thesis, Lund University. http://www.lumes.u.se/database/alumni/08.10/Thesis/Hollins_Livia_T hesis2.pdf. Accessed 14 February 2012. Hurrell, A. (2007). On global order: Power, values and the constitution of international society. Oxford University Press. Krasner, S. (1999) Sovereignty: Organized hypocrisy. Princeton University Press. Low, N., & Gleeson, B. (2001). The challenge of ethical environmental governance. In B. Gleeson & N. Low (Eds.), Governing for the environment: Global problems, ethics and democracy. Palgrave. Luard, E. (1990) International society. The MacMillan Press. Markowitz, E. (2012, September 26). The moral case of sustainability transformations and environmental accountabilities. Climate Science and Policy, 243–247. www.climatescienceandpolicy.eu/2012/09/the-moral-caseof-climate-change/ Nardin, T. (1983). Law, morality and the relations of collectively accountable contemporary states. Princeton University Press. O’Neill, K. (2009). The environment and international relations. Cambridge University Press.

140

B. Edmondson

Tschakert, P., & Dietrich, K. A. (2010). Anticipatory learning for climate change adaptation and resilience. Ecology and Society, 15 (2), 11. http://www. ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss2/art11/ Young, O. (2002). The institutional dimensions of environmental change: Fit, interplay, and scale. MIT Press.

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially Constrained Contexts Siddharth Sareen , Shayan Shokrgozar , Renée Neven-Scharnigg , Bérénice Girard , Abigail Martin , and Steven A. Wolf

Introduction Calls for integrating social commitments into sustainability transitions are strengthening, as evidenced by policy agendas at multiple levels, including the pursuit of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), the numerous programmes announced at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the growing number of national and subnational just transition initiatives. Beyond public policy S. Sareen (B) · R. Neven-Scharnigg · B. Girard · A. Martin · S. A. Wolf Department of Media and Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway e-mail: [email protected] S. Sareen · S. Shokrgozar Department of Geography, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_6

141

142

S. Sareen et al.

contexts, commitments to just transitions are also expressed in commercial domains such as value chains and green project finance. As the just transition agenda expands, so too does the spotlight on questions of whose vision of equity is advanced by low-carbon policies, regulations and investments. Clearer understanding of how accountability—understood as social relations of oversight—manifests within specific low-carbon policy trajectories and geographies can help shed light on who and what is required to meet sustainability targets. This chapter examines pressures for just transitions— i.e. time-bound shifts to lower-carbon energy systems that address issues of equity and justice— as one emergent strand of environmental accountabilities (McCauley & Heffron, 2018; Newell & Mulvaney, 2013). As previously asserted by Sareen and Wolf (2021), empirical study of changes in accountability relations linked to expressions of new values, expectations and patterns of allocation of subsidies and sanctions can advance critical analysis of environmental governance (also see Kraft & Wolf, 2018). Through two case studies—Rajasthan and Portugal—our aim is to illuminate how accountability relationships that are shaping solar energy rollouts in financially constrained, irradiation-rich contexts accommodate societal concerns for equity and justice alongside aspirations of a low-carbon transition. By financial constraints, we refer to aspects such as high-energy sector debt, austerity measures in the public sector, high rates of energy poverty and an acute concern with affordability. Contexts with financial constraints have been under-studied in solar rollout scholarship, which has tended to focus on early movers until the 2020s. Yet such contexts bring questions of accountability into stark relief, as A. Martin Science Policy Research Unit, School of Business, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK Department of Environmental Science, University of California, Policy & Management, Berkeley, CA, USA S. A. Wolf Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

143

investment in low-carbon transitions takes place not due to abundance but despite scarcity, which makes questions of resource allocation politically charged. For instance, financial constraints historically functioned to limit displacement of coal power, with right-wing political criticism of public spending on renewable energy in post-recession Portugal and taut choices in Rajasthan where millions—especially subsistence agricultural households—still lack adequate access to electricity (Sareen, 2021). Yet competitive solar costs have changed these dynamics. Furthermore, high irradiation, i.e. high intensity sunlight, and many productive annual solar hours can potentially alleviate some of these concerns, as these enhance the economic competitiveness of solar rollout; hence such contexts are of interest to understand emerging trends before they become widespread in the global solar boom underway. Studying solar expansion in financially constrained contexts minimises some of the distracting elements present in other contexts, such as systematic net-zero greenwashing (e.g. the UK and Norway’s massive public investments in carbon removal technologies to legitimate continued fossil-fuel production as low carbon) and accounting tricks like carbon offsetting and trans-local burden-shifting. It also expands the traditional focus in transition studies on frontrunner contexts, such as Germany with its early investment in the ‘Energiewende’ or Gujarat with its pioneering role within Indian solar rollout. Under financial constraints, discourses and policies that prioritise the accumulation strategies of a few electricity producers can undermine widespread demands for more just and equitable energy transitions, such as the socalled right to energy discourses that emphasise affordability as a basic component of electricity planning and provision. The Rajasthan and Portugal case studies show that fiscal austerity and debt can shape the public imagination of solar power transitions, especially in the aftermath of government bailouts of the electricity distribution sector in Rajasthan and with Portugal’s partial transfer of ownership in electricity transmission infrastructure to China. In such circumstances, the pursuit of solar transitions that deliver sustainability, equity and justice outcomes, but lack clear access to capital and favourable market conditions, may encounter political resistance.

144

S. Sareen et al.

The cases also emphasise the socio-materiality of environmental accountabilities. As a cost-competitive lower-carbon technology, solar now has the potential to contribute to a lower-carbon transition in line with diverse principles of sustainability, justice and equity. This is due to rapid cost declines during the 2010s which has brought the technology below cost parity with fossil fuels worldwide, and due to the modular nature of solar energy which can be installed at multiple scales, enabling spatial distribution and small-scale ownership. As Lovins (1976) argued well nigh half a century ago, community- and household-scale solar holds great promise for just sustainability, and our analysis emphasises attention to scale in energy transitions. Yet the extent to which solar energy can achieve this depends on temporal energy generation rhythms and on spatial patterns, such as how solar technologies and market models integrate with existing energy infrastructures, market models and discourses. Moreover, increasing penetration of solar energy on electricity grids demands a closer look at the specific forms of commodification that electrical energy assumes, which in turn conditions the technoeconomic structure of electricity markets and the very ontology of energy infrastructure itself. Through a combination of pre-pandemic fieldwork (in 2016 in Rajasthan and 2017–2019 in Portugal) as well as desk study during 2021–2022 to inform ongoing fieldwork in 2022, we analyse both contexts in order to identify the accountability pressures, mechanisms and relationships emerging in these rapidly evolving solar sectors. Each case highlights how government commitments to ambitious lowercarbon targets premised on rapid solar energy rollout amid financial constraints intersect with societal concerns about justice and equity, such as energy poverty as well as ownership and control over energy infrastructure. This analysis promotes a dialogue between environmental governance and transition studies to generate new insights into environmental accountabilities in relation to the societal ambitions for just transitions. This ambition acknowledges real-world constraints while seeking out imaginaries that can engender ‘respect for, but also critical reflection on the diverse and nuanced experiences, perceptions and caring concerns associated with being within energy webs in transition’ (Damgaard et al., 2022, p. 9). Such imaginaries can shape futures of

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

145

ecovillages and energy communities by harnessing accountability shifts during transitions to energy justice and more convivial living conditions.

An Accounting of Environmental Accountabilities During just Transitions Accountability is a relational concept that implies (i) account giving through disclosures or audits, (ii) assessment of accounts in relation to some standards or expectations and (iii) allocation of rewards and sanctions based on the outcome of these assessments. By focusing on accountability ‘tests’, we emphasise processes of social regulation and discipline. Specifically, accountability mechanisms can be understood as pathways through which norms are institutionalised and (potentially) enforced (Kraft & Wolf, 2018). In framing accountability in these terms, we emphasise that accountability is not necessarily democratic, science-based, procedurally consistent, pro-environmental or socially progressive. While there is potential for emergence of widely shared norms and accountability controls consistent with just energy transitions (i.e. progressive accountability), there is also a significant likelihood of authoritarian or populist governance arrangements organised around continued commitments to fossil fuels and/or energy transitions that deepen existing inequality (i.e. regressive accountability). In addition to these opposed stark scenarios, there is every reason to expect a deepening of existing tendencies to mobilise rhetoric, symbols and metrics to advance just energy transitions in ways that are decoupled from behavioural change, reallocation of subsidies and retargeting of sanctions (i.e. hollow accountability). Accountability should be understood as an ambiguous reference applied to social regulation and sustainability transitions (see Sareen & Wolf [2021] for elaboration of axes of diversity in accountability regimes). The framework advanced by this study is consistent with the widely established understanding of accountability as a social relationship between an accountor and accountee, wherein information flows enable the accountor to evaluate and potentially sanction the accountee

146

S. Sareen et al.

(Bovens, 2007). Accountors thus legitimate accountees, helping to establish or maintain the values, norms, informal rules and other institutional structures that determine the standards of legitimacy applied to a specific set of governing organisations (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Accountees recursively legitimate accountors by recognising their authority. Legitimacy as a basis to exercise (and through mutual recognition also constitute) authority is central to an institutionalist perspective. Thus, we understand practices of accountability as governance arrangements embedded in a broader set of social relations and existing institutional environments. A diverse range of actors, property relations, rules and norms determine whether governance arrangements flourish, collapse or change; thus the ‘formation and erosion of legitimacy is linked to the emergence of new relationships among public, private and civil society organizations’ (Kraft & Wolf, 2018, p. 88). Correspondingly, empirical assessment of accountability presents opportunities to evaluate sustainability transitions critically. It can go beyond characterising attitudes, norms and values (social psychology) and cognitive/ontological frames (discourse analysis). Analysis of the evolving normative commitments and enforcement mechanisms that structure accountability regimes in a territorially bounded sector (such as energy in Rajasthan or Portugal) positions analysts to evaluate the nature and pace of changes in environmental governance. The effort to investigate accountability tests moves us beyond the important work in recent years on transparency (Gupta & Mason, 2014) which is premised on concepts of deliberation and empowerment-through-information (Mol, 2006) and the work on metrics inspired by science and technology studies (Ghosh & Wolf, 2021; Sareen, 2020). In characterising this intellectual context, we emphasise that we understand study of accountability as a complement, not a substitute, for these existing analytical traditions. While it is seductive to imagine the possibility of producing a clear and integrated characterisation of the status and trajectory of relations of accountability applied, for example, to solar energy rollout in Portugal, it is likely that the situation is complex and contradictory. We identify two central challenges in arguing for empirical analysis of accountability as an element of a methodological toolkit for engaging sustainability transitions. Our hope is that researchers will engage these issues to advance

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

147

understanding of accountability and of the interplay between processes of social regulation and sustainability. Given our motivation to focus on financially constrained contexts due to their under-studied nature and scope for such case studies to inform imminent action, we place emphasis on the second challenge in this chapter. The first challenge is the extraordinary diversity of understandings attached to accountability, which provides actors and analysts leeway in what they choose to address. As Koppell (2005, p. 94) has described it, accountability can be interpreted and evaluated as ‘transparency, liability, controllability, responsibility and responsiveness’. This diversity gives rise to ‘multiple accountability disorder’, as actors emphasise different facets of accountability in their roles as accountors and accountees. At present, terminology, definitions and conceptual frames are not widely shared (Fox, 2022). For example, consider the word sanction. The verb sanction can be defined as to authorise as legitimate, and it can be defined as to penalise a transgression. This linguistic contradiction points to deep ambiguity attached to fundamental institutions that structure relations of authority, rights and responsibilities. In undertaking analysis across two case studies, we maintain a consistent conceptual frame inflected in line with contextual diversity. The second analytical challenge lies in the diverse and potentially contradictory character of the accountabilities that actors face in financially constrained contexts. Just as governments confront an imperative to realise environmental security for their citizens, they confront an imperative to generate jobs, tax revenues and a reasonable balance of international trade. These aspects are particularly pronounced in financially constrained contexts, where failure to ensure adequate affordable energy is often penalised at the votebank, as interest groups coalesce around access to energy as a central concern of politics. Commercial firms similarly face expectations from shareholders, creditors, investors, workers, customers, regulators and the communities in which they operate. The nature of these expectations and accountability relationships exhibits considerable difference. This difference presents practical challenges for actors seeking to satisfy accountability demands, and analytical challenges for researchers analysing the pressures that actors face and

148

S. Sareen et al.

their actions in response. Our analysis of two case studies seeks to capture some sense of this diversity.

An Analysis of Solar Rollout in Two Financially Constrained Contexts In taking up these challenges through two case analyses, our aim is to highlight the processes through which governments, commercial firms and civil society actors at various levels of jurisdiction in Portugal and the Indian state of Rajasthan attempt to change and maintain accountability relationships in the electricity sector in order to achieve specific outcomes. We pay attention to the unique institutional landscapes and social relations these actors must navigate, borne from past eras of fossilfuel electricity provision, in order to press for specific outcomes within a general orientation to just energy transitions. Our primary concern is for how accountability relationships enable or constrain the meanings and material possibilities for just transition outcomes. By attempting to link governance outcomes (i.e. persistence, change, rupture) to accountability discourses and structures, both cases aim to contribute to research on environmental governance more broadly. We especially probe questions of how governance arrangements change over time as a function of shifts in accountees’ and accountors’ legitimacy requirements (Kraft & Wolf, 2018). Our treatment of accountability relations, legitimacy requirements and governance arrangements is not an end point. Rather, the empirics represent a snapshot of two territorially bounded electricity sectors. We employ a tripartite analytical framework to guide our analysis of each case study: (i) institutional context, (ii) political economic framing and (iii) scalar biases and just transition opportunities. This approach treats accountability as a relational concept that operates differently in diverse contexts. In each case, the emergence of new accountability relationships among public, private and civil society organisations concerning just solar energy transitions is ongoing and dynamic. Our focus is on both the emergent and shifting public discourses concerning accountability in solar-based transitions, as well as the well-established

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

149

artefacts of accountability (e.g. Kraft & Wolf, 2018), with the caveat that the latter tend to bring focus to incumbent fossil-fuel based electricity governance, rather than to solar energy transitions. Thus, we combine our institutional analysis with an interpretive approach to understand the roles of ideas and discourses in the formation of accountability relations in public policy (Bevir, 2004; Bevir et al., 2003; Isaza, 2017) for expanded solar rollouts. Below, we summarise how the empirical features of each case context correspond to the analytical framework. Institutional context: Each case begins by attending to the contemporary features of the country’s institutional context related to energy policy and energy transition planning. This includes official government visioning statements, energy targets, policies, regulatory initiatives and other laws, rules and policy structures being implemented or pursued by the government with the expressed goal of expanding solar energy production or consumption. Here, we underscore the ways in which understandings of financial constraint and austerity shape governmental actors’ visions for the future of solar rollout in each context. In Rajasthan, the context is conditioned by heavy existing reliance on cheap coal plants, whereas Portugal has recently exited coal but continues with some fuel oil and gas plants alongside hydropower and wind energy. Whereas Rajasthan has several public and some urban private electricity distribution utilities, Portugal has a dominant incumbent multinational energy company. While Rajasthan is perceived as a privileged space of development for solar in line with India’s ambitious rollout targets (100 gigawatts (GW) solar energy by 2022 and 500 GW renewable energy by 2030, of which 280 GW is envisaged as solar), Portugal plays a similar role as a member state of the European Union with its ‘Fit for 55’ target of 55% emission reduction by 2030. Political economic framing: Second, we consider framings about what solar expansion should accomplish. Towards this, we examine statesociety pressures and priorities for electricity sector reform, showcasing tensions within official public discourse about the meaning and value of solar energy transitions. This includes discourse on who bears the costs of transitions, how financial constraints will be exacerbated or resolved, and what constitutes ‘efficiency’ in achieving desired policy outcomes. It also includes debates about who bears the costs of transitions and who

150

S. Sareen et al.

captures value, including questions about the right to energy, energy affordability and energy poverty. A particular focus in Rajasthan is on issues of property relations and land dispossession, namely green grabbing experienced by agrarian and pastoral communities fighting to keep their communal land from solar firms (also see Stock & Birkenholtz, 2021). This trend is undergirded by the discursive construction of wastelands in the state Solar Energy Policy and an understanding of development as warranting sacrifice for progress. Such issues have a long history in India’s development trajectory, where national priorities have often ridden roughshod over existing local land uses, notably in hydropower development and mining. In Portugal, the rollout is conditioned by its political economic conditions of emergence after poorly constructed wind power contracts in the 2000s whose costs burden Portuguese residents into the 2020s, and by the post-austerity reality of a country heavily impacted by the economic recession of 2008–2015. This makes cost-competitiveness a key focus in solar rollout debates. Scalar biases and just transition opportunities: Having established the institutional context and particularities of transition debates and discourses, each case analysis then details how solar rollouts have unfolded. In both cases, we bring noteworthy opportunities to advance just transitions to the fore. We argue that solar rollouts in both cases reflect a scalar bias that threatens to undermine societal pressures for specific just transition outcomes. Benefits flow to large actors at a distance based on large-scale ownership, while local communities bear the brunt of land-use changes without control over solar rollout modalities. This bias may be the product of particular emergent configurations of accountability relations between the state and large project developers that work to privilege certain accumlulation strategies over others— prioritising implementation, ownership and control at particular scales (typically higher) over others (typically lower). The Ultra Mega Solar Power Project in Rajasthan emerges as part of a longer history of mega projects, in which a policy concern with financial constraints tends to justify land dispossession and heavy environmental degradation as tolerable outcomes in the service of development trajectories that promise prosperity for some ‘greater’ good. Contrasting subaltern narratives and examples—such as rural entrepreneurship initiatives

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

151

for broader empowerment intertwined with low-carbon transitions— point to the attendant development benefits of small-scale solar projects, particularly in rural reaches with limited electricity access with need and scope for far more support than public programmes for small-scale decentralised solar energy have provided. In Portugal, a scalar bias has privileged big solar developers over small-scale solar projects, due to favourable policies within the political economy of subsidy-free energy transitions. Yet tense debates about who benefits from solar rollouts have prompted legislative changes from 2020 onwards, enabling small- and medium-scale solar projects to proliferate, with participation from both the incumbent company and newer actors.

Rajasthan Institutional context: Amidst heated global debates on just transitions, lower-carbon energy infrastructure expansion—including solar rollout— has grown in importance for both climate mitigation and meeting the needs of a growing economy in Rajasthan. With 7% of global annual emissions, India is the third-largest carbon emitter and its share is growing (Crippa et al., 2021), following China and the USA.1 70% of India’s electricity is fossil-based, most derived from coal plants (MNRE, 2021). Rajasthan is no exception, hence energy source transitions are key to emission reduction. With per capita electricity consumption well below the global average, and large disparities across regions and incomes, electricity capacity increases are key for a growing economy to meet domestic needs and improve energy security through reduced reliance on energy imports. National energy policy shows that commitment to energy justice inflects accountability relations in the energy transition, through subsidised basic electricity access and progressive tariffs. Solar energy promises to alleviate energy access and security concerns, combining India´s high solar

1 On a per-capita basis, an Indian today emits less than a UK citizen in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Thus, on a cumulative scale at 3% of cumulative global emissions, India’s responsibility relative to colonial and imperial powers (e.g. USA with 25%) is limited.

152

S. Sareen et al.

potential at 750 GW, and the modularity of solar generation for rapid, decentralised, scalable rollout in low-grid connectivity areas. Consequently, India targets: 500 GW of lower-carbon energy by 2030, halving carbon-intensive energy sources; emission intensity reduced by 45% per unit of economic growth relative to 2005 within a context of continuing growth; and net-zero emissions by 2070. Rajasthan plays a central role in meeting India’s solar targets. Rajasthan’s Solar Energy Policy states ‘The State has vast and largely untapped potential in terms of intense solar radiation, one of the highest number of sunny days in a year and availability of vast barren/uncultivable unutilised government/private land. This has potential to make Rajasthan a highly preferred destination for solar energy at the global level’ (Government of Rajasthan, 2019, p. 9). Its 140 GW solar potential and best irradiation rate in the country are reflected in having India’s highest installed capacity, and hosting the world’s largest solar facility, Bhadla, which alone constitutes over 2 GW (MNRE, 2021). Rajasthan’s solar projects aid India’s National Solar Mission to reach 100 GW of solar installed capacity by 2022. Political economic framing: In a context that prioritises development over mitigation efforts (Pillai & Dubash, 2021), resource allocation to energy transitions is difficult to justify given chronic economic poverty and financial constraints (Sareen & Shokrgozar, 2022). Yet since 2015, solar plants have passed grid parity in Rajasthan, out-competing coal and other conventional sources (Sareen & Kale, 2018). This development coincides with a period where environmental governance has departed from so-called common but differentiated responsibilities amongst countries of the North and South towards a ‘co-benefits’ approach in which India has shifted its image to show commitment to international mitigation efforts. Conspicuous solar ambitions of expanding electricity capacity while honouring obligations to reduce emissions are emblematic of this period. As Pillai and Dubash (2021, p. 594) assert, Indian climate politics are characterised by opportunism—‘an approach that prioritizes traditional developmental objectives but admits, and sometimes expediently emphasizes the language of mitigation in government’. They argue that opportunism diffuses climate policy across various

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

153

ministries, leading to a lack of cohesive policy ambition to alter overarching priorities. Such an opportunistic approach is inconsistent with strong accountability to environmental outcomes. Strengthening highlevel strategic oversight demands strong climate institutions that can steer change, confront countervailing forces and put strong accountability relations in place (Dubash, 2021). A case in point is India’s net-zero by 2070 target. Net-zero narratives feature key uncertainties like costly or non-existent technologies, embodying a ‘burn now, pay later’ principle rather than a precautionary one. These non-effectual trends extend India’s economic dependence on toxic extractive practices. A recent World Bank report noted that lower-carbon energy sources are more mineral-intensive than fossil fuels (Hund et al., 2020); moreover, solar rollouts are currently characterised by a net appropriation of Global South labour and resources, with India trailing only China in this regard (Dorninger et al., 2021). Scalar biases and just transition opportunities: The implementation of solar ambitions in Rajasthan betrays a clear preference for utilityscale projects (Sareen & Kale, 2018), i.e. solar plants that run from a few to several hundred megawatts, costing millions of dollars with massive land footprints. This implementation constitutes a scalar bias whereby ‘legal-regulatory and political-economic structural conditions favour utility-scale roll-out over roll-out at local and community scales’ (Sareen & Haarstad, 2021, p. 25). Correspondingly, Shidore and Busby (2019) deconstruct the narrative that the push for solar energy is predicated on improving energy access or mitigating climate change, arguing that such priorities would have promoted small, decentralised and offgrid solar plants rather than the utility-scale ones that have become ubiquitous. Partly, a competitive advantage to large players through the creation of Special Economic Zones which are inaccessible to mediumand small-scale developers drive this scalar bias (Sareen & Kale, 2018); partly, it is written into policy. The Rajasthan Solar Energy Policy, for example, targets 30 GW of solar by 2025, of which 24 GW is envisaged from utility-scale solar facilities (Government of Rajasthan, 2019). This is a missed opportunity to reverse historically biased energy sector relations of accountability that work against rural areas and small actors and in favour of incumbent powers with superior access to large capital.

154

S. Sareen et al.

Thus, while rapid rollout targets crowd national and urban visions, the neglect of ordinary users’ needs manifests through the biopolitics of rural energy infrastructure. Stock and Birkenholtz (2021) point out that India’s solar rollout is driving land dispossession and green grabbing through the discursive construction of wastelands under the pretext of climate mitigation; Rajasthan’s Solar Energy Policy reflects this trait by employing terms such as ‘barren’ and ‘uncultivable’ to refer to land. This drives interventions in marginalised areas, where catering to hegemonic desires inflicts violence on agrarian and pastoral communities, such as villagers in Rajasthan who fight solar firms to keep their communal land (Pardikar, 2021). These trends are consistent with the post-industrial history of energy, which has sustained capitalism and entrenched relations of power (Daggett, 2019). Malm (2016) shows how the triumph of coal over traditional sources of power such as water mills was not due to viability or affordability, but rather because it helped owners weaken accountability to labourers, e.g. for social protection upon being uprooted from local mills and strong communities and becoming contract workers at urban coal plants. The unjust history of energy has led scholars to argue that ‘a thorough overhaul of the energy system could and should provide multiple openings for rethinking, rather than merely reproducing, our political economic system’ (McCarthy, 2015, p. 2499). The modular nature of solar technology offers scope to reorient its rollout to serve the interests of ordinary people over incumbent powers through decentralised production and solar prosuming, yet it is curtailed in favour of maintaining hegemonic relations of accountability in energy trade and revenue flows. The Rajasthan case analysis brings into focus what the reconfiguration of accountability relations can enable for ownership and control of new solar energy infrastructures by energy-poor rural residents to co-define energy futures. Moreover, local solar module manufacturing can create local livelihoods and supply chains. While limited so far, emergent examples of such initiatives suggest pathways to provide decent living and energy services to ordinary people (Rao et al., 2019) while remaining within planetary boundaries (Keyßer & Lenzen, 2021). These depart from unexamined ideological commitments to a growth-driven

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

155

world on a finite planet that risk perpetuating commodification and privatisation of Rajasthan’s rural commons.

Portugal Institutional context: Our account of the main broader contextual elements that influence changes in accountability relations during the solar rollout in Portugal first focuses on key structural developments of recent decades, then discusses key challenges and opportunities for the 2020s. Like other human practices, energy practices are cultural. These practices, interwoven with material conditions, create a historical backdrop and constitute the broader socio-political context of the solar rollout. Until 2022, solar energy represents only a fraction of total energy generation in Portugal, and has thus far only increased at a marginal pace, progressing in recent years from 1 to 2% of annual electricity generation (IEA, 2021). Since 2000, national electricity production and consumption have nearly doubled (ibid.). While wind and hydropower play important roles in electricity generation, their share in overall energy generation is modest, and the energy mix remains dominated by fossil fuels. Although many southern Portuguese households have long made use of solar thermal to heat water, solar photovoltaic energy has not been a significant energy source in Portuguese energy practices historically. But this looks set to change, with a target to rapidly expand solar installed capacity, which had just crossed 1 GW by 2020, to 9 GW by 2030, already reflected in a historical high in rollout during 2021. This is part of the National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) 2030, through which Portugal aims to generate 80% of its electricity from renewable energy sources. Decarbonisation of other sectors is more modest, wherein electrification is envisaged to play a later role, for instance through increased electric vehicle usage until 2030 and investments to strengthen the electric grid (Miranda & Delgado, 2020). These policies require firm political support. While the governing coalition has pursued increasingly ambitious energy transition policies since Portugal exited the economic recession in the mid-2010s, and was re-elected in 2019, snap elections called in late 2021 underscored the risk of political

156

S. Sareen et al.

instability, in that instance due to a state budget deadlock (Euronews, 2021), which was resolved in early 2022. Renewable energy sources have been subsidised since the 2000s (Behrens et al., 2016), but poorly designed wind contracts in the 2000s led to debt and public backlash, and solar subsidies were cut back in the 2010s, when a financial crunch squeezed state coffers (Sareen, 2020). Yet unsubsidised projects have blossomed since 2017 when solar energy attained grid parity, with Portugal setting world records at large-scale solar auctions in both 2019 and 2020. However, small- and mediumscale solar has lagged behind. Overall, justice issues feature frequently in public debates on the Portuguese energy sector, with increasing attention to high rates of energy poverty. The advent of cost-competitive solar can help alleviate energy poverty (Nordholm & Sareen, 2021), but its impact depends on the modalities and scale of solar rollout. Political economic framing: Portugal is a country where a significant part of the population (over a fifth, though estimates vary based on a variety of chosen indicators) struggles with energy poverty, an intractable policy issue. During economic crisis years of 2008–2015, a Socialist Party led coalition came to power in 2011 on a platform framing renewable energy as burdening taxpayers, highlighting sectoral debt. This limited options for the traditionally pro-renewables Social Democrats coalition once it regained power in 2015, with Portugal’s gradual emergence from austerity politics tempering scope for subsidies to solar energy. Unlike most Western European countries, Portugal has relatively low wages but high electricity prices, which makes the cost of energy a politically sensitive matter (Querido, 2020). Yet with solar rollout becoming widely recognised as cost-competitive by 2019, the discourse on and material conditions for energy transitions have shifted to the point where the minister of environment declared that solar energy would decrease energy bills in 2022 (Diario de Noticias, 2021). Thus, interlinked discourses and material conditions of energy transition are undergoing reconfiguration (Feenstra & Özerol, 2021). This reconfiguration structures the accountability relations that condition solar rollout (Sareen, 2020). The state’s framing of solar rollout as being socially desirable and a core component of the NECP 2030 and the

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

157

Carbon Neutrality Roadmap 2050 reflects a positive sectoral political economy. Scalar biases and just transition opportunities: Since an uptick in solar rollout from the late 2010s onwards, solar development in Portugal shows characteristics of what is referred to as scalar bias as a broader sectoral trend (Sareen & Haarstad, 2021). Utility-scale solar plants that extend over tens or even hundreds of hectares in rural stretches represent most new installed capacity, suggesting persistent unfavourable conditions for rapid diffusion at smaller scales closer to energy demand (Jornal de Noticias, 2021). Plants worth hundreds of megawatts have been constructed and a new one of 1.14 GW has been approved as the largest in Europe, characterised by large-scale ownership based on foreign investment. This limits the redistributive justice effects attributed to smalland community-scale projects that realise the modular potential of solar energy for more decentralised ownership (Nordholm & Sareen, 2021), as actors such as Portugal’s first solar energy cooperative Coopérnico (established 2013) have emphasised in efforts to legitimate greater legislative enablement at these scales (Sareen, 2020), where a policy push has been distinctly lacking. Notably, from 2020 onwards, new legislation enables economically viable community solar projects, paving the way for techno-economic models that facilitate solar prosuming to neighbouring buildings through distribution grids with a reasonable rate of return (Silva, 2021). During 2021–2022, several collective self-consumption projects have begun to emerge, based on a variety of scalable models stemming both from the incumbent energy company Energias de Portugal and by entrants with investment capital such as Cleanwatts; yet energy communities with citizen-led initiatives struggle to take off. This augurs well for an expansion from a few pilot projects to hundreds of collective self-consumption projects (Cinco Dias, 2021; Edificios Energia, 2021), albeit with limited potential for democratising energy if they take place within a corporateled model. Cleanwatts alone aims to establish dozens of such projects using software as a service to enable multiple nodes of consumption for medium-sized solar plants (in the range of tens to hundreds of kilowatts) at the neighbourhood scale.

158

S. Sareen et al.

Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially Constrained Contexts Both case analyses reveal rapid changes in the energy sector (rapid deployment of solar energy over the past decade in Rajasthan, and an evolving position on solar rollout in Portugal with accelerating increase in solar installed capacity), as well as targets, policies and project pipelines to substantially increase solar installed capacity over the next decade. These rapid changes are fuelled by the recent alignment of economic and environmental goals, with solar energy having achieved grid parity and continuing to become more and more financially attractive to governments and investors (cheaper than coal in India, and seen as a way to reduce electricity tariffs in Portugal). These significant changes are supported by ambitious targets set by political actors (9 GW of solar energy in Portugal by 2030 and 80% from lower-carbon sources by 2030, and 100 GW of solar energy by 2022 in India and 500 GW of lower-carbon energy by 2030 including 280 GW solar). These are striking changes from the beginning of the 2010s, when political support for solar in both countries was much more muted. In Portugal, solar was indeed framed as an expensive burden to taxpayers, while in India, the initial solar target of the government was 20 GW by 2022. The changes since then point to broader shifts in accountability relations among evolving fields of solar sector actors. With slightly different timeframes on solar rollout, with Portugal lagging behind Rajasthan, both contexts appear to have seized the opportunity to green their energy systems while reducing the unit cost of energy. This is particularly noteworth given that the production and consumption of electricity has constantly increased in both cases. This points to a crucial aspect of the environmental accountabilities at play: they are closely wedded to aspirational values such as growth in wellbeing and living standards in both contexts, despite their different energy development levels in a broader sense (where Portugal is positioned well ahead of Rajasthan). This speaks to the first challenge of how accountability is constructed through actors’ practices—not as a radical reconfiguration of motivations for societal action, but as a reorientation based on technological opportunities. Governance actors recognised the

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

159

scope of these openings to shift the sectoral political economy, and put in place institutional enablements (discursive, legislative, bureaucratic, technocratic and financial) to reorient energy development within the broader accountability relations of capitalist, centralised energy sectors, aiming to change energy sources rather than spatial scales of ownership and control. In 2022, there is scope for solar rollouts to yield social benefits by improving energy access and alleviating energy poverty through reduced electricity tariffs. But such a just energy transition rests on the transfer of benefits from lower-cost solar energy generation to energy end users, for which little evidence is forthcoming. Parsing this in terms of environmental accountabilities, we see a ‘carbon accounting’ modality at work, rather than one that recognises and prioritises social gains. Accountability is narrowly construed to refer to low-carbon shifts (whose extent remains open to question in terms of comprehensive carbon accounting), regardless of whether these happen on the supply- or demand side, and equivocal to who benefits or bears related burdens. This is evident in the prioritisation of rapid large-scale solar rollouts, led by powerful actors with superior access to hard and soft capital, with little attention to lifecycle issues or related impacts on land, livelihoods and local energy needs. Consequently, both cases reveal missed opportunities for sectoral reconfiguration. First, rollout targets mainly focus on the electricity sector. Transport, heating and related sectors are rarely addressed in conjunction (or marginally, as in the case of solar thermal to heat water and solar pumps for agriculture). Decision-making and target-setting processes operate top-down, directed by political economic pressures rather than a social prerogative. This sectoral bounding of environmental accountabilities lacks a systems thinking approach to ‘whole energy systems’, instead focusing on solar deployment in isolation. This runs the risk of missing timely synergies, such as decarbonisation potential across sectors, situated needs related to spatial deployment linked with sectors such as agriculture, and scope for complementary technological rollout (e.g. electric two-wheeler charging with solar), associated technoeconomic models and cross-sectoral regulations. Accountability remains confined to traditional energy sector boundaries, rather than opening up

160

S. Sareen et al.

scope for wider changes in societal power relations and energy practices in an as-yet-undefined lower-carbon future. Both cases exhibit a strong scalar bias towards utility-scale solar, fuelled by economies of scale and political pressure to meet environmental targets. These technically construed targets (installed capacity, percentage of electricity produced) limit the reconfiguration of accountability relations, tending to favour incumbent actors and large private players who bring major investments at utility scale. Rajasthan’s mega projects exemplify persistent historical traits of gigantic projects that drive land dispossession, and Portugal’s solar rollout is taking over large swathes of rural land. Though this bias is pervasive worldwide (Kramarz et al., 2021; Scheidel & Sorman, 2012), we suggest that the push is strongly felt in financially constrained contexts, where lower-carbon and growth imperatives propel a powerful juggernaut of ecomodernist progress that aligns action with reified environmental targets over more situated social concerns. This is closely related to our earlier insight about reductive ‘carbon accounting’. Scalar biases in rollout clearly correlate with social effects and the distribution of benefits and burdens across actors, yet transition metrics lack enforcement mechanisms for particular justice outcomes (e.g. low progress on rooftop solar installation targets in Rajasthan). This lacuna on sanctions, coupled with concessions and regulatory easing for large-scale solar plants, structures environmental accountability in a manner that prioritises rapid rather than just transitions, with large supply-side actors shaping policy agendas and implementation, and reaping correspondingly large shares of resultant benefits. This has historical precedent in terms of dynamics of lopsided profit sharing, through wind energy subsidies in the 2000s captured by energy companies in Portugal, and a land dispossession and ‘plug-and-play’ model for solar parks in Rajasthan in the 2010s. Yet, the emergence of a legal framework in Portugal that reduces barriers for small- and community-scale solar from 2020 onwards, backed by the emergence of new actors and techno-economic models, does constitute hope for shifts in accountability relations. Despite Rajasthan’s weak target of 6 GW of decentralised solar (of which 4 GW distributed generation, 1 GW rooftop solar and 1 GW solar pumps)

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

161

out of a 30-GW solar policy target, ad-hoc small-scale models have emerged as corrolary to government policies (e.g. Frontier Markets, see Weerakoon & Kasraie [2019]) and independent of them (e.g. Barefoot College, see Mininni [2022]). Our desk study cannot shed light on praxis, but notes these initiatives as important in terms of the potential they hold for deeper changes in accountability relations if they succeed at scale. Such emergent initiatives can be interpreted either as ‘too little too late’ to ‘sustain the unsustainable’ (Blühdorn, 2007) as a legitimation device, or they can be read to constitute a kernel of scalable possibility. Indeed, Cleanwatts with its dozens of similar energy communities planned to crop up across Portugal in 2022 can be seen to constitute a plausible alternative configuration of lower-carbon systems that bring control and ownership closer to users. Rather than being mutually exclusive with large-scale, spatially concentrated solar plants (which can be complemented by long-distance transmission and battery storage for flexibility that is temporally important to energy sector managers), these techno-economic models can enable competing forms of environmental accountabilities that transcend a carbon accountability focus. Attributing value to distributive effects and the enhancement of social wellbeing can, over time, change societal values of how energy is regarded and understood. Small- and medium-scale solar energy initiatives in this sense represent a space of possibility to not only implement but also transform the nature of environmental accountability at play, in a manner that may well gain traction in financially constrained contexts with heightened social justice concerns. In conclusion, both contexts show rapid strides towards lower-carbon electricity, but with slower progress from a systems perspective. Consideration of energy justice aspects reveals problematic tendencies being institutionalised in both ongoing rollouts. Solar modularity and scalability have attracted limited investment and emphasis, neglecting the redistributive effects of small- and community-scale solar, and normalising a supply-side-led transition that reproduces centralised control and ownership. Lacking the systematic green industrial policies that have nurtured solar prosumers and spurred rooftop solar rollout in many North American and European markets, our case studies of financially

162

S. Sareen et al.

constrained contexts show more continuity than change in the accountability relationships that drive rapid expansion in both these electricity sectors. Promisingly, this structured analysis shows that characterisation of environmental accountabilities can enable incisive and context-specific identification of problematic trends and desirable pathways for just transitions beyond reductive carbon accounting, and towards a fuller appreciation of the potential for holistic progress in transitions to sustainability.

References Behrens, P., Rodrigues, J. F., Brás, T., & Silva, C. (2016). Environmental, economic, and social impacts of feed-in tariffs: A Portuguese perspective 2000–2010. Applied Energy, 173, 309–319. Bevir, M. (2004). Governance and interpretation: What are the implications of postfoundationalism? Public Administration, 82(3), 605–625. Bevir, M., Rhodes, R., & Weller, P. (2003). Traditions of governance: Interpreting the changing role of the public sector. Public Administration, 81(1), 1–17. Blühdorn, I. (2007). Sustaining the unsustainable: Symbolic politics and the politics of simulation. Environmental Politics, 16 (2), 251–275. Bovens, M. (2007). Analysing and assessing accountability: A conceptual framework 1. European Law Journal, 13(4), 447–468. Cinco Dias. (2021). EDP instala en Zaragoza el primer ‘barrio solar’. Cinco Dias. https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2020/06/03/companias/ 1591185674_755672.html. Accessed 14 November 2021. Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Muntean, M., Schaaf, E., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Banja, M., Olivier, J. G. J., Vignati, E., Solazzo, E., Grassi, G., Rossi, S., European Commission, & Joint Research Centre. (2021). GHG emissions of all world: 2021 report. https://op.europa.eu/publication/manifestation_iden tifier/PUB_KJNA30831ENN Daggett, C. N. (2019). The birth of energy: Fossil fuels, thermodynamics, and the politics of work. Duke University Press.

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

163

Damgaard, C. S., McCauley, D., & Reid, L. (2022). Towards energy care ethics: Exploring ethical implications of relationality within energy systems in transition. Energy Research and Social Science, 84, 102356. Diario de noticias. (2021). Matos Fernandes. Eletricidade a partir de renováveis baixa fatura em 2022 e impulsiona mobilidade mais verde. Diairio de noticias. https://www.dn.pt/dinheiro/matos-fernandes-eletricidade-a-partir-derenovaveis-baixa-fatura-em-2022-e-impulsiona-mobilidade-mais-verde-142 38514.html. Accessed 12 November 2021. Dorninger, C., Hornborg, A., Abson, D. J., von Wehrden, H., Schaffartzik, A., Giljum, S., Engler, J.-O., Feller, R. L., Hubacek, K., & Wieland, H. (2021). Global patterns of ecologically unequal exchange: Implications for sustainability in the 21st century. Ecological Economics, 179, 106824. Dubash, N. K. (2021). Varieties of climate governance: The emergence and functioning of climate institutions. Environmental Politics, 30 (sup1), 1–25. Edificios Energia. (2021). Nova comunidade de energia nasce em miranda do douro. Edificios Energia. https://edificioseenergia.pt/noticias/comunidadeenergia-miranda-do-douro-2508/. Accessed 14 November 2021. Euronews (2021) Early election called in Portugal after MPs reject Socialists’ budget. Euronews . https://www.euronews.com/2021/11/04/por tugal-set-for-election-as-president-prepares-to-dissolve-parliament. Accessed 14 November 2021. Feenstra, M., & Özerol, G. (2021). Energy justice as a search light for genderenergy nexus: Towards a conceptual framework. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 138, 110668. Fox, J. (2022). Accountability keywords. Accountability Working Paper 11. Accountability Research Center. Ghosh, R., & Wolf, S. (2021). Hybrid governance and performances of environmental accounting. Journal of Environmental Management, 284, 111995. Government of Rajasthan. (2019). Rajasthan Solar Energy Policy, 2019 (pp. 1– 46). Energy Department. Gupta, A., & Mason, M., (Eds.). (2014). Transparency in global environmental governance: Critical perspectives. MIT Press. Hund, K., Porta, D. L., Fabregas, T. P., Laing, T., & Drexhage, J. (2020). The mineral intensity of the clean energy transition (p. 112). https://pubdocs.wor ldbank.org/en/961711588875536384/Minerals-for-Climate-Action-TheMineral-Intensity-of-the-Clean-Energy-Transition.pdf

164

S. Sareen et al.

International Energy Agency (IEA). (2021). Portugal. Energy and climate policy. IEA. https://www.iea.org/reports/portugal-2021. Accessed 11 November 2021. Isaza, C. (2017). From discourses to policy: Analyzing the creation of an accountability discourse in Colombia. International Journal of Public Administration, 40 (11), 942–953. Jornal de Notícias. (2021, Agosto ). Portugal produz menos energia a partir de fonte solar do que Inglaterra. Jornal de Noticias. https://www.jn.pt/nac ional/portugal-produz-menos-energia-a-partir-de-fonte-solar-do-que-inglat erra-14025608.html. Accessed 14 November 2021. Keyßer, L. T., & Lenzen, M. (2021). 1.5°C degrowth scenarios suggest the need for new mitigation pathways. Nature Communications, 12(1), 2676. Koppell, J. G. (2005). Pathologies of accountability: ICANN and the challenge of “multiple accountabilities disorder.” Public Administration Review, 65 (1), 94–108. Kraft, B., & Wolf, S. (2018). Through the lens of accountability: Analyzing legitimacy in environmental governance. Organization & Environment, 31(1), 70–92. Kramarz, T., Park, S., & Johnson, C. (2021). Governing the dark side of renewable energy: A typology of global displacements. Energy Research & Social Science, 74, 101902. Lovins, A. B. (1976). Energy strategy: The road not taken. Foreign Affairs, 55, 65. Malm, A. (2016). Fossil capital: The rise of steam-power and the roots of global warming. Verso. McCarthy, J. (2015). A socioecological fix to capitalist crisis and climate change? The possibilities and limits of renewable energy. Environment and Planning a: Economy and Space, 47 (12), 2485–2502. McCauley, D., & Heffron, R. (2018). Just transition: Integrating climate, energy and environmental justice. Energy Policy, 119, 1–7. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340–363. Mininni, G. M. (2022). The Barefoot College ‘eco-village’approach to women’s entrepreneurship in energy. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 42, 112–123. MNRE (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy). (2021). Annual Report 2020–2021 (p. 174). MNRE.

6 Accountable Solar Energy Transitions in Financially …

165

Miranda, J. L., & Delgado, C. J. (2020). Determinants of electric car purchase intention in Portugal. In D. Crowther & S. Seifi (Eds.), Governance and sustainability developments in corporate governance and responsibility, 15 (pp. 161–172). Emerald Publishing Limited. Mol, A. P. (2006). Environmental governance in the information age: The emergence of informational governance. Environment and Planning c: Government and Policy, 24 (4), 497–514. Newell, P., & Mulvaney, D. (2013). The political economy of the ‘just transition’. The Geographical Journal, 179 (2), 132–140. Nordholm, A., & Sareen, S. (2021). Scalar containments of energy justice and its democratic discontents: Solar power and energy poverty alleviation. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 3, 626683. Pardikar, R. (2021, August 16). A dharna here, a court victory there: How Rajasthan villages try to keep their land from solar firms. Down to Earth. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/renewable-energy/a-dharna-herea-court-victory-there-how-rajasthan-villages-try-to-keep-their-land-fromsolar-firms-78479. Accessed 14 February 2022. Pillai, A. V., & Dubash, N. K. (2021). The limits of opportunism: The uneven emergence of climate institutions in India. Environmental Politics, 30 (sup1), 93–117. Querido, A. R. G. (2020). Assessing energy poverty in Portugal: A new methodology approach. Doctoral dissertation, Universidade de Coimbra. Rao, N. D., Min, J., & Mastrucci, A. (2019). Energy requirements for decent living in India, Brazil and South Africa. Nature Energy, 4 (12), 1025–1032. Sareen, S. (2021). Scalar biases in solar photovoltaic uptake Socio-materiality, regulatory inertia and politics. In A. Kumar, J. Höffken, & A. Pols (Eds.), Dilemmas of energy transitions in the Global South: Balancing urgency and justice (pp. 78–92). Routledge. Sareen, S. (2020). Metrics for an accountable energy transition? Legitimating the governance of solar uptake. Geoforum, 114, 30–39. Sareen, S., & Haarstad, H. (2021). Decision-making and scalar biases in solar photovoltaics roll-out. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 51, 24–29. Sareen, S., & Kale, S. S. (2018). Solar ‘power’: Socio-political dynamics of infrastructural development in two Western Indian states. Energy Research & Social Science, 41, 270–278. Sareen, S., & Shokrgozar, S. (2022). Desert geographies: Solar energy governance for just transitions. Globalizations, 1–17.

166

S. Sareen et al.

Sareen, S., & Wolf, S. A. (2021). Accountability and sustainability transitions. Ecological Economics, 185, 107056. Scheidel, A., & Sorman, A. H. (2012). Energy transitions and the global land rush: Ultimate drivers and persistent consequences. Global Environmental Change, 22(3), 588–595. Shidore, S., & Busby, J. W. (2019). What explains India’s embrace of solar? State-led energy transition in a developmental polity. Energy Policy, 129, 1179–1189. Silva, B. (2021). Nova lei promete “revolucionar” comunidades de energia em Portugal. EcoSapo. https://eco.sapo.pt/2021/05/29/nova-lei-promete-revolu cionar-comunidades-de-energia-em-portugal/. Accessed 14 November 2021. Stock, R., & Birkenholtz, T. (2021). The sun and the scythe: Energy dispossessions and the agrarian question of labor in solar parks. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 48(5), 984–1007. Weerakoon, C., & Kasraie, S. (2019). Doing more with less in a financially restrained market: Motives, processes, and outcomes. In A. McMurray & G. A. de Waal (Eds.), Frugal innovation: A global research companion (pp. 179– 195). Routledge.

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics for Environmentally Accountable and Transformative Policy in a Changing Climate: The Case of Australia’s EPBC Act Josephine Mummery and Jane Mummery

Introduction Australia provides an interesting case for exploring how environmental accountabilities and the context of a changing climate are reflected in national environmental policy and governance, and how well they support sustainable outcomes. Unlike many other developed nations, Australia is highly biodiverse, with large numbers of species and combinations of ecological processes found nowhere else (Steffen et al., 2009), and of high conservation and cultural significance. Since European colonisation of the continent, however, landscape change has been rapid J. Mummery University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia J. Mummery (B) Federation University Australia, Ballarat, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_7

167

168

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

and extensive, and biodiversity loss and environmental decline substantial, and climate change now poses an additional and far-reaching threat to Australia’s biodiversity (Cresswell & Murphy, 2016). There is a clear need for transformed approaches to environmental management that enable the conservation and sustainability of biodiversity in a changing climate. With regard to the governance capacities relevant to the management of complex environmental problems, Australia has strong climate change and environment research and knowledge generation capabilities (in, e.g., climate science and meteorology, energy, water, agriculture, infrastructure, adaptation, disaster preparedness and response; see Commonwealth of Australia, 2019b). The large majority of this research is funded by national and state governments through publicly funded research agencies, universities, and also in partnership with industry in cooperative research centres and rural research and development corporations. Australia also possesses a stable system of government, a skilled and respected legal system and a relatively robust Fourth Estate. Furthermore, Australia has experience in design and delivery of cross-jurisdictional approaches and partnerships for the management of broadscale environmental problems, such as water flows in the Murray–Darling Basin, loss of natural capital in agricultural regions and emissions of synthetic greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances (see, e.g., Campbell et al., 2017; Mummery, 2021; Pittock & Finlayson, 2011). Such capacities not only inform design and implementation of current environmental policy and legislation, but have the potential to enable the building of broad cross-functional support for strong environmental accountability measures. National policy and legislation are important means to achieving environmental accountability, and the effectiveness of such means, including the priority afforded the environment in policy implementation, is critical for realisation of the transformations needed for biodiversity conservation and sustainability. In this chapter, we explore how well Australia’s national environmental legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), has tackled the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, and consider how strengthening its environmental accountability could better support such transformations.

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

169

After elaboration of relevant concepts from environmental accountability research, this chapter explores how well the EPBC Act and its implementation demonstrate environmental accountability in Australia, and then synthesises three problematics in its design and implementation which, we argue, have constrained the Act’s effectiveness regarding environmental accountability and realisation of its goals. As will be illustrated, these problematics arise from tendencies of segregation between human and nonhuman cultures, between science and policy and practice, and between sectoral scopes of policy. Our proposal is that these three segregation problematics must be identified and addressed as barriers to enabling comprehensive environmental accountability in order for conservation and sustainability goals to be achieved through the implementation of policy and legislation.

Environmental Accountability for Biodiversity Conservation in a Changing Climate Despite the establishment and implementation of multiple policies for biodiversity conservation and environmental accountability, and legislation that seeks to protect matters of national environmental significance, including threatened species and communities, Australia’s biodiversity is in a state of crisis. Over the last 200 years, Australia has the highest rate of mammalian extinction in the world, with two mammals lost in the last decade alone (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019c). There are now more than 1,800 plant and animal species and ecological communities at risk of extinction, a number that is increasing and also likely to be an underestimate (Cresswell & Murphy, 2016). The Australian Government’s most recent State of the Environment report concluded that Australia’s biodiversity has declined further since 2011 with no decrease in the main pressures faced by native plants and animals, namely habitat loss and degradation, climate change, land use practices and invasive plant and animal species (Cresswell & Murphy, 2016). Scientific research now reveals that the magnitude and scale of climate change threatens to undermine efforts to conserve and sustainably manage biodiversity, with substantial losses of aquatic, marine and terrestrial biodiversity

170

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

likely including in Australia’s globally significant biodiversity hotspots (Cresswell & Murphy, 2016; Lindenmayer et al., 2010; Steffen et al., 2009). Climate change to date has also already impacted significantly on Australia’s biodiversity, including causing extensive mortality of key marine habitat forming organisms (coral, kelp, seagrass, and mangroves), and losses of freshwater habitat and biodiversity (Babcock et al., 2019; Pittock & Finlayson, 2011). Collectively, the impacts of climate change in Australia are projected to transcend single systems and have cascading effects through whole environments, including the ecosystem services and resources valued by humans, as well as impacting human well-being itself. These severe challenges of climate change and environmental degradation call for responsive and anticipatory national policy to centrally position action to stem biodiversity loss and enhance environmental resilience at multiple scales. Recognition that the safe operating boundaries of the global environment are being exceeded highlights that human activities are collectively driving planetary change and that fundamental reconfigurations of the relationships between humans and the natural environment are needed for sustainability (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). Indeed, such reconfigurations have become recognised as the key to a sustainable future, meaning one which “integrate[s] people and planet across scales, and can be defined as attaining human prosperity and social inclusion within a stable and resilient Earth system” (TWI2050, 2018, p. 5), with no further loss of natural capital. Achieving such a future in full will require intensive global partnership and engagement, bringing together governments at all levels, the private sector, civil society, the United Nations system and other actors, as well as requiring the mobilisation of all available resources. Nonetheless, sovereign states and their governments, typically having authority and responsibility for environmental governance, public good considerations and citizen wellbeing, have critical roles in the framing, enabling and sustaining of these reconfigurations. The emerging body of environmental accountability research provides a useful conceptual base to explore how effective governance for biodiversity conservation, environmental resilience and broader ideals of sustainability can be orchestrated in a changing climate. Accountability is both

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

171

a concept and a process which, through a combination of procedural and normative expectations, frames what can be considered appropriate and legitimate in political and economic fields (e.g., Stevenson & Dryzek, 2014). In practice, accountability refers to responsibility and obligation for desired performance, the traceable measurement and reporting mechanisms that facilitate public scrutiny and hold the actions of responsible actors to account, and the values that determine what is considered to be of accounting significance (Andrew, 2001). Accountability thus has an ethical, democratic or public interest intent (Orozco, 2006) which can expose inequities and inequalities, and empower people and institutions to advocate and demand that responsible actors meet agreed standards (Andrew, 2001). A purpose of environmental accountability, then, is to enhance the accountability of all relevant actors and institutions to mitigate environmental damage and reverse the trend of environmental loss and degradation. In this way, environmental accountability holds potential to help progress practices of effective environmental management and transitions towards sustainability (Bebbington, 1997; Bebbington & Unerman, 2020). However, despite this potential, environmental accountability practice can still reflect assumptions that embed narrow neoclassical economic frameworks, monetary dependence and short periodicities that suit business interests (Andrew, 2001; Jones, 2010; Kramarz & Park, 2016, 2017; Lohmann, 2009). The embedding of such assumptions can over time result in wider environmental and ethical considerations being subordinated in accountability approaches, which can act as a barrier to steps to realise improved environmental outcomes and the transformations needed for sustainability. Indeed, conventional understandings and practices of environmental accountability—and the environmental policies, practices and institutions they have informed—have been recognised as having failed to facilitate adequate attention to climate change and sustainability and stem biodiversity losses globally and in Australia (see, e.g., Lindenmayer et al., 2010; Pittock & Finlayson, 2011; Saintilan et al., 2019). The complexity and worsening state of contemporary environmental challenges in Australia and globally is increasingly leading to a questioning of traditional economic, ethical and accounting assumptions,

172

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

and a search for more holistic approaches that can recognise the interdependence of organisations and the environment and help operationalise more environmentally sensitive practice (Jones, 2010). In response, environmental accountability research seeks to extend core accounting concepts such as responsibility, the capacity of publics to hold authority to account, and transparency, to improve environmental problem-solving as well as the responsiveness of stakeholders affected by environmental problems (Kramarz & Park, 2016; Marrone et al., 2020). Through its capacity to make visible environmental deterioration, the allocation of responsibility for environmental action, and how environmental measurement standards need to align with planetary boundaries, environmental accountability research has the potential to contribute to a transformation of practices and to agenda-setting for sustainability transitions (Bebbington, 1997; Bebbington & Unerman, 2020; Marrone et al., 2020). In particular, bridging environmental accountability approaches with insights from sustainability transformation research provides a reminder that as the Anthropocene places a stronger focus on interactions with an adaptive earth system, ways will need to be found to articulate these interactions and the responsibilities that arise from them. This framing foregrounds the need for environmental accountability to better consider dynamic biophysical thresholds, the causes and interconnectedness of environmental change, extended time frames that include future generations and planetary boundaries to ensure that development occurs within the limits of nature (Bebbington, 2001; Gibassier & Alcouffe, 2018; Milne, 1996). These forms of connectivity within the interlinked socialenvironmental earth system also need to be understood as engendering complex and at times chaotic changes. These insights will in turn require new and better targeted forms of accounting (Bebbington et al., 2019), able to make clearer contributions to deliberate and adaptive steps to reduce the drivers of environmental degradation. Such steps need to reorient attention to the environmental ends sought, enable transparent examination of likely conflicts and resistances and challenge the dominant procedural view of accountability with its corresponding subordination of ethical and sustainability components (Kramarz & Park, 2016, 2017; Lohmann, 2009). We argue that new operational perspectives,

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

173

ways and mechanisms are needed that connect awareness of the longterm effects of both climate change impacts and environmental decisionmaking to environmental accountability and management practices, and ensure resulting insights are implemented through policy and legislation. Given that such ways and mechanisms would in effect interlock the desired ends (e.g., biodiversity conservation, transformation towards sustainability) with the means of environmental accountability, their lack constrains the capacity of environmental accountability approaches to be fit for purpose in the Anthropocene. The manifest shape and repercussions of this lack are, we contend, clearly visible through consideration of the effectiveness of Australia’s EPBC Act.

Examining the EPBC Act Design and Operation of the EPBC Act The first comprehensive attempt to define the environmental responsibilities of the Australian Commonwealth, the EPBC Act was designed to focus Commonwealth interests on matters of national environmental significance, establish a streamlined environmental assessment and approvals process as concerns such matters, and put in place an integrated regime for biodiversity conservation and the management of important protected areas. The EPBC Act recognises nine matters of national environmental significance: world heritage properties, national heritage places, wetlands of international importance (listed under the Ramsar Convention), listed nationally threatened species and ecological communities, migratory species protected under international agreements, Commonwealth marine areas, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, nuclear actions (including uranium mining) and water resources (in relation to coal seam gas development and large coal mining development). The EPBC Act also encompasses actions that have a significant impact on the environment and that affect, or are taken on, Commonwealth land, or are carried out by a Commonwealth agency (even if that impact is not on one of the nine matters of national environmental significance).

174

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

In practice, the Commonwealth Environment Minister has responsibilities for decision-making regarding the objectives of the Act, primarily to provide for the protection of the environment and to conserve Australian biodiversity. All land and sea (and seabed) use actions that have, or are likely to have, a significant deleterious impact on a matter of national environmental significance require an approval from this Minister. The approvals process spans decisions on whether the action should be assessed under the EPBC Act, and whether it should be approved or declined. In making these decisions, the Minister must consider both long-term and short-term economic, environmental, social and equitable considerations, assessment reports on the anticipated impacts of the action, comments from other Ministers and the principles of ecologically sustainable development (Environment Australia, 1999). Actions that are lawful continuations of land, sea or seabed uses from before the commencement of the Act are exempt from requiring an approval (Environment Australia, 1999). Beyond approvals, the Act seeks to ensure that recovery plans are made for listed threatened species and ecological communities, and that a threat abatement plan is developed for key threatening processes to those species or ecological communities if this is considered a feasible, effective and efficient way to abate the threat (Environment Australia, 1999). Of note, despite the now recognised significance of climate change for biodiversity conservation, the Act has not been amended to require assessment of impacts from an action under future climate change scenarios. The Act reflects environmental accountability procedural concepts through its clear allocation of responsibility for the listing of nationally threatened native species and ecological communities, and for recovery and threat abatement planning. Further, such plans prepared to date have been made publicly available. Capacities for wider publics to hold decision-makers to account are also arguably supported through transparent and robust reporting, including five-yearly authoritative state of the environment reports, and ten-yearly independent reviews of the operation of the Act and the extent to which its objects have been achieved. Analysis carried out for the 2019 Senate Inquiry into Faunal Extinction and the associated review of the Act shows substantial failings in

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

175

the achievement of the Act’s objects. Specifically, analysis showed that existing federal and state laws (including the EPBC Act) designed to prevent native animal species and populations from being injured, or their overall presence endangered through loss of habitat or by other threats, are weak, and poorly implemented and regulated (Australian National Audit Office, 2020; Commonwealth of Australia, 2019c). With regard to the protection of habitat for threatened species, research shows that between 2000 (when the legislation was enacted) and 2017, 7.7 million hectares of threatened species habitat was cleared or destroyed in Australia, and 1,390 (85%) of terrestrial threatened species have experienced habitat loss within their range (Ward et al., 2019). Of note, despite its significance, some 74% of this cleared habitat was not deemed a controlled action requiring approval to proceed (Ward et al., 2019). In addition, while the legislation provides for recovery plans, no such plans for ecosystems or habitats have yet been developed (Akhtar-Khavari & Richardson, 2020). That between 76 and 93% of endemic Australian plants lack an extinction risk assessment is also impacting on the capacity to protect vulnerable and endangered species (Alfonzetti et al., 2020). Indeed, both the interim and final report stated that despite the stated purpose of the EPBC Act, Australia has become a global leader in “faunal extinction and decreasing biodiversity” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019c, p. 61; also see Australian Conservation Foundation, 2020). In the words of the chair of the inquiry, Senator Janet Rice, The most important issue to arise from the Inquiry thus far is how totally inadequate our current Federal legislation is in terms of protecting the environment. We’re dealing with the drivers of extinction. The EPBC Act is totally inadequate to deal with the situation—the problem is there’s no framework for protection. (as cited in Arnold, 2019)

The EPBC Act and Environmental Accountabilities Several factors, including the long-term insufficiency of government funding for environmental management, have been identified to help explain the outcome failures of the EPBC Act, many of which point to gaps between the means and ends of environmental accountability.

176

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

Not only is the Act lacking effective mechanisms to both describe or measure desired environmental outcomes, and ensure decisions are made in a way that contributes to those outcomes, but the transactional nature of the Act’s operation, with its focus on individual actions and projectby-project development assessment, is particularly problematic as it fails to identify, consider or manage cumulative impacts (Samuel, 2020). One factor which can help in understanding the Act’s poor record for robust environmental accountability arises from characteristics of Australia’s economic development and its traditions of political authority. Australia’s export economy has traditionally relied on exploitation of natural resources through agriculture and mining which has generated governance that both facilitates this exploitation and mistrusts measures that might require change to this economy (e.g., Tangney & Howes, 2016). Thus, while the EPBC Act requires consideration of both longterm and short-term economic, environmental, social and equitable factors, in practice three quarters of these considerations—specifically economic, social and equitable—are already weighted towards the privileging of economic interests. This is because, under neoliberal ideology, social and equitable considerations are considered best achieved via sustained economic growth, and economic growth models remain geared towards the exploitation of nature (Adelman, 2017; Mundt, 1993). As such, the EPBC Act, despite its objectives, illustrates in practice a preference to maintain vested human economic interests over enabling strong environmental accountability. This preference can be discerned in several ways. The first is that the Act is designed to not challenge land, sea or seabed use projects that were approved before the commencement of the Act—and before stronger policy recognition of the transformational needs for biodiversity conservation in the Anthropocene. Such projects include the ten regional forestry agreements (RFAs) in Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Western Australia which permit continued native forest logging in areas important for the protection of threatened species (Lindenmayer & Burnett, 2021; Samuel, 2020). Agreements between state and federal governments have meant that proposals to log in such native forests are not required to be approved through the EPBC Act, even given extensive breaches of logging codes of practice and logging being demonstrably unsustainable

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

177

in terms of its environmental impacts (Lindenmayer & Burnett, 2021; also see Kearney et al., 2019; Lindenmayer et al., 2020). Such weighting of economic over conservation aims is also exemplified by petroleum and other mining exploration projects not being excluded from many marine park areas despite their potential significant environmental impacts (see, e.g., Bell et al., 2014; Delany-Crowe et al., 2019). Implementation of the EPBC Act’s offset policy, established in 2012, has also, perversely, resulted in an ongoing loss and decline of habitat through privileging developer (economic) interests over environment protection (Samuel, 2020). Through offsets, developers are required to compensate for unavoidable environmental impacts such as habitat loss, mostly by protecting areas of habitat similar to the area destroyed or damaged by the project (Gibbons & Lindenmayer, 2007). While the policy specifies a hierarchy of environmental impact avoidance, mitigation and offsetting, a proponent’s decision to develop a particular site has generally already been made before a referral is made under the EPBC Act, limiting real consideration of impact avoidance (Samuel, 2020). Further, offset conditions are not adequately monitored and efforts to enforce compliance are weak (Samuel, 2020). There is also no transparency of the location, quality or quantity of offsets, and in some cases development projects that have not identified suitable offsets have still been approved on condition that the company would “look for an offset down the track” (Kilvert, 2020). Finally, offsetting schemes rarely deliver effective conservation and protection measures for existing populations of threatened species (Hosking, 2020). Critical approaches to environmental accountability research also call for consideration of how key governance mechanisms respond to the climate change and sustainability challenges of the Anthropocene. Science has an important role in providing the evidence base for policy and governance reform to support transitions towards sustainability, and as noted in section “Introduction”, Australia has strong climate change and environment knowledge generation capabilities. However, while robust science exists that demonstrates the urgency that must now be given to habitat restoration and the protection of endangered species and communities, current settings in the EPBC Act do not incentivise effective ecological restoration (Lindenmayer et al., 2010; Ward

178

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

et al., 2019). There is strong expertise within the Threatened Species Scientific Committee, but the terms of reference of the Committee, as prescribed in the legislation, limit the advisory capacity of members to, primarily, advise on the amendment and updating of lists of threatened species and communities, and on the development of recovery and threat abatement plans. The noted lack of mechanisms in the Act to measure environmental outcomes, including monitoring, also limits the capacity of emerging science and scientific advisers to build the case for reform of policy and practice (ANAO, 2020). Such disconnection between available scientific expertise and the measures enabled towards environmental accountability through the EPBC Act can be discerned on a number of fronts, demonstrating what can be called a weak science, policy and practice interface. One such weakness in the ability of the EPBC Act to improve Australia’s environmental accountability outcomes by engaging with robust environmental science is visible in the ongoing reticence of governments to recognise and address habitat loss, notably from agricultural and other development, as a threat to biodiversity conservation. For instance, the Australian Government’s Species Profiles and Threats Database which stores information on Australian plant and animal species listed under the EPBC Act, has historically listed “invasive species and disease” as the most prevalent of a set of key threats impacting on nationally threatened Australian fauna and flora (Allek et al., 2018; Kearney et al., 2019). That is, it does not identify habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation as threats (Ward et al., 2021), despite clear evidence of their negative impacts on biodiversity conservation. Indeed, habitat loss through land clearing has been identified as having contributed to a similar number of extinctions in Australia (62 species) as introduced animals such as feral cats (64) (Ritchie et al., 2021). The vegetation communities that underpin habitat of species of national environmental significance, which extend across landscapes managed often for intensive or extensive agricultural purposes, also generally receive no federal protection under the EPBC Act until they have already been extensively cleared and identified as being under significant threat (Tulloch et al., 2016). Further to this, climate change is not explicitly recognised as a threat in the legislation, despite the existence of strong scientific evidence

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

179

of a large and increasing threat as indicated in section “Environmental Accountability for Biodiversity Conservation in a Changing Climate”. It is also increasingly apparent that sectoral policy scopes generate and reinforce hard barriers between, for instance, protected areas under the EPBC Act and off-reserve conservation management. Off-reserve conservation refers to conservation practices carried out on private land or on Crown land potentially subject to production forestry or agriculture or other practices. Much suitable habitat for many species of national environmental significance is found off-reserve, and such conservation practices can be very important for the recovery of species and ecological communities, particularly in a changing climate where the spatial distribution of suitable habitat can shift. Of concern, there are almost no examples in Australia where off-reserve conservation initiatives have been robustly integrated with protected area management to underpin conservation outcomes across tenures (Lindenmayer et al., 2010). Efforts to date can be characterised as fragmented and not in alignment with the scale of the problems. Multiple programmes have aimed to encourage ecological restoration across Australian landscapes and numerous niche examples of best practice have emerged, but a lack of incentives and inadequate resourcing, failures in integration and incessant restructuring, among other factors, have limited restoration outcomes to particular districts or properties and they risk not being maintained into the future (Campbell et al., 2017). Restoration programme goals have rarely been enabled by sufficient resources, and Wintle et al. (2019), for example, find that for threatened species recovery efforts to be successful, an approximately 20-fold increase in funding from that currently allocated will be required. Challenges here are further exacerbated by expectations that private landholders have rights to exploit natural resources for economic benefit, and a clear reluctance from the agriculture sector to comply effectively with EPBC referral requirements despite dominating national land clearing activities (ANAO, 2020; Evans, 2016; Ward et al., 2019). Not only has the EPBC Act been proven ineffective with reference to its own environmental conservation aims—the ends and means disconnection referred to earlier—but robust environmental accountability clearly also requires coherence between the policy intent and

180

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

implementation of the EPBC Act and wider policies at multiple scales. There are, however, additional gaps in the alignment of the Act with Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2019–2030, which identifies the importance of adaptive management and the address of climate change but perhaps unsurprisingly lacks compliance obligations (Commonwealth of Australia, 2019a). Weak integration between the EPBC legislation and management plans to guide practice has also been detrimental to the conservation of migratory species and their habitat (Miller et al., 2018). Similarly, Australia’s commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity, including targets to enhance biodiversity conservation offreserve, are not currently facilitated by the Act. Collectively, the EPBC Act with its reluctance to constrain economic development, a weak science, policy and practice interface, and poor coherence with wider environmental policy, establishes barriers to the achievement of sustainability goals and effective environmental accountability in a changing climate. It is thus unsurprising that the EPBC Act has delivered “managed decline, not sustainable maintenance or recovery […] Stabilisation of decline or a net improvement in the state of the environment cannot be achieved under the current system” (Samuel, 2020, p. 44). Analysing and understanding the basis for these failures is the focus of the next sections.

Three Problematics It is in the context of these gaps between the design (ends) and implementation (means) of the EPBC Act that we discern three problematics of segregation that we consider need to be addressed for the achievement of effective environmental conservation and accountability. Segregating, or keeping one thing separate from another, is a longstanding, widely employed, even perhaps ingrained, model of human thinking that enables the summarising and management of complexity (Lakoff, 1990). The problem is that segregation processes can also entail oversimplification through amplifying the importance of both similarities and differences among items. This can occlude not only complexity, but the presence of spectrums and processes and the possibility of other models

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

181

for the organisation of different items and the giving of value. An overreliance on segregation can thus lead to treating the members of a category as if they were more alike than they are; amplifying differences between categories and members of different categories; discriminating, favouring certain categories over others; and fossilising, treating identified categories as if they were static. In the context of the implementation of the EPBC Act, segregation processes have likely contributed to an undervaluation of nationally significant species and ecosystems, a narrow recognition of threats, and a constrained approach to recovery planning that requires substantial off-reserve conservation action. Segregation concepts and processes are also relevant to the analysis of governance and policy as both tend to be produced and carried out through often deeply siloed organisations with different departments or areas operating with varying forms of “tunnel vision” as if they were segregated from each other (Rosenbloom et al., 2010, p. 33). Of note, the silo is the principal organisational form for governments in many countries including Australia (e.g., Scott & Gong, 2021). While the hierarchical and vertically coordinated characteristics of siloed organisations can deliver goods and services efficiently and develop relevant expertise for that delivery, such models also contain weaknesses. A tendency for “tunnel vision” or inward-looking perspectives that narrowly conceive goals to align with organisational silo aims and boundaries can result in problematic failures of horizontal communication and coordination and an inability to resolve jurisdictional disputes with other departments or organisations (Tett, 2015). Deeply siloed organisations may have difficulties, then, in taking responsibility for and robustly making inroads into cross-functional and systemic problems—such as those posed by the impacts of climate change and environmental deterioration. They can also struggle in effectively collaborating with the breadth of industry and community actors needed for solution identification and implementation. These are problems of a tendency towards segregation. The following three subsections identify and explore three problematics in segregation which we consider occlude the ability of environmental policies such as the EPBC Act to effectively improve Australia’s environmental accountability and facilitate sustainability transformations. As we illustrate, these problematics arise around the tendency

182

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

to segregate human from nonhuman interests and to value the former over the latter (problematic 1), to segregate between different forms of knowledge and to devalue (certain forms of ) scientific knowledge within the policy arena (problematic 2), and to leave unchallenged the segregation between sectoral scopes of policy (problematic 3). As we outline below, each of these has differentially limited the EPBC Act with regard to its capacity when implemented to facilitate robust environmental accountability.

Between Human and Ecological Cultures A first problematic of segregation that has proven particularly important with regard to the desired ends of the EPBC Act arises with the longstanding effort to segregate human from ecological cultures, as well as the value model of anthropocentrism which typically inhabits such segregation. Referring to human centredness and, typically, an assumption of human superiority, anthropocentrism finds it normal that only human interests could count in any significant way. From this viewpoint, nonhuman nature is seen as radically separate from humans and as of lesser (or no) importance other than as potential human resources (Barua, 2019; Burns, 2014; Kopnina et al., 2018). This is the view nonhuman nature has only instrumental value, for instance, resource extraction or amenity. Anthropocentric practices thus take nature to be a free input able to be exploited in the pursuit of economic growth allowing economic transactions to only focus on extraction and product development costs (Mundt, 1993). These ideas have undergirded projects of modernism, capitalism and colonialism as well as contemporary neoliberal economic and political systems (Adelman, 2017). Such systems have normalised the idea that the “destruction of natural systems and domination and extinction of other animals” is an inevitable, if regrettable, result of human development (Boyd et al., 2015, p. ix). Although awareness is certainly growing regarding the importance of collapsing such segregation between human and ecological cultures for improving environmental accountabilities, biodiversity conservation

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

183

and sustainability transformation, the legacy of anthropocentrism and its inherent reliance on a model of segregation remains embedded in such policies as the EPBC Act. This legacy also underwrites the consistent inability of those administering the EPBC Act to close the loopholes that continue to grant exemptions for practices that deliver shortterm economic benefits to humans while further endangering multiple threatened species and ecological communities.

Between Science, and Policy and Practice The second problematic arises from the disjunct between robust scientific knowledge regarding safe planetary operating boundaries and the requirements for restoring degraded ecological communities, and the forms of knowledge and understanding which drive much policy and practice. In recent decades, scientific knowledge has become very important in informing environmental policymaking, including through clarification of the nature and causes of environmental problems (Dunn et al., 2018; van Enst et al., 2014). However, policy is also generated from and reflects the values underpinning the contemporary political and economic system. In Australia, the characteristics of an anthropocentric neoliberal ideology strongly influence public policy (Baldwin et al., 2019; Miller & Orchard, 2014), with these characteristics used to justify the absence of strong policies on the conservation of biodiversity and nature, as well as to downplay research insights where they challenge narrow economic interests. Furthermore, policy and practice also tend to evolve iteratively from successful past approaches. This generates a tendency for path dependency in valuing historic experience and lessons and advice based on that experience, even when changes in external conditions and new scientific research findings suggest new approaches may be better suited to future conditions (Barnett et al., 2015). Practice from such policy can thus become deeply embedded within a regime, reinforced through continual regime interaction processes, supported by powerful vested interests, and actively resist change. In this way, policy and practice can privilege knowledge and understanding gained from positive reinforcement from alignment with predominant economic values, and from

184

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

experience in this context. These factors together can mean that policy settings may remain complacent in the face of conventional assumptions and economic development pathways (Tangney & Howes, 2016), and act as a barrier to the uptake of new findings. The nature of the science striving to clarify the severe challenges of climate change and environmental degradation in the Anthropocene also presents particular challenges to policy and practice. Climate change science, for example, is predominantly future-oriented, and derived from models with levels of irreducible uncertainty that demand different approaches to assessment and value than those derived from policy or practice regime experience. The long-time horizons of climate change and ecological recovery further contrast with policy decision-making approaches that fit within electoral time frames or seek a return on investment of around 5–7 years. Given high short-term climate variability, it is also difficult to identify causal impacts of climate change within businessrelevant temporal scales (Linnenluecke et al., 2015). In addition, the call from the science community to transform human economic activities and behaviours has led to vested interests contesting the science itself and adding to community confusion on needed action (Pérez-González, 2020). The complexity of the science in combination with these factors means that many policies and practices continue to be developed and employed with little or no regard for knowledge of such complex longterm problems as collapses in biodiversity or climate change (Hewitt et al., 2017). Such practices can hobble attempts to enable transformation, as can be discerned in gaps in the alignment of the EPBC Act’s biodiversity conservation objectives and procedures. Such gaps persist even though both the Act and investment in climate systems and resilient landscapes science through the National Environmental Science Program are managed within one government department.

Between Sectoral Scopes of Policy The third problematic arises from typical approaches to environment policy development within distinct and siloed government institutions. As noted, narrowly defined scopes of policy can result in conflict and

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

185

incompatibility with other policy domains, and ultimate failure in implementation to achieve the objectives sought. The already mentioned tensions between biodiversity conservation objectives and logging practices in areas covered by RFAs, or in agricultural regions with biodiversity values where land clearing rates remain high, exemplify this. Similarly, while Commonwealth marine areas are supposedly protected by the EPBC Act, the overexploitation of fish stocks in many marine regions, and declining populations of numerous commercial fish species, again reveals a disconnection between different sectoral policy scopes, as well as the tendency towards path dependency that continues to allow a privileging of economic interests over conservation in Australian ocean fishing policies (Delany-Crowe et al., 2019). Thus current policies in these, among other, areas further embed the distinction between human and ecological cultures, and illustrate an ongoing failure of policy to adequately consider the wider implications of natural resource extraction for the conservation of ecological communities and long-term resource sustainability in a changing climate. Sources of knowledge such as on climate change, developed externally to sectoral policy development processes, also face challenges in recognition and incorporation in sectoral decision systems.

Steps Towards Overcoming Problematics for Environmental Accountability The operation of the three problematics—the segregations between human and nonhuman interests, between different forms of knowledge and between sectoral scopes of policy—has effectively embedded a culture of unaccountability with regard to achieving biodiversity conservation in a changing climate. This culture is clearly illustrated through the continued failures in achieving the EPBC Act’s primary objectives, specifically the protection of the environment and the conservation of biodiversity. This chapter has revealed that the policy and institutional settings of the EPBC Act have led to an avoidance of consideration of systemic issues, persistent privileging of short-term economic interests over environmental protection objectives, as well as characteristics

186

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

of path dependency, including from weak accountability practice in its implementation. As we have shown, these have contributed to a more depauperate biodiversity, and will further reduce resilience, and increase damage and restoration costs. These problematics hinder attempts to contest narrow and short-term economic assumptions and values and deliver the environmental protection and restoration goals needed in the Anthropocene. We argue that for environmental accountability and associated policies to be effective and transformative in the face of Australia’s changing climate and collapsing biodiversity, these problematics need to be identified and investigated for their capacity to act as barriers to environmental sustainability and climate change adaptation in the design and implementation of policy and legislation. A further reform focus is the need for mechanisms that better relate accountability procedures with environmental objectives and required outcomes that are more tightly linked to global environmental change. Several environmental accounting capacities have the potential for development to contribute relevant insights in the Anthropocene, including more comprehensively designed and implemented full cost accounting whereby externality increases could indicate future system shifts, natural capital accounting able to identify systemic impacts and environmental limits, and collective or wider sectoral accounts that can reveal interactive information obscured at the single project or transaction scale (e.g., Bebbington et al., 2019). Reforms to the EPBC Act, notably to enable listing of climate sensitive species, to address weaknesses in the offsets policy, and for inclusion of critical climate habitats (such as refuges and important corridors) as a matter of national environmental significance (e.g., Clews, 2012), can also better align accountability means and ends. Effective implementation of such reforms also calls for critical consideration of these three segregation problematics. This would enable the development of a science, policy and practice interface able to go beyond simple linear—and sectoral—forms of information provision with wider knowledge and actor engagement, linking national with planetary frames, and dismantling the anthropocentric segregation between human and ecological cultures. This more broadly relational interface has the potential to encourage more robust accountability and transformative measures that better align with the scale of the challenges faced. In the

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

187

case of the EPBC Act, broadening the role of the Threatened Species Scientific Committee to enable deliberation regarding accountability for matters of national environmental significance in the Anthropocene, would be a useful first step. Insights from this analysis also contribute to wider considerations of whether incremental change can contribute to transformation. While a topic of active debate, an increasing number of scholars are finding that incremental steps alone are insufficient to address the challenges of climate change, and that transformational change requires new governance strategies or interventions (Pelling et al., 2015; Termeer et al., 2017). We would suggest that given the ongoing segregation between science, and policy and practice, and the consequent embedding of governance processes within tendencies towards path dependency and anthropocentrism, that incremental change processes are more likely to allow, perhaps unintentionally, the continuation of current environmentally damaging pathways. Ultimately, mechanisms that can address the problematics identified earlier, make visible narrow underlying assumptions and privileges, and facilitate wider societal engagement on desirable goals and purposes have some potential for reform of rules, values and governance arrangements for transformative change. For instance, exposing the dependence of Australia’s export economy, historically and currently, on the exploitation of natural resources (e.g., Tangney & Howes, 2016), highlights the cultural privileging of resource development including at the expense of the environment. Such privileging will require reconsideration and address for the enabling of transformational change. While disagreements can be expected, an approach that allows for the problematics to be explored and debated, and for exploration of alternative scenarios, has capacity to build community support and drive innovative solutions to help decouple biodiversity loss from enviro-economic decisions. In total, this chapter highlights a profound challenge for the progress of environmental transformations needed in the Anthropocene. The design and implementation of policy is a critical enabler of environmental transformations; other drivers of transformational change such as from innovative and inclusive governance, social movements or the upscaling of successful niche initiatives, have proven less effective to date

188

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

in achieving broadscale conservation outcomes in Australia (e.g., Campbell et al., 2017; Díaz et al., 2019). The wider and deeper analysis in this chapter of the need for transformational change in policy and practice—with such change found to be dependent on addressing the three problematics identified above—provides insight into how to realise the reforms called for in the recent Samuel review.

References Adelman, S. (2017). The sustainable development goals, anthropocentrism and neoliberalism. In D. French, & L. Kotzé (Eds.), Global goals: Law, theory and implementation. Edward Elgar. Akhtar-Khavari, A., & Richardson, B. (2020). Ecological restoration and the Samuel review of the EPBC Act. Australian Environment Review, 35 (5–6), 129–134. Alfonzetti, M., Rivers, M. C., Auld, T. D., Le Breton, T., Cooney, T., Stuart, S., Zimmer, H., Makinson, R., Wilkins, K., Delgado, E., Dimitrova, N., & Gallagher, R. V. (2020). Shortfalls in extinction risk assessments for plants. Australian Journal of Botany, 68(6), 466–471. Allek, A., Assis, A. S., Eiras, N., Amaral, T. P., Williams, B., Butt, N., Renwick, A. R., Bennett, J. R., & Beyer, H. L. (2018). The threats endangering Australia’s at-risk fauna. Biological Conservation, 222, 172–179. Andrew, J. (2001). Environmental accounting and accountability: Can the opaque be transparent? Interdisciplinary Environment Review, 2(2), 201–216. Arnold, S. (2019, April 16). Exclusive: Senator Rice details Australia’s faunal extinction emergency. Independent Australia. https://independentaustralia. net/life/life-display/exclusive-senator-rice-details-australias-faunal-extinc tion-emergency,12575 Australian Conservation Foundation. (2020). The extinction crisis in Australia’s cities and towns: How weak environment laws have let urban sprawl destroy the habitat of Australia’s threatened species. https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront. net/auscon/pages/17703/attachments/original/1596500683/Extinction_c risis_in_cities_and_towns.pdf?1596500683

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

189

Australian National Audit Office. (2020). Referrals, assessments and approvals of controlled actions under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Australian National Audit Office. Available at https:// www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/referrals-assessments-and-approv als-controlled-actions-under-the-epbc-act Babcock, R. C., Bustamante, R. H., Fulton, E. A., Fulton, D. J., Haywood, M. D., Hobday, A. J., Kenyon, R., Matear, R. J., Plaganyi, E. E., Richardson, A. J., & Vanderklift, M. A. (2019). Severe continental-scale impacts of climate change are happening now: Extreme climate events impact marine habitat forming communities along 45% of Australia’s coast. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6 , 411. Baldwin, C., Marshall, G., Ross, H., Cavaye, J., Stephenson, J., Carter, L., Freeman, C., Curtis, A., & Syme, G. (2019). Hybrid neoliberalism: Implications for sustainable development. Society & Natural Resources, 32(5), 566–587. Barnett, J., Evans, L. S., Gross, C., Kiem, A. S., Kingsford, R. T., Palutikof, J. P., Pickering, C. M., & Smithers, S. G. (2015). From barriers to limits to climate change adaptation: Path dependency and the speed of change. Ecology and Society, 20 (3). Barua, M. (2019). Animating capital: Work, commodities, circulation. Progress in Human Geography, 43(4), 650–669. Bebbington, J. (1997). Engagement, education and sustainability: A review essay on environmental accounting. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 10 (3), 365–381. Bebbington, J. (2001). Sustainable development: A review of the international development, business and accounting literature. Accounting Forum, 25 (2), 128–157. Bebbington, J., Brown, J., & Frame, B. (2007). Accounting technologies and sustainability assessment models. Ecological Economics, 61(2–3), 224–236. Bebbington, J., Österblom, H., Crona, B., Jouffray, J. B., Larrinaga, C., Russell, S., & Scholtens, B. (2019). Accounting and accountability in the Anthropocene. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 33(1), 152–177. Bebbington, J., & Unerman, J. (2020). Advancing research into accounting and the UN sustainable development goals. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 33(7), 1657–1670. Bell, J., Saunders, M. I., Lovelock, C. E., & Possingham, H. P. (2014). Legal frameworks for unique ecosystems–how can the EPBC Act offsets policy

190

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

address the impact of development on seagrass? Environmental and Planning Law Journal, 31, 34–46. Boyd, M., Chrulew, M., Degeling, C., Mrva-Montoya, A., Probyn-Rapsey, F., Savvides, N., & Wadiwel, D. (2015). Introduction. In The Human Animal Research Network (Ed.), Animals in the Anthropocene: Critical perspectives on non-human futures (pp. vii-xxiv). Sydney University Press. Burns, G. (2014). Anthropomorphism and animals in the Anthropocene. In G. Burns & M. Paterson (Eds.), Engaging with animals: Interpretations of a shared existence (pp. 3–20). Sydney University Press. Campbell, A., Alexandra, J., & Curtis, D. (2017). Reflections on four decades of land restoration in Australia. The Rangeland Journal, 39 (6), 405–416. Clews, L. L. (2012). How Australian legislation can consider climate change in ecological impact assessment. In Wildlife and Climate Change: Towards robust conservation strategies for Australian fauna (pp. 144–149). Royal Zoological Society of NSW. Commonwealth of Australia. (2019a). Australia’s Strategy for Nature 2019a– 2030. https://www.australiasnaturehub.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-11/ australias-strategy-for-nature.pdf Commonwealth of Australia. (2019b). Climate change action strategy: Tackling climate change through Australia’s development assistance program 2020–2025. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/def ault/files/climate-change-action-strategy.pdf Commonwealth of Australia. (2019c). Interim report: Australia’s faunal extinction crisis. Environment and Communications References Committee. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Enviro nment_and_Communications/Faunalextinction/Interim_report Cresswell, I. D., & Murphy H. (2016). Biodiversity. In Australia state of the environment 2016 . Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy, Canberra. https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/biodiv ersity. https://doi.org/10.4226/94/58b65ac828812 Delany-Crowe, T., Marinova, D., Fisher, M., McGreevy, M., & Baum, F. (2019). Australian policies on water management and climate change: Are they supporting the sustainable development goals and improved health and well-being? Globalization and Health, 15 (1), 1–15. Díaz, S., Settele, J., Brondízio, E. S., Ngo, H. T., Agard, J., Arneth, A., Balvanera, P., Brauman, K.A., Butchart, S. H., Chan, K. M., Garibaldi, L. A., Ichii, K., Liu, J., Subramanian, S. M., Midgley, G. F., Miloslavich, P., Molnar, Z., Obura, D., Pfaff, A., Polasky, S., … Zayas, C. N. (2019).

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

191

Pervasive human-driven decline of life on Earth points to the need for transformative change. Science, 366 (6471), eaax3100. Dunn, G., Bos, J. J., & Brown, R. R. (2018). Mediating the science-policy interface: Insights from the urban water sector in Melbourne, Australia. Environmental Science & Policy, 82, 143–150. Environment Australia. (1999). An overview of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Commonwealth of Australia. https://auspost. com.au/content/dam/auspost_corp/media/documents/epbc-overview.pdf Evans, M. C. (2016). Deforestation in Australia: Drivers, trends and policy responses. Pacific Conservation Biology, 22(2), 130–150. Gibbons, P., & Lindenmayer, D. B. (2007). Offsets for land clearing: No net loss or the tail wagging the dog? Ecological Management and Restoration, 8, 26–31. Gibassier, D., & Alcouffe, S. (2018). Environmental management accounting: The missing link to sustainability? Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 38(1), 1–18. Hewitt, C. D., Stone, R. C., & Tait, A. B. (2017). Improving the use of climate information in decision-making. Nature Climate Change, 7 (9), 614–616. Hosking, C. (2020, July 2). Stopping koala extinction is agonisingly simple. But here’s why I’m not optimistic. The Conversation. https://theconversat ion.com/stopping-koala-extinction-is-agonisingly-simple-but-heres-why-imnot-optimistic-141696 Jones, M. J. (2010). Accounting for the environment: Towards a theoretical perspective for environmental accounting and reporting. Accounting Forum, 34 (2), 123–138. Kearney, S. G., Carwardine, J., Reside, A. E., Fisher, D. O., Maron, M., Doherty, T. S., Legge, S., Silcock, J., Woinarski, J. C. Z., Garnett, S. T., Wintle, B. A., & Watson, J. E. M. (2019). Corrigendum: The threats to Australia’s imperilled species and implications for a national conservation response. Pacific Conservation Biology, 25, 231–244. Kilvert, N. (2020, February 16). Think Australia’s bushfires killed a lot of animals? Weak environmental laws threaten the lives of more. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-02-16/bushfire-wil dlife-extinction-offsets/9622980 Kopnina, H., Washington, H., Taylor, B., & Piccolo, J. (2018). Anthropocentrism: More than just a misunderstood problem. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 31(1), 109–127.

192

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

Kramarz, T., & Park, S. (2016). Accountability in global environmental governance: A meaningful tool for action? Global Environmental Politics, 16 (2), 1–21. Kramarz, T., & Park, S. (2017). Introduction: The politics of environmental accountability. Review of Policy Research, 34 (1), 4–9. Lakoff, G. (1990). Women, fire and dangerous things. University of Chicago Press. Lindenmayer, D. B., & Burnett, P. (2021). Biodiversity in court: Will the Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) make the EPBC Act irrelevant? Pacific Conservation Biology. https://doi.org/10.1071/PC21035 Lindenmayer, D. B., Kooyman, R. M., Taylor, C., Ward, M., & Watson, J. E. M. (2020). Recent Australian wildfires made worse by logging and associated forest management. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 4, 898–900. Lindenmayer, D. B., Steffen, W., Burbidge, A. A., Hughes, L., Kitching, R. L., Musgrave, W., Smith, M. S., & Werner, P. A. (2010). Conservation strategies in response to rapid climate change: Australia as a case study. Biological Conservation, 143(7), 1587–1593. Linnenluecke, M. K., Griffiths, A., & Mumby, P. J. (2015). Executives’ engagement with climate science and perceived need for business adaptation to climate change. Climatic Change, 131(2), 321–333. Lohmann, L. (2009). Toward a different debate in environmental accounting: The cases of carbon and cost–benefit. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 34 (3–4), 499–534. Marrone, M., Linnenluecke, M. K., Richardson, G., & Smith, T. (2020). Trends in environmental accounting research within and outside of the accounting discipline. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 33(8), 2167–2193. Miller, C., & Orchard, L. (2014). Australian public policy: Progressive ideas in the neoliberal ascendency. Policy Press. Miller, R. L., Marsh, H., Cottrell, A., & Hamann, M. (2018). Protecting migratory species in the Australian marine environment: A crossjurisdictional analysis of policy and management plans. Frontiers in Marine Science, 5, 229. Milne, M. J. (1996). On sustainability; the environment and management accounting. Management Accounting Research, 7 (1), 135–161. Mummery, J. (2021). Attributes of effective national partnerships for environmental challenges—Managing ozone-depleting and synthetic greenhouse gases in Australia. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 64 (14), 2481–2499.

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

193

Mundt, J. (1993). Externalities: Uncalculated outcomes of exchange. Journal of Macromarketing, 13(2), 46–53. Orozco, E. C. T. (2006). Environmental accountability for the public sector, a comparative analysis in three countries: Australia, Mexico and USA (Doctoral dissertation, Erasmus Universiteit). Pelling, M., O’Brien, K., & Matyas, D. (2015). Adaptation and transformation. Climatic Change, 133(1), 113–127. Pérez-González, L. (2020). ‘Is climate science taking over the science?’: A corpus-based study of competing stances on bias, dogma and expertise in the blogosphere. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 7 (1), 1–16. Pittock, J., & Finlayson, C. M. (2011). Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin: Freshwater ecosystem conservation options in an era of climate change. Marine and Freshwater Research, 62(3), 232–243. Ritchie, E., Tulloch, A., Driscoll, D., Evans, M. C., & Doherty, T. (2021, January 21). It’s not too late to save them: 5 ways to improve the government’s plan to protect threatened wildlife. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/its-not-too-late-to-save-them-5-ways-toimprove-the-governments-plan-to-protect-threatened-wildlife-147669 Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F. S., Lambin, E. F., Lenton, T. M., Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H. J., Nykvist, B., de Wit, C. A., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H., Sörlin, S., Synder, P. K., Costanza, R., … & Foley, J. A. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461(7263), 472–475. Rosenbloom, D. H., O’Leary, R., & Chanin, J. (2010). Public administration and law (3rd ed.). CRC/Taylor & Francis. Runhaar, H., Driessen, P., & Uittenbroek, C. (2014). Towards a systematic framework for the analysis of environmental policy integration. Environmental Policy and Governance, 24 (4), 233–246. Saintilan, N., Rogers, K., Kelleway, J. J., Ens, E., & Sloane, D. R. (2019). Climate change impacts on the coastal wetlands of Australia. Wetlands, 39 (6), 1145–1154. Samuel, G. (2020). Independent review of the EPBC Act—Final report. https:// apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2021-01/apo-nid310681.pdf Schaltegger, S. (2018). Linking environmental management accounting: A reflection on (missing) links to sustainability and planetary boundaries. Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 38(1), 19–29. Scott, I., & Gong, T. (2021). Coordinating government silos: Challenges and opportunities. Global Public Policy and Governance, 1(1), 20–38.

194

J. Mummery and J. Mummery

Steffen, W., Burbidge, A. A., Hughes, L., Kitching, R., Lindenmayer, D., Musgrave, W., Stafford Smith, M., & Werner, P.A. (2009). Australia’s biodiversity and climate change. CSIRO Publishing. Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M., Biggs, R., Carpenter, S. R., De Vries, W., De Wit, C. A., Folke, C., Gerten, D., Heinke, J., Mace, G. M., Persson, L. M., Ramanathan, V., Reyers, B., & Sörlin, S. (2015). Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347 (6223). Stevenson, H., & Dryzek, J. (2014). Democratizing global climate governance. Cambridge University Press. Tangney, P., & Howes, M. (2016). The politics of evidence-based policy: A comparative analysis of climate adaptation in Australia and the UK. Environment and Planning c: Government and Policy, 34 (6), 1115–1134. Termeer, C. J., Dewulf, A., & Biesbroek, G. R. (2017). Transformational change: Governance interventions for climate change adaptation from a continuous change perspective. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 60 (4), 558–576. Tett, G. (2015). The silo effect: Why every organisation needs to disrupt itself to survive. Little Brown. Tulloch, A. I. T., Barnes, M. D., Ringma, J., Fuller, R. A., & Watson, J. E. M. (2016). Understanding the importance of small patches of habitat for conservation. Journal of Applied Ecology, 53, 418–429. TWI2050 - The World in 2050. (2018). Transformations to achieve the sustainable development goals. The World in 2050 initiative. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria. http://pure.iiasa. ac.at/id/eprint/15347/1/TWI2050_Report081118-web-new.pdf Van Enst, W. I., Driessen, P. P., & Runhaar, H. A. (2014). Towards productive science-policy interfaces: A research agenda. Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management, 16 (01), 1450007. Walsh, J., Watson, J., Bottrill, M., Joseph, L., & Possingham, H. (2013). Trends and biases in the listing and recovery planning for threatened species: An Australian case study. Oryx, 47 (1), 134–143. Ward, M., Carwardine, J., Yong, C. J., Watson, J. E. M., Silcock, J., Taylor, G. S., Lintermans, M., Gillespie, G. R., Garnett, S. T., Woinarski, J., Tingley, R., Fensham, R. J., Hoskin, C. J., Hines, H. B., Roberts, J. D., Kennard, M. J., Harvey, M. S., Chapple, D. G., & Reside, A. E. (2021). A national-scale dataset for threats impacting Australia’s imperiled flora and fauna. Ecology and Evolution, 11(17), 11749–11761.

7 Overcoming Segregation Problematics …

195

Ward, M. S., Simmonds, J. S., Reside, A. E., Watson, J. E., Rhodes, J. R., Possingham, H. P., Trezise, J., Fletcher, R., Lindsey, F., & Taylor, M. (2019). Lots of loss with little scrutiny: The attrition of habitat critical for threatened species in Australia. Conservation Science and Practice, 1(11), e117. Wintle, B. A., Cadenhead, N. C. R., Morgain, R. A., Legge, S. M., Bekessy, S. A., Cantele, M., Possingham, H. P., Watson, J. E. M., Maron, M., Keith, D. A., Garnett, S.T., Woinarski, J. C. Z., & Lindenmayer, D. B. (2019). Spending to save: What will it cost to halt Australia’s extinction crisis? Conservation Letters, 12(6), e12682. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12682

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging Disciplinary Traditions on Collaborative Governance, Coproduction, and Comanagement for Organising Just and Effective Sustainability Transformations Candice Carr Kelman

Introduction: Governance, Collaboration, Accountability, and Sustainability Collaboration can increase the public accountability of governance, and it can also elevate the social impact of scientific enterprise. Collaboration is heralded as a solution to public management issues, from park management to childcare to ending homelessness and drug addiction. In the literature on collaborative management of social-ecological systems (SES), and common-pool resource governance, collaboration is found C. Carr Kelman (B) School of Sustainability and Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_8

197

198

C. Carr Kelman

to address issues of justice and equity, incorporate multiple perspectives and ways of knowing, and provide superior environmental and social outcomes (Armitage et al., 2009, 2011; Emerson et al., 2012; Margerum, 2008; Mattor & Cheng, 2015; Ostrom, 1990; Plummer & Armitage, 2007; Plummer et al., 2012; Schoon et al., 2021). In the literature on and practice of public policy and management, the era of collaborative New Public Governance (NPG) is replacing both the “Old Public Administration” and “New Public Management” modes with an emphasis on collaborative governance, allowing for greater pluralism, pooling of resources, and the creation of horizontal or multiscale networks that can coproduce public services (McGuire, 2006; Osborne, 2006; Voorberg & van Meerkerk, 2019). Collaborative governance is an umbrella term that captures a number of other more specific approaches including adaptive governance, adaptive collaborative management, comanagement, coproduction, community-based conservation, community-based natural resource management, collective impact, knowledge partnerships, knowledgeto-action exchanges, and many others, scattered throughout various academic disciplines and public dialogs. A more holistic approach allows us to find some common ground across the fragmented field of more limited vernacular and acronyms to provide a practical path forward for implementing more accountable environmental outcomes. Exploring and comparing the rich and salient concepts of coproduction and comanagement in particular allows linkage across these conversations in different bodies of literature to elucidate important ingredients of successful collaborative environmental governance. Even just in defining the terms governance, collaborative governance, comanagement, and coproduction, there are differing approaches across social science disciplines that have important implications. For sustainability scholars, broader definitions allow inclusiveness and applicability to a very wide range of types of situations, and there is a greater focus on the importance of process and dynamics over structural composition or configuration (Carlsson & Berkes, 2005; Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015; Meadow et al., 2015). Many understandings of governance from the public policy and administration fields tend to include government as

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

199

a central actor, while interdisciplinary approaches to governing socialecological systems and sustainability transitions are often more open to application at any scale. Drawing from Lemos and Agrawal (2006), Wyborn (2015) defined governance as the processes groups of actors adopt to negotiate decisions and determine a path of action. The simplicity of this definition may be contrasted with that of Ansell and Torfing (2022), who define governance as “the process of steering society and the economy through collective action and in accordance with common goals” in their Handbook on Theories of Governance. They describe this definition as open enough to accommodate a wide variety of situations without referring to a centralised or unitary state or government, and yet specific enough that it explains what is being governed in accordance with whose objectives. However, this understanding indicates “society and the economy” as the level or scale of analysis, whereas more flexible definitions would be useful at any scale or in a multi-level or cross-scale governance process, which includes many of the most productive comanagement arrangements (Berkes, 2004). Collaborative governance is also described differently in the various disciplines in which the term is used. Ansell (2019) found eight different “images of collaboration” in just the public policy and administration literature: collaboration as addressing the problem of institutional fragmentation and “siloed” government, the need for public partnerships rather than contractors, the need for multidimensional solutions to complex problems, the need for decentralisation of governance, producing public value and innovation, conflict resolution, open management of interest group conflict, and democratic participation and deliberation. Ansell (2019) also describes three different contrasting images: collaboration versus hierarchy, collaboration versus market, and collaboration versus conflict. This illustrates the many different approaches and rationales for collaborative governance even just within one disciplinary conversation. While these images are also found in other disciplines studying collaborative governance, there are also other rationales and approaches described. In the SES governance literature, there is a more explicit focus on the health of natural environmental systems, and interpretations of what

200

C. Carr Kelman

constitutes collaboration tend to be much more open and flexible, not necessarily involving the state. While definitions from public policy and administration fields have been growing increasingly more flexible, they tend to be more focused on the role of government. One wellknown definition of collaborative governance from the public policy and administration literature was intended to be flexible and less focused on government than previous definitions: “We define collaborative governance broadly as the processes and structures of public policy decision making and management that engage people constructively across the boundaries of public agencies, levels of government, and/or the public, private and civic spheres in order to carry out a public purpose that could not otherwise be accomplished” (Emerson et al., 2012, p. 2). While more inclusive and flexible than many previous popular definitions, such as that of Ansell and Gash (2008),1 this definition still seems rather focused on policy and public institutions when compared with another more recent definition, “i.e., engaging scientists, decision makers, communities, and other stakeholders in joint decision making” (Ulibarri, 2015). In pulling together disciplinary understandings and explorations of collaborative governance in the interest of creating more accountable environmental outcomes from both science and public policy, two concepts come to the surface as salient and interrelated: coproduction and comanagement. Both have become increasingly prominent in literature and practice, and have extensive conversations associated with differing understandings of each term. Here, the attempt is to distill the common characteristics that make these practices useful and explore how they might be brought together to increase the effectiveness of collaborative environmental governance.

1 “A governing arrangement where one or more public agencies directly engage non-state stakeholders in a collective decision-making process that is formal, consensus oriented, and deliberative and that aims to make or implement public policy or manage public programs or assets” (Ansell & Gash 2008, p. 544).

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

201

Coproduction and Comanagement—Defining, Differentiating, and Relinking Concepts Interestingly, for both coproduction and comanagement there are differences between the understandings or usages of these terms in different disciplines (see Table 8.1). In addition, there are multiple terms describing similar or overlapping practices and approaches. The umbrella term of collaborative governance is often used. Many pockets of literature exist describing practices that fall within this same broad definition of collaborative governance, though they may refer more specifically to particular techniques such as adaptive collaborative management, community-based conservation, or community-based natural resource management.

Coproduction: Descriptive and Normative Understandings In urban planning, public administration, and policy literature, coproduction usually denotes the direct involvement of stakeholders in the delivery of public services, goods, or policy (Brandsen & Honingh, 2015), whereas the literature covering SES governance (such as climate science, sustainability, etc.) generally focuses on collaborative knowledge production, involving the end users of science in the process of creating knowledge, with the aim of producing more usable science and increasing the application of that science in policy and management. Both understandings of coproduction include issues involving environmental governance and outcomes, and coproduction of knowledge does fall under the category of provision of a public service involving stakeholders (Miller & Wyborn, 2020). Thus, in the case of coproduction, it is the public policy and planning literature that provides the more general and inclusive definition, but there is little overlap in the conversations occurring in different disciplinary literatures on coproduction. Miller and Wyborn (2020) explain in detail how coproduction research developed separately in three academic traditions, each with different intellectual orientation toward knowledge, policy, and sustainability, but all stemming from the same concept of public involvement

202

C. Carr Kelman

Table 8.1 Disciplinary differences in the usage and understanding of comanagement and coproduction

Coproduction

Comanagement

Social-Ecological Systems (SES) governance literature

Urban planning and public policy literature

Coproduction of knowledge is involving stakeholders in the production of knowledge, providing a two-way flow of information, usually from early in the research process. Ideal knowledge coproduction includes both the production of scientifically valuable knowledge, as well as knowledge products of public or management value such as maps, datasets or other tools useful to SES managers (Lemos et al., 2018; Miller & Wyborn, 2020) Collaborative management of the commons, often land or natural resources. Usually denotes collaboration between government and groups of local resource-using communities, often in or near conservation-oriented protected areas, sometimes involving NGOs as bridging organizations (Armitage et al., 2011; Berkes et al., 2007; Carlsson & Berkes, 2005)

Coproduction is collaborative delivery of public services/goods involving stakeholders from clients to producers (Kekez et al., 2019)

Collaborative management more intentionally and directly involves the public/community in the governance and delivery of public goods and services, which are produced by civil society organizations (Kekez et al., 2019)

in the development of policy, programs or research, as first described by Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom in 1977. This is particularly interesting because Ostrom’s work on common pool resources is more widely cited and better known among scholars of environmental sustainability, and this is a subset of her large body of work on collective action,

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

203

throughout which environmental outcomes are also considered to be a form of public service provision (Miller & Wyborn, 2020). The three disciplines through which Miller and Wyborn (2020) trace the development of the different strains of coproduction from the initial publications cited here are public administration (Ostrom & Ostrom, 1977; Parks et al., 1981), science and technology studies (Jasanoff, 1996; Latour, 1990), and sustainability science (Cash et al., 2003; Kates et al., 2001; Kofinas, 2002). These different lineages, which build on one another to some extent but are largely separate conversations, have been described in recent literature as representing two understandings of coproduction: descriptive and normative. However, once noted, these differences are often pushed aside to focus on the similarities and contributions of these works regardless of their interpretation of the definition or role of coproduction (Lemos et al., 2018; Mach et al., 2020). There is also plenty of work that combines the descriptive and normative approaches, particularly in the public administration literature, which often treats coproduction as both a fact and an ideal (e.g., Khine et al., 2021). There are also various ways to further split these categories—the descriptive approach can be split into constitutive and interactional lenses (Jasanoff, 2004), while, at least when discussing climate change publications, the normative approach has been parsed into six different types: iterative interaction, institutional, extended science, social learning, empowerment, and public services (Bremer & Meisch, 2017). This last category most likely would be found in the public administration literature, and represents the smallest category found by Bremer and Meisch (2017), illustrating the sparseness of the overlap between sustainability literature and public administration literature in the use of the term coproduction. For the descriptive approach, coproduction is a fact which can be studied, and knowledge simultaneously is a product of society while also being constitutive of society (Jasanoff, 2004; Mach et al., 2020). This literature examines how social orders and power relationships emerge from interactions between science, society, and nature (Lemos et al., 2018). While this literature is largely constituted by science and technology studies literature, some other disciplines also draw upon this understanding in their usage of the term coproduction.

204

C. Carr Kelman

In the more normative approach such as sustainability literature, especially that focused on climate change research, there is a huge focus on the process and how stakeholders should be engaged to make research more inclusive and actionable (e.g., Djenontin & Meadow, 2018; McNie et al., 2016). The inclusion of different perspectives in the creation of scientific knowledge, especially when the end users of scientific knowledge such as managers and practitioners are engaged early in the process, generally increases the use (and usability) of the knowledge produced (Lemos et al., 2018). To address sustainability challenges including biodiversity loss, climate change, and adaptation, we need the latest and best science to underpin policy and decision-making. As practitioners have come to understand this, coproduction networks have been created to facilitate the iterative and regular exchange of knowledge, questions, and tools amongst experts and decision-makers at local, national, and global levels (Brugger et al., 2016; Cash et al., 2003; Meadow et al., 2015). The concept of coproduction was first introduced by Ostrom and Ostrom (1977) as an unavoidable fact of public policy and management, that the public and decision-makers always coproduce policy and its implementation, whether we like it or not, while also seeing greater public involvement as a potentially productive avenue to increase the inclusivity and justice of public programs, including policing and a host of other urban services. It is from this work that Ostrom’s institutional analysis and development framework was conceived, and here we can see the beginning of both the analytical or “descriptive” understanding of coproduction, which remains strong in the STS literature, alongside a more “normative” or prescriptive approach taken in sustainability literature, while public administration literature seems to have a combination of both approaches. Moving beyond the examination of the differences in the usage of the concept of coproduction as descriptive or normative, Mach et al. (2020) and Lemos et al. (2018) urge us to focus on the more important questions of what we can learn from both lineages of literature regarding how co-production works in practice and the actionability of the knowledge produced. Both the descriptive and normative approaches to understanding coproduction are rooted in the common understanding that policies and services, including knowledge, are produced within certain

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

205

socio-political contexts, and the recognition that decisions and how they are made results from who is present in the process (Mach et al., 2020; Miller & Wyborn, 2020). In addition to being unhelpful in understanding coproduction, the distinction between the normative and descriptive approaches to studying coproduction doesn’t help us understand the main difference between usages of the term—the disciplinary split between public administration and SES governance/sustainability science. See Table 8.1 for this distinction.

Collaborative Knowledge Production: Science in Service of Society To address the rapidly escalating, interconnected, and seemingly intractable environmental issues we face in the twenty-first century, the earth science community has been called upon to collaborate with other disciplines, decision-makers, and users of science (DeFries et al., 2012; Lubchenco, 1998, 2017). Scientists acknowledge that this will require science to transform itself to deliver on its social contract with society (Lubchenco et al., 2015), because the very methods and processes of science as we know it must shift. The traditional structures and cultures of science were created in ways that purposefully separate science from societal influence and decisionmakers in an effort to protect objectivity, but this mode of knowledge production is not the most effective for producing usable or actionable knowledge for society (Gibbons et al., 1994; Sarewitz, 1996; Stokes, 1997). Thus, more socially engaged models for the scientific enterprise have been developed, tested, and studied, with particular focus on key environmental issues including climate science, showing that knowledge produced this way has a much greater likelihood of having real impact on policy and practice (Arnott et al., 2020; Beier et al., 2017; Dilling & Lemos, 2011; Kirchhoff et al., 2013; Lemos & Morehouse, 2005; Meadow et al., 2015; Moser, 2016; Posner & Cvitanovic, 2019). Most notably, the coproduction of knowledge, with users and producers collaborating at every stage of the process, is both promising in terms of

206

C. Carr Kelman

its ability to increase the use of scientific knowledge in policy, decisionmaking, and practice, and can also be difficult to manage effectively (Cook et al., 2013; Lemos et al., 2018). While there are less engaged ways to make science more actionable, knowledge coproduction is the most rigorous and effective (Carr Kelman et al., 2022a). Wyborn (2015) draws on three concepts: coproduction, bridging/boundary organisations, and adaptive capacity, to propose that coproductive capacity emerges from strong relationships between knowledge and action. This description bears significant resemblance to the way that Berkes (2009) describes comanagement as a knowledge partnership that can best be coordinated by a bridging organisation that can provide a forum for the interaction of different forms of knowledge and help to increase the adaptive capacity of collaborative governance. In the next section, we will explore the concept of comanagement and then compare and link it with coproduction in service of collaborative governance.

Comanagement: Extending from Coproduction into Implementing Collaborative Governance Comanagement also has largely separate streams of literature in these related environmental disciplines, but there is a more consistent or similar meaning in the use of the term across disciplines. The SES governance literature (more about governing humans and the natural environment) generally refers to comanaging common-pool resources as a partnership between government and resource users, while in the public policy and planning literatures (more about governing the human/urban environment) comanagement usually refers to delivery of public services for humans by civil society organisations. Governing resources also can be captured under the category of a public service, so a common definition could be easily found, since both are about joint governance of commons as a partnership between government and civil society. The distinctions between comanagement and coproduction in the public policy and planning literature are more difficult to distinguish

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

207

for those coming from disciplines where the words are used rather differently. Kekez et al. (2019) describe comanagement as arrangements in which public services are produced by civil society organisations, while the management of these services and decisions on a wide variety of issues surrounding how delivery occurs and who benefits from it, is done collectively by the public, including civil society as well as business actors that may be involved in delivery. In the next sentence, the same authors describe coproduction as arrangements in which the actual delivery of goods and services is undertaken jointly by the actors involved in individual transactions, from clients to producers. Clearly both are about involving those affected by policies in the execution of the programs resulting from the implementation of those policies. The differences between the practices described by these terms in the public policy and planning literatures are arguably less clear than their usage in SES literature.

Comanagement and Coproduction While generally treated as separate concepts and approaches, coproduction of knowledge and comanagement of places and programs could actually be joined into two sides of a coin that could enhance the effectiveness of each. All knowledge coproduction has governance implications (Mach et al., 2020; Miller & Wyborn, 2020), and all comanagement programs have knowledge needs that could be addressed through partnerships. While knowledge coproduction may be more of a starting point, comanagement is more of a long-term process, or a method of collaboratively managing an area over the longer term. Collaboration makes accountable to the public what used to be left to “expert” managers and improves outcomes. We get more inclusive and effective management with comanagement, and more actionable/useful/usable science with coproduction, as we will see in the case studies. Therefore, the most effective forms of collaborative governance should actively include both coproduction of knowledge and comanagement over the longer term.

208

C. Carr Kelman

There is a small conversation about comanagement as a type of coproduction in the public services literature (Kekez et al., 2019), but there is a prolific camp of a few prominent scholars connecting the concepts of coproduction and comanagement in the SES governance literature, including Kofinas (2002), Berkes et al. (2007), and Armitage et al. (2011), which frames comanagement as a type of coproduction. There are others, like Roux et al. (2021), which mostly contrast the concepts as suited for differing needs. Especially in the biodiversity conservation space, with regard to community engagement in the practice of conservation in particular, there is not much linkage between concepts of comanagement and coproduction outside of the literature on resilience and adaptive collaborative management and governance. However, the nexus of conservation and community engagement is an area ripe for more systematic study and application of best practices, as the literature on this is scattered across disciplines, fragmented by terminology camps, and lacks coherence and consistency in methods and conclusions (Raschke et al., 2019). There are strong examples of how it may be quite beneficial to incorporate both comanagement (usually collaboration between the government management agency of a protected area and local resource users) and co-production (of knowledge) to improve both knowledge and practice at the science/policy interface. Comanagement can be considered a type of coproduction (Kekez et al., 2019), but these could also be seen as distinct sets of activities that may actually be complementary. For example, Armitage et al. (2011) see knowledge coproduction as a useful tool for increasing adaptive capacity in comanagement arrangements. Voorberg and Meerkerk (2019) see coproduction as a mode of collaborative governance that enriches the discussion of both concepts. Both coproduction and comanagement are constitutive of collaborative governance approaches, and both are likely to increase the accountability of government. Thus, the most accountable environmental outcomes, and potentially the more effective programs, may be those that combine the lessons and best practices of all these approaches (see Fig. 8.1). To investigate this further, we will look at four case studies.

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

209

Collaborative Governance Coll o ative Governance Comanagement Coproduction

Fig. 8.1 Coproduction and comanagement are forms of collaborative governance that lead to greater public accountability

Methods To better understand the roles of comanagement and knowledge coproduction in collaborative governance of social-ecological systems, this study takes a small-N comparative case study approach (Abbott, 2004). Four cases of collaborative approaches to environmental governance were visited, studied through archival records review, semi-structured interviews, and direct observation. Two of the cases are in the province of East Kalimantan, Indonesia, and the other two are located in the state of Arizona, USA. This comparative case study is a mixture of positivist and interpretivist research methods, which allows the researcher to see the phenomenon of interest within its context—and to trace out and recreate the mechanisms that connect events or relationships (Lin, 1998). This case study comparison is based largely upon naturalistic field research and archival records, to elucidate how and why these projects failed or succeeded. The small-N comparative case study is a way to improve generalisations from case studies by looking at several and comparing them. This

210

C. Carr Kelman

combines the advantages of single-case analysis with those of multi-case analysis while attempting to avoid the disadvantages of each. That is, it conveys a good bit of detailed information about each case, while comparing the cases to test arguments. In this way, generalisations can be made more easily, without oversimplifying the cases too much by stripping them of detail and context. The field of comparative politics was built on small-N comparisons (Abbott, 2004). A comparative case study also combines the best features of positivist and interpretivist work. Case studies allow the researcher to see the phenomenon of interest in its context and to trace out the mechanisms which connect its relationships or events, while the inclusion of several case studies forces the investigator to be more rigorous about defining relationships and allows more generalisability by providing the possibility for parallels between cases. The positivist aspect of a comparative case study is in the common specific details of the cases, while the interpretive part is examining how these observed details are connected in each case (Lin, 1998).

Case Descriptions Kayan Mentarang National Park (KMNP), East Kalimantan, Indonesia KMNP is a large montane protected area on the island of Borneo, located along the border between the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan and the Malaysian provinces of Sarawak and Sabah, also closely bordering the Sultanate of Brunei. The area is remote and largely undeveloped, and has been inhabited for hundreds of years by local indigenous Kayan tribes. The park is divided into 13 Wilayah adat, or traditional tribal areas, each with a slightly different local language. There are no roads and access to the park is usually by river or aircraft. The area had been designated during the Suharto era as a Cagar Alam (Nature Reserve), the strictest type of protection which does not allow for human habitation. This designation was likely made in Jakarta without consideration of whether there were tribal groups living there, as it had long

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

211

been known to anthropologists that indigenous groups live throughout Borneo, both nomadic and sedentary tribes. When a group of anthropologists conducting research told the local people that their land had been designated as a nature reserve, they were not pleased. One of the anthropologists, Cristina Eghenter, was hired by the World Wildlife Fund to act as a boundary spanner between the local people and the government. She was successful at convincing the government to list the area as a Taman Nasional (National Park) instead, and also convinced the local people to work collaboratively with the government. She helped them set up an indigenous peoples’ board that was then included in park management, thus creating comanagement arrangements through which the park managers can learn from the local indigenous groups about how they manage the area, and the people are given agency and voice in decision-making (Eghenter, 2013). She also published anthropology and conservation literature about KMNP, working with other anthropologists and conservationists, as well as directly with local people to produce knowledge valuable to social science and conservation practice.

Kutai National Park (KNP), East Kalimantan, Indonesia KNP is a relatively small and vulnerable protected area on the coast of the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan. Mostly lowland peat swamp forest, the ecosystem type is now extremely rare in the region and contains countless rare, threatened, and endangered species. The park is surrounded by industrial development: coal, fertiliser, oil, and timber production dominate the landscape surrounding the protected area. The park itself has been heavily impacted by settlers escaping conflicts from the nearby island of Sulawesi. Following the fall of Suharto’s New Order dictatorship, an atmosphere of chaos led to widespread disregard for the rules governing the park, and illegal logging was rampant. Illegal homes were built right along the highway that goes through the park, and many of these communities were later granted squatters rights to stay. The industries nearby donated funds to a program aimed at better park

212

C. Carr Kelman

conservation, Friends of KNP, which provided loans and grants for small businesses, to encourage residents of the park to develop livelihoods not based on illegal activities like logging and farming in the park. This was not successful at preventing deforestation, partly because park regulations were not enforced by the Indonesian government in the post-Suharto era (Carr Kelman, 2010).

White Mountains Stewardship Project (WMSP), Arizona, USA WMSP, located in the National Forests of eastern Arizona, was the first Stewardship Contract in the United States, from 2004 to 2014. After over a century of mismanaging forests by preventing forest fires and allowing timber sales, the United States Forest Service (USFS) realised that this was causing unnaturally severe forest fires, and they needed not only massive forest restoration, but a way to prevent the large lawsuits coming at them from both loggers and environmental groups over their decisions regarding endangered species, fire management, and other issues. They saw the need for more collaborative governance, and established the stewardship contracting model early in the twenty-first century. This model was one in which the USFS appointed a multiparty monitoring board to make decisions regarding the process of forest restoration through thinning. They worked with the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University to conduct studies on the most effective methods for mechanical thinning to restore Ponderosa pine forests. After a century of logging and fire suppression, forests in Arizona highlands are too often dense thickets of very small-diameter trees, which are of little value ecologically or economically. They also contain a great deal of easily flammable fuel, so that when wildfire does strike, the whole forest goes up in a massive blaze, eliminating all habitat and posing a substantial threat to homes, towns, and cities nearby. The WMSP board was responsible for deciding upon an effective method for thinning to reduce the risk and impact of wildfire. The USFS was responsible for

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

213

hiring a contractor to do the thinning. The board was able to successfully engage scientists and build knowledge to help them make decisions through a social learning process. The USFS hired a contractor who was not able to complete all the thinning expected. However, the method of thinning to stop wildfire was proved effective when the thinned areas did slow wildfire and prevent damage to small towns like Alpine in the Wallow Fire of 2011. The thinning style was called the groupy-clumpy model by the MPMB, as it consists of clumps or groups of larger trees surrounded by meadows. This model was coproduced after a long process of knowledge building through social learning with scientists from Northern Arizona University and the USFS (Schoon et al., 2021). While this case study is largely seen as a success, the final report has observed that the major obstacles were around the contracting process (Mottek Lucas et al., 2017).

Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI), Arizona, USA Following the success and acclaim of the first five years of the WMSP, the USFS decided to scale up their efforts to 2.4 million acres across the four National Forests in eastern and northern Arizona with a second stewardship contract for 20 years in 2 phases, beginning in 2012 (even though not even half of the planned acreage had been thinned in the WMSP, partly due to contractor issues). The 4FRI project was launched under a newly created program, the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), created by an act of the US Congress in 2009 (U.S. Forest Service, 2022). The objectives of 4FRI are similar to those of the WMSP but take a more comprehensive approach to forest restoration rather than only focusing on overgrown forests near to the wildlandurban interface, and including reintroduction of natural fire regimes, restoration of biodiversity and habitat, reducing risk of large, destructive fires, and promoting the health of the local forest industry economy (Four Forest Restoration Initiative, 2017). The state of Arizona is home to the largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest in the world. As the largest attempted forest restoration effort in the country, the stakes are high and the scale adds difficulty to the

214

C. Carr Kelman

collaborative effort around 4FRI. The 4FRI stakeholder working group is highly engaged and maintains their own website about the project (4fri.org). It is telling that a mid-term strategic plan reboot document emphasises the goals of restoring ecological resilience, improving USFS business practices, and accelerating the pace and scale of restoration (Four Forest Restoration Initiative, 2017). As with WMSP, after Phase 1, there was a backlog of restoration activities related to the hired contractor. In September 2021, the USFS abruptly paused the entire project, following a protracted period of requests for proposals for contracting for Phase 2, which involved many questions and revisions. USFS contracting rules may have been part of the reason for the difficulties. State politicians were very concerned about halting the program, which had been well funded but receiving negative press throughout much of Phase 1 due to controversy surrounding the contractor from Washington state. The program was restarted a few months later, in December of 2021, with the USFS announcing changes to the contracting rules for Phase 2. These changes may well improve the project’s ability to succeed, and certainly appear to be more aligned with the goal of improving the sustainability of the local forest products industry. As explained by one of the founders of the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, who has long been involved in the collaboration, the two main purposes of the recent changes made were to resize the thinning part of the program to fit the existing industry in the area, and to focus on using new tools based on the best available science. They did this by altering USFS contracting rules so that they can hire numerous smaller contractors and thus hire locally to the project in northern and eastern AZ and shifting the nature of the RFP to reduce the acreage slated for mechanical thinning (logging), and increasing other sorts of treatments including controlled burns (Bex, 2021). The revised proposal (U.S. Forest Service, 2021) is geared toward program optimisation, which generally reduces the need for logging. These changes reduce the need for budgeting for forest road maintenance related to usage by heavy equipment, saving the USFS millions of dollars, and is much more likely to help revive the local/regional economy. This sort of optimisation should be applied to the entire

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

215

area, not just part of the 4FRI area. Perhaps the USFS and USDA still retain too much decision-making authority in this collaboration, but it is improving as a result of stakeholder involvement and collaboration with scientists and environmental experts.

Results While all of these are cases of some sort of collaboration in environmental governance, they differ in some key dimensions . There are many different kinds of collaborative governance, which have different goals and orientations (Margerum, 2008). Here, collaborative governance is an umbrella term, and so to be more specific, the cases are also evaluated regarding comanagement, coproduction, accountability, and environmental and social outcomes. These other aspects of implementation may help to explain the overall effectiveness of each collaboration effort (Table 8.2). The Indonesian case studies are in the same province (East Kalimantan) on the island of Borneo, and thus have a similar management context, with some important differences. Kutai is on the coast and is lowlands, making it rarer habitat than the mountainous terrain of Kayan Mentarang, and also more accessible to settlers. Kutai is also surrounded by resource extractive forms of development and a highway runs through it, while Kayan Mentarang is very remote and there are no roads to or in the park, and it is relatively natural contiguous forest. Therefore, the two cases are nearly opposite ease of access conditions. While the case of Kutai National Park in Indonesia included an attempt to bring in the public and private sectors, it was not able to be fully inclusive of the illegal settlers in the park, and therefore lacked an ability to include comanagement as part of the approach. Because the KNP management agency was unwilling to remove people from the park or include them in the process of management, this messy situation really undermined the attempts of the agency to work with the private sector to try to provide economic alternatives for people living in the park. While both cases had boundary spanners, the programs were very different. Kutai relied only on economic incentives (e.g., funding for small business

216

C. Carr Kelman

development) and little rule enforcement. Kayan Mentarang was focused almost entirely on inclusive comanagement of park activities and recognition of indigenous rights, with very little emphasis on the economic development of the area. In the Arizona cases, there is actual overlap in the terrain and timeline of these related programs, so the main differences between WMSP and 4FRI are overall goals (proof of concept vs. actual acreage treated), and generally how the process was managed, especially in terms of trust building among the parties on the board. The process was not facilitated by the same extension professor who had put so much time and effort into creating a common vision and understanding in WMSP. In 4FRI, there wasn’t the same degree of trust building, shared vision building, knowledge building, or social learning. Once the thinning method was proven effective by WMSP, it’s been mostly about the thinning and making it economically viable, although other restoration tactics are also being pursued. The thinning itself is managed the USFS, which has not handled contracting in a transparent, collaborative, or publicly accountable way. Issues included the USFS only being legally allowed to hire a single contractor, having no collaborative way of evaluating the contractor’s work, and other issues related to USFS contractor protocol. Their choices were not transparent and had no public accountability. Even when a journalist invoked the Freedom of Information Act to gain a copy of the documentation surrounding the hiring of the contractor for 4FRI, it finally arrived mostly redacted and therefore still secret from the public. Since the halting of the new contracting bid process in 2021 and subsequent announcement of new rules for the USFS contractor hiring and management, there is the possibility for fixing many of the worst issues with the 4FRI program. The program needed greater public accountability, and the involvement of the 4FRI stakeholders has had a positive impact on transforming the USFS and its contracting process. Time will tell whether this redirects 4FRI outcomes in a more positive direction in coming years.

White Mountains Stewardship Project (WMSP) AZ, USA

Kayan Mentarang National Park, East Kalimantan, Indonesia Kutai National Park, East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Case Study

Not in a systematic way, although CIFOR did some studies in collaboration with park

Yes, at least partially, with private sector and funding for community economic development Yes, Multiparty Monitoring Board appointed by USFS; with advantage of prior network Yes, working with the Ecological Restoration Institute (ERI) at Northern Arizona University

Yes, facilitated by WWF and an anthropologist who serves as a liaison

Knowledge coproduction?

Yes

Collaborative governance?

No, despite MPMB, the USFS retained decision-making rights surrounding contracting

No (local inhabitants settled illegally in the park)

Yes, indigenous board helps to manage the park

Comanagement?

Table 8.2 Case study outcomes and assessment for key attributes

No, Partially: Explanations of Contracting decisions made by the USFS were not available to the public

No, although there were many public meetings, people did not have real agency

Yes

Accountability to the public?

(continued)

Partially: (Positive environmental and social outcomes, but restoration was incomplete and behind on time)

No (Negative environmental outcomes; mixed social outcomes)

Yes (positive social and environmental outcomes)

Sustainability transformation?

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

217

Four Forest Restoration Initiative PHASE 1 (4FRI), AZ, USA

Case Study

Yes, Multiparty Monitoring Board appointed by USFS

Collaborative governance?

Table 8.2 (continued)

Yes, working with the ERI at NAU, building on WMSP, but partnership could be strengthened

Knowledge coproduction? No, USFS retained exclusive decision-making about contracts and there were contractor issues

Comanagement? No, there was controversy and secrecy surrounding contracting, causing public distrust and dismay during phase 1 of the project

Accountability to the public? No, Negative social and environmental outcomes for phase 1 (However, phase 2 has now begun with new rules for contracts)

Sustainability transformation?

218 C. Carr Kelman

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

219

Discussion In comparing the case studies considered here, it appears that inclusivity of stakeholders and accountability to the public are strongly related to the achievement of positive environmental and social outcomes of collaborative forest governance efforts. In Kayan Mentarang, we see a combination of knowledge coproduction and comanagement that created successful collaborative governance, with public accountability and positive social and environmental outcomes. KMNP is the best example in the case studies of a sustainability transformation. In The White Mountains, collaborative governance included knowledge coproduction, but not decisions regarding management of contracting. This lack of public involvement, transparency and accountability regarding USFS contracting decisions turned out to be a problem for the project outcomes, as the planned acreage was not completed in time, even though there were positive outcomes that showed that mechanical thinning was effective in stopping wildfires. In both Kutai and 4FRI Phase 1, lack of public accountability and lack of inclusion of stakeholders through comanagement has led to ineffective governance and poor environmental and social outcomes. Kutai shows us that public accountability goes both ways—not only does the public need to have a voice, but public agencies also must hold the public accountable through enforcing environmental regulations to prevent overharvesting of resources (this could fall under the category of monitoring and enforcement). Collaborative environmental governance is not effective if only incentives are provided. Phase 1 of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative shows us that government needs to be held accountable by stakeholders and the public, and that monitors also need monitoring. The USFS should not have sole authority over the contracting process, and the stakeholders should be involved in the collaborative and multidimensional evaluation of the contractors. It may be helpful for Phase 2 that the USFS have now changed their rule requiring only one contractor, which was very limiting, and they learned that the project was not too big to fail. Ideally the public will remain involved, and the process will be more transparent from this point on.

220

C. Carr Kelman

While coproduction of knowledge has been essential for many cases, perhaps it did not make or break the cases examined here. It is also possible that the examination of this aspect of the cases was incomplete and would be seen in a different light if more focused research was done on this aspect of the collaborations. Berkes (2009) has noted that effective comanagement requires an effective knowledge partnership, so perhaps it is the knowledge coproduction that facilitates the effectiveness of the comanagement, once that aspect of the governance arrangements are invoked. This line of inquiry should be further investigated using other case studies and theoretical lenses. Regardless, it is clear that both comanagement and knowledge coproduction contribute substantially and importantly to the public accountability and outcomes of collaborative environmental governance. In other words, effective collaborative governance depends upon public accountability, which can be best achieved through coproduction of knowledge as a part of comanagement of policies and their implementation. This could be envisioned as a diagram as depicted in Fig. 8.1. This should be further developed in future scholarship, along with lessons around important components of these practices, including social learning, knowledge building, inclusivity levels of stakeholders, and the importance of prior networks. Coproduction and comanagement are forms of collaborative governance which can overlap, but are mainly complementary, especially when defining these terms in ways similar to the understandings in the SES governance and sustainability literature. When collaborative governance regimes incorporate both of these, environmental outcomes can be more accountable and effective. Comanagement provides rich opportunities for social learning and knowledge building (Armitage et al., 2011), which are both core components of successful collaborative governance (Carr Kelman et al., 2022b). These important processes are enhanced by the involvement of scientists and other scholars in the collaboration (Lemos et al., 2018; Meadow et al., 2015). Ideally the knowledge built would be coproduced, to both provide expert advice and tools, as needed, and to study the process and share findings reflexively with the collaborative group. Social scientists might be invited to be boundary spanners (facilitators) between

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

221

communities and government, especially in cases of comanagement with indigenous groups that may have had a history of conflict or distrust with the state or even conservation NGOs in some cases. Having a calm, patient and dedicated academic in the role of early networker or boundary spanner is arguably a key reason for success in the two successful case studies here. This describes the role of the WWF anthropologist in KMNP and the Extension Professor in the WMSP. They also facilitated the creation of actionable science in their roles as knowledge coproducers. The importance of boundary spanners in collaborative processes cannot be overstated, and it also must be understood that this is a quite difficult job, involving a wide range of skills including technical understanding of the scientific aspects of the collaborative focus, social skills, and leadership qualities, as well as organisational and project management skills (Goodrich et al., 2020). Boundary spanners should also receive training in methods for supporting effective knowledge exchange (Cook et al., 2021), facilitation for co-productive agility to avoid common pitfalls of coproduction (Chambers et al., 2022), and to learn about various modes of co-production best suited to achieving particular types of outcomes in particular contexts (Chambers et al., 2021). An ideal role for Universities in the Anthropocene is to serve as a neutral space to support boundary-spanning collaborations and training. They might create boundary-spanning organisations such as centers or funded projects similar to the extension service model of landgrant universities with dedicated faculty (Crow & Dabars, 2018; Karlin et al., 2016). It would be the role of these professors of practice to facilitate collaborative processes, promote inclusivity, and provide expertise, while also studying, evaluating, and monitoring the coproductive process. These roles may need to be fulfilled by multiple different faculty from different disciplines, supported by staff, and training will need to be provided. Tools will need to include methods for implementation as well as ways to evaluate coproduction and collaborations including the partnership scorecard (Barton et al., 2022) or the evaluative framework in Wall et al. (2017).

222

C. Carr Kelman

Conclusion The case studies examined here show that more inclusive and effective management is possible with comanagement, and more actionable science is created with knowledge coproduction. The most effective forms of collaborative governance should actively include both coproduction of knowledge and comanagement over the longer term. Within the practice of collaborative governance and comanagement, studies have shown the importance of social learning; knowledge building, reflexivity, and iterativity (Armitage et al., 2011; Berkes, 2009; Wall et al., 2017). This speaks to the need for both evidence-based practice and practicebased evidence. Although there are multiple ways of describing it in the literature, the central message of improving social and environmental outcomes through inclusion of stakeholders in the processes of policy creation and implementation remains the same. There is a wealth of knowledge already around the key components of effective collaborative governance of SES (Armitage et al., 2009; Carr Kelman et al., 2022b), best practices for coproducing knowledge and environmental outcomes (Arnott et al., 2020; Beier et al., 2017), and methods for assessing the process of coproduction (Barton et al., 2022; Wall et al., 2017). Now the challenge is to bring these together and put them into practice in a way that is systematic and coordinated, without losing the unique aliveness of each place and context.

References Goodrich, K. A., Sjostrom, K. D., Vaughan, C., Nichols, L., Bednarek, A., & Lemos, M. C. (2020). Who are boundary spanners and how can we support them in making knowledge more actionable in sustainability fields? Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 42, 45–51. Jasanoff, S. (Ed.). (2004). States of knowledge: The co-production of science and social order. Routledge. Karlin, B., Carr Kelman, C., Goodrich, K. A., & Lowerson Bredow, V. (2016). The role of the university: Engaged scholarship in the anthropocene. In R.

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

223

A. Mathew (Ed.), The WSPC reference on natural resources and environmental policy in the era of global change (pp. 143–172). World Scientific. https://doi. org/10.1142/9789813208162_0007 Lubchenco, J., Barner, A. K., Cerny-Chipman, E. B., & Reimer, J. N. (2015). Sustainability rooted in science. Nature Geoscience, 8, 741–745. Abbott, A. (2004). Methods of discovery: Heuristics for the social sciences. W. W. Norton. Ansell, C. (2019). Collaboration: Key concepts. In A. Kekez, M. Howlett, & M. Ramesh (Eds.), Collaboration in public service delivery: Promise and pitfalls (pp. 2–19) Edward Elgar. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788978583.00009 Ansell, C., & Gash, A. (2008). Collaborative governance in theory and practice. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 18(4), 543–571. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mum032 Ansell, C., & Torfing, J. (2022). Handbook on theories of governance. Elgar Online. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800371972 Armitage, D. R., Berkes, F., Dale, A., Kocho-Schellenberg, E., & Patton, E. (2011). Co-management and the co-production of knowledge: Learning to adapt in Canada’s Arctic. Global Environmental Change, 21, 995–1004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.04.006 Armitage, D. R., Plummer, R., Berkes, F., Arthur, R. I., Charles, A. T., Davidson-Hunt, I. J., Diduck, A. P., Doubleday, N. C., Johnson, D. S., Marschke, M., McConney, P., Pinkerton, E. W., & Wollenberg, E. K. (2009). Adaptive co-management for social-ecological complexity. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 7 (2), 95–102. https://doi.org/10.1890/ 070089 Arnott, J. C., Kirchhoff, C. J., Meyer, R. M., Meadow, A. M., & Bednarek, A. T. (2020). Sponsoring actionable science: What public science funders can do to advance sustainability and the social contract for science. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 42, 38–44. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.cosust.2020.01.006 Barton, C. J., Arízaga, M., Anderson, D. M., Carr Kelman, C., & Gerber, L. R. (2022). A scorecard for designing and evaluating university partnerships (Under review). Beier, P., Hansen, L. J., Helbrecht, L., & Behar, D. (2017). A how-to guide for coproduction of actionable science. Conservation Letters, 10 (3), 288–296. Berkes, F. (2004). Rethinking community-based conservation. Conservation Biology, 18(3), 621–630. Berkes, F., Armitage, D., & Doubleday, N. (2007). Synthesis: Adapting, innovating, evolving. In F. Berkes, D. Armitage, & N. Doubleday (Eds.),

224

C. Carr Kelman

Adaptive co-management: Collaboration, learning, and multi-level governance (pp. 308–327). UBC Press. Berkes, F. (2009). Evolution of co-management: Role of knowledge generation, bridging organizations and social learning. Journal of Environmental Management, 90 (5), 1692–1702. Bex, U. (2021). 4FRI revived: Wildfire-prevention program back on track after months of delay. Cronkite News: Arizona PBS. https://cronkitenews.azpbs. org/2021/12/13/4fri-revived-wildfire-prevention-program-back-on-trackafter-months-of-delay/ Brandsen, T., & Honingh, M. (2015). Distinguishing different types of coproduction: A conceptual analysis based on the classical definitions. Public Administration Review, 76 (3), 427–435. Bremer, S., & Meisch, S. (2017). Co-production in climate change research: Reviewing different perspectives. Wires Climate Change, 8(6), e482. https:// doi.org/10.1002/wcc.482 Brugger, J., Meadow, A., & Horangic, A. (2016). Lessons from first-generation climate science integrators. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 97 (3), 355–365. Carlsson, L., & Berkes, F. (2005). Co-management: Concepts and methodological implications. Journal of Environmental Management, 75 (1), 65–76. Carr Kelman, C. (2010). Assessing integrated conservation and development in Indonesia (Doctoral Dissertation). Department of Planning, Policy and Design, University of California, Irvine. Carr Kelman, C., Barton, C. J., Whitman, K., Lhoest, S. P., Anderson, D. M., & Gerber, L. R. (2022a). Five approaches to producing actionable science in conservation (Under review). Carr Kelman, C., Brady, U., Raschke, B. A., & Schoon, M. (2022b). A systematic review of core components of effective collaborative governance of social-ecological systems: 22 key criteria building upon Ostrom’s institutional design principles (Under review). Cash, D., Clark, W., Alcock, F., Dickson, N., Eckley, N., Guston, D., Jäger, J., & Mitchell, R. (2003). Knowledge systems for sustainable development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100 (14), 8086–8091. Chambers, J. M., Wyborn, C., Klenk, N. L., Ryan, M., Serban, A., Bennett, N. J., Brennan, R., Charli-Joseph, L., Fernández-Giménez, M. E., Galvin, K. A., Goldstein, B. E., Haller, T., Hill, R., Munera, C., Nel, J. L., Österblom, H., Reid, R. S., Riechers, M., Spierenburg, M., … Rondeau, R. (2022).

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

225

Co-productive agility and four collaborative pathways to sustainability transformations. Global Environmental Change, 72, 102422. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102422 Chambers, J. M., Wyborn, C., Ryan, M. E., Reid, R. S., Riechers, M., Serban, A., Bennett, N. J., Cvitanovic, C., Fernández-Giménez, M. E., Galvin, K. A., Goldstein, B. E., Klenk, N. L., Tengö, M., Brennan, R., Cockburn, J. J., Hill, R., Munera, C., Nel, J. L., Österblom, H., … Pickering, T. (2021). Six modes of co-production for sustainability. Nature Sustainability, 4 (11), 983–996. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00755-x Cook, C. N., Beever, E. A., Thurman, L. L., Thompson, L. M., Gross, J. E., Whiteley, A. R., Nicotra, A. B., Szymanski, J. A., Botero, C. A., Hall, K. R., Hoffmann, A. A., Schuurman, G. W., & Sgrò, C. M. (2021). Supporting the adaptive capacity of species through more effective knowledge exchange with conservation practitioners. Evolutionary Applications, 14, 1969–1979. https://doi.org/10.1111/eva.13266 Cook, C. N., Mascia, M. B., Schwartz, M. W., Possingham, H. P., & Fuller, R. A. (2013). Achieving conservation science that bridges the knowledge– action boundary. Conservation Biology, 27 (4), 669–678. Crow, M. M., & Dabars, W. B. (2018). Designing the new American university. Johns Hopkins University Press. DeFries, R. S., Ellis, E. C., Chapin, F. S., Matson, P. A., Turner, B. L., Agrawal, A., Crutzen, P. J., Field, C., Gleick, P., Kareiva, P. M., Lambin, E., Liverman, D., Ostrom, E., Sanchez, P. A., & Syvitski, J. (2012). Planetary opportunities: A social contract for global change science to contribute to a sustainable future. BioScience, 62(6), 603–606. Dilling, L., & Lemos, M. C. (2011). Creating usable science: Opportunities and constraints for climate knowledge use and their implications for science policy. Global Environmental Change, 21(2), 680–689. Djenontin, I. N. S., & Meadow, A. M. (2018). The art of co-production of knowledge in environmental sciences and management: Lessons from international practice. Environmental Management, 61, 885–903. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s00267-018-1028-3 Eghenter, C. (2013). Making a difference: Research as an advocacy tool in the Kayan Mentarang conservation area. World Wildlife Fund. https://wwf. panda.org/wwf_news/?208461/Making-a-difference-Research-as-an-adv ocacy-tool-in-the-Kayan-Mentarang-conservation-area Emerson, K., Nabatchi, T., & Balogh, S. (2012). An integrative framework for collaborative governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(1), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mur011

226

C. Carr Kelman

Emerson, K., & Nabatchi, T. (2015). Evaluating the productivity of collaborative governance regimes: A performance matrix. Public Performance & Management Review, 38(4), 717–747. https://doi.org/10.1080/15309576. 2015.1031016 Four Forest Restoration Initiative. (2017). Strategic plan. https://4fri.org/wpcontent/uploads/2018/04/4FRI-Strategic-Plan_11-15-2017_Approved_Full Doc_HiQual-copy.pdf Gibbons, M., Limoges, H., Nowotny, S., Swartzman, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge. Sage. Jasanoff, S. (1996). Beyond epistemology: Relativism and engagement in the politics of science. Social Studies of Science, 26 (2), 393–418. Kates, R., Clark, W., Corell, R., Hall, J., Jaeger, C., Lowe, I., McCarthy, J., Schellnhuber, H., Bolin, B., Dickson, N., & Faucheux, S. (2001). Sustainability science. Science, 292(5517), 641–642. Kekez, A., Howlett, M., & Ramesh, M. (2019). Collaboration in public service delivery: What, when and how. In A. Kekez, M. Howlett, & M. Ramesh (Eds.), Collaboration in public service delivery: Promise and pitfalls (pp. 2–19) Edward Elgar. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788978583.00009 Khine, P. K., Mi, J., & Shahid, R. (2021). A comparative analysis of coproduction in public services. Sustainability, 13, 6730. https://doi.org/10. 3390/su13126730 Kirchhoff, C. J., Lemos, M., & Dessai, S. (2013). Actionable knowledge for environmental decision-making: Broadening the usability of climate science. Annual Review Environmental Resources, 38, 393–414. Kofinas, G. (2002). Community contributions to ecological monitoring: Knowledge coproduction in the US-Canada Arctic borderlands. In The earth is faster now: Indigenous observations of Arctic environmental change (pp. 54–91). Arctic Research Consortium of the United States. Latour, B. (1990). Postmodern? No, simply amodern! Steps towards an anthropology of science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 21(1), 145–171. Lemos, M. C., & Agrawal, A. (2006). Environmental governance. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 31, 297–325. Lemos, M. C., Arnott, J. C., Ardoin, N. M., Baja, K., Bednarek, A. T., Dewulf, A., Fieseler, C., Goodrich, K. A., Jagannathan, K., & Klenk, N. (2018). To co-produce or not to co-produce. Nature Sustainability, 1, 722–724. Lemos, M. C., & Morehouse, B. J. (2005). The co-production of science and policy in integrated climate assessments. Global Environmental Change, 15, 57–68.

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

227

Lin, A. C. (1998). Bridging positivist and interpretivist approaches to qualitative methods. Policy Studies Journal, 26 (1), 162–180. Lubchenco, J. (2017). Delivering on science’s social contract. Michigan Journal of Sustainability, 5, 95–108. Lubchenco, J. (1998). Entering the century of the environment: A new social contract for science. Science, 279 (5350), 491–497. Mach, K. J., Lemos, M. C., Meadow, A. M., Wyborn, C., Klenk, N., Arnott, J. C., Ardoin, N. M., Fieseler, C., Moss, R. H., Nichols, L., Stults, M., Vaughan, C., & Wong-Parodi, G. (2020). Actionable knowledge and the art of engagement. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 42, 30–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.01.002 Margerum, R. D. (2008). A typology of collaboration efforts in environmental management. Environmental Management, 41, 487–500. https://doi.org/10. 1007/s00267-008-9067-9 McGuire, M. (2006). Collaborative public management: Assessing what we know and how we know it. Public Administration Review, 66 , 33–43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00664.x Mattor, K. M., & Cheng, A. S. (2015). Contextual factors influencing collaboration levels and outcomes in national forest stewardship contracting: Contextual factors influencing collaboration. The Review of Policy Research, 32(6), 723–744. https://doi.org/10.1111/ropr.12151 McNie, E. C., Parris, A., & Sarewitz, D. (2016). Improving the public value of science: A typology to inform discussion, design and implementation of research. Research Policy, 45, 884–895. Meadow, A. M., Ferguson, D. B., Guido, Z., Horangic, A., Owen, G., & Wall, T. (2015). Moving toward the deliberate coproduction of climate science knowledge. Weather, Climate, and Society, 7 (2), 179–191. Miller, C. A., & Wyborn, C. (2020). Co-production in global sustainability: Histories and theories. Environmental Science & Policy, 113, 88–95. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press. Moser, S. C. (2016). Can science on transformation transform science? Lessons from co-design. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 20, 106– 115. Mottek Lucas, A., Kim, Y., Greco, B., Becker, D. R., Hjerpe, E. E., & Abrams, J. (2017). Social and economic contributions of the White Mountain Stewardship Project: Final 10-year assessment—Lessons learned and implications for future forest management initiatives. Journal of Forestry, 115 (6), 548–558. https://doi.org/10.5849/JOF-2016-008R3

228

C. Carr Kelman

Osborne, S. P. (2006). The new public governance? Public Management Review, 8(3), 377–387. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719030600853022 Ostrom, E., & Ostrom, V. (1977). Public economy organization and service delivery. Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington, 53 pp. Parks, R. B., Baker, P. C., Kiser, L., Oakerson, R., Ostrom, E., Ostrom, V., Percy, S., Vandivort, M., Whitaker, G., & Wilson, R. (1981). Consumers as coproducers of public services: Some economic and institutional considerations. Policy Studies Journal, 9 (7), 1001–1011. Plummer, R., & Armitage, D. R. (2007). Charting the new territory of adaptive co-management: A Delphi study. Ecology and Society, 12(2), 10. https:// doi.org/10.5751/ES-02091-120210 Posner, S. M., & Cvitanovic, C. (2019). Evaluating the impacts of boundaryspanning activities at the interface of environmental science and policy: A review of progress and future research needs. Environmental Science and Policy, 92, 141–151. Plummer, R., Crona, B., Armitage, D. R., Olsson, P., Tengö, M., & Yudina, O. (2012). Adaptive comanagement: A systematic review and analysis. Ecology and Society, 17 (3). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-04952-170311 Raschke, A. B., Brown, M. I., & Cheng, S. H. (2019). Evidence on biodiversity conservation impacts: Assessing theories, approaches, and outcomes from community engagement. Conservation Solutions Lab, Arizona State University & Chemonics, Inc. https://sustainability-innovation.asu.edu/biodiversityout comes/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2019/05/Evidence-on-Biodiversity-Con servation-Impacts-2019-Candice-Carr-Kelman.pdf Roux, D. J., Nel, J. L., Freitag, S., Novellie, P., & Rosenberg, E. (2021). Evaluating and reflecting on coproduction of protected area management plans. Conservation Science and Practice, 3(11), e542. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp 2.542 Sarewitz, D. (1996). Frontiers of illusion: Science, technology and the politics of progress. Temple University Press. Schoon, M. L., Chapman, M., Loos, J., Ifejika Speranza, C., Carr Kelman, C., Aburto, J., & Alexander, S. (2021). On the frontiers of collaboration and conflict: How context influences the success of collaboration. Ecosystems and People, 17 (1), 383–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2021.1946593 Stokes, D. E. (1997). Pasteur’s quadrant: Basic science and technological innovation. Brookings Institutions Press.

8 Accountable Environmental Outcomes: Bridging …

229

Ulibarri, N. (2015). Tracing process to performance of collaborative governance: A comparative case study of federal hydropower licensing. Policy Studies Journal, 43(2), 283–308. U.S. Forest Service. (2021). 4FRI Restoration Strategy. USDA Forest Service. https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd969259.pdf U.S. Forest Service. (2022). 4FRI Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program Annual Reports. USDA. https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/4fri/home/? cid=stelprd3834701 Voorberg, W., & van Meerkerk, I. (2019). Co-production with citizens: Demarcating the mode of collaboration by looking ‘from outside in’. In A. Kekez, M. Howlett, & M. Ramesh (Eds.), Collaboration in public service delivery: Promise and pitfalls (pp. 2–19) Edward Elgar. https://doi.org/10. 4337/9781788978583.00009 Wall, T. U., Meadow, A. M., & Horganic, A. (2017). Developing evaluation indicators to improve the process of coproducing usable climate science. Weather, Climate, and Society, 9 (1), 95–107. Wyborn, C. A. (2015). Connecting knowledge with action through coproductive capacities: Adaptive governance and connectivity conservation. Ecology and Society, 20 (1), 11.

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability Through Environmental Stewardship: A Case Study in East Gippsland, Australia Patrick Bonney, Jessica Reeves, and The Community of Bung Yarnda

Introduction The disruptions of 2020s, from COVID-19, the lived experience of the climate emergency through a host of natural disasters and societal shifts towards greater appreciation of First Nations’ knowledge P. Bonney (B) School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] J. Reeves Future Regions Research Centre, Federation University Australia, Gippsland, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] The Community of Bung Yarnda Lake Tyers, VIC, Australia

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_9

231

232

P. Bonney et al.

and values, have provided an opportunity to pause and consider how to shift the status quo towards sustainability transformations. Local communities have been recognised as key actors driving place-based transformations to sustainability, both in cities (Frantzeskaki et al., 2016), as well as in regional and rural areas (Castro-Arce & Vanclay, 2020). Local actors are often those most affected by the impacts of adverse environmental change, attuned to the distinct possibilities in their localities, and hold the embedded knowledge and local connections necessary to facilitate and enact meaningful change (Balvanera et al., 2017). However, these connections have historically been overlooked or dismissed, as being “inferior” to the science-based knowledge of subject matter “experts” (Irwin et al., 1994); most of whom reside a significant distance from these communities. At the same time, many individuals and local communities across the world are finding a way forward through care of country, actively taking steps to “steward” local areas through a set of diverse activities, including ecological restoration, fisheries management, community-based forestry programmes, invasive species management and citizen science (Bennett et al., 2018). Although stewardship is considered fundamental to sustainability (Chapin et al., 2010; Plieninger & Bieling, 2017), questions remain regarding which factors enhance or undermine local stewardship and how external actors, such as researchers and academics institutions, can encourage or support stewardship action towards sustainability (Bennett et al., 2018). Alongside this recognition that local communities and acts of stewardship are critical to effective sustainability transformations, there is a growing attention to action-oriented, community-focused research approaches (Wittmayer et al., 2014). This approach sees researchers developing more impact-driven knowledge, embracing creative techniques and encouraging bottom-up solutions to sustainability challenges. Furthermore, an emerging literature describes the shifting roles that researchers play within such contexts and that go beyond their traditional role of passive, objective observer. As sustainability researchers increasingly “look outward” and embrace transdisciplinary—to reach beyond the academy and include non-academic stakeholders, including local communities—there is a need to better understand the opportunities and

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

233

practical challenges associated with enabling local sustainability transformations through action-oriented approaches and particularly the role of the researcher in these settings (Fazey et al., 2020). The main aim of this chapter is to describe place-based sustainability transformations in practice, drawing on our experience as sustainability researchers facilitating a community-led environmental stewardship programme in a rural coastal community in East Gippsland, Australia. The project, Living Bung Yarnda, was funded by the Coastcare Victoria Community Grant scheme, supported by the Victorian State Government. This funding initiative usually supports non-government and community-based organisations in promoting community capacity, stewardship and resilience. Experience shows that it is common for grant recipients to undertake their activities largely disconnected from external entities, such as government agencies and academic institutions, and frequently without long-term planning or strategy. Living Bung Yarnda is unique in this respect, in that it involved direct participation of sustainability researchers in the project, to facilitate articulation of the research priorities and activities. It is this relationship between sustainability researchers, local people, natural resource managers and communitybased organisations—the benefits, tensions and practical challenges for environmental stewardship—that we explore here. First, we provide a conceptual foundation by discussing the need for sustainability transformations in local contexts, the relationship between sustainability transformations and environmental stewardship and summarising relevant literature on the fluid roles of sustainability researchers. We then describe key formative moments and activities of Living Bung Yarnda, before reflecting on our experience in the project and offering key lessons we discovered were crucial to working in this context. This included the importance of taking the time to understand and respond to existing socio-ecological contexts, making pathways for action visible and leadership, humility and adaptability.

234

P. Bonney et al.

Background Enabling Sustainability Transformations This chapter makes a contribution to the growing research of transformations to sustainability. Following Patterson et al. (2017, p. 1), we define sustainability transformations as “fundamental changes in structural, functional, relational, and cognitive aspects of socio-technical-ecological systems that lead to new patterns of interactions and outcomes” (Patterson et al., 2017, p. 1). Specifically, we present an “enabling approach” (Scoones et al., 2020) that recognises meaningful change emerges from the agency, practices and networks underlying civic movements and grassroots initiatives. Contrasted with structural (focused on fundamental shifts in politics, economy and society) and systemic (focused on more incremental change through management, technology and policy) perspectives, enabling approaches represent efforts at “creating the social attributes – capacities – that empower individuals and communities to take action on their own behalf ” (Scoones et al., 2020, p. 67). Despite a long history of civic movements and grassroots initiatives addressing sustainability challenges, local actors have generally been overlooked, particularly by governing or management authorities, amid efforts to develop wide-scale responses to these challenges. Moreover, questions remain regarding the agency and capacities of local, “enabled” communities to enact necessary changes.

What Role for Environmental Stewardship? Community is rooted in place, particularly in regional areas where place is interwoven with identity. The sense of responsibility for place can also be strong and is increasingly exercised through acts of environmental stewardship. Environmental stewardship has emerged both as a key concept for and pathway to sustainability (Plieninger & Bieling, 2017). In the context of sustainability science, stewardship is expressed as a crucial approach to actively shape trajectories of systems

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

235

in order to enhance ecological resilience and support human wellbeing (Chapin et al., 2010). In recent years, researchers have focused their analyses on the different dimensions and factors that enable or undermine positive stewardship behaviours and actions. For example, Bennett et al. (2018, p. 597) provides a useful framework for thinking through the different capacities and institutional factors that might support local stewardship efforts, which refer to “the actions taken by individuals, groups or networks of actors, with various motivations and levels of capacity, to protect, care for or responsibly use the environment in pursuit of environmental and/or social outcomes in diverse social–ecological contexts”. Enqvist et al. (2018) highlight three dimensions of environmental stewardship, developing a knowledge-agency-care framework. In this framework, knowledge refers to how information and ways of knowing inform stewardship action; agency refers to the abilities and capacities of individuals to engage in activities and promote meaningful change; and care highlights “the desire to “look after” something informed by, for example, values, meanings, emotions, preferences, and senses of attachment, connection or responsibility” (West et al., 2018). While long recognised and practised in Indigenous communities around the world, this sense of caring for country is increasingly being practised by settler communities to act on behalf of the environment. This involves working with nature, which as Fryirs and Brierley (2021, p. 3006) describe, “entails genuine commitment to integration, listening and sharing – working openly, inclusively, respectfully and collaboratively to co-produce and grow a community of practice of scholars, practitioners and citizens”. This requires place-based, science-informed and respectful approaches, in addition to bravery, readiness and a commitment to multiple ways of knowing (Fryirs & Brierley, 2021). Working with nature also embraces notions of personhood or Rights of the Environment (e.g. Brierley, 2019), such as the Whanganui in New Zealand and Ganges River in India, or roles for people to speak for the interests of the environment, such as the Hudson Riverkeeper (https://www.riv erkeeper.org/). What is needed are more empirical studies of place-based research, experimentation and active learning about “the practice of stewardship

236

P. Bonney et al.

in social–ecological systems in order to support realisation of stewardship ideals” (Cockburn et al., 2018, p. 5). A particular issue relates to the role of external actors, such as researchers and academic institutions, in supporting stewardship towards sustainability (Bennett et al., 2018). This includes both the levers and pathways for change that can be enabled through positive facilitation and the barriers and obstacles present between communities and external actors. Local communities taking action on sustainability issues are increasingly supported by external actors in promoting societal change—both by invitation and by imposition. However, their roles and the activations that generate (or potentially undermine) meaningful change are not well documented or explored.

What Role(s) of Researchers? There is a growing body of research examining the wide-ranging roles and activities adopted by researchers in sustainability science. A particular focus has been on research working in transformative- or actionoriented approaches. Within this context, action-oriented sustainability researchers are often in a better position to learn about the place in which they are conducting their activities compared with more passive, external observers. There are diverse roles that can be taken by researchers working to promote sustainability transformations These include facilitation, frame-mediation, brokerage or enabling local actions as experts in learning (Fazey et al., 2018; Hilger et al., 2018; Moriggi, 2021; Wittmayer et al., 2014;). Table 9.1 lists and describes the different roles and activities of researchers working in process-oriented approaches to sustainability science. However, as highlighted by Wittmayer et al. (2014, p. 484), roles of researchers in process-oriented approaches to sustainability science have received limited research attention, which “often leaves researchers without the appropriate vocabulary to explain and navigate the tensions and potentials that come with their ‘new’ activities and roles”. Similarly, Fazey et al. (2018) argues for greater attention to action-oriented transformation research, “how to” practical knowledge and the value and challenges of flexible roles adopted by researchers to promote societal change.

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

237

This chapter responds to these knowledge gaps by describing our involvement in a community-led environmental stewardship programme in which we adopted numerous and shifting roles. Table 9.1 Examples of possible roles of researchers in sustainability transformations Roles

Activities of researchers

Process facilitator

• Initiates and facilitates processes and experiments • Selects participants and facilitates learning processes • Encourages diverse viewpoints • Mediates multiple perspectives • Provides space for critical reflections • Makes sustainability relevant in a given context • Acknowledges system complexity and produces socially robust knowledge • Acknowledges multiple ways of knowing • Networks with actors outside of immediate group • Initiates and participates in the learning journey • Motivates and empowers participants to lead the process • Supports participants in policy processes • Assisting citizens in knowledge production processes • Designing methods of data collection • Analysing data including reflexive practices • Collects, analyses and interprets data • Provides knowledge on the basis of analysis • Analyses actors and group dynamics • Strives for objectivity • Acknowledges their part in dynamic actions • Reflexive about their own positionality • Considers themselves their own research instruments that changes throughout the research process • Believes that experience of personal transformation and awareness may be a precondition for facilitating transformation processes • Coordinating and steering projects • Planning, implementing and accounting for resources

Knowledge broker

Change agent

Experts in learning

Reflective scientist

Self-reflexive scientist

Project manager

Source Adapted from Wittmayer et al. (2014), Horlings et al. (2018), Fazey et al. (2018), Moriggi (2021)

238

P. Bonney et al.

The following section details the case study, including its contextual setting and overview of the programme, Living Bung Yarnda.

Case Study: Enabling Local Action and Stewardship in a Rural Coastal Community Contextual Setting Part of the Gippsland Lakes, Ramsar Wetlands of Internal Significance, Lake Tyers (Bung Yarnda) is a forested, drowned river estuary located in East Gippsland, Australia. The area is home to three townships (Fig. 9.1): Lake Tyers Beach, overlooking the estuary entrance and popular tourist and fishing destination; Nowa Nowa, located at the top of the main “arm” of the lake and historic logging community; and the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust (LTAT), located on the lake’s central peninsula and site of Victoria’s last Aboriginal mission, operating from 1863 until 1971 when Aboriginal ownership was granted through the Aboriginal Lands Act (1970). Together, the townships have a combined population of approximately 1800 people, yet each with different demographics, character and socio-economic status (Table 9.2). The recent Black Summer bushfires in 2019/20 burnt around 230,000 Ha of East Gippsland, including around 60% of the Lake Tyers catchment. This, coupled with the announcement of the cessation of native timber harvesting by 2030, have brought increasing investment and attention to the region and signal a shift in the socio-economic priorities of the region. Options for new industries include eco-tourism, increased boating and recreational fishing, high value timber products and the potential for an iron-ore mine. While these provide new employment opportunities for the region, the local community is concerned that these may be realised at the expense of environmental values. When compared with nearby lakes in the Gippsland system, Lake Tyers is considered to be in excellent ecological condition. The other coastal lakes, including Lakes Wellington, King and Victoria, are

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

239

Fig. 9.1 Map of Lake Tyers and townships: Nowa Nowa, Lake Tyers Beach and Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust (LTAT) Table 9.2 2021 census data for the communities surrounding Lake Tyers, in comparison to the State of Victoria Data Population Born in Australia (%) Indigenous Australian (%) Median Age (years) Children under 14 (%) Aged over 65 (%) Median weekly income ($) Tertiary education (%)

Lake Tyers Beach

Toorloo Arm (including LTAT)

Nowa Nowa

Victoria

802 86

509 70.3

199 74.9

6.5 M 65.0

2.9

16.1

2.5

1.0

53

45

55

38

12.5

20.2

6.3

18

30.3 1171

15.7 1317

27.8 1012

16.8 1759

18.8

6.6

5.7

24.5

240

P. Bonney et al.

impacted by extensive catchment clearance, heavy industry, urban development, increasing salinity from water extraction and a permanent artificial opening the sea. Algal blooms are also common, borne from agricultural practices in the upper catchment and exacerbated by fire and flooding events. In contrast, Lake Tyers, with its small, largely forested catchment and comparatively minimal impacts, remains low priority for active management interventions (EGCMA, 2019). However, despite this perception, the lake and its catchment has suffered significant impacts in the past and faces several impending threats. Historical impacts include selective timber harvesting, limestone and mineral sands mining, drought and extensive commercial fishing, which was operational from the 1880s until 2003 when licenses were removed. Current and significant threats to the system include artificial openings of the berm, invasive deer populations and the impacts of fire—both planned and wild. A lack of active, on-ground management means some of these threats and impacts remain unacknowledged or underrepresented by agencies charged with the management of Lake Tyers. The resulting uncertainty is compounded by complex and often confusing governance arrangements distributing responsibilities across multiple government authorities and other organisations. For example, the State Park, which represents around 70% of the catchment, is jointly managed by Parks Victoria and the GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation; the central peninsula is owned by the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust, forest and fire management is governed by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning; the waterways are managed by the East Gippsland Catchment Management Authority; waterway access and navigation managed by Gippsland Ports; and the residential towns (Lake Tyers Beach and Nowa Nowa) managed by East Gippsland Shire Council (Table 9.3). There is no overarching authority with the lakes’ best interest as their core priority. There is no voice for the lake.

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

241

Table 9.3 Overview of environmental governance responsibility across Lake Tyers Management area

Responsibility

State Park (representing 70% of the catchment)

Jointly managed by Parks Victoria and Gunai-Kurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning East Gippsland Catchment Management Authority Gippsland Ports East Gippsland Shire Council

Central Peninsula Fire management Waterways, including berm opening Waterway access and navigation Residential areas

These threats to Lake Tyers’ environmental values, coupled with a history of mostly reactive environmental management, have over the years inspired notable instances of community activism. For example, in the early 1980s, the “Dolphin Protection Group” (now known as Lake Tyers Coast Action) was formed to advocate for the banning of commercial fishing in Lake Tyers to protect a pod of dolphins that had made their way into the estuary. In 1999–2000, Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities were galvanised around the proposal for an extension to a gas pipeline that was to run through the Gorge on Boggy Creek, Nowa Nowa—a site of sacred significance to GunaiKurnai people, home to unique vegetation and great beauty, as well as the local swimming hole. In more recent years, fire management across the catchment has generated considerable community conflict and divisions, as well as instances of protest and direct confrontation between members of the community and fire management authorities. Alongside this activism, various community groups have formed to undertake stewardship action for Lake Tyers. This takes several forms, including weeding events (e.g. Lake Tyers Coast Action), environmental education (e.g. Friends of Oneonta), bird monitoring (BirdLife East Gippsland) or arts-based practice (e.g. FLOAT). There are also ad hoc stewardship activities on the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust, overseen by the rangers, and a strong recreational fishing club (Lake Tyers Beach Angling Club). Each of these groups share a deep love and concern for the lake

242

P. Bonney et al.

Fig. 9.2 Local community groups (inner circle) and external organisations (outer circle) supporting the work of Living Bung Yarnda

and want to act in ways to protect it. However, there is a lack of coordination between interests and activities and under-representation of these values to management authorities and the pathways for communication of concerns and aspirations are limited (Fig. 9.2).

Living Bung Yarnda Living Bung Yarnda began with a story, written by GunaiKurnai elder, Wayne Thorpe. In A Story of Bung Yarnda (2018), Thorpe uses narrative and vivid imagery that speaks to the natural variability and uniqueness of Lake Tyers while highlighting its cultural significance as spiritual focal point for many people. A key focus in this account is encouraging greater respect, patience and observation of the lake’s cyclic ebbs and flows. Specifically, Thorpe advocates for natural rather than artificial openings of the sandbar (berm) that separates Lake Tyers from the ocean in respect for the natural rhythms of the lake’s replenishment. At a presentation of

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

243

this story at a local event (Stories of Influence) held in Nowa Nowa in 2018, Thorpe put out a call for help from the community to be vigilant in their care for the lake. Living Bung Yarnda was established a way to answer this call. Through Living Bung Yarnda, the researchers saw an opportunity to test some of the new policies and strategies that promote participatory approaches to address the environmental issues that affect local communities. In particular, we were interested in understanding how a voice for Lake Tyers could be articulated through environmental stewardship, community-based monitoring and environmental narratives. In Victoria, there has been both longstanding support for community-based natural resource management through programmes such as Landcare, Bushcare and Waterwatch. In recent years, citizen science approaches to environmental management have gained increasing prominence, largely in response to global trends and the associated opportunities for data collection over large geographic areas to answer large-scale ecological questions, through a host of citizen science activities. Furthermore, government agencies have signalled a commitment to promoting the sovereignty of Traditional Owner groups and Aboriginal Victorians, through the Cultural Landscapes Strategy, as well as recognising the value in adopting place-based approaches to community development (FVTOC, 2021). Our prior experience working in participatory settings, including through citizen science and community-based natural resource management, has highlighted the predominance of approaches that involve limited forms of participation towards predetermined outcomes. For instance, citizen science projects are often led by academic researchers in design and objectives, with engagement of volunteers limited to scientific data collection, thereby limiting opportunities for situated knowledge, other ways of knowing and local concerns to influence the research process. As such, underpinning the philosophy of Living Bung Yarnda was offering alternative forms of engagement in knowledge production and stewardship action that went beyond often-narrow participatory approaches. Indeed, there has long been a recognition that alternatives to top-down participatory arrangements are necessary for governing socio-ecological systems (Carr, 2002). As such, we sought to develop a programme that was more open-ended, co-produced and responded

244

P. Bonney et al.

directly to and evolved with the multiple and diverse needs within the local community. Within this context, Living Bung Yarnda can be viewed as a grassroots experiment seeking to find solutions for environmental change and sustainability challenges (Seyfang & Smith, 2007), that “deviates from currently normalised practices” (Hildén et al., 2017) to promote new ways of working, strengthen social networks and establish good examples that others can follow. Here, we offer an opportunity for people to participate in activities that resonate with them, and elevate both their concerns and knowledge through data collection, arts practice or stories. Across the world, there has been a proliferation of experimental and action-oriented approaches that seek to co-produce knowledge between researchers and other stakeholders, including with local communities. They are often founded on the premise that a combination of academic and practice-based or local knowledge can better address complex sustainability challenges than either of them alone (Cornell et al., 2013). In the section that follows, we describe the core elements of our experiments and several formative moments that enabled Living Bung Yarnda to promote new ways of organising, knowledge creation and local stewardship action.

Experiments in Mobilising Local Action and Place-Based Knowledge This section describes key phases in the development and implementation of Living Bung Yarnda, including the key activities undertaken and how these relate the shifting roles we adopted as sustainability researchers working around the margins to promote societal change in local contexts. In this spirit of self-reflexivity, we also include in this section reflections on the very real challenges and sometimes-uncomfortable tensions we discovered were at the heart of local sustainability transformations.

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

245

Preparation and Network-Building In the preparation stages of Living Bung Yarnda, which took place over a number of years, we prioritised building relationships with several members of the community who were recognised by many to hold considerable knowledge about the environmental and socio-political aspects of Lake Tyers. These engagements were crucial at the outset as they enabled an understanding of the historical context of the area and how the existing social landscape was woven together. We were able to identify some of the emerging and persistent challenges affecting the environment and its communities, including the types of local knowledge these individuals held from their lived experience and deep connection to place and gain an understanding of their tensions and frustrations. As “outsiders” to this community, our initial observations were twofold. First, community members we spoke to consistently expressed a strong connection to Lake Tyers and held a vast knowledge of its history, environmental changes and wide-ranging issues affecting the area. Frequently, their observations of the natural variability and local natural assets were communicated through informal channels, such as social media, arts practice and local community events. These were effective in promoting values in the local community, but were also shouting into the “echo chamber”, not gaining traction with those in positions of power to enact real ongoing change. In other words, the uptake of community values and knowledge in formal settings or contributions to improved management was non-existent. We noted that incorporating these values and knowledge for improved management outcomes was constrained by the lack of formal knowledge management systems, understanding of policy, shared language and conduits to management authorities. Second, although there are various government agencies involved in overseeing the management of Lake Tyers, a distinct lack of active governance and long-term monitoring of the area was evident. Community members we spoke to were uncertain about which management agencies were responsible for different aspects of the area. Yet, we noted a willingness for the community to be part of positive collaborations with

246

P. Bonney et al.

government agencies and other stakeholders to improve the knowledge base important for characterising environmental change and addressing sustainability challenges. From here, we then held extended one-on one interviews and focus groups with various authorities with responsibilities for managing the area, including the local Traditional Owner organisation (GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation) and members of the LTAT, as well as the local environmental management organisations (DELWP, Parks Victoria, EGCMA, East Gippsland Conservation Management Network and Landcare. Working as “change agents”, the purpose of these engagements was primarily to establish trust with these officials and representatives, encourage them to see value in what we were trying to achieve and identifying spaces where community could make an active contribution through understanding the language, policies and gaps influencing existing on-ground management. These individuals provided advice, offered suggestions for practical pathways to address blockages “on the ground” and committed to assisting with our future initiatives. To address these issues, the proposed solution was to develop a community-led environmental stewardship program that empowered the community to share knowledge, collect data on aspects of the environment they were passionate about and, ultimately, be the “voice of their lake”. Core to this proposed solution was the need to foster new ways of organising and social relationships between the local community, management authorities and Traditional Owners. The project comprised three core aims: • Co-developing shared understanding about concerns and priorities for the lake; • Building new and harnessing existing knowledge (local, scientific and arts practice), including capacity building through training in scientific monitoring and resource sharing; and • Establishing conduits to decision makers and empowering community members to take leadership roles.

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

247

Co-creating Shared Understandings The design of the project was intentionally fluid, responding to the momentum and needs of the community. At the outset, we did not determine priorities to address or design a research methodology, except to listen and make space for what emerged and what the community identified as their priorities. Through active community engagement, we determined shared visions for the area, achieved through implementing a range of participatory methodologies and creative techniques. First, we employed a community mapping methodology (Fahy & Cinnéide, 2009). Community mapping is a widely regarded participatory practice to understand community values, important environmental issues and relationships with space and place. It has been employed in diverse social and environmental contexts, including in community-based monitoring activities in support of local sustainability (Pollock & Whitelaw, 2005). We held two community mapping events at a local community hall and council-owned nature reserve in December, 2020. Attendees were each provided a map of Lake Tyers and were asked to highlight and describe areas that represented a particular interest or concern, using colour-coded sticky dots. A total of 18 of maps were produced (Fig. 9.3), which helped determine sites of importance to inform future project planning. An analysis of these maps revealed consistency in community concerns about water quality, intensive recreation use, invasive species, fire management and cultural heritage—as well as areas of great personal connection and social value, that have since guided the activities undertaken to date. We then introduced Photovoice—a visual research methodology whereby participants capture or contribute images that illustrate individual responses to particular issues, such as climate change or other sustainability issues (Baldwin & Chandler, 2010). Members of the community were asked to submit photos that depicted their “love and concern” for Lake Tyers for discussion at an informal meeting and presentation at an exhibition in Lake Tyers Beach, hosted by the National Gallery of Victoria. Among the images, a sunset showcased the beauty of Lake Tyers. Another depicts the Littoral Rainforest, a nationally threatened ecosystem found in the Lake Tyers catchment. By contrast, one image conveyed the destructive activities of the logging industry

248

P. Bonney et al.

Fig. 9.3 Community mapping enabled the project to focus on issues and activities most relevant to the local community

building on longstanding and divisive issue within the wider region (Smith, 1991). The community were encouraged to group the images into themes and add one-line captions. One image of water lapping up at the edges of a popular carpark while another showed it rushing from the lake’s entrance and into the ocean. The use of Photovoice was contextually relevant to this community, in particular, given the strong association that many members have with an existing and active local arts collective, FLOAT. The simplicity of the technique was easily understood by participants and in many cases allowed them express creativity in their presenting the issues and concerns they had and find synergies between participants (Fig. 9.4). Adopting multiple visioning techniques responded to the different interests of participants and multiple ways they know and connect with place. For some, the community mapping exercises was a useful exercise because they had a thorough geographical understanding of Lake Tyers, including areas that needed the most attention. However, others, including members from LTAT were not easily engaged in the activity, struggled to see its value, or were unwilling to mark areas of cultural significance as this was not the appropriate forum. In these instances,

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

249

Fig. 9.4 Community photographs exhibited at a Oneonta and b NGV Waterfront Program

Fig. 9.5 Establishing sites for water quality monitoring at Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust

we abandoned the activity and decided to instead discuss their concerns in a more dialogic manner. At LTAT, a decision was made to focus on issues of water quality and provide training and capacity building for the Indigenous rangers to assist in monitoring the lake’s waters. This assisted an aspiration of the LTAT to create positions for water rangers (Fig. 9.5).

Generating and Harnessing Place-Based Knowledge After establishing a shared understand of these environmental sustainability issues, the next phase was to think through and create opportunities for generating new and harnessing existing place-based knowledge of Lake Tyers. The challenge was to capture and record these concerns

250

P. Bonney et al.

and translate them to a language that could be understood and acted upon by management authorities. This effort responded to the opportunity for the community to address the governance gap in the area, where our roles shifted between experts in learning, process facilitators, knowledge brokers and change agents. As process facilitators, we initiated and co-ordinated a series of training events in a range of environmental monitoring methods, which were attended by a total of 40 participants with many choosing to come to three or more events. Each event was hosted by an expert in the field that we recruited from various local community-based and government organisations, with a total of 16 presenters from ten organisations who volunteered their time across two days. The community felt seen and their care appreciated by these experts coming onto their “patch” and celebrating shared values there. The sense that people who mattered were finally paying attention to the community’s concerns. Each event gave a basic introduction into appropriate methodologies in the field of interest, led by leading local practitioners, that participants might choose to take up in their own time and to contribute to the knowledge base of Living Bung Yarnda. Participants were also supplied with a range of resources to support their learning, as well as practical field experience in birdwatching, water-quality testing, fish handling and logbooks, vegetation monitoring, spotlighting and methods of storytelling and nature journaling. Besides being well attended, the events again evoked very rich discussions around the issues being faced by Lake Tyers and the broader region, as well as some of the management challenges, such as pest species and the need for improved co-ordination among the management authorities. It started a dialogue and helped dispel some of the “us and them” mentality and build a shared understanding (Fig. 9.6). A key outcome of these workshops and training sessions was the establishment of a broadscale water-quality monitoring program covering the entire Lake Tyers catchment. Professional water-quality metre were purchased and a group of volunteers with an interest in conducting regular water-quality assessment were provided additional, in-depth

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

251

Fig. 9.6 Training events and workshops organised through Living Bung Yarnda for the Lake Tyers community

252

P. Bonney et al.

training. As experts in learning, we met several times with these individuals to select appropriate monitoring sites and provide hands-on experience with the water quality metres and provided additional training in managing the collected data. At the time of writing, we have initiated a similar monitoring project for flora and vegetation which will see community members conduct ongoing monitoring of sites harbouring locally important flora in collaboration with a local environmental consultancy. Interpretation signs have also been designed by the group to highlight distinctive environmental features to locals and visitors alike. An ongoing newsletter shares stories of interest to the local community, including history, biodiversity and upcoming events. This publication is extremely popular, with a growing readership and contributors. Such projects that encourage the community to work collaboratively with multiple stakeholders and address issues of community interest and concern is a positive step towards improving the knowledge base important for enabling local community transformations and sense of stewardship and care for place. However, key to the success of these initiatives is the importance of us as sustainability researchers to work across boundaries to translate this knowledge into action.

Working Across Boundaries One of the key issues that came up repeatedly in discussions with community participants was a concern about the nature and extent of planned burns. In response to the challenge of improving local participation in important policy decisions, we developed collaborative relationships with various government departments and communitybased organisations who strongly oppose fire management in the area, particularly after the trauma of the extensive wildfires in the region. Extended conversations with all parties culminated in a “Planned Burns Forum”. The forum took place at a local community hall and was independently facilitated. Around 35 community participants registered for the event, with 18 in attendance. Nine agency representatives from

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

253

various government departments with responsibilities for fire management and operations also attended. The intentions for the forum were to clearly explain: • The policy frameworks underpinning planned burns in the region; • How biodiversity, cultural and ecological values for planned burns are understood and addressed; and • The opportunities for citizen science and other knowledge to contribute to the monitoring of values (Fig. 9.7). Perhaps naively, we were unaware as to the depth and intensity of the conflict between these groups. Throughout the workshop, tensions ran high, with various community members planning to “ambush” proceedings, and many communities choosing to stay away, for fear of being talked down to or not heard. The agencies were equally concerned and we engaged in several pre-workshop discussions to organise the event and ensure the event was targeted and respectful to all. This forum

Fig. 9.7 Planned Burn Fire Forum organised through Living Bung Yarnda

254

P. Bonney et al.

aimed to start a dialogue and gain shared understanding of motivations, limitations and find opportunities for community concerns to be heard. We received feedback that the forum was successful in humanising the fire management and operational staff, understanding the planning process that goes into the burns and some of its shortcomings. It also identified tangible methods by which community members can have their knowledge and concerns about local biodiversity considered in the planning process. There was an agreement to support future training on this last point. However, where the forum fell short was in providing space for the community to have their concerns heard about future prescribed burns, particularly within the context of the devasting bushfires that greatly impacted Lake Tyers catchment and community in 2019/2020. To their credit, the agencies took many questions on notice and followed up with individuals after the event to address their concerns. A fire management community liaison is now committed to continuing conversations to ensure information regarding burn planning is shared with the Lake Tyers community through Living Bung Yarnda— as well as other groups, acknowledging that there is a very broad range of concerns regarding fire in this region. The conversation has started.

Reflections on Enabling Local Sustainability Transformations Action researchers need to be reflexive about their approach in order to not only explore its potential but also be mindful of the compromises they are making and the inevitable tensions they experience. As Wittmayer et al. (2014) suggested the roles of the researcher “warrants thoughtful examination”, particularly in arenas for societal learning and process-oriented sustainability approaches. Through Living Bung Yarnda, we began to understand how we, as researchers, hold an incredibly privileged position in society—as respected and independent agents—and the responsibility that comes along with that. Through time and trust, we were able to act as an effective conduit between community and local management authorities and build a shared language. But this did not come easily.

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

255

In the final section of this chapter, we reflect on our experience as sustainability researchers enabling local transformations through environmental stewardship, including detailing the practical knowledge we discovered was fundamental to working effectively in this context. We begin by highlighting the importance of taking the time to understand and respond to the existing socio-ecological relations and dynamics characterising local places, followed by the role of locating and making visible pathways for action in complex governance contexts. We end this discussion reflecting on the role of soft leadership and humility in enabling local sustainability transformations.

Understanding Existing Socio-Ecological Relations The notion of local sustainability transformations may conjure up visions of a harmonious, co-operative process with active and ongoing motivations for change. However, local communities are not homogenous, united and conflict-free entities. Not only are there demographic differences within communities, but subgroups have different—and potentially conflicting—interests, resources and capacities to act (Skerratt & Steiner, 2013). Recognising these differences and making space for them is essential to enabling local transformations to sustainability, as we discovered in this project. From the outset, we knew that the people who engaged strongly with the concept of Living Bung Yarnda considered themselves to be custodians of the Lake. Although they demonstrate deep care there are persistent challenges limiting both capability and capacity of community members to turn these ideals into actions. Furthermore, an acknowledgement that these ideals are not universally shared across the whole of the Lake Tyers community has limited broader participation in the project. It remains an ongoing challenge to open this project to more people with a range of skills, knowledge and viewpoints to participate in the project. We note this is a common challenge affecting environmental volunteering, more broadly (West & Pateman, 2016). There is a need to encourage participation through a range of pathways to enable more active and meaningful engagement—whether this related to on-ground

256

P. Bonney et al.

activities, collating materials, sharing stories or in promotion and strategy development. There are myriad ways to practice environmental stewardship, the key is to find methods that resonate with a range of community members, so they can find their place. Locating synergies with the project and the values, interests and concerns of community members and increasing the visibility of these actions will help to build momentum, relevance and sustainability of the project, as well as normalise a sense of care for the environment.

Making Pathways for Action Visible Within the context of enabling approaches to sustainability transformations, critiques include a lack of attention to how “enabled” communities can dismantle structural barriers and overcome political obstacles (Scoones et al., 2020). Moreover, as Blythe et al. (2018) make clear, a significant burden is placed on communities to enact transformation despite a recognition these individuals “are the most appropriate drivers of transformational change” (p. 1211). Therefore, we contend that a key role for sustainability researchers working with communities towards local sustainability transformations is to make visible specific and targeted pathways for action. Since researchers work within and respond to policy frameworks much more regularly than local communities, making visible these pathways and acting as “translators” of policy-speak holds great potential for fostering collaborative approaches between communities and government across boundaries. Our experience in this project highlighted that policy governing the use and management of natural resources, such as waterway and fire management, is a complex policy issue not easily navigated by local communities. By developing relationships with representatives from management authorities, we discovered that there were pathways for local communities to work within these policy frameworks, once a shared language was established. Within this context, our role was that of the knowledge broker, mediating between different perspectives, valuing multiple ways of knowing and acknowledging community system complexities, and making space for dialogue. Our perceived

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

257

neutrality and academic expertise acted as an enabler between the community and management agencies, who both saw us as a trusted conduit. This requires moving across scales and engaging with key individuals from diverse agencies and authorities, as well as deep listening to various community perspectives. It is at once an exhausting and deeply rewarding role.

Leadership, Humility and Adaptability An emerging literature on leadership in sustainability science highlights the importance building collective agency for place-based development and sustainability transformations (Care et al., 2021; Horlings et al., 2018). As Horlings et al. (2018) suggests “rural place leadership can initiate a gradually expanding “spiral” process where joint reflexivity, fruitful collaboration, the building of capacities and alliances and embedding in new (institutional) arrangements mutually enforce each other”. Olsson et al. (2006) similarly describes various aspects of effective leadership in the context of socio-ecological systems transformations, suggesting that transformations occur when leaders can recognise windows of opportunity, generate and integrated a diversity of viewpoints, ideas and solutions, and move across various levels of governance and politics at the same time as promoting local stewardship experimentation. This was the role we adopted in Living Bung Yarnda. In addition to these aspects of leadership, our experience in this project highlighted two additional factors that we argue are essential to transformational leaders: adaptability and humility. Adaptability is about the capacity to alter perspectives and behaviours in the face of changing circumstances. In the context of community development, it recognises the sporadic nature of participation that waxes and wanes as particular issues, problems or perceived crises arise or become less prominent (Cheers & Luloff, 2001). Much of this project has been undertaken during the lockdowns and other restrictions of the COVID19 response, causing us to constantly pivot and restricting community gatherings. Humble leadership is crucial to building and maintaining trust among participants as it requires researchers to let go of tendencies

258

P. Bonney et al.

to control transformation processes, as well as the admitting of uncertainties, mistakes and even failure. A continued refrain we echoed was: “this is not our project”, meaning it was the community’s project to design and deliver, whereas we were just acting as facilitators. Such humility manifests in our ongoing efforts to return greater agency for the community to make decisions for Living Bung Yarnda. We hope for participants to take responsibility for future actions, thereby reducing the need for our role as facilitators, but this remains a work in progress and key priority for the future. We have observed that, despite our best efforts, some community members still do not feel that this project has been developed with and for them. To promote a greater sense of ownership and to ensure project sustainability, we aim to conduct mentoring for all key roles for ongoing succession planning for the project, as well as better articulate the relationship between Living Bung Yarnda and the other community groups in the region. This will include how Living Bung Yarnda can support their endeavours and continue to act as a conduit, without imposing on the activities or membership of these groups. A place to hold and share knowledge and promote the achievements of all the actors who speak for the Lake.

Conclusion It is perhaps a truism to assert that local communities are too often engaged from the top-down. Such approaches tend to reinforce roles and attitudes towards local perspectives, knowledges and values, rather than afford genuine opportunities for improved human-nature relations towards just and sustainable futures. Through Living Bung Yarnda, we searched for alternative ways to unsettle existing assumptions, approaches and dualisms that permeate through environmental stewardship, citizen science and roles of sustainability researchers. We took time to listen and respond to the concerns and interests of the community and seek alignment or opportunity in current management plans. Working at the interstitial spaces between science, policy, community and practice, we saw the most effective work being done across boundaries, both in our efforts to link local communities horizontally with each other, as well as

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

259

vertically to management authorities who often struggled to break-free from their formal directives and policy mandates. Although an unfinished project, the “experiment” we conducted with a core objective to elevate neglected ecologies and knowledges in a rural coastal community was nonetheless successful in disrupting the status quo of existing social– ecological processes and nurturing new relations in place and practice, for the benefit of Bung Yarnda. We entrust the community to be the voice of the lake in the future decision-making, to ensure that transformations in the Lake Tyers region truly epitomise and embrace sustainability. Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge funding through the Coastcare Victoria Community Grants Scheme and the support of Bethany Hunting, Coastcare co-ordinator. We also acknowledge the knowledge and enthusiasm of the Lake Tyers community and thank them for inviting us to share their special place. We are grateful also for the time and consideration of GLaWAC, LTAT and representatives of the various government agencies who have responsibility for the environment of Lake Tyers and its catchment.

References Baldwin, C., & Chandler, L. (2010). “At the water’s edge”: Community voices on climate change. Local Environment, 15 (7), 637–649. https://doi.org/10. 1080/13549839.2010.498810 Balvanera, P., Calderón-Contreras, R., Castro, A. J., Felipe-Lucia, M. R., Geijzendorffer, I. R., Jacobs, S., Martín-López, B., Arbieu, U., Speranza, C. I., Locatelli, B., Pérez-Harguindeguy, N., Ruiz-Mercado, I., Spierenburg, M. J., Vallet, A., Lynes, L., & Gillson, L. (2017). Interconnected place-based social–ecological research can inform global sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 29, 1–7. Bennett, N. J., Whitty, T. S., Finkbeiner, E., Pittman, J., Bassett, H., Gelcich, S., & Allison, E. H. (2018). Environmental stewardship: A conceptual review and analytical framework. Environmental Management, 61(4), 597– 614. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-017-0993-2

260

P. Bonney et al.

Blythe, J., Silver, J., Evans, L., Armitage, D., Bennett, N. J., Moore, M. L., Morrison, T. H., & Brown, K. (2018). The dark side of transformation: Latent risks in contemporary sustainability discourse. Antipode, 50 (5), 1206–1223. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12405 Brierley, G. J. (2019). Finding the voice of the river. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 179. Care, O., Bernstein, M. J., Chapman, M., Diaz Reviriego, I., Dressler, G., Felipe-Lucia, M. R., Friis, C., Graham, S., Hänke, H., Haider, L. J., Hernández-Morcillo, M., Hoffmann, H., Kernecker, M., Nicol, P., Piñeiro, C., Pitt, H., Schill, C., Seufert, V., ... & Zähringer, J. G. (2021). Creating leadership collectives for sustainability transformations. Sustainability Science, 16 (2), 703–708. Carr, A. (2002). Grass roots and green tape: Principles and practices of environmental stewardship. Federation Press. Castro-Arce, K., & Vanclay, F. (2020). Transformative social innovation for sustainable rural development: An analytical framework to assist community-based initiatives. Journal of Rural Studies, 74, 45–54. Chapin, F. S., Carpenter, S. R., Kofinas, G. P., Folke, C., Abel, N., Clark, W. C., Olsson, P., Smith, D. M. S., Walker, B., Young, O. R., Berkes, F., Biggs, R., Grove, J. M., Naylor, R. L., Pinkerton, E., Steffen, W., & Swanson, F. J. (2010). Ecosystem stewardship: Sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 25 (4), 241–249. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2009.10.008 Cheers, B., & Luloff, A. E. (2001). Rural community development. Rurality Bites, 1, 129–142. Cockburn, J., Cundill, G., Shackleton, S., & Rouget, M. (2018). Towards place-based research to support social–ecological stewardship. Sustainability (Switzerland), 10 (5). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051434 Cornell, S., Berkhout, F., Tuinstra, W., Tàbara, J. D., Jäger, J., Chabay, I., de Wit, B., Langlais, R., Mills, D., Moll, P., Otto, I. M., Petersen, A., Pohl, C., & van Kerkhoff, L. (2013). Opening up knowledge systems for better responses to global environmental change. Environmental Science and Policy, 28, 60–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2012.11.008 EGCMA. (2019). Gippsland lakes ramsar site management plan, East gippsland catchment management authority. Enqvist, J., West, S., Masterson, V. A., Haider, L. J., Svedin, U., & Tengö, M. (2018). Stewardship as a boundary object for sustainability research: Linking care, knowledge and agency. Landscape and Urban Planning, 179, 17–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.07.005

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

261

Fahy, F., & Cinnéide, M. Ó. (2009). Re-constructing the urban landscape through community mapping: An attractive prospect for sustainability? Area, 41(2), 167–175. Fazey, I., Schäpke, N., Caniglia, G., Hodgson, A., Kendrick, I., Lyon, C., Page, G., Patterson, J., Riedy, C., Strasser, T., Verveen, S., Adams, D., Goldstein, B., Klaes, M., Leicester, G., Linyard, A., McCurdy, A., Ryan, P., Sharpe, B., ... & Young, H. R. (2020). Transforming knowledge systems for life on Earth: Visions of future systems and how to get there. Energy Research and Social Science, 70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101724 Fazey, I., Schäpke, N., Caniglia, G., Patterson, J., Hultman, J., Van Mierlo, B., Säwe, F., Wiek, A., Wittmayer, J., Aldunce, P., Al Waer H., Battacharya, N., Bradbury, H., Carmen, E., Colvin, J., Cvitanovic, C., D’Souza, M. Gopel, M., … & Wyborn, C. (2018). Ten essentials for action-oriented and second order energy transitions, transformations and climate change research. Energy Research & Social Science, 40, 54–70. Frantzeskaki, N., Dumitru, A., Anguelovski, I., Avelino, F., Bach, M., Best, B., Binder, C., Barnes, J., Carrus, G., Egermann, M., Haxeltine, A., Moore, M.-L., Garcia Mira, R., Loorbach, D., Uzzell, D., Omann, I., Olsson, P., Silvestri, G., ... & Rauschmayer, F. (2016). Elucidating the changing roles of civil society in urban sustainability transitions. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 22, 41–50. Fryirs, K., & Brierley, G. (2021). How far have management practices come in ‘working with the river’? Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 46 (15), 3004–3010. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.5279 FVTOC. (2021). Victorian traditional owner cultural landscapes strategy. Victorian Government, p. 60. Hildén, M., Jordan, A., & Huitema, D. (2017). Special issue on experimentation for climate change solutions editorial: The search for climate change and sustainability solutions—The promise and the pitfalls of experimentation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 169, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcl epro.2017.09.019 Hilger, A., Rose, M., & Wanner, M. (2018). Changing faces-factors influencing the roles of researchers in real-world laboratories. GAIA-Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 27 (1), 138–145. Horlings, L. G., Roep, D., & Wellbrock, W. (2018). The role of leadership in place-based development and building institutional arrangements. Local Economy, 33(3), 245–268. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269094218763050

262

P. Bonney et al.

Irwin, A., Georg, S., & Vergragt, P. (1994). The social management of environmental change. Futures, 26 (3), 323–334. Moriggi, A. (2021). Green care practices and place-based sustainability transformations: A participatory action-oriented study in Finland (Doctoral dissertation, Wageningen University and Research). Olsson, P., Gunderson, L. H., Carpenter, S. R., Ryan, P., Lebel, L., Folke, C., & Holling, C. S. (2006). Shooting the rapids: Navigating transitions to adaptive governance of social–ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 11(1). Patterson, J., Schulz, K., Vervoort, J., Van Der Hel, S., Widerberg, O., Adler, C., Hurlbert, M., Anderton, K., Sethi, M., & Barau, A. (2017). Exploring the governance and politics of transformations towards sustainability. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 24, 1–16. Plieninger, T., & Bieling, C. (2017). The emergence of landscape stewardship in practice, policy and research. In The Science and Practice of Landscape Stewardship (pp. 1–17). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10. 1017/9781316499016.002 Pollock, R. M., & Whitelaw, G. S. (2005). Community-based monitoring in support of local sustainability. Local Environment, 10 (3), 211–228. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13549830500075438 Scoones, I., Stirling, A., Abrol, D., Atela, J., Charli-Joseph, L., Eakin, H., Ely, A., Olsson, P., Pereira, L., Priya, R., van Zwanenberg, P., & Yang, L. (2020). Transformations to sustainability: Combining structural, systemic and enabling approaches. In Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (Vol. 42, pp. 65–75). Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019. 12.004 Seyfang, G., & Smith, A. (2007). Grassroots innovations for sustainable development: Towards a new research and policy agenda. Environmental Politics, 16 (4), 584–603. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644010701419121 Skerratt, S., & Steiner, A. (2013). Working with communities-of-place: Complexities of empowerment. Local Economy, 28(3), 320–338. Smith, A. P. (1991). Forest policy: Fostering environmental conflict in the Australian timber industry. Conservation of Australia’s Forest Fauna, 301–314. West, S. E., & Pateman, R. M. (2016). Recruiting and retaining participants in citizen science: What can be learned from the volunteering literature? Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 1, 15.

9 Navigating Local Pathways to Sustainability …

263

West, S., Haider, L. J., Masterson, V., Enqvist, J. P., Svedin, U., & Tengö, M. (2018). Review of Stewardship, care and relational values. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 35, 30–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cos ust.2018.10.008 Wittmayer, J. M., Schäpke, N., van Steenbergen, F., & Omann, I. (2014). Making sense of sustainability transitions locally: How action research contributes to addressing societal challenges. Critical Policy Studies, 8(4), 465–485. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2014.957336

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint of Food Systems: How “Transformative” Is the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy? Charlene Marek

and Jale Tosun

Introduction to the EU Farm to Fork Strategy This chapter examines whether the Farm to Fork (F2F) Strategy can meet its goals for creating more sustainable agriculture systems in the European Union through voluntary instruments for farmers and reliance on member states’ individual CAP Strategic Plans for implementation. The F2F Strategy is intended to bring about transformative changes in EU agriculture, but our research suggests that reliance on voluntary instruments for farmer participation and the Common Agriculture Policy C. Marek (B) · J. Tosun Institute of Political Science, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] J. Tosun e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_10

265

266

C. Marek and J. Tosun

(CAP) for F2F implementation will not provide sufficient momentum for meeting the environment and climate goals set forth in the Strategy and in connection with the European Green Deal. We also find that while there has been criticism on these aspects, these challenges are yet to be formally addressed by the European Commission to ensure successful F2F implementation in EU agriculture. Member states’ CAP Strategic Plans are currently under review by the Commission and no further goals or policy instruments have been established by the Commission to ensure F2F implementation other than the discretion of farmers through voluntary instruments and the Commission itself in its review of the Strategic Plans. If these challenges are not addressed, it is unlikely that the F2F Strategy will be able to deliver on its ambitious goals for the climate, environment, and transformation of EU agriculture. The European Union’s Farm to Fork (F2F) Strategy seeks to reform the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), and contribute to reaching climate neutrality by 2050 under the European Green Deal by reducing the use of chemical farm inputs including pesticides, fertilisers, and the sale of antimicrobials, as well as increasing the area of EU organic farming (see Table 10.1 on F2F Goals). The F2F Strategy intends to set EU agriculture on a new development path for sustainability by addressing six goals. However, as shown in Table 10.1, only five of these six goals have a defined target year, and the Commission identifies itself as responsible for acting while farmers are not identified as responsible for taking action to achieve these goals in EU agriculture. This is also reflected in the European Commission’s Communication on the Farm to Fork Strategy. Specific challenges and opportunities for making agriculture in the EU more sustainable are outlined in Section 2.1 of the official Communication on the F2F Strategy (COM (2020) 381 final). A few interesting aspects arise when taking a closer look at this Communication, which place the Strategy’s chances of success for transforming EU agriculture in question. Table 10.2 provides an overview of key opportunities and challenges discussed in the Communication, as well as the related targets, suggested actions for intervention, related policies and programs, whether farmers are mentioned as needing to take action, whether actions will be monetarily compensated, and whether actions should be binding. This overview reveals quite a few interesting aspects with

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

Table 10.1

267

F2F Strategy goals as listed in the F2F factsheet

#

Goal

%

By year

Commission will act

Farmers will act

1

Reduce the use and risk of chemical pesticides Reduce the use of more hazardous pesticides Reduce nutrient losses Reduce fertilizer use Reduce the sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals and in aquaculture Raise total farmland under organic farming

50

2030

Yes

No

50

2030

Yes

No

≥50

None

Yes

No

≥20

2030

Yes

No

50

2030

Yes

No

25

2030

Yes

No

2

3 4 5

6

implications for the success of F2F. Firstly, farmers are most often not mentioned as needing to take action to address these challenges and opportunities, especially where taking action to address challenges would directly impact farmers negatively (as also seen in Table 10.1). Examples of this include the challenges of chemical pesticides, excess nutrients, EU GHG emissions, antimicrobial resistance, animal welfare, and organic farming, all of which are essential for successful implementation of the F2F Strategy. The related necessary actions are also not mentioned as being monetarily compensated, and action from farmers remains voluntary. As a framework policy, the F2F Strategy is reliant on related EU agriculture and environmental policies and instruments for successful implementation. The most important of these related policy instruments are member states’ CAP Strategic Plans (2023–2027), and existing regulations on farm chemical inputs (pesticides, fertilisers, veterinary medicine, etc., as shown in Table 10.2). The CAP has been criticised by academics, civil society, and the European Court of Auditors for its weak integration of environmental protection measures (Alons, 2017; Bazzan et al., 2022; European Court

Opportunities/challenges

New green business model

No

1

None

Target (goal with timeline) • Certification of farmers’ and foresters’ carbon sequestration • Farming practices contributing to CO2 removal

Suggested action(s) • Common Agriculture Policy • Public/private initiatives (carbon market) • EU carbon farming initiative under the Climate Pact • Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) will develop a regulatory framework for certifying carbon removals based on accounting and verification system

Related policies and programs Yes

Farmers mentioned for taking action Yes

Monetarily compensated

No

Binding

Table 10.2 Summary of opportunities and challenges discussed in F2F Strategy, Section 2.1 ensuring sustainable food production (pp. 5–8)

268 C. Marek and J. Tosun

Opportunities/challenges

Circular bio-based economy

No

2

None

Target (goal with timeline) • Invest in anaerobic digesters for biogas production from agriculture waste and residues (ie: manure) • Produce biogas from non-farm waste sources (ie: municipal waste) • Inclusion of renewable energies on farms (ie: solar)

Suggested action(s) • CAP Strategic Plans • Clean energy initiative and programs

Related policies and programs Yes

Farmers mentioned for taking action Yes

No

Binding

(continued)

Monetarily compensated

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

269

Opportunities/challenges

Chemical pesticides

3

(continued)

No

Table 10.2

The Commission will take additional action to reduce the overall use and risk of chemical pesticides by 50% and the use of more hazardous pesticides by 50% by 2030

Target (goal with timeline) • Integrated pest management (ie: crop rotation and mechanical weeding) • Increase marketing of pesticides with biologically active substances • Reinforce environmental risk assessments of pesticides • Reduce the length of pesticide authorization process by Member States • Changes to the 2009 Regulation on pesticide statistics to overcome data gaps and promote evidence-based policy-making

Suggested action(s) • Harmonized Risk Indicator to quantify the progress in reducing the risks linked to pesticides • Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive • Provisions on integrated pest management (IPM) • CAP Strategic Plans • Regulation (EC) No. 1185/2009 concerning statistics on pesticides

Related policies and programs No

Farmers mentioned for taking action No

Monetarily compensated No

Binding

270 C. Marek and J. Tosun

Opportunities/challenges

Excess nutrients (especially nitrogen and phosphorous)

No

4

The Commission will act to reduce nutrient losses by at least 50% while ensuring no deterioration in soil fertility. This will reduce the use of fertilizers by at least 20% by 2030

Target (goal with timeline) • Implementing and enforcing the relevant environmental and climate legislation in full • Identifying with Member States the nutrient load reductions • Applying balanced fertilization and sustainable nutrient management • Managing nitrogen and phosphorous better throughout their lifecycles

Suggested action(s) • Integrated nutrient management action plans with Member States • CAP Strategic Plans

Related policies and programs No

Farmers mentioned for taking action No

No

Binding

(continued)

Monetarily compensated

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

271

Opportunities/challenges

EU Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions

5

(continued)

No

Table 10.2

None

Target (goal with timeline) • Support the market for sustainable and innovative feed additives • Examine EU rules to reduce dependency on critical feed materials (ie: soya grown on deforested land) • Foster EU-grown pant proteins as well as alternative feed materials (ie: insects and algae) and by-products of the bio-economy • Review the EU promotion program for agricultural products to support the most sustainable, carbon-efficient methods of livestock production

Suggested action(s) • CAP Strategic Plans • EU promotion program for agricultural products

Related policies and programs No

Farmers mentioned for taking action No

Monetarily compensated No

Binding

272 C. Marek and J. Tosun

Opportunities/challenges

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)

No

6

The Commission will take action to reduce EU sales of antimicrobials for farmed animals and in aquaculture by 50% by 2030

Target (goal with timeline) • Measures are mentioned in the new regulations on veterinary medicinal products and medicated feed

Suggested action(s) • New regulations on veterinary medicinal products and medicated feed

Related policies and programs Unclear

Farmers mentioned for taking action Unclear

Unclear

Binding

(continued)

Monetarily compensated

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

273

Opportunities/challenges

Animal welfare

7

(continued)

No

Table 10.2

None

Target (goal with timeline) • The Commission will revise the animal welfare legislation on animal transport & slaughter • The Commission will also consider improved labelling options for animal welfare

Suggested action(s) • CAP Strategic Plans • EU Strategic Guidelines on Aquaculture

Related policies and programs No

Farmers mentioned for taking action No

Monetarily compensated No

Binding

274 C. Marek and J. Tosun

Opportunities/challenges

Plant health

No

8

None

Target (goal with timeline) • The Commission will adopt rules to improve oversight of plant imports and surveillance • New innovative techniques (ie: biotechnology and bio-based products) have potential for increasing sustainability by possibly reducing reliance on pesticides • Farmers must have access to high quality seeds adapted for climate change • The Commission will facilitate the registration of seed varieties, incl. for organic farming to ensure better market access for traditional and locally-adapted varieties

Suggested action(s) • The Commission is carrying out a study at the request of Member States on the potential of new genomic techniques

Related policies and programs No

Farmers mentioned for taking action No

No

Binding

(continued)

Monetarily compensated

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

275

Opportunities/challenges

Organic farming

9

(continued)

No

Table 10.2

At least 25% of the EU agricultural land should be under organic farming by 2030, with a significant increase in organic aquaculture

Target (goal with timeline) • The Commission will put forward an Action Plan for organic farming to assist member states in stimulating supply and demand for organic products, ensure consumer trust, boost demand through promotion campaigns and green public procurement

Suggested action(s) • Eco-schemes (CAP) • Investments (CAP) • Advisory services (CAP) • Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) • Forthcoming: Action Plan on Organic Farming

Related policies and programs No

Farmers mentioned for taking action No

Monetarily compensated No

Binding

276 C. Marek and J. Tosun

Opportunities/challenges

The new CAP (proposed by the Commission in June 2018)

The new eco-schemes

No

10

11

None

None

Target (goal with timeline) • Help farmers improve their environmental and climate performance through a results-oriented model and improved mandatory environmental standards • Funding lines for precision agriculture, agro-ecology (including organic farming), carbon farming and agro-forestry

Suggested action(s)

• CAP Strategic Plans

• CAP Strategic Plans

Related policies and programs

Yes

Yes

Farmers mentioned for taking action

Yes

Yes

Unclear

Yes

Binding

(continued)

Monetarily compensated

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

277

Opportunities/challenges

Sustainable fish and seafood production

Farmed fish and seafood

12

13

(continued)

No

Table 10.2

None

None

Target (goal with timeline)

• The Commission envisions adopting EU guidelines for member states’ sustainable aquaculture development plans • The Commission also wants to target support for the algae industry as a sustainable alternative protein source

• The Commission will use the CFP to address unsustainable fishing and bring fish stocks to a sustainable level, as well as assess by 2022 how the CFP addresses climate change

Suggested action(s) • Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) • Digitalized catch certificates to prevent illegal fish products from entering the EU market • Revision of the EU’s fisheries control system for improved traceability • European Maritime and Fisheries Fund • Forthcoming: EU guidelines for Member States’ sustainable aquaculture development plans and expenditure of the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund • Sustainable aquaculture development plans (member states)

Related policies and programs

No

No

Farmers mentioned for taking action

Yes

No

Monetarily compensated

No

Yes

Binding

278 C. Marek and J. Tosun

Opportunities/challenges

Competition rules for collective initiatives promoting sustainability in supply chains

No

14

None

Target (goal with timeline) • Support primary producers in transition by clarifying the competition rules • The Commission will oversee implementation of the Unfair Trading Practices Directive by member states • Strengthen the position of farmers, their cooperatives and producer organizations in the food supply chain

Suggested action(s) • Unfair Trading Practices Directive

Related policies and programs No

Farmers mentioned for taking action Yes

Monetarily compensated Yes

Binding

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

279

280

C. Marek and J. Tosun

of Auditors, 2020; Good Food Good Farming, 26 August 2020; Pe’er et al., 2020). The concept of “greening” in the CAP was introduced in the 2013 reform with the intention that farmers would be compensated for providing public goods through good environmental management. However, “greening” was assessed by the European Court of Auditors in 2017 to have been largely ineffective in improving the CAP’s contribution to environmental well-being (European Court of Auditors, 2017). They found the lack of “sufficiently ambitious environmental targets” made green payments act as an additional “income support scheme”, leading to changes in farming practices on only 5% of EU farmland (European Court of Auditors, 2017, p. 6). The F2F Strategy seeks to achieve that which the CAP has not, and is a keystone portion of the European Green Deal (EGD) alongside the Biodiversity Strategy, which were both released on 20 May 2020. F2F was released at an opportune time, overlapping with the revision process of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) for the 2021–2027 period (now starting in 2023) during the development of the CAP Strategic Plans with eco-schemes (Bazzan et al., 2022) and rural spending as voluntary mechanisms for farmers to contribute to sustainability goals. As the revised CAP is expected to contribute to the EGD (European Commission, 2020b), this implies long-lasting impacts of F2F on EU agricultural policy and potential for transformation of EU agriculture. In addition, the DG Health has been appointed as responsible authority for the F2F Strategy by Frans Timmermans, rather the DG Agri as might have been traditionally expected (European Commission, 2020c). To implement the F2F’s target of 25% EU organic agriculture by 2030, the European Commission presented the Action Plan for Organic Production on 25 March 2021 in the Communication COM(2021) 141 final/2, with a public consultation feedback process on the policy conducted September–November 2020 (European Commission, 2020a, 2021a). These policies and their relations to each other are shown in Fig. 10.1. As a related framework policy of the F2F Strategy, the Action Plan will rely largely on related policies, and especially on the CAP Strategic Plans, for successful implementation and reaching organic production goals. The second axis of the Action Plan for Organic Production is

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

Fig. 10.1

281

Flow of policy expectations for reaching F2F Strategy goals

focused on farmers and stimulating conversion to organic production as shown in the outline of the Plan provided in Table 10.3. However, conversion is only encouraged, and not binding for farmers to ensure reaching the goal of 25% organic production in the EU by 2030. The logic of the Action Plan largely relies on stimulating the market for organic products to lower prices, which will boost organic production and conversion. However, the Plan mentions dropping food prices over the past decades have been detrimental for conventional farmers, and that organic farmers often have better incomes since products are sold at higher prices (European Commission, 2021c, p. 3). In this regard, the Action Plan appears to undermine its own logic for upscaling organic production. For more people to receive access to organic products, higher prices for organic products will need to be addressed (European Commission, 2021c, p. 3). This questionable upscale logic is coupled with no concrete suggestions presented in the Communication on the Action Plan for how member states should upscale their organic sectors, as shown in the summary of actions the EU Commission will take to encourage conversion to organic agriculture presented in Table 10.4 (European Commission, 2021c, pp. 11–13). Rather, implementation of the Organic Action Plan is

282

C. Marek and J. Tosun

Table 10.3 Outline of the EU Action Plan for organic farming; COM(2021) 141 final/2 from 19 April 2021 Axis

Action

Axis 1

Organic food and products for all: stimulate demand and ensure consumer trust Promoting organic farming and the EU logo Promoting organic canteens and increasing the use of green public procurement Reinforcing organic school schemes Preventing food fraud and strengthening consumer trust Improving traceability The contribution of the private sector On the way to 2030: stimulating conversion and reinforcing the entire value chain Encouraging conversion, investment and exchange of best practices Developing sector analysis to increase market transparency Supporting the organization of the food chain Reinforcing local and small-volume processing and fostering short trade circuit Improving animal nutrition in accordance with organic rules Reinforcing organic aquaculture Organics leading by example: improving the contribution of organic farming to sustainability Reducing climate and environmental footprint Enhancing genetic biodiversity and increasing yields Alternatives to contentious inputs and other plant protection products Enhancing animal welfare Making more efficient use of resources

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Axis 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Axis 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5

directly coupled with member states’ CAP Strategic Plans (European Commission, 2021c, p. 4). Ultimately, the CAP, which has been criticised for not reaching prior sustainability objectives, is essential for implementing the ambitious goals of the F2F Strategy and the Action Plan for Organic Production. Fifty-two per cent of the responses received during the EU Public Consultation Process for the Action Plan were submitted by EU Citizens (European Commission, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, 2021). The top obstacle to increasing organic production and consumption in the EU identified was “insufficient financial incentives for producers to convert to organic production”

283

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

Table 10.4 Summary of actions the EU Commission will take to encourage conversion to organic agriculture, COM(2021) 141 final/2 from 19 April 2021, p. 13 Point 1

2 3

Action 9: In the framework of the new CAP and CFP, the Commission will: Assess the individual needs and circumstances of member states to advise how to best use the new CAP to support their national organic sectors Promote exchange on best practices at EU and national levels through education and training programs Encourage member states to increase organic aquaculture

Starting 2023

2022 NA

(76%) (European Commission, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, 2021, p. 4). As part of the EU public consultation process, this feedback is intended to influence the final EU Strategy. However, the Action Plan fails to outline concrete financial incentives for supporting producers to convert to organic production, leaving this to member states’ CAP Strategic Plans, and the individual designs of their eco-schemes and interventions for rural development. As the EU’s single most expensive policy, the new CAP budget was specified during the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021– 2027. A total of 387 Billion Euros were set aside for the new CAP with the Commission stating the need for transitioning to a “fully sustainable agricultural sector” (European Commission, 2018, p. 1). The proposal for the new CAP released in June 2018 introduced the strategic sector importance of agriculture in addressing the climate and environment given international and national pressures. The Communication highlights the need for integration of sustainability objectives given developments in international environmental politics, among these are the commitments to addressing climate change (COP 21) as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (European Commission, 2018, p. 2). The new CAP for 2023–2027 has ten specific objectives (European Commission, 2022b). These include ensuring a fair income to farmers, increasing competitiveness, rebalancing power in the food chain, climate change action, environmental care, preserving landscapes and biodiversity, supporting generation renewal, vibrant rural areas, protecting food

284

C. Marek and J. Tosun

and health quality, and fostering knowledge and innovation. Four of these objectives relate directly to the environment and climate. However, the two financial mechanisms introduced in the new CAP for reaching climate and environment objectives—eco-schemes and interventions for rural development—remain purely voluntary for farmers. The Communication on the design of the CAP Strategic Plans (COM (2018) 392 final) outlines under Title III Common Requirements and Types of Interventions (starting pg. 43) how member states should construct their individual strategic plans and which types of actions are appropriate for which sections of the CAP. A system of “conditionality” is to be laid down in the CAP Strategic Plans, which will administer penalties on beneficiaries (farmers) who receive direct payments and do not adhere to the “… statutatory management requirements under Union law and the standards for good agricultural and environmental condition of land established in the CAP Strategic Plan” relating to the climate, environment, and animal welfare (European Commission, 2018, p. 44). All farmers, regardless of CAP payments, are required to follow statutatory management requirements (SMRs), which include legislation such as the Directive on the use of nitrates (Council Directive 91/676/EEC), the Directive on the use of hormones (Council Directive 96/22/EC), and the Regulation on plant protection products (EU Regulation 1107/2009), among others (European Commission, 2022a). Therefore, farmer payments in the new CAP are conditional on compliance with both basic environmental standards defined in European law (European Commission, 2018, p. 20), as well as member states’ CAP Strategic Plans, which define recognised and funded sustainable farming practices in any individual member state. The CAP is composed of different types of interventions. The first intervention type specifically relevant for addressing climate and environmental objectives are direct payments. Within direct payments there are two categories: coupled payments are dependent on the area farmed (per hectare) while decoupled are not related to farmed area. The decoupled direct payments include: (1) Basic income support for sustainability, (2) The complementary redistributive income support for sustainability, (3) Complementary income support for young farmers, and (4) Schemes for the climate and the environment (European Commission, 2018, p. 46).

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

285

The framework conditions for receiving decoupled direct payments (among those payments for environmental services) are defined in the Communication on the new CAP, but are to be specified and concretely defined in member states’ CAP Strategic Plans (European Commission, 2018, p. 47). Regarding schemes for the climate and environment (ecoschemes), these are to be voluntary and defined within the individual CAP Strategic Plans (Article 28, points 1 and 3). Hence, member states are welcome to decide which practices they wish to reimburse, and recognise as beneficial for the environment and climate, and farmers are not obligated to contribute to eco-schemes, which are intended to contribute to the larger goals of the European Green Deal, Farm to Fork Strategy, and the Action Plan for Organic Production. The second CAP intervention most relevant for climate and environmental objectives is the intervention for rural development (European Commission, 2018, p. 77). The types of interventions for rural development include: (1) environmental, climate, and other management commitments, (2) natural or other area-specific constraints, (3) areaspecific disadvantages resulting from certain mandatory requirements, (4) investments, (5) installation of young farmers and rural business start-up, (6) risk management tools, (7) cooperation, and (8) knowledge exchange and information. Most relevant for climate and environmental objectives are the first type—environmental, climate and other management commitments. Again, the Commission provides a framework for payments, but specific conditions for receiving these are to be outlined in member states’ individual CAP Strategic Plans (Article 65, point 1). Member states are required to include “agri-environment-climate commitments” in their plans (point 2), but actions are to be taken on a voluntary basis by farmers (point 4). Again, under this intervention within the CAP, member states are free to define climate and environmentally friendly management practices which are eligible for payments in their Strategic Plans, and these are again voluntary for farmers. The new CAP is supposed to integrate climate and environment legislation with the CAP Strategic Plans by member states contributing to the targets set out in the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies. Ecoschemes are now mandatory for member states to offer, but eco-schemes remain a voluntary instrument for farmers to implement practices which

286

C. Marek and J. Tosun

are climate and environmentally friendly, such as organic agriculture, agro-ecology, and integrated pest management (European Commission, 2021b). Farmers are indirectly targeted to participate, as member states must dedicate at least 25% of their income support budgets to ecoschemes. In addition, 35% of rural development funds will be earmarked for environmental and climate objectives. Ultimately, the CAP budget should clearly and significantly contribute to the EU’s climate objectives. The new CAP was formally approved on 2 December 2021 and will begin implementation in 2023. Member states were required to submit their Strategic Plans to the EU Commission until 31 December 2021, with eco-schemes and interventions for rural development outlined. The three most important components of the CAP for reaching climate and environmental objectives are summarised in Table 10.5, along with their requirements for implementation, policy level, and policy instruments to implement these components, and whether compliance is mandatory for farmers.

Exceptionalism and Post-exceptionalism in EU Agricultural Policy Founded in 1962, the CAP is one of the EU’s oldest policies, predating the EU’s establishment by nearly 30 years. In the early 1980s, the CAP was allocated 66% of the total EU budget, while from 2014 to 2020 the CAP was allocated 37.8% of the total EU budget (Massot, 2020). Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CAP remains the single most expensive EU policy in the current budget for 2021–2027 (European Council, 2020). The agricultural sector in the European Union has enjoyed a longstanding history of favouritism, referred to as “exceptionalism” by experts (Daugbjerg & Feindt, 2017). They define exceptionalism as “… a political belief system that assigns special status to a group, a sector or a country, often on the basis of a historical narrative, to justify special treatment, to claim the validity of special rules or to mobilize group pride or particular efforts for a group’s alleged mission” (Daugbjerg & Feindt, 2017, p. 1567). Empirical examples of this include political intervention in

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

287

Table 10.5 CAP 2023–2027 components where environment and climate action are discussed #

Component

Requirements

1

Statutatory Management Requirements (SMRs) (also known as ‘conditionality’)

2

Eco-schemes

3

Interventions for rural development

Existing EU laws, such as: • Directive on the use of nitrates (Council Directive 91/676/EEC), • Directive on the use of hormones (Council Directive 96/22/EC), • Regulation on plant protection products (EU Regulation 1107/2009) Determined individually, must go beyond SMRs Determined individually, must go beyond SMRs

Policy level

Policy instrument/s

Mandatory for farmers

EU

Various EU directives

Yes

National

CAP Strategic Plans

No

National

CAP Strategic Plans

No

food markets (through measures such as subsidies and taxes), designation of agricultural ministers, integration of farmer groups into policymaking processes at the local level, and sector-specific policies which favour and transfer benefits to a select, well-organised group (such as farmers) at the expense of broader groups (e.g. consumers and taxpayers) which are more difficult to organise (Daugbjerg & Feindt, 2017, pp. 1568–1570).

288

C. Marek and J. Tosun

Agricultural policymaking processes have historically been largely “compartmentalized”, involving select political and market actors and groups with shared interests, creating policies which served their interests and needs (Daugbjerg & Swinbank, 2012, p. 261). However, through the integration of non-traditional actors and interests in agricultural policymaking and implementation through mechanisms such as European Citizens’ Initiatives (ECIs; see Tosun & Schaub, 2021), organic certification standards (see Schwindenhammer, 2017) and environmental NGOs, EU agricultural policy has entered a phase of “postexceptionalism”. This phase is named as such given the resounding legacy of past policy objectives still present in the current CAP with only partial change in “ideas, institutions, and interest constellations” (Daugbjerg & Feindt, 2017, p. 1567). Across the EU, many individuals and organizations are contributing to policy change in agriculture. A heated debate around Glyphosate authorization has been ongoing for nearly the past decade at both EU and German institutional levels, with a successful European Citizen’s Initiative arguing for a complete ban on Glyphosate in the EU in 2017. The European Commission dismissed this, citing EFSA and ECHA assessments which found Glyphosate to not be carcinogenic to humans (DG SANTE—Health and Food Safety, 2017; Tosun et al., 2019). At both EU and national level, there has been disagreement between the German Ministers of Agriculture and Environment on extending authorization of Glyphosate, as well as the best approach towards phase-out (Tosun et al., 2019). However, in Germany there is a strong civil society presence supporting EU organic production and the reduction of pesticide use. One example is the citizen’s initiative “Save the Bees” (German: Rettet die Bienen), which was started in Baden-Württemberg by the organization proBiene, and has had political influence on further German states including Bayern, Brandenburg, and Niedersachsen (Tosun & Koch, 2021). Following the citizen’s initiative, Baden-Württemberg’s state parliament revised its nature conservation and agriculture laws in July 2020 to increase organic agriculture to 30–40% by 2030 and reduce pesticide use 40–50% by 2030 (Baden-Württemberg, 23 July 2020). In February 2021, the German federal cabinet announced a nationwide Glyphosate ban starting 2024 (Schmeitzner, 2021).

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

289

A further example of a successful citizens’ initiative would be ECI “End the Cage Age”, which successfully petitioned the Commission in April 2021 to consider a phase-out of all cages in EU livestock farming. In June 2021, the European Parliament called on the Commission to propose a revision of Directive 98/58/EC and assess a potential phase-out of cages by 2027, as well as a ban on the force-feeding of ducks and geese in foie gras production (European Parliament, 2021a, p. 6). Through these Citizens’ Initiatives, but also the integration of European Green Deal and Farm to Fork Strategy objectives into the CAP, even on a voluntary basis for farmers, we can empirically observe post-exceptionalism through the integration of non-traditional interests (climate and environment) into EU agricultural policy.

The Effects of Incrementalism: Can F2F Transform the EU Agri-Food Sector? Post-exceptionalism is a necessary condition for bringing about change in EU agriculture. This is made clear in various aspects including pesticide use and animal welfare given successful ECIs on these controversial topics and consequential actions by decision-makers at EU and national levels. However, these changes are piecemeal and incremental, as the CAP shies away from requiring farmers to implement specific farming practices, which meet climate and environmental objectives. Instead, eco-schemes and interventions for rural development remain voluntary and to be determined individually by member states in their CAP Strategic Plans. The Commission is set to review these plans by June 2022 and provide feedback on the level of ambition strived for by member states before implementation in January 2023. Whether the F2F Strategy alone will lead to transformation of the CAP through implementation of the Strategic Plans remains to be seen. However, preliminary reviews by environmental NGOs have been especially critical, finding member states to severely underfund, and thus not properly incentivise, eco-schemes and interventions for rural development to meet climate and environmental goals. WWF, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), and Birdlife International released

290

C. Marek and J. Tosun

a report in November 2021 analysing 166 eco-schemes from 22 draft CAP Strategic Plans from 21 member states. They found through expert consultations that high-ambition actions listed in the Strategic Plans were often not well compensated enough to motivate farmers to adopt impactful actions for improving climate and environmental aspects of farming (WWF et al., 2021, p. 10). In November 2021, IFOAM Organics Europe published a report questioning the level of ambition laid out in 19 of the draft CAP Strategic Plans for meeting the 25% organic production goal (Maes, 2021). They also criticised the integration of environmental NGOs and organic farmers’ associations in national consultations. At the time of publication, 3 countries planned to make a specific eco-scheme for organic production (Denmark, Italy, and Poland) and 9 countries planned to make some eco-schemes available for organic producers, while two countries (Germany and Luxembourg) planned to not make eco-schemes accessible to organic producers on the grounds of double funding. This goes to show the breadth of interpretation allowed between members’ states in their CAP Strategic Plans and eco-schemes for reaching F2F goals, placing the larger transformative power of F2F in question. If F2F, alongside the Action Plan for Organic Production, fails to increase the area of organic farming in the EU, the Strategy could be considered widely unsuccessful, as F2F presents a concrete goal for reaching at least 25% organic production area in the EU by 2030, and organic agriculture contributes to further F2F goals including reductions in the use of pesticides and fertilisers, and countering antimicrobial resistance. Real transformation of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) would be making the practices behind eco-schemes and interventions for rural development mandatory components of farmer payments, rather than voluntary instruments as they are currently conceptualised. In the current policy environment, new climate and environmental legislation is rather needed to expand the basis of the Statutatory Management Requirements (SMRs) to ensure transformation of the CAP, as opposed to the F2F Strategy, which sets EU-wide goals, but itself provides no binding terms for farmers. Given the CAP’s longstanding history, there is quite a bit of policy path dependency from the inclusion of farmer interests. This makes larger transformation of food systems challenging and leads back

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

291

to incremental changes in policy, which will not foster the large-scale transformation necessary for reaching the goals of the European Green Deal, Farm to Fork Strategy, or the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, as land managers, it makes little sense to take EU farmers out of discussion around CAP policy design. While organic farmers likely welcome the potential for increased funding from eco-schemes and interventions for rural development, conventional farmers are less enthusiastic about binding environmental and climate targets in agriculture. In September 2021, there was discussion in the EU Parliament about the need for binding pesticide reduction targets in the F2F Strategy (Sánchez Nicolás, 2021). In October 2021, the EU Parliament released a “Texts Adopted” for amendments to the F2F Strategy, in which they call on member states to “establish robust, effective and time-bound quantitative reduction targets in their reviews of the CAP strategic plans…” (European Parliament, 2021b, p. 13). This was welcomed by environmental NGOs and strongly opposed by the conventional farmers’ lobby group Copa-Cogeca. A binding pesticide reduction target with amendment of the F2F Strategy is anticipated to be released in late March 2022 by the EU Commission (Fortuna & Foote, 2022). However, the Commission only intends to make the 50% pesticide reduction target binding at the EU level and allow member states to set their own targets. Even with a binding target at EU level on pesticide use, it is unlikely F2F alone will be strong enough to create widespread transformation of the EU agriculture and food system, but it remains an integral factor for eventual, larger transformation.

Conclusions: Imagining the Future of the EU Agri-Food Sector for Both Farmers and the Environment Currently the Farm to Fork Strategy defines non-binding goals for reducing chemical inputs and increasing organic land area. However, the mechanisms for farmers to reach these goals through the CAP

292

C. Marek and J. Tosun

(eco-schemes and interventions for rural development) remain voluntary in member states’ CAP Strategic Plans. The success of F2F will largely depend on the outcome, review, and then implementation of the strategic plans starting January 2023. Although the EU Commission is planning to release a binding target for 50% pesticide reduction at EU level, the implementation of this goal at member state level is open for interpretation in the Strategic Plans. The draft Strategic Plans have been criticised by civil society as not being ambitious enough and not making production practices, such as organic farming, more attractive for farmers with ample monetary incentives for reduced production/conversion to organic agriculture or setting aside land for non-productive uses. With growing civil society involvement in EU agriculture policy through ECIs related to biodiversity and animal welfare, as well as the corresponding actions taken by policymakers to address these concerns, an integration of non-traditional farming interests into the CAP can be observed. This phenomenon has been termed “post-exceptionalism” by researchers, and provides an incentive for larger transformation of EU agriculture for reaching climate and environmental objectives following civil society action. For real transformation to occur in EU agriculture, targets will have to be laid out in binding EU regulations, which make up the Statutatory Management Requirements (SMRs) (also called “conditionality”). These are required for farmers to receive CAP payments, and are also applicable to farmers not receiving CAP payments. Unfortunately, nonbinding targets at the EU level through framework strategies such as the F2F Strategy are unlikely to produce their intended results when implementation is left to the discretion of member states, and eco-schemes and investments for rural development, which are intended to deliver on European Green Deal, F2F and UN Sustainable Development Goals, remain voluntary instruments for farmers. Thus, it is unlikely F2F on its own will be enough to create widespread transformation of the EU agriculture and food system, but it provides a starting point for such eventual transformation. In closing, it appears worthwhile to reflect on the broader implications of transformation such as those which F2F aims to trigger or even achieve. One open question is whether transformation aims to produce

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

293

one model that is adopted by target groups or whether transformation sees value in having many different models in co-existence. While working towards one model could reduce uncertainty for target groups and transaction costs, this may be an unrealistic expectation, and possibly also undesirable. The co-existence of different (farming) practices has the advantage that these offer a pool of options for policy tools and opportunity for social learning. Thus, if the aim of transformation is to strive for one uniform model, we may risk losing the diversity among management options, which provides a fundamental basis for innovation in farming. Another aspect concerns the question of how the achievement of certain transformations may impact society. Regarding goals for organic farming, how will a society deal with a situation in which 40% of farming is organic, but the remaining 60% is conventional? How will farmers who resisted calls for shifting from conventional to organic production be perceived by policymakers and society at the end of the transformation process? And will those farmers who converted to organic management benefit from societal recognition and appreciation? These and similar questions must be considered when striving for transformative change to ensure political and societal institutions are robust enough to cope with the corresponding consequences.

References Alons, G. (2017). Environmental policy integration in the EU’s common agricultural policy: Greening or greenwashing? Journal of European Public Policy, 24 (11), 1604–1622. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2017.1334085 Baden-Württemberg. (2020, July 23). Ein besonderer Tag für Artenschutz und Demokratie. https://www.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/service/alle-meldun gen/meldung/pid/ein-besonderer-tag-fuer-artenschutz-und-demokratie/, checked on 17 February 2021. Bazzan, G., Daugbjerg, C., & Tosun, J. (2022). Attaining policy integration through the integration of new policy instruments: The case of the Farm to Fork Strategy. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy. https://doi.org/10. 1002/aepp.13235

294

C. Marek and J. Tosun

Daugbjerg, C., & Feindt, P. H. (2017). Post-exceptionalism in public policy: Transforming food and agricultural policy. Journal of European Public Policy, 24 (11), 1565–1584. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2017.1334081 Daugbjerg, C., & Swinbank, A. (2012). An introduction to the ‘new’ politics of agriculture and food. Policy and Society, 31(4), 259–270. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.polsoc.2012.10.002 DG SANTE—Health and Food Safety. (2017). Communication from the Commission on the European Citizens’ Initiative “Ban glyphosate and protect people and the environment from toxic pesticides” . C(2017)8414/F1—EN. European Commission. Strasbourg. Available online at https://ec.europa.eu/ transparency/regdoc/rep/3/2017/EN/C-2017-8414-F1-EN-MAIN-PART1.PDF, checked on 24 February 2021. European Commission. (2018, June 1). Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing rules on support for strategic plans to be drawn up by Member States under the Common agricultural policy (CAP Strategic Plans) and financed by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and repealing Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EU) No 1307/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council . {SEC(2018) 305 final} {SWD(2018) 301 final}. Brussels, pp. 1–142. European Commission. (2020a). Organic farming—Action plan for the development of EU organic production. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regula tion/have-your-say/initiatives/12555-Action-plan-for-the-development-ofEU-organic-production, checked on 19 February 2021. European Commission. (2020b). Working with the Parliament and Council to make the CAP reform fit for the European Green Deal . https://ec.europa. eu/info/sites/info/files/food-farming-fisheries/key_policies/documents/factsh eet-cap-reform-to-fit-european-green-deal_en.pdf, checked on 8 February 2021. European Commission (2020c). Roadmap. Farm to Fork Strategy. Ref. Ares(2020)1008142, updated on 17 February 2020, checked on 10 February 2021. European Commission. (2021a). European Green Deal: Commission presents actions to boost organic production. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/pressc orner/detail/en/IP_21_1275, updated on 25 March 2021, checked on 9 April 2021.

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

295

European Commission. (2021b). Political agreement on new common agricultural policy: Fairer, greener, more flexible. Brussels. https://ec.europa.eu/com mission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_2711, checked on 19 February 2022. European Commission. (2021c). Corrigendum—Communication from the commission to the European Parliament, the council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the committee of the regions on an action plan for the development of organic production. {SWD(2021c) 65 final}. Brussels, 4/19/2021. European Commission. (2022a). Cross-compliance. Linking income support to respect for European Union rules. European Commission. https://ec.europa. eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/key-policies/common-agricultural-policy/inc ome-support/cross-compliance_en, checked on 19 February 2022. European Commission. (2022b). The new common agricultural policy: 2023– 27. The new common agricultural policy will be key to securing the future of agriculture and forestry, as well as achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal . European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farming-fisher ies/key-policies/common-agricultural-policy/new-cap-2023-27_en, checked on 22 February 2022. European Commission, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development. (2021). Factual summary of the public consultation on the action plan for the development of organic sector. agri.ddg1.b.4(2021)1748566. Brussels, pp. 1–7. European Council. (2020). Long term EU budget 2021–2027 and Next Generation EU—Consilium. Infographic—Multiannual financial framework 2021– 2027 and Next Generation EU . European Union. https://www.consilium.eur opa.eu/en/infographics/mff2021-2027-ngeu-final/, checked on 15 February 2021. European Court of Auditors. (2017). Greening: A more complex income support scheme, not yet environmentally effective. Special Report. European Court of Auditors (21). European Court of Auditors. (2020). SR 13 2020: Biodiversity on farmland: CAP contribution has not halted the decline. Special Report. Edited by European Court of Auditors. Luxembourg. https://www.eca.europa.eu/Lists/ ECADocuments/SR20_13/SR_Biodiversity_on_farmland_EN.pdf, checked on 10 February 2021. European Parliament. (2021a). European citizens’ initiative “End the cage age” . European Parliament resolution of 10 June 2021 on the European Citizens’ Initiative ‘End the cage age’ (2021/2633(RSP)). P9TA(2021)0295. European Parliament. Brussels.

296

C. Marek and J. Tosun

European Parliament. (2021b). Texts adopted—Farm to Fork Strategy. European Parliament resolution of 20 October 2021 on a farm to fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system (2020/2260(INI)). P9TA(2021)0425. European Parliament. Brussels. Fortuna, G., & Foote, N. (2022). LEAK: Commission to propose EU-binding reduction targets for pesticides. EURAKTIV.com. https://www.euractiv.com/ section/agriculture-food/news/leak-commission-to-propose-eu-binding-red uction-targets-for-pesticides/, checked on 19 February 2022. Good Food Good Farming. (2020, August 26). Open letter to the German Presidency of the European Union for the reform of the CAP—August 2020— More than 400 European civil society organisations from twelve Member States demand a radical change in the Common Agricultural Policy to Julia Klöckner. Maes, E. (2021). The ambition gap. Assessing organic farming support Assessing organic farming support measures in current draft national measures in current draft national CAP Strategic Plans for the CAP Strategic Plans for the Common Agricultural Policy 2023–2027 . IFOAM Organics Europe. Massot, A. (2020). Financing of the CAP. European Parliament. https://www. europarl.europa.eu/ftu/pdf/en/FTU_3.2.2.pdf, checked on 15 February 2021. Pe’er, G., Bonn, A., Bruelheide, H., Dieker, P., Eisenhauer, N., Feindt, P. H., et al. (2020). Action needed for the EU Common Agricultural Policy to address sustainability challenges. People and Nature, 2(2), 305–316. https:// doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10080 Sánchez Nicolás, E. (2021). MEPs call for binding targets on cutting pesticides. EUobserver. https://euobserver.com/climate/152881, checked on 19 February 2022. Schmeitzner, B. (2021). Glyphosat-Verbot ab 2024. Kabinett einigt sich auf mehr Insektenschutz. tagesschau.de. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/insekt enschutzpaket-101.html, checked on 17 February 2021. Schwindenhammer, S. (2017). Global organic agriculture policy-making through standards as an organizational field: When institutional dynamics meet entrepreneurs. Journal of European Public Policy, 24 (11), 1678–1697. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2017.1334086 Tosun, J., & Koch, M. A. (2021). Policy mixes for biodiversity: A diffusion analysis of state-level citizens’ initiatives in Germany. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 24, 513–525. https://doi.org/10.1080/152 3908X.2021.1992265

10 Tackling the Environmental and Climate Footprint …

297

Tosun, J., Lelieveldt, H., & Wing, T. (2019). A case of ‘muddling through’? The politics of renewing glyphosate authorization in the European Union. Sustainability, 11(2), 440. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11020440 Tosun, J., & Schaub, S. (2021). Constructing policy narratives for transnational mobilization: Insights from European Citizens’ Initiatives. European Policy Analysis, 7 (S2), 344–364. https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1125 WWF, European Environmental Bureau, & Birdlife International. (2021). Will CAP eco-schemes be worth their name? An assessment of draft eco-schemes proposed by Member States. WWF; European Environmental Bureau; Birdlife International.

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action Lars Coenen and Bruce Wilson

Introduction The urgency of reduction of emissions as a key action to address the climate crisis has led to increasing focus on the importance of ending the use of fossil fuels, specifically through closure of coal-fired electricity generation. Given the common geographic concentration of such facilities, and of their workers, in specific communities, the prospect of their closure has prompted growing calls for a just transition for workers and communities. As regional economies are restructured, the question of L. Coenen Mohn Centre for Innovation and Regional Development, Western University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway B. Wilson (B) European Union Centre of Excellence, Social Global Studies Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_11

299

300

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

how to ensure that people have access to a decent livelihood becomes critical. This question took on a sharp focus in the Latrobe Valley in southeastern Australia in March 2017 when the French company, Engie, chose to close its Hazelwood generation plant. Confronted by an ageing facility and the diminished appetite of financiers to invest further in coal-powered electricity production, the closure prompted the direct loss of some 700 jobs, and considerably more, indirectly (see Parliament of Victoria, 2022). Linked directly to the climate crisis, this decision foreshadowed similar prospects for the three other coal-driven power generators in the Valley, all slated to close over the subsequent 20–30 years (at the latest). This single decision made in Paris encapsulated for the Latrobe Valley the core challenges of the United Nations Global Agenda to 2030 (see United Nations, 2015), and of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the heart of this Agenda: how to reconcile the necessary immediate action to address the climate crisis (represented particularly in Goal 13 but also others), with the objective of eliminating poverty and food insecurity and enabling citizens to achieve a decent livelihood (Goals 1, 2 and 8). This chapter examines the action taken to address these challenges, and the relevance of the SDGs in supporting just transitions processes. The Victorian Government established the Latrobe Valley Authority (LVA) to lead the response, with a series of phased actions: immediate support to those employees who lost employment; short-term stimulus to inject investment into the regional economy (such as new sporting facilities); and longer-term reconstruction of the regional economy. This approach acknowledged the immediacy of the transition challenge for workers affected directly by Engie’s decision, but also the importance of ensuring short-term investment to support businesses affected indirectly by the closure of Hazelwood. To support the reconstruction agenda, the LVA sought to draw on European Union (EU) experience with Smart Specialisation. Introduced as an ex ante conditionality for the disbursement of EU Cohesion Funds in 2014, Smart Specialisation built on OECD work reported in 2009–2010 which emphasised the importance of systemic policies that supported the development of regional innovation systems. Over the

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

301

preceding 20 years, European research had demonstrated the centrality of spatially grounded innovation to successful just transition processes, partly because of its contribution to economic growth and prosperity (see Isaksen et al., 2018), but also because of the necessity of finding new approaches to resolving societal challenges (see Miedzinski et al., 2021). This chapter reviews the learning from the first five years of the implementation of Smart Specialisation in Gippsland, the region in which the Latrobe Valley is situated, and considers its contribution both directly and indirectly to the implementation of a just, regional transition process. Learning about the implications of this approach has been enhanced by its extension to supporting smaller towns affected by another transition challenge, the end of logging in old native forests. The Victorian Government has determined that this will end in 2030 with significant implications for small towns whose existence had become entwined with the logging industry. The application of Smart Specialisation in small towns has introduced another layer of learning about its potential to support socio-ecological innovation and has encouraged small communities to envisage alternative futures for the community members affected directly and indirectly, and for the district more generally.

Can Transitions Be ‘Just’? The international labour movement has become increasingly alert to the inevitable closure of industries connected with fossil fuels that have provided secure and well-paying jobs to their members for decades and even centuries. In joining debate about the climate emergency, unions have campaigned to ensure that their members do not bear a disproportionate share of the costs of transition. In support of achieving this outcome, the movement has set out certain conditions for transition and asserted its right to be part of the processes through which enterprises and industries will close. A Just Transition secures the future and livelihoods of workers and their communities in the transition to a low-carbon economy. It is based on

302

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

social dialogue between workers and their unions, employers, government and communities. A plan for Just Transition provides and guarantees better and decent jobs, social protection, more training opportunities and greater job security for all workers affected by global warming and climate change policies. (Márquez et al., 2019, p. 8)

The concept appeared at COP 16, the conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and was incorporated into the Paris Agreement following extensive advocacy by the international labour movement, led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Work led by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has proposed a mix of policy initiatives which promote private sector investment alongside public sector regional support and measures targeted at individuals, such as household support and education and training for new industries (see Márquez et al., 2019). Johnstone and Hielscher (2017) have reviewed the challenge posed by closing fossil fuel-based energy production by 2030, highlighting the initial, relatively narrow focus of the sustainability transitions literature on the technological innovation required to achieve this objective and the lack of attention given to the impact on individuals and communities, both materially and emotionally. This is not to suggest demoting the importance of carbon dioxide: on the contrary it suggests that in order to facilitate transitions to sustainability that are equitable and have a wide range of actors on side, more attention needs to be paid to often neglected actors such as trade unions and local communities surrounding technologies actively being abandoned and how they will play a future role in new emerging technological systems based around low carbon alternatives. (2017, p. 3)

The indirect employment consequences of plant closures can be less obvious but more significant not only for individuals but also for the regional economy. An anecdotal example was provided in the report of a Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the closure of Hazelwood of a hydraulic supplier which lost 23% of its turnover (see Parliament of Victoria, 2022, p. 26). The report confirms that policies to support just transitions should have regional scope. Johnstone and Hielscher

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

303

(2017) emphasise the place-based character of these processes, and the implications for community cohesion and social networks. This issue is raised by Weller et al. (2020) in a report prepared for stakeholders in the Upper Hunter Valley in Australia. Coal and other carbon resources are found in specific locations, which is where mines have been located. Apart from the economic and social consequences of closures, there are environmental issues also. The mines themselves are significant sites of devastated earth that require attention still when the mines are closed. There are guidelines for companies to consider when managing the personnel and community implications of closures with some limited consideration of mine rehabilitation. However, this element typically has only a remedial orientation, without any framing of possible innovation related to the climate crisis. Weller et al.’s more general concern is with identifying possible goals and related measures to assist in ‘best practice’ planning for closure of mines in the Hunter Valley. They draw also on the Australian place-based structural adjustment research, and socio-technical and just transitions literatures to identify ‘five domains for policy action’: • Managing the closure process—careful management of the closure process is important to mitigate any sense of fear and loss among the affected workforce and the wider community. • Redeploying the labour force—maintaining displaced workers’ confidence in the quality and timely delivery of employment services is crucial to mitigating the impacts of closures. • Redeveloping the local economy—successful worker, household and community transitions are all contingent on the maintenance of local job opportunities. • Maintaining social cohesion—actions that celebrate the history and contribution of the region, that restore the environment and improve community cohesion. • Coordinating change—maintaining community cohesion requires coordination of closures processes, economic redevelopment and labour force deployment initiatives. Is also crucial to securing external support for the local closure process (Weller et al., 2020, p. 25).

304

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

These various perspectives demonstrate the complexity and challenge of securing industrial transitions that address the urgency of the UN Global Agenda, specifically the climate crisis, yet also offer decent livelihoods to those affected directly and indirectly by the closure of forest logging, mines, power generation and related activities. This is complicated by the tension between the increasing acceleration of transitions prompted, for example, by calls for early closure of fossil fuel energy sources, and the difficulty of managing such processes in inclusive and democratic ways. Skjølsvold and Coenen have noted that these tensions can contribute to social turmoil and argue for recognition of. the importance of sustainability transitions as a key process of broad societal change. Climate and energy transitions reach beyond decarbonizing socio-technical systems and sectors, they entail carving out new societal conditions. (2021, p. 2)

While immediate attention is required interpersonally, to support individual families, and socially and environmentally, to sustain other economic and social relations, the framing of longer-term economic and societal change in a way that addresses the ambition of not only of climate action but also the broader Global Agenda requires significant policy intervention. The work of the Latrobe Valley Authority over the past five years, in the wake of the closure of the Hazelwood mine and power generator, has provided one substantive example of how a reconstruction agenda focused on place-based innovation, which is at the heart of smart specialisation, can help to balance the underlying tensions between accelerated transitions and inclusive processes and outcomes.

The Global Agenda and Socio-Ecological sustainability—A Place for Smart Specialisation? In 2015, two dramatic decisions were made under the auspices of the UN: the adoption of the Global Agenda (the SDGs) to 2030, and the Paris Agreement on climate action, specifically arresting carbon

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

305

emissions. The first of these resulted from a process of global intergovernmental and civil society consultation triggered by the culmination of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). Encouraged by the apparent success of the MDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals were conceived as a more ambitious opportunity for global partnership, with business, universities and civil society involved as well as governments. Under the leadership of an Open Working Group nominated by the UN, the extensive consultations resulted unsurprisingly in a broad, uneven and at times contradictory arrangement of Goals, Targets and indicators. How, for example, could Goal 9, on Economic Growth, be resolved readily with Goal 13, on climate? The UN has implemented an impressive apparatus of resources, networks and regular reporting by governments and on specific Goals, represented most prominently in the annual High Level Political Forum. The European Union and other nations have committed actively to incorporating the SDGs into their strategic and operational planning. On the face of it, the UN Global Agenda also provides a framework for supporting just transitions and for doing so in a way recognises the intensity of contemporary transition, and the importance of social, economic and environmental ambitions. There are specific Goals and Targets which encourage innovation, economic growth and decent living standards alongside those which encourage partnerships, gender equality and justice. However, the scale and structure of the SDGs risks fragmentation of the analysis and even a lag process of assessment as the emphasis on statistical evidence means that historic data is used of necessity. The difficulty in engaging with the SDGs is reflected partly in studies of their political impact (see Biermann et al., 2022) which demonstrate relatively little shift in practices or programmes, and even more so, perhaps in the tangible worsening of many aspects of planetary and human life, not least in the reports of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2022). At a practical level, aspects of the SDGs reflect ethnographic bias and presume a level of governance and management capability which simply does not exist, at least in those areas which have direct responsibility or need.

306

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

In reaction to these issues, the EU Centre of Excellence at RMIT has developed a framework (drawing on Sachs et al., 2019) which presents the Goals and Targets in terms of four themes (see Wilson & Shortis, forthcoming). These themes offer a way of making meaningful sense of the scale and coherence of transformation needed, as well as offering any community a framework for reflecting on their current circumstances and exploring future alternatives: 1. ‘Transformational’ Goals This theme focuses on environmental sustainability, addressing specific topics such as climate change, carbon, urbanisation, food, energy and ecosystems. This encompasses SDG 2 with respect to food systems, but also SDGs 11 (sustainable cities and communities), 12 (waste), 13 (low carbon), 14 (coastal eco-systems) and 15 (inland eco-systems). These are sometimes considered to be technological challenges; the assumption is that new technologies can enhance energy efficiencies, reduce carbon emissions and support continued economic growth that does not deplete resources. The interests associated with economic structures and processes have to be challenged and reoriented. 2. Provision of Essential Public Services This focuses on the provision of universal public services for citizens: health, education, utilities and infrastructure. In Sachs’ reckoning, this refers to SDGs 3 (Health), 4 (Education), 6 (Water) and 7 (Energy). Each of these has an underlying commitment to a core of universal provision, and typically depends in part at least on public financing even though delivery of services in many countries is both a public and private sector (business and community) responsibility. 3. A Decent Livelihood For All This depends on both the public and private sectors, and civil society. SDG 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth, is the central focus of this theme, albeit drawing heavily on public services to prepare people for opportunities to participate in the economy, and to undertake ‘decent’ work (recognising that far too many current jobs involve either tasks or conditions which are demeaning,

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

307

damaging or exploitative). Underpinning this focus is SDG 9, Inclusive and Sustainable Industrialisation, which promotes the importance of infrastructure, and the role of business in innovation and in supporting development in their region. 4. Reconciliation and Partnership There are social and moral objectives, related to gender equality, reducing violence and increasing inclusion, and promoting global citizenship, at the heart of the Agenda. This refers to SDGs 5 (gender equality), 4 (with respect to global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity) and 16 (peace, justice, strong institutions and reducing violence). SDG 17 is pertinent also with its focus on a shared partnership for the implementation of the transformation agenda. Furthermore, this grouping highlights the importance of respectful social relationships and of learning in all aspects of the transformation agenda. This theme cuts across all Goals, highlighting the importance of the processes of change, and their inclusivity. The 2030 Agenda is not only the about objective process of identifying targets and developing new systems and technologies for implementation. It is ultimately about relationships in the Anthropocene, so that the means adopted for change in themselves are crucial to transformation. The thematic approach encourages diverse stakeholders a framework for anticipating the transformation of place which crystallises the foremost dimensions of change. It offers a coherent narrative about the implications of the Global Agenda, and how disruption of current arrangements can offer a positive future. It supports systemic understanding of how key stakeholders can work together to address immediate and longer-term transition. When it comes to providing a sense of the future, the four themes provide a simpler language for conversations about desired futures, or visions, with diverse audiences. Furthermore, they raise the question of whether these four dimensions of the Global Agenda can indeed be achieved under current arrangements. The question that arises then is whether a strategic approach such as Smart Specialisation can enable a structured and meaningful approach to achieving this mission, whether at district or regional level. The more detailed framework of specific Goals and Targets has been considered

308

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

in different ways during the implementation of smart specialisation in Gippsland and the overall transition planning. However, when used in this way, there is a tendency for actions to be fragmented as initiatives are framed to address one or the other of specific issues without keeping in mind the overall Agenda. The UN Global Agenda for Transformation provides a valuable agenda against which the actual initiatives to provide for just transitions can be assessed. It offers a common language for describing shared global challenges, and encompasses a comprehensive character. The 17 SDGs with their targets and indicators encompass not only the areas at the heart previously of the Millenium Development Goals (poverty and hunger, for example) but also climate and biodiversity, on land and in the ocean (see Sachs, 2015). In this spirit, the EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) has examined the capacity of smart specialisation to address the sustainability and the SDGs agenda. A series of publications have canvassed whether the underlying assumptions and conceptual framework are able to support the broader agenda of economic and socioecological innovation. Miedzinski et al. examined how better to align the methodological approach of S3 with the objectives of the SDGs. They do so through examining the underpinning conceptual foundation of S3 with the theoretical framing of sociotechnical transitions, social-ecological resilience and challengedriven innovation policy. Given the focus on innovation, particularly through science and technology, S3 is prima facie oriented towards contributing to the transformation required by the Global Agenda. However, they draw serious conclusions about how S3 needs to evolve: Firstly, to align with the SDGs, S3 should explicitly embrace and embed sustainability goals at the heart of its conceptual and methodological framework… Secondly, a renewed S3 framework needs to extend its focus from supporting predominantly technological innovation towards a variety of innovations driving wider economic, environmental and social transitions needed to achieve the SDGs… Thirdly, the S3 framework and methodology could benefit from expanding its theoretical and conceptual foundations to address complex, interconnected and uncertain societal challenges. (Miedzinski et al., 2021, p. 3).

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

309

The report explores carefully the theoretical assumptions and includes a series of tables which specify carefully how S3 can be refined and developed so as to address sustainability objectives more directly. They address directly the opportunities to connect the implementation of a revised methodology with the European Green Deal, the central policy and funding framework for the EU to meet that sustainability challenges of 2030. At the same time, they underscore key principles from the theoretical review with respect to the importance of place-specificity, the importance of a multi-scalar approach, understanding the relationship between dynamic resilience systems and transformation, and the importance of directionality. They conclude: The S3 for the SDGs should broaden its focus from industrial transition to wider sociotechnical and social-ecological transitions needed to tackle sustainability challenges. The discovery process could aim to identify specific areas and niches of sustainable innovation where the community of stakeholders can meaningfully act and achieve measurable change while contributing to systemic transformations. (Miedzinski et al., 2021, p. 58)

Written some years after the LVA had adopted Smart Specialisation as the approach to reconstructing the Gippsland (and by implication, Latrobe Valley) economy, Miedzinski et al.’s analysis provided a useful starting point for reflecting on its capacity to mediate the economic and future sustainability issues necessary for the industrial transitions in Gippsland to satisfy the criteria of being just. In this respect, the emphasis in Smart Specialisation on place-based innovation proved to be particularly apposite. The emphasis in regional innovation systems theory (see Isaksen et al., 2018) on collaborative processes provided strong impetus for enabling inclusive processes around the range of innovation-related projects which because the focus of debate about a reconstructed region: in this respect, both the priority on transition and an emphasis on participatory action guided the implementation of S3 in Gippsland in a way which was not always apparent in Europe. Of course, this did not occur in a vacuum. A massive fire in the Hazelwood mine in 2014 had serious health consequences for the residents of

310

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

Morwell, the town immediately adjacent to the Hazelwood mine. The subsequent inquiry had recommended that the Victorian Government declare the Latrobe City municipal area to be a Health Innovation Zone, linked with the appointment of the Latrobe Health Advocate. With support from Federation University and the Department of Health and Human Services, the initiative was intended to promote a process of codesign in order to give voice to community aspirations in the planning and delivering of better health and well-being outcomes. This experience both reinforced the longer-term implications for sustainability transition, and encouraged the practice of collaborative processes.

Transition and Smart Specialisation in Gippsland The immediacy and scale of the transition challenge was felt sharply in Gippsland when Engie gave only a few months’ notice of the closure of the Hazelwood power generation plant in November 2016. Residents felt disenfranchised about the decisions and changes that affected their lives (see Weller, 2017). This consolidated the sense of neglect, the frustration and vulnerability which had followed a major fire at the Hazelwood mine, with significant ongoing health concerns, only three years earlier (EPA Victoria, 2016). This marked the beginning of a phase of transition which would have significant consequences not only for the employees affected directly, but for the whole region. While the immediate impact was felt most directly in the Latrobe Valley, where three other coal-fired power generators are still operational, its ramifications were felt throughout the region of Gippsland. Gippsland occupies most of the south-eastern part of Victoria. It borders the eastern outskirts of the Melbourne metropolitan area, extending eastward to the Pacific Ocean and bordered to the south by Bass Strait. Its poor transport and communication networks position it as a peripheral region. It has a population of approximately 275,000 people, but no major city and apart from the towns in the Latrobe Valley, it is relatively sparsely and unevenly populated. Forests, for example, occupy one quarter of the region’s land, and the eastern half of the region beyond the town

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

311

of Bairnsdale has a sprinkling only of small towns. Similarly, it is divided amongst six local government areas of which five are in the western half of the region. Its people are quite homogenous with only 12% of the population born overseas compared with 26% nationally, and an average median age of 44 compared with 37 for Australia nationally. While there are some significant employers with global connections (particularly in the dairy sector), microbusinesses dominate the regional economy (some 63% are owner-operated). Many small communities have continued to survive, notwithstanding cuts in services, because of the strength of historical ties. On education, health and employment data, Gippsland fares poorly in comparison with other parts of country Victoria, Melbourne and Australia with a higher percentage of those aged 15–19 not engaged in school or employment than in other parts of regional Victoria or Melbourne (see Coenen et al., 2017). It has one university campus, in the Latrobe Valley (with its university headquarters in Ballarat, to the west of Melbourne), and a TAFE college with multiple campuses throughout the region. In 2017, a special issue of the Australasian Journal of Regional Studies brought together articles on the Latrobe Valley in the immediate aftermath of the closure of the Hazelwood coal mine and power station. Weller (2017) and Fairbrother (2017) both examined the contested character of the transition process, and marginalisation of local stakeholders. Weller described a process of disenfranchisement, encapulsated elsewhere in the sense of ‘being done to’. Duffy and Whyte (2017) explored the politics of emotion and affect, as the long-standing relationships and arrangements in the Valley were fractured, initially by the privatisation and cuts of the 1990s, and then by the impending impact of climate change and the prospect of industrial transition. The Engie decision triggered a political break with past practice, in that the Victorian Government responded by establishing the Latrobe Valley Authority (LVA) to lead a process of intervention. The LVA was itself an innovative public sector response, insofar as it was based in Gippsland as a distinct agency, yet part the Department of Premier and Cabinet reporting to a Deputy Secretary. As the Premier said, the LVA was to be ‘a really important way in which we can get rid of the red tape,

312

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

the bureaucratic indecision and have one place everyone in this community can go for the support they need, to have their say, so the right decisions can be made in this community’ (Latrobe Express, 27 February 2017). Their work focused initially on the individuals and families affected directly by the decision, moving subsequently to support recovery, and then reconstruction of the regional economy. The Worker Transition Service was targeted at individuals, providing specific feedback on alternative employment opportunities, retraining, financial support, connections to a range of services and support with starting new businesses where appropriate. The model developed by the LVA has been refined and is now positioned as the basis for supporting individual workers as other mines and power stations close. The Yallourn facility is expected to close no later than 2028 and possibly earlier, so it will be the next focus of the Worker Transition Service with support from its owner, Energy Australia. Short-term support to enable business transition was focused partly on investment in new facilities such as sporting stadiums and playing areas, together with aquatic and performing arts infrastructure. However, businesses have been support also through the GROW Gippsland (Growing Regional Opportunities for Work) programme which emphasises local connections, procurement and employment. Producers are linked with local suppliers, particularly in the context of regional infrastructure projects. In the immediate aftermath of the Hazelwood closure, this was not an easy brief, given the underlying low levels of confidence, the resentment of Melbourne decision-makers and the vested interests and tensions in the existing arrangements of local government and industry politics across the region, as Weller, Fairbrother and Duffy and Whyte had described. It helped that the leadership of the Authority were experienced Gippsland-based directors of different government portfolios and that most of the staff employed by the LVA in the region were also local people. Enormous effort was invested in building relationships through frank and open conversations, while within the Victorian Government, the LVA was to play a critical role in coordinating work across Departments and agencies.

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

313

In terms of developing the longer-term regional economy, the LVA undertook a review of programmes in other parts of the world and within 12 months, had chosen to focus on learning from the EU’s Smart Specialisation approach as the focus on the reconstruction process. This was a critical decision as it marked a sharp departure from the typical Australian response of relying on infrastructure investment and grants programmes, recognising instead that Smart Specialisation offered a strong focus on existing regional assets and their innovation potential (see Wilson, 2020). To assist this, a team was drawn from the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne, and the EU Centre of Excellence at RMIT (see Goedegebuure et al., 2020). The focus on innovation was in itself an unusual notion in Australia. Whereas Europe had struggled with uneven economic growth in the 1990s and 2000s, Australia had 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth. Two decades of European research had demonstrated the significance of innovation as an integral element not only of growth but of economic resilience (see Bristow & Healy, 2018). Our results demonstrate that the capacity for innovation within a region is strongly related to its propensity to be resilient to economic shocks. Those regions that proved able to resist the 2007–2008 economic crisis across Europe tended to have the highest levels of innovation capacity and performance. Significantly, our work also demonstrates quite conclusively that those regions which were least able to respond to the economic crisis had the lowest levels of innovation capacity. (Bristow & Healy, 2018, p. 280).

Therefore, the debate in European circles had come to take the priority of innovation for granted, and to focus on the appropriate character of innovation policy: should it emphasise a linear process of science and technological development, or should be pay more attention to the transformative potential of innovation to address societal issues (see Schot & Steinmuller, 2018; see also Uyarra et al., 2019). As University researchers, the Melbourne-RMIT team approached their work through the lens of an action-research project. Their prior primary (Coenen) and secondary (Wilson) research experience with

314

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

smart specialisation and place-based innovation (Goedegebuure) guided the contribution that they were able to offer the LVA and its stakeholders in implementation of the Gippsland Smart Specialisation Strategy (GS3) process. At the same time, their application of quantitative and qualitative research methods in conducting the regional context analysis (RCA) laid a foundation for ongoing collection of data with respect to the subsequent phases of Entrepreneurial Discovery (EDP) and the establishment of Innovation Working Groups (IWGs) to explore specific innovation opportunities. The substance of this case study is drawn from this participatory research activity (see also Veldhuizen and Coenen, 2022). Partly in response to advocacy by local organisations to the LVA, the S3 process began with opportunities emerging in the food sector. The RCA revealed distinct local environmental assets, found in industrial settings rather than research institutes, while the EDP identified significant potential competitive advantage in global value chains for three of these opportunities. The decision, right from the outset, to focus on a particular sector indicated that S3 as implemented in Australia would be adapted to local circumstances even though the EU resources, such as the Guide (EC—European Commission, 2012), served as important starting points. Some of the early learning indicated that social and environmental assets were to be much more important than scientific assets, and that exploration of cross-sectoral opportunities would be a secondary rather than primary step (see Goedegebuure et al., 2020). A pragmatic, relatively prescriptive sectoral approach was taken to commence the implementation process. Translation involved modification of the S3 template, notably through distilling visioning, entrepreneurial discovery, and prioritization into a seamless process based on the pursuit of activity-based learning. The agriculture and energy sectors were selected to be the first to be considered, given their historically considerable contributions to regional employment and productivity. (Veldhuizen & Coenen, 2022, p. 12)

The pattern of territorial association in Gippsland was clearly important, given the concentration of mining and energy in one part of the region, and the wide distribution of horticulture, other food and fibre

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

315

sectors, and other industry sectors across the region. Environment was central, but local knowledge and other assets were evident in the inventiveness and adaptiveness which was found in horticulture across the region, as well as other food sectors. This diversity underpinned the importance of adopting a ‘quadruple helix’ approach to the engagement with stakeholders. From the outset, the project team emphasised the importance of bringing together the divergent perspectives of business, research and development, education and training, governments and civil society. This dimension of Smart Specialisation was quite uncommon in Australia, whether in relation to innovation or other aspects of economic and social activity. It was given priority because the European research on regional innovation systems demonstrated that the sharing of knowledge amongst these stakeholders is essential to the collective problem solving which is at the heart of innovation processes, all critical to the interactions which are necessary for a dynamic innovation ecosystem (see Isaksen et al., 2018). The project team’s insistence on this element of GS3 was important not only in the investigation and development of innovative opportunities, but also encouraged the inclusive and participatory culture proposed by Skjølsvold and Coenen (2021). This has been a complex process as stakeholders have divergent, sometime contradictory (and conflicting) perspectives on innovation and transition opportunities. Their willingness to participate rested in part on the legitimacy of the LVA, and in part on their own perception of interest. … work on the Gippsland Smart Specialization Strategy (G-S3) is conceptualized around exploration and engagement within the so called ‘quadruple helix’, a structure of stakeholders linked to the four domains of public sector, industry, research/tertiary education, and community. This approach resonates with the global trend towards a more open and connected understanding of innovation, focusing on collective problemsolving through sharing of knowledge, skills, assets and other resources. Building a Gippsland-based innovation system that engages and links local industries, communities and organisations is at the heart of G-S3. (Wiseman et al., 2020, p. 19)

316

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

While potentially significant innovation opportunities were identified in the food and fibre, energy and visitor economy sectors through the entrepreneurial discovery processes, the relatively low educational levels and very limited scientific and technological expertise in the region constrained the momentum towards implementation. Poor connectedness amongst stakeholders, inadequate investment resources and limited institutional capability have been even more important. Without a strong overlay of even medium-size businesses, of professional services or of intensive industry, communities have developed a long tradition of selfsufficiency and of volunteer activity. Primary schools, general stores and community halls typify the social landscape rather than formal institutions (see Coenen et al., 2017). In this context, one of the important outcomes has been the formation or strengthening of key industry or sectoral associations. Food and Fibre Gippsland is a member-based organisation representing a diverse range of participants including primary producers, food manufacturers and other participants in the food industry. Gippsland Climate Change Network, similarly, has developed as a regional leader not only in climate action but in supporting and driving innovation in the new energy sector in the region. Both organisations have been provided with resources by the LVA to manage innovation working groups focused on specific innovation opportunities. These initiatives have prompted new entrepreneurial activity focused not only on creating new specialisations, but also on responding to social and environmental challenges. The process itself has drawn attention to the importance of collaboration, and to the effort required for this to develop successfully. These organisations have been a key focus in the GS3’s growing emphasis on capability development (see Goedegebuure et al., 2020). As a peripheral region where population is dispersed, there are many small towns which have their historical roots in the specific industries such as dairy or forestry. Dairy towns had been affected by restructuring in the dairy industry unfolding since the 1980s. However, forestry towns were confronted in 2020 with a Victorian Government decision to end logging of old native forests, thus threatening the employment of logging contractors and mill operatives and by implication, the future of the

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

317

towns themselves. Again, the challenge of just transitions for the individuals and families was important but also the future sustainability of the communities. This phase of implementation of Smart Specialisation implied a much more specifically place-based approach, applying the process with communities of perhaps 2,000 people or even fewer with few formal institutions of any kind except schools and health services—a far cry from European regions, where Smart Specialisation Strategies were developed for populations of several million people with sophisticated and complex business and university resources. Because of the proximity of unspoilt forest and coastal assets, questions of environmental protection as well as enhanced economic opportunities were a central theme. A focus on enabling an economic future that would support livelihoods for community members was a key theme of the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process, but the innovation opportunities themselves were linked with new forms of social organisation as well as effective environmental management. Nevertheless, the process of preparing a regional context analysis, undertaking entrepreneurial discovery and then establishing quadruple helix innovation working groups (again with the participation of business, research, government and community representatives) to pursue specific opportunities, has proved very effective in concentrating effort on the collective problem solving that is at the heart of innovation. More importantly, it has encouraged a much more comprehensive approach to innovation opportunities, linking scientific and economic innovation with socio-ecological initiatives (see Coenen & Morgan, 2020). It is in this context that the relevance of the UN Global Agenda has become particularly useful in focusing thinking about the direction of innovation initiatives. Health and ageing services are extensive throughout the region, offering an important potential resource for social innovation. Taken together, the evidence in 2017 was that while there were a broad range of innovation opportunities in Gippsland, the lack of institutional capability and of cohesiveness amongst key agencies meant that any collaboration between industry, government, education/ research and community was ad hoc and unsystematic. The conditions were

318

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

not only inadequate for providing the concentrated energy necessary to maximise the benefits from the opportunities that existed, they did not offer any foundation for building a longer-term place-based innovation system that would spawn and support innovations that could not even be dreamt of at the time, innovations that would build on Gippsland’s distinctive knowledge and natural assets (Goedegebuure et al., 2020, p. 14). Over time, GS3’s work across the four sectors has promoted considerable momentum towards rethinking the future productive foundations of Gippsland. In each of the participating sectors, distinctive regional assets have offered starting points for new innovation processes. More importantly, in relation to implications for other Australian regional transition initiatives, Ward et al. noted that, From an Australian perspective, the policy experimentation has had a number of features: • a focus on strengths and assets rather than gaps and inadequacies in local resources; • an exploration of the innovation potential associated with natural assets, as well as science and related knowledge assets; • an emphasis on collaboration rather than competition; • diverse models of place-based innovation; and • exploration of appropriate governance arrangements. (Ward et al., 2021, pp. 321–322)

In contrast to the sectoral emphasis in the Gippsland-wide implementation of GS3, the Future of Orbost and District project took a much more strongly place-based approach. This town was confronted by a Government decision to end the harvesting of old forest timber, thus threatening the employment of logging contractors and mill operatives and by implication, the future of the town itself. Again, the challenge of just transitions for the individuals and families was important but also the future sustainability of the community itself. With 2,000 inhabitants and a remote location, the challenge of sustainability was even more sharply defined than in wider Gippsland. With limited availability of data, the regional context analysis

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

319

came to depend deeply on conversations with community members and other key stakeholders. Insistence on the importance of engaging with business, government, education/research and community perspectives meant that a broad cross-section of people became involved in contributing quite detailed insights into specific knowledge and natural assets in the district. This culminated in a report that identified nine innovation opportunities, albeit some of which were defined rather generally. Because of the proximity of unspoilt forest and coastal assets, questions of environmental protection as well as enhanced economic opportunities were a central theme. A focus on enabling an economic future that would support livelihoods for community members was a key theme of the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process, but the innovation opportunities themselves were linked with new forms of social organisation as well as effective environmental management. For example, forest management will be a serious issue for the district, especially in the wake of massive bushfires in 2019–2020. Enabling the healthy regrowth of the forest will draw on a mix of science and Indigenous knowledge, while also using the expertise of experienced foresters and providing learning opportunities for young workers. The outputs of new processes could well support the use of forest waste in the production of new construction materials. The immediate challenge is to bring together quadruple helix participants in the community (and beyond, where necessary) to engage the expertise necessary to realise the opportunity. As with the transition from coal-fired power, the workers displace from forest will not necessarily find jobs in some of the new economy activities that will characterise the future of Orbost and district. Hence, the just transitions process here also needs to involve targeted assistance with retraining, access to support services and financial resources where appropriate. Across the five years of GS3 to date, significant progress has been made not only in implementing innovation opportunities, but in building a much stronger commitment around collaboration. Arguably, the most significant outcome to date has been the development of a new way of

320

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

working in the region. This was summarised as: a culture of collaboration; the stronger role for the tertiary education and research sector in the regional innovation system; an integrated policy framework that sits within a long-term vision; the consistency and coherence of actions that flow from this in terms of industry-led and government supported and facilitated innovation activities; and a culture of learning (see Goedegebuure et al., 2020). This process demonstrates the significance of understanding just transitions not only in terms of policies those affected directly by fundamental upheaval, but as a collaborative regional transformation. The core economic activities are redefined, but the institutional capability necessary to accomplish a broader process of social and environmental change is strengthened also. There are differences in the timeframe and focus of just transition for individuals and for regions, but each represents an essential dimension of how planning for closure of existing industries needs to be conceived.

Smart Specialisation, Just Transitions and the Sustainability Agenda Confronted by closure of Hazelwood and of old forest logging, sustainability issues were of necessity at the forefront of the implementation of S3 in Gippsland (GS3). In the absence of critical mass in science and technology, yet enormous natural assets in Gippsland, GS3 inevitably explored opportunities for socioecological innovation. With the inevitable closure of all coal-powered electricity generation, there was a core presumption of transformation in economic mode and the prospect of new social formation, one offering a very positive future for the region. In other words, by virtue of context and from practice rather than theory, GS3 engaged directly with the principles proposed by Miedzinski et al., demonstrating the power of the S3 process as implemented in Gippsland to provide a foundation for innovation focused on the objectives of the UN Global Agenda. This was reflected in a subsequent EU JRC report, in which Miedzinski et al. (2022) reviewed a number of

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

321

case studies of regions where S3 was engaged with the SDGs. Gippsland was included as one of these sites, providing a number of examples of practices reflecting the alignment of S3 with the sustainability agenda. Notwithstanding that Gippsland lacks the knowledge intensity found in the tertiary research institutes of many European regions, it has still implemented Smart Specialisation with demonstrable implications for momentum in a region facing the closure of its core industrial base. In this process, it has highlighted a number of principles which are contradictory to the otherwise fragmented and erratic Australian approach to development in non-metropolitan regions (see Wilson, 2020). In relation to ambitions for ‘just’ transitions, the Latrobe Valley experience has been striking in its balance between initiatives targeted at supporting individual workers and households alongside investment in community facilities and adoption of Smart Specialisation to support the longer-term reconstruction of the regional economy. These initiatives have from the outset had to engage with the sustainability challenge. Under the leadership of the LVA, there has been a steady process of engaging new sectors, additional stakeholders, and of learning about both the Smart Specialisation approach, and the wider issues of engaging the region with the UN Global Agenda. However, once Hazelwood had closed, the emphasis on learning has promoted a process in the first 5 years which has been incremental and careful rather than confronting. Is this sufficient in the face of the scale of challenge that is represented by the climate crisis and by scale of income inequality? As Miedzinski et al. noted, The challenge for developed and developing countries alike is to create and deploy knowledge and innovation with transformative impact across the society and economy. This transformation requires radical changes in all domains of economic and social activities. New technologies, as well as social, institutional and policy innovations are needed to deliver on the ambition of the SDGs. (Miedzinski et al., 2022)

With respect to production, change has been dramatic and will be even more so in the future, not least allowing for a lead time of 15– 20 years. However, very little attention has been given to consumption

322

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

and shifting assumptions and practices which continue excessive use of natural resources. As Skjølsvold and Coenen (2021) have pointed out, success in balancing accelerated transitions with the strengthening of practices of inclusion and participatory decision-making will be an important indicator of the extent to which transitions are not only just but also transformative. However, the tension between pace of change and strengthening of participative and collaborative processes will continue to challenge regional agencies such as the LVA. Incremental change has the advantage that it builds on people’s world as they know it and allows them to see a pathway which does not challenge them with excessive risk. However, whether incremental or otherwise, it is recognised in Gippsland that continued use of natural resources at the current level will inevitably be destructive. Some initiatives have focused on energy usage, seeking for example to use renewable sources and to take communities off the grid and be mostly self-sufficient. A focus on circular economy, for example, will also be an integral arena of interest for S3 in promoting socioecological innovation in Gippsland, as in many other parts of the world. The focus on innovation, on collaborative problem solving that builds on place-based key assets, has been central to GS3’s progress towards the development of a new economy that will support just transitions for workers displaced from unsustainable industries. While there has been a reliance on projects as a means of pursuing innovation opportunities, the underlying objective is to build the region’s innovation system, and hence strengthen the local platform for systemic change. This work is yet to be embraced fully. It takes time to strengthen the region’s institutional capability sufficiently for the systemic dimension of S3 to evolve to the point where pursuit of innovation of all types becomes more dynamic, and potentially transforming. This will be the stage where S3 might become genuinely transformative itself.

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

323

References Biermann, F., Hickmann, T., Sénit, C-A., Beisheim, M., Bernstein, S., Chasek, P., Grob, L., Kim, R. E., Kotzé, l. J., Nilsson, M., Ordóñez Llanos, A., Okereke, C., Pradhan, P., Raven, R., Sun, Y., Vijge, M. J., van Vuuren, D., & Wick, B. (2022). Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Sustainability, 5, 795–800. Bristow, G., & Healy, A., (2018). Innovation and regional economic resilience: An exploratory analysis. The Annals of Regional Science, 60, 265–284. Coenen, L., Goedegebuure, L., Schoen, M., Veldhuizen, C., & Wilson, B. (2017). Regional context analysis Gippsland. Report prepared for the Latrobe Valley Authority GS3 Project. Coenen, L., & Morgan, K. (2020). Evolving geographies of innovation: Existing paradigms, critiques and possible alternatives. Norwegian Journal of Geography, 74, 13–24. Duffy, S., & Whyte, J. (2017). The Latrobe Valley: The politics of loss and hope in a region of transition. Australasian Journal of Regional Studies, 23(3), 421–446. EPA—Environmental Protection Authority Victoria. (2016). Hazelwood analysis—Final report. Prepared by CSIRO for EPA Victoria, Melbourne, December. EC—European Commission. (2012). Guide to research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation. Sevilla, Smart Specialisation Platform. Fairbrother, P. (2017). When politics meets economic complexity: Doing things differently in the Gippsland region, Australia. Australasian Journal of Regional Studies, 23(3), 400–420. Goedegebuure, l., Wilson, B., Coenen, L., Schoen, M., Fastenrath, S., Ward, C., & Shortis, E. (2020). Developing and implementing a smart specialisation approach for Gippsland 2018–2020. Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI). IPCC—Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2022). Climate change 2022: Impact, adaptation and vulnerability. Working Group II Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

324

L. Coenen and B. Wilson

Isaksen, A., Martin R., & Trippl, M. (2018). New avenues for regional innovation systems—Theoretical advances, empirical cases and policy lessons. Springer. Johnstone, P., & Hielscher, S. (2017). Phasing out coal, sustaining coal communities? Living with technological decline in sustainability pathways. Extractive Industries and Society, 4 (3), 457–461. Márquez, A. F., Gil, B. M_T., & Maeztu, O. L. (2019). The contribution of social dialogue to the 2030 agenda: Promoting a just transition towards sustainable economies and societies for all. TUDCN/ITUC. Miedzinski, M., Coenen, L., Larsen, H., Matusiak, M., & Sarcina, A. (2022). How can smart specialisation strategies address sustainability challenges to contribute to the sustainable development goals? Publications Office of the European Union. Miedzinski, M., Stancova, K. C., Matusiak, M., & Coenen, L. (2021). Addressing sustainability challenges and sustainable development goals via smart specialisation. Towards a theoretical and conceptual framework. EUR 30864 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. Parliament of Victoria. (2022). Inquiry into the closure of the Hazelwood and Yallourn power stations. Legislative Council, Economy and Infrastructure Committee, Melbourne. Sachs, J. S. (2015). Goal-based development and the SDGs: Implications for development finance. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 31(3–4), 268–278. Sachs, J. S., Schmidt-Traub, G., Mazzucato, M., Messner, D., Nakicenovic, N., & Rockström, J. (2019). Six transformations to achieve the sustainable development goals. Nature Sustainability, 2, 805–814. Schot, J., & Steinmuller, W. E. (2018). Three frames for innovation policy: R&D, systems of innovation and transformative change. Research Policy, 47 (9), 1554–1567. Skjølsvold, T. M., & Coenen, L. (2021). Are rapid and inclusive energy and climate transitions oxymorons? Towards principles of responsible acceleration. Energy Research & Social Science, 79. United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. A/RES/70/1. New York. Veldhuizen, C., & Coenen, L. (2022). Smart specialization in Australia: Between policy mobility and regional experimentalism? Economic Geography, 98(3), 228–249.

11 Just Transitions in the Context of Urgent Climate Action

325

Uyarra, E., Ribeiro, B., & Dale-Clough, L. (2019). Exploring the normative turn in regional innovation policy: Responsibility and the quest for public value. European Planning Studies, 27 (12), 2359–2375. Ward, C., Shortis, E., Wilson, B., & Hogan, A. (2021). Regional policy in Australia: Can smart specialisation deliver vibrant and prosperous regional Australian communities? Australasian Journal of Regional Studies, 27 (3), 306–330. Weller, S. (2017). The geographical political economy of regional transformation in the Latrobe valley. Australasian Journal of Regional Studies, 23(3), 382–399. Weller, S. Beer, A. Porter, J., & Veitch, W. (2020). Identifying measures of success for a global best practice thermal coal mine and thermal coal-fired power station closure. Final Report, UniSA Business, Adelaide. Wilson, B. (2020). The evolving role of EU regional policy: Implications for Australia? Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies, 12(2). Wiseman, J., Workman, A., Fastenrath, S., & Jotzo, F. (2020). Addressing sustainability challenges and sustainable development goals via smart specialisation. Centre for Climate and Energy Policy Working Paper, Australian National University, Canberra. Online version accessed October 2021, https://ccep.crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publication/ccep_craw ford_anu_edu_au/2020-11/ccep20-10_wiseman_workman_fastenrath_j otzo_after_hazelwood.pdf

12 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities: Emerging Opportunities Beth Edmondson

This book has presented a range of new insights into the interlinked dynamics of environmental accountabilities and social transitions as mechanisms that can support sustainability transformations. Chapters throughout have paid attention to opportunities for transformational change and highlighted opportunities for rethinking assumptions about social-ecological systems. They have expressed a range of perspectives and drawn upon diverse knowledge and approaches. They have shared common hopes that fresh approaches to environmental accountabilities and social transitions will promote new sustainability transformations in the twenty-first century. The chapters in this book have examined sustainability transformations of various kinds and shed new light on the forms of social B. Edmondson (B) Trafalgar, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6_12

327

328

B. Edmondson

transitions that might support them. They have argued that new initiatives and new knowledge are together necessary for developing effective responses to climate change and environmental degradation. These chapters share a common narrative regarding the necessities for contemporary societies actively tackling the considerable challenges they face to shore up their abilities to provide physical and social security for their human populations, non-human species and social-ecological systems. Among the social transitions that are required for navigating these deep and complex challenges are new demands for governments to recognise and act in accordance with environmental accountabilities. Previous decades of environmental changes have shown that although some governments may be able to exercise leadership to respond to global climate change and other environmental challenges, others will be unable or unwilling to adapt their systems and structures. At present, few governments seem well equipped or sufficiently committed to support the comprehensive sustainability transformations that are necessary to limit further environmental degradation, species losses and social-ecological systems vulnerabilities. As climate change consequences impact upon the territorial possessions and authoritative capacities of states, they will also trigger new environmental accountabilities among governments. Perhaps most immediately, these will impact the economic activities and societal structures that currently support human populations. As political entities, states currently hold rights to claim exclusive use of resources within their territories and maintain an array of rights and responsibilities of representing their citizens’ interests in international dealings (Edmondson & Levy, 2019). Social transitions and environmental accountabilities are challenging these attributes of contemporary states. For example, as some states lose territory to rising sea levels and others lose rivers as rainfall patterns change, states’ authority and independence will also change. Current and emerging environmental changes, including global climate change, increasingly demonstrate that what a state undertakes within its own territory has global ‘real world’ impacts. Ideas about the nature of states and the responsibilities of governments, intergovernmental organisations, civil society, social movements, corporations and other economic entities and citizens will likely also

12 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions …

329

change in coming decades. States’ rights, authoritative capacities and roles as primary agents for ethical decisions are already changing as a result. In coming decades, environmental accountabilities will position governments as primary agents of responsibilities for supporting just transitions and sustainability transformations. While a great deal is not yet fully known regarding how best to achieve effective and durable sustainability transformations, some key institutional attributes have been identified. It is, for instance, evident that durable sustainability transformations rely upon a range of institutional features and accountable actors and agents. Additional key attributes include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Scalable solutions, Internal and external accountability, Transformational capacity building, Transition focused leadership, Interlinked policy networks, Knowledge sharing communities.

The international political community is at a new juncture in relation to the just transitions decisions of states. Aspirations of sustainable development and adaptation to climate change rely upon ideas of environmental accountabilities and moral recognition of social-ecological systems interdependencies. These now demand new attention towards the distributions of rights and responsibilities among international and national political and economic decision-makers. Without new shared visions concerning environmental accountabilities and shared responsibilities for social transitions and sustainability transformations, the international political community will be unable to achieve good outcomes for societies or social-ecological systems. As states grapple with intensifying issues arising from the impacts of global climate change, mass population movements, environmental degradation, mass species extinctions, resource shortages and so on, their capacities to lead just allocations of rights, responsibilities and resources are also increasingly challenged. At this juncture, contemporary states seem rather poorly equipped to support just transitions

330

B. Edmondson

either within the societies they govern, or across the international political community. The problems that governments and intergovernmental organisations currently face in supporting social, political and economic ideas and practices that might enable sustainability transformations are not limited to their capacities to support just transitions. Rather, they extend into many other facets of individual and collective environmental accountabilities and environmentally responsible social transitions. Durable sustainability transformations require widespread acceptance of environmental accountabilities by governments and peoples. The autonomy of states will need to be mediated by internationally articulated and environmentally responsible parameters to enable social transitions and sustainability transformations. Increased accountabilities can be established and achieve international acceptance through new and strengthened mechanisms for global governance as well as through new expectations among citizens. Utilising these to transform the prerogatives of states in favour of privileging environmental accountabilities seems likely to coincide with a further evolution in understandings of the nature of state sovereignty. In various ways, the authors of the chapters presented in this book, have shown that as cascading environmental challenges and socialecological systems risks present tipping points of unthinkable collapses of societies and ecosystems, it is irresponsible to seek to preserve ideas and practices wherein sovereign states constitute bounded spaces for independent authoritative agents. While there might remain some valid grounds for a place for autonomous state-based decision-making in the international community, this autonomy is now constrained by collective environmental accountabilities. States now hold responsibilities to secure social transitions that can support social-ecological systems and sustainability transformations and civil societies now hold greater influence in shaping their individual and collective decisions. In sum, this book has considered how and why new knowledge and initiatives to promote sustainability transformations also affirm the importance of accountability for achieving both good environmental outcomes and enduring societies. The authors who have contributed to this book have provided profound insights and generously shared their knowledge

12 Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions …

331

to raise new awareness regarding the many opportunities that might be pursued to support and extend sustainability transformations through social transitions and environmental accountabilities. They have brought new knowledge and insights regarding various aspects of environmental accountabilities, social transitions and sustainability transformations as ideas and practical initiatives. They have also sought to extend knowledge of interplay and dynamics between governments, intergovernmental organisations, economic entities, social sectors, groups and individuals as environmentally accountable agents. In so doing, they have brought their significant knowledge and expertise to the study of environmental accountabilities, social transition and social-ecological systems interplay dynamics. From diverse knowledge bases and with attention to a varied range of ideas, issues, policies, problems and governance approaches, these authors have outlined new opportunities, solutions and ways of understanding how, why and what is now important for creating sustainable societies and systems of governance to avoid unthinkable collapses in social-ecological systems and contemporary societies.

Reference Edmondson, B., & Levy, S. (2019) Order and accountability in governing transforming environments. In B. Edmondson & S. Levy (Eds.), Transformative climates and accountable governance. Palgrave studies in environmental transformation, transition and accountability series. Palgrave Macmillan.

Index

A

Accountable energy 9 Adaptation capacities 5, 9, 122 Anthropocene 79, 110, 172, 176, 177, 184, 186, 187, 221, 307

B

Biodiversity 10, 25, 83–85, 91, 94, 97, 98, 105, 108–111, 168–170, 173–175, 178, 180, 183–187, 204, 213, 252–254, 280, 283, 285, 292, 308

C

Carbon footprints 7, 39, 40, 42, 46, 49, 51, 55, 57–59, 61, 62, 64–67, 70

Carbon label 40, 41, 49, 51, 55, 67–69 Cities 2, 8, 43, 44, 53, 69, 80–83, 85, 90–93, 95–102, 104–108, 110–112, 212, 232, 306, 310 Climate 8, 10, 12, 17, 18, 25, 26, 31, 32, 43, 44, 48, 57, 68, 93, 107, 110, 111, 121, 124, 125, 137, 151, 152, 154, 167, 168, 179, 184–186, 201, 205, 231, 266, 271, 283–286, 289, 290, 292, 299, 300, 302–304, 308, 321 Climate action 51, 287, 304, 316 Climate change 1, 5, 6, 15, 19, 31, 34, 40–42, 44, 51, 56, 60, 64, 67, 69, 84, 85, 106, 111, 124, 127–131, 153, 168–170, 173, 174, 177, 178, 181, 184, 185,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 B. Edmondson (ed.), Sustainability Transformations, Social Transitions and Environmental Accountabilities, Palgrave Studies in Environmental Transformation, Transition and Accountability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18268-6

333

334

Index

187, 203, 204, 247, 275, 278, 283, 306, 311, 328, 329 Climate ethics 7, 42, 44 Climate footprint 12 Coal 143, 149, 152, 154, 158, 173, 303, 311 Collaborative approaches 10, 209, 256 Collaborative governance 11, 198–201, 206–208, 212, 215, 220, 222 Comanagement 198–201, 206–208, 211, 215, 219, 220, 222 Community resilience 10 Complex dynamic systems 16, 23, 28 Coproduction 198, 200, 201, 203–208, 215, 220–222

E

Ecological engineering 106 Ecosystem integrity 92, 98 Emissions 2, 8, 12, 24, 41–43, 49, 51, 53, 55, 58, 59, 62–64, 66–70, 124, 131, 151, 152, 168, 272, 299, 306 Energy poverty 9, 142, 144, 150, 156, 159 Energy transitions 9, 69, 143–145, 148, 149, 151, 152, 155, 156, 159, 304 Environmental accountabilities 3–6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 121, 122, 124, 125, 128, 129, 131, 132, 134, 136–138, 142, 144, 158–162, 167–169, 171–173, 175, 176, 178, 179, 181, 182, 186, 327–331

Environmental degradation 5, 6, 122, 127, 128, 150, 170, 172, 184, 328, 329 Environmental governance 10, 127, 142, 144, 146, 148, 152, 170, 198, 200, 201, 209, 215, 219, 220 Environmental stewardship 11, 233–235, 243, 246, 255, 258 Environmental sustainability 3, 6, 11, 31, 63, 186, 202, 249, 306 Environmental transformation 1, 3, 5, 10, 123, 187 European Green Deal (EGD) 12, 266, 280, 285, 289, 291, 292, 309 European Union (EU) 12, 84, 90, 91, 94, 108, 110, 149, 265–268, 272, 273, 278, 280–283, 286–292, 300, 305, 308, 313, 314 Evaluation 7, 16, 17, 19–23, 25–33, 94, 219

F

Farm to Fork Strategy 12, 265, 285, 289, 291 Financially constrained contexts 9, 143, 147, 160 Food systems 12, 15, 17, 18, 22, 32, 290–292, 306 Fossil fuels 143–145, 153, 155, 299, 301, 304

G

Greening interventions 83

Index

335

I

N

Ideal type 7, 42, 43, 46–48, 50 Innovation/Innovative 8, 12, 13, 63, 80–92, 85, 90–92, 97–106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 187, 199, 272, 275, 284, 293, 300–305, 307–309, 311, 313–322 Investment 17, 46, 85, 87, 92, 101, 107, 108, 110, 143, 157, 160, 184, 238, 276, 292, 300, 312, 313, 316, 321

Natural capital 84, 86, 87, 109, 168, 170, 186 Nature-based solutions (NBS) 8, 9, 82, 84, 85, 87, 89–102

O

Offset 58, 62, 143, 177, 186

P J

Just transitions 12, 13, 69, 141, 142, 144, 148, 150, 151, 160, 162, 299–303, 305, 308, 317–320, 322, 329, 330

Paris 51, 130, 131, 300, 302, 304 Place-based sustainability 233 Planetary boundaries 154, 172 Portugal 2, 9, 143, 144, 146, 148–151, 155–158, 160, 161 Public accountability 11, 197, 216, 219

K

Knowledge 3–8, 11, 13, 20, 42, 44, 49, 50, 70, 80, 89, 90, 92, 94, 97, 125–128, 131, 134, 168, 177, 182, 183, 185, 186, 198, 201, 203–208, 213, 216, 220, 222, 231, 232, 235, 237, 243–246, 249, 250, 252, 254, 255, 258, 284, 285, 315, 318, 319, 321, 328, 330, 331 L

Legislation 10, 49, 55, 157, 168, 169, 173, 175, 178, 180, 186, 271, 274, 284, 285, 290 Low-carbon transition 9, 142, 143, 151

R

Rajasthan 9, 143, 144, 146, 148–155, 158, 160 Rationalisation 7, 8, 43, 46, 47, 49, 67, 68 Regional communities 234 Regional economies 214, 299, 300, 302, 311–313, 321 Resilient/Resilience 10, 17, 22, 83, 84, 107, 125–127, 130, 134, 135, 170, 184, 186, 208, 214, 233, 235, 308, 309, 313

S

Scalable solutions 329 Social-ecological systems (SES) 2, 4–6, 9, 13, 121–123, 127,

336

Index

128, 130, 131, 134, 138, 197, 199, 209, 236, 327–331 Social transitions 3–7, 13, 14, 134, 308, 327, 328, 330, 331 Socio-economic transformation 8 Socio-environmental resilience 10 Sociotechnical imaginaries 44, 46, 50, 69 Sustainability 3, 8, 24, 28, 30–32, 42, 67, 69, 80–83, 85–87, 91, 94, 104, 106, 108, 109, 112, 122, 130, 141, 143–147, 162, 168, 170–172, 177, 180, 185, 198, 199, 201, 203–205, 220, 232–234, 236, 244, 246, 247, 252, 254–256, 258, 259, 266, 275, 280, 282–284, 302, 304, 308, 309, 317, 318, 320, 321 Sustainability transformations 3–7, 9–11, 13, 14, 34, 79, 82,

121–132, 134, 136, 137, 172, 181, 183, 232–234, 244, 255–257, 327, 329–331 Sustainable agriculture 265 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7, 12, 15, 20, 24, 28, 51, 85, 141, 283, 291, 292, 300, 305

T

Tipping points 1, 3, 20–22, 122, 330 Transformational change 13, 30, 187, 188, 256, 327 Turbulence 16, 17, 23, 33

U

Unthinkable collapse 122, 330, 331