BU Research Blog

Planet under Pressure (http://www.planetunderpressure2012.net/) a major international conference focusing on solutions to the global sustainability challenge has recently taken place in London (March 26-29). I have followed it on-line and found the plenary sessions extremely interesting. The conference must have been really extraordinary. While I would recommend to those interested in global sustainability to browse the website (I’m sure some might have already), having just finished my first year of teaching in Green Economy, I would like to say a few words on the policy brief on Green Economy.

The policy brief is downloadable from the website and while I would encourage everybody to read it, I have found these points particularly interesting:

1. A simple answer to why the green economy is important is that ‘the well-being of a nation is irrelevant if Earth’s environment is degraded to the point where human existence is threatened’.

2. However, continuing to use the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita to measure progress will lead the green economy path to fail.

3. Therefore, we should evaluate the country progress using a new set of measures which take into account the natural, social, human and produced capitals, and not just economic performance.

4. We should conduct in depth studies on the extent to which we are depleting the Earth’s natural capital before we transgress planetary boundaries of no return.

I will be happy to hear your favourite points for this policy brief. Feel free to email me.

Elena Cantarello

Interesting and insightful blogpost on the three dimensions (pillars) of sustainability, challenging the simplicity of the model and highlighting how little attention is given to social sustianability. Makes a lot of sense: the ‘economy’ is after all a social construction which benefits humankind; the environment is made better or worse for/by human beings.  And yet the ‘social’ is so often given little attention in the discourse.

http://ssppjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/recovering-social-is-sustainability.html?goback=.gde_1917135_member_104059828

As we move closer to Rio +20 the UK is defining its position. Caroline Spelman delivered an inspirational (and ambitious) speech this week, outlining  the UK Government’s commitment to the Green Economy, Green Growth and Sustainable Development. A transcript is available at:

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/09/rio-20-earthsummit-caroline-spelman-speech?intcmp=239

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INTERNATIONAL: UN Global Report on HE for Sustainability

Global Universities Network for Innovation (GUNI) (2011) ‘Higher Education in the World 4, Higher Education’s Commitment to Sustainability: from Understanding to Action’ Barcelona: GUNI, UNU and Palgrave (pp. 18-28) ISBN 978-0-230-53555.

A new UN-commissioned report has been released. ‘Higher Education’s Commitment to Sustainability: From Understanding to Action’ is the fourth volume in a series published by the Global Universities Network for Innovation (GUNI) in collaboration with the United Nations University. The report is focused on the transformation of HE towards sustainability and the role of the sector in building sustainable communities. This volume includes papers by 85 authors from 38 countries and provides a map of how the regions are advancing this agenda. The regional picture is complemented with national and local case studies of experiences on thematic areas. An overview chapter, written by Prof Daniella Tilbury from the University of Gloucestershire, addresses questions about global commitment and progress in the sector. It draws on key research evidence from the literature and reflects on the trends evidenced in the regional reports which were commissioned by GUNI for this publication.

The chapter reviews teaching and learning, campus and community engagement, leadership as well as research activities. It identifies pathways for the future action. This chapter can be downloaded as a PDF.

Tilbury, D. (2011). Higher Education for Sustainability: A Global Overview of Commitment and Progress. In GUNI (Ed.), Higher Education in the World 4. Higher Education’s Commitment to Sustainability: from Understanding to Action. GUNI: Barcelona. (pp. 18-28)

Some of you may be interested in a new report produced by UNEP, which focuses on the green economy and the marine environment. Sections include material on tourism, fisheries, marine transport etc. It can be downloaded for free from http://www.unep.org/pdf/green_economy_blue.pdf

Adrian

Dr Maharaj Vijay Reddy was invited to attend the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development’s conference on ‘Green Economy and Sustainable Development’ at the European headquarters of the United Nations Office in Geneva UNOG (10-11 Oct 2011).   The aim of this cutting-edge conference was to debate and identify the sustainability and green economy priorities and to prepare and shape subsequent social policy discussions before the Rio+20 global summit next year.

The UNOG conference received invited attendees from different parts of the world from several international organisations (e.g. UNDESA, UNESCAP, UNEP, UNESCO, and UNDP), many national and international funding agencies (e.g. World Bank, DFID, AUSAid), research institutes and leading universities. Key areas covered in the discussions include: the Global Economic Crisis, Nature in the Market-World, The Social Dimensions of Carbon Trading, Economic Growth, Social Divides and Sustainable Development, Climate Change, Double Injustice and Social Policy, The Global Political Economy, Governance in Environmental Policy, Realizing Pro-Poor Development in the Carbon Commodity Chain, The Potential and Constraints on the Payment for Ecosystem Services Markets, Agriculture and Rural Development, An Institutional Analysis of Biofuel Policies and their Social Implications in Developing Countries, and Future Research and Directions for Rio+20.

This issue of Natural Resources Forum considers the relations between sustainable development and the “green economy” and it matches our Green Economy & Sustainability research theme (isn’t that great?)

 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/narf.2011.35.issue-3/issuetoc

 It features seven articles which provide an insight to the following questions. ‘Under what constraints will a green economy have to take place if we are serious on addressing climate change? What can past technological transitions teach us about the feasibility of a green energy transition? How can institutions (in a broad sense) foster more sustainable outcomes? What types of financial instruments could be mobilized to promote greener economies?’ (Le Blanc, 2011).

 A previous issue of Natural Resources Forum (Fulai et al. 2011) addresses another interesting the question “Is the concept of a green economy a useful way of framing policy discussions and policymaking to promote sustainable development?”

For those interested and passionate about the Green Economy like me, it provides great ideas and suggestions for further debate.

Enjoy the reading and feel free to email me for discussion.

Elena

Green is a film worth watching. As the website suggests http://studyinggreen.wordpress.com/ It is both a hard hitting portrayal of the causes and consequences of deforestation in Indonesia, and a film which captures the tranquillity and calm of wild nature. It contains no narrative or dialogue and yet helps us understand complex commodity chains. It was made with a small camera by a single person on a tourist visa, and has beaten much larger production teams, and healthily funded groups to the most prestigious prizes in environmental film-making. And if that is not enough Green was not made for sale or profit, instead you can watch and download it for free at the film’s website (or see below for how to get a DVD of it). The website also contains a series of short essays put forward by academics, who have seen the film,

As you will have gathered from other posts on this blog, we have an opportunity to discuss the development of BU’s research themes at a launch event on 14th December. As a prelude to that, I thought that it might be helpful to start to discuss what the big research questions might be, in the theme of  ‘Green economy and sustainability’. I’ve been giving this a bit of thought over the past few weeks, while ploughing through leading journals looking for materials for our new Green Economy MSc. This is definitely one of those occasions when teaching and research can definitely be mutually beneficial! So, for starters, here are some initial ideas on big research questions that we might consider addressing in future. Comments and further suggestions on these would be most welcome.

1. How should the green economy be defined? It is striking how many different definitions have been proposed in the literature, with little consensus emerging as yet – rather, it is the subject of active debate. A key question, for example, is whether or not a green economy should include economic growth or not. Some commentators have argued strongly that a green economy is a zero growth economy, by definition, coming out of the ‘environmental limits to growth’ argument that began in the 1970’s. But there is very little evidence for such environmental limits restricting economic growth – rather, the global economy has adapted and continued to grow, acting like the complex adaptive system that it undoubtedly is. So, how should we define the green economy? Might it be defined simply in terms of one that prevents biodiversity loss and environmental degradation? Or must there be more to it than that, such as an element of social justice?

2. How might the transition to a green economy occur? What are the key elements of the socio-economic, cultural, political, institutional, technological and environmental context for this transition to be brought about? At the root of the sustainability transition, I think, lies human behaviour – ultimately, it is about understanding how people make decisions in response to external factors. This is an active area of research in social science, psychology, environmental science, and in economic geography, but these communities seem to be rather disconnected at present. There may be scope for a more integrated, multi-disciplinary approach to addressing this question, perhaps employing state-of-the-art tools such as agent based modelling of the behaviour of individual people, communities, institutions, companies etc. As the whole issue is surrounded by complexity and uncertainty, there may also be scope for deploying ‘softer’ tools such as scenario building.

3. How might resilient social-ecological systems be developed? One of the key principles of the green economy is that it links economic activity with its environmental impacts. The concept of social-ecological systems can be helpful in achieving this, by considering human communities and their local environments as part of a coupled system. It is important to understand the factors underpinning the resilience of such systems, particularly in the current era of rapid environmental, economic, technological and cultural change. This understanding is in its infancy. A corollary of this question is: how do social-ecological systems avoid collapse?

Please feel free to add to this list!

Adrian