̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Jonathan Green

Study demonstrates how academia and business can ensure sustainability of resources

sc604 — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 23:01:00 +0000

Companies both depend upon and impact the environment, and are subject to interdependent pressures over food, energy, water and the environment. Yet their perspectives are often overlooked by the research community, which lacks access to their business thinking. Equally, businesses find it challenging to engage with the academic community, and to define researchable questions that would benefit from more detailed analysis.

̽��ֱ��study, published in the journal Sustainability Science and organised by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, included over 250 people, including academics and companies such as Asda, EDF Energy, HSBC and Nestlé, to produce research priorities that are both scientifically feasible and include results that can be practically implemented by the business community.

“ ̽��ֱ��process of co-design engages businesses at the outset to help define the challenges, limitations and ambitions of research agendas. These considerations ultimately have important consequences for the impact and practicality of research outputs,” said lead author Dr Jonathan Green, formerly of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Geography. “Greater investment in the complex but productive relations between the private sector and research community will create deeper and more meaningful collaboration and cooperation”.

̽��ֱ��project is part of the work of the Nexus Network, an extensive network of researchers and stakeholders coordinated by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), the ̽��ֱ�� of Sussex, the ̽��ֱ�� of East Anglia, the ̽��ֱ�� of Sheffield and the ̽��ֱ�� of Exeter, and supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

̽��ֱ��study was carried out over five months and involved researchers collecting over 700 questions from business practitioners, academics, policy-makers and members of the public. Over 50 per cent of these questions were submitted by businesses from a range of sectors, including retail, utilities, manufacturing and consumer goods. These questions were then reviewed by an expert group of businesses and researchers, who narrowed this list down to 40 questions that reflect key challenges for corporate sustainability.

Dr Bhaskar Vira, one of the project leads from the Department of Geography and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute said: “We were able to bring together 40 experts with a huge diversity of backgrounds and knowledge. This unique group of senior business practitioners and interdisciplinary researchers, who represented 13 universities, 16 businesses and other important partners including ESRC, were able to inform the debate by their ability to answer both ‘Is this question answerable through an academic research project?’, but also ‘If answered, would this change the way we do business?”

Several themes emerged from the study, highlighting the issues that require more research and better engagement between the academic and business communities. These included research around development of pragmatic yet credible tools that allow businesses to incorporate the interactions between food, energy and water demands in a changing environment into their decision-making; the role of social considerations and livelihoods in business decision-making in relation to sustainable management; identification of the most effective levers for behaviour change; and understanding incentives or circumstances that allow individuals and businesses to take a leadership stance on these issues.

“As pressures start to mount, placing enormous demands upon natural resources, we are increasingly asked for support by businesses who want practical approaches that they can apply to address their growing challenges,” said Dr Gemma Cranston, project lead from CISL. “Co-designing new research is critical to provide business with robust and rigorous approaches that are academically sound but that are also directly applicable to a business context. We have identified priority areas that can guide new research development and look forward to seeing a greater integration of businesses into collaborative research agendas.”

It will be the role of multi-disciplinary groups of researchers and business practitioners to devise the projects that will deliver the solutions to these pressing issues around food, energy, water and the environment.

Reference
Jonathan Green et al. ‘Research priorities for managing the impacts and dependencies of business upon food, energy, water and the environment.’ Sustainability Science (2016). DOI: 10.1007/s11625-016-0402-4

Collaboration between business and academia can identify the most urgent research priorities to ensure the sustainability of food, energy, water and the environment, according to a new study.

As pressures start to mount, placing enormous demands upon natural resources, we are increasingly asked for support by businesses who want practical approaches that they can apply to address their growing challenges.

Gemma Cranston

Asian Development Bank

High Mountain Agribusiness and Livelihood Improvement Project in Nepal

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Opinion: How Davos power brokers can start tackling major environmental risks

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 16:48:05 +0000

̽��ֱ��World Economic Forum (WEF) published its annual Global Risks Report in the run up to its annual meeting in Davos. Food and water crises, energy price shocks, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, extreme weather events and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation, it said, are the biggest threats facing society.

Three of the top five global risks in terms of likelihood and three of the top five global risks in terms of impact have links to the environment. Of even greater concern, however, are the linkages between these systems, and the trade-offs associated with decisions in one area affecting another.

This growing recognition of environmental risks for business, and their interconnections, reflects what is emerging as “nexus” thinking in the natural and social sciences.

Those with long memories will recall that these issues have been high on the Davos agenda for much of the past decade and, therefore, discussed by the great and the good of corporate and political life. So why has significant business action not necessarily followed?

Making connections

Five years ago the WEF launched a report on the “Water-Energy-Food-Climate Change nexus”. It was a recognition that water concerns were closely linked to issues such as inequality, terrorism, famine, poverty and disease. This set the stage for business to consider a rounded approach to addressing the intimately interwoven threats from water scarcity, energy and food security and climate change. While there has been some progress, however, there is little evidence of a step change in attitudes and practices commensurate with the scale of the challenges.

Joined up thinking is needed. shutterstock.com

One reason for this inaction is what the Bank of England’s governor, Mark Carney, called the “tragedy of the horizon” in his speech to the insurance industry in September 2015.

̽��ֱ��impacts of many of these interconnected environmental risks fall outside the traditional decision-making horizons of most of those involved. Current decision makers have little incentive to fix the problem, even if they acknowledge and understand the risks.

This is illustrated in the latest Global Risks Report, which highlights an alarming finding:

… the relative absence of environmental risks and, more generally, of long-term issues among the top concerns of business leaders in their respective countries.

Myopic visions

Of more than 13,000 business executives in more than 140 economies whose views were sought in the WEF’s Executive Opinion Survey none identified environmental risks as among their top risks for doing business, both in terms of impact or likelihood.

Similarly, there is a stark contrast in the report’s identification of the top five global risks of highest concern over longer and shorter time frames. ̽��ֱ��four most important risks over a ten-year period are all environment-related (water, climate change, extreme weather events and food crises), but none of these feature in the 18-month time horizon.

Responding to potential environmental risks seems to always be just beyond the current decision horizon – important, but not requiring immediate action. We hear much about long-term planning, but it’s about time that environment risks were brought into the here and now.

To do that we need to understand why there has been a lacklustre response from the global community. One possibility is that key people and institutions – from business, academia and politics – are not yet efficiently working together to create solutions, despite meetings such as those that are taking place this week at Davos.

Drought is part of wider problems that affect business. EPA/Barbara Walton

Co-creating responses, now

̽��ֱ��Global Risks Report highlights the need to recognise joint interests and bring people together across shared priorities, but we still lack some tangible way to bring these common agendas together.

̽��ֱ��time is ripe for business leaders to shape the research that will enable them to better respond to major challenges across the nexus and empower them to act sooner rather than later. Instead of a reactive stance, responding when threats become immediate and unavoidable, there is an opportunity to shift to being proactive and collaborative.

As part of the Nexus2020 project the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership recently convened academics and business leaders to collectively prioritise key issues that need to be addressed. We identified how to help companies manage their dependencies and impacts upon food, energy, water and the environment.

Those who are gathering at Davos need to seize the opportunity to overcome the tragedy of their short time horizons and work together to identify key questions and possible solutions. Otherwise, as Mark Carney has warned, by the time a problem becomes high on the agenda, it is often too late to respond. Moreover, these interconnected challenges will be harder and more costly to solve if action is delayed. ̽��ֱ��WEF presents a unique opportunity to co-create responses to the issues that are highlighted in this year’s Global Risks Report. Putting this off till the next meeting should not be an option.

Bhaskar Vira, Reader in Political Economy at the Department of Geography and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College; Director, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge; Gemma Cranston, Senior Programme Manager, Natural Capital Leaders Programme, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and Jonathan Green, Postdoctoral research associate, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Find out more about the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge's activities at the World Economic Forum 2016 here.

Bhaskar Vira (Department of Geography), Gemma Cranston (Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership) and Jonathan Green (Department of Geography) discuss what global powers need to do to tackle some of the biggest threats facing society.

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What research would enhance business sustainability?

sc604 — Fri, 15 May 2015 10:06:12 +0000

̽��ֱ��natural world is already in peril, yet demand for water, food and energy are set to rise further as the global population grows and climate change takes hold. Increased demand for one of these will alter the availability of the others. Businesses sit at the heart of this ‘nexus’ of interactions, both depending on and impacting on the environment. What academic research could help make their operations more sustainable?

Working with leading researchers from the Departments of Geography and Zoology, the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s (CISL) Nexus2020 project is bringing together ideas from the 6,000 alumni of our executive education programmes, business people, academics, policy-makers and members of the general public.

̽��ֱ��project is part of the Nexus Network, an extensive network coordinated by CISL, the ̽��ֱ�� of Sussex and the ̽��ֱ�� of East Anglia, and supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. With its considerable outreach across business, academia and government, CISL encourages conversation and stimulates the research that is most helpful to companies.

We want to know what you think are the most important questions around business practice that, if answered by 2020, could help companies manage their dependencies and impacts upon food, energy, water and the environment.

How can we meet future needs for food, energy and water without degrading our natural environment and putting companies out of business? Can we meet increasing demand for energy without making climate change worse? How do we produce enough food and energy with less water? These are the types of questions we are looking for.

In September, we will bring together leading members of the academic and business communities to rank the submissions and identify the most important questions for research. We’ll present these at the Nexus Network annual conference in November, by which point research will be underway.

̽��ֱ��process of gathering questions and prioritising research needs is not new: Cambridge’s Bill Sutherland identified the 100 ecological questions of high policy relevance in the UK in 2006. More recently a project led by Jules Pretty looked at the top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture, and Lynn Dicks has replicated this process to look at the conservation of wild insect pollinators and the UK food system. These ranking exercises are extremely valuable and have had consequences for high-level policy, including Defra’s National Pollinator Strategy. These approaches also encouraged scientists to come together to develop workshops and led to the identification of initial priorities for programmes such as the UK’s Global Food Security Research Programme.

With the UN’s 2014 report highlighting that one-fifth of the world’s aquifers are being overexploited, how do ensure that corporate actions are alleviating water-related stresses? How do we communicate the urgency of sustainable farming methods when 10 million hectares of arable land are being eroded or degraded every year?

Whether your question is around policy, business education, rights, science, finance, or best practice, take part in this project - we want to know what you think.

A new project led by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership is looking at how academic research can help make businesses more sustainable. Dr Jonathan Green, one of the project leads, is looking to the public to ask the questions that may form the basis of future research, and help businesses reduce their impact on the environment.

How can we meet future needs for food, energy and water without degrading our natural environment and putting companies out of business?

Jonathan Green

Howl Arts Collective

Tar sands, Alberta

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World’s protected natural areas receive eight billion visits a year

fpjl2 — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 19:02:19 +0000

̽��ֱ��world’s national parks and nature reserves receive around eight billion visits every year, according to the first study into the global scale of nature-based tourism in protected areas. ̽��ֱ��paper, by researchers in Cambridge, UK, Princeton, New Jersey, and Washington, DC, published in the open access journal PLOS Biology, is the first global-scale attempt to answer the question of how many visits protected areas receive, and what they might be worth in terms of tourist dollars.

̽��ֱ��authors of the study say that this number of visits could generate as much as US$600 billion of tourism expenditure annually - a huge economic benefit which vastly exceeds the less than US$10 billion spent safeguarding these sites each year.

Scientists and conservation experts describe current global expenditure on protected areas as “grossly insufficient”, and have called for greatly increased investment in the maintenance and expansion of protected areas – a move which this study shows would yield substantial economic return – as well as saving incalculably precious natural landscapes and species from destruction.

“It’s fantastic that people visit protected areas so often, and are getting so much from experiencing wild nature – it’s clearly important to people and we should celebrate that,” said lead author Professor Andrew Balmford, from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Zoology.

“These pieces of the world provide us with untold benefits: from stabilising the global climate and regulating water flows to protecting untold numbers of species. Now we’ve shown that through tourism nature reserves contribute in a big way to the global economy – yet many are being degraded through encroachment and illegal harvesting, and some are being lost altogether. It’s time that governments invested properly in protected areas.”

Dr Andrea Manica, a corresponding author also at Cambridge, said these are ballpark estimates based on limited data, so the researchers have been careful not to overstate the case: “These are conservative calculations. Visit rates are likely to be higher than eight billion a year, and there’s no doubt we are talking about hundreds of billions of tourism dollars a year,” he said.

̽��ֱ��attempt to calculate these figures was in part borne from frustration, said Balmford. “We study what people get out of nature, so-called ‘ecosystem services’. While some ecosystem services are difficult to measure – such as cultural or religious benefits – we thought that nature-based recreation would be quite tractable: there’s a market and tangible visits you can count.

“However, when we started to investigate we found no-one had yet pieced the data together. So we got to work trawling for figures ourselves. After a few months we had constructed a database from which we could build our models. It’s limited, but it’s the best there is at the moment,” Balmford said.

̽��ֱ��database consists of visiting figures for 550 sites worldwide, which were then used to build equations that could predict visit rates for a further 140,000 protected areas based on their size, remoteness, national income, and so on.

̽��ֱ��results surprised even seasoned conservation researchers. Nature tourism expert and team member Dr Matt Walpole of the UN’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre calls their cautious estimate of eight billion annual visits an “astonishing figure that illustrates the value people place on experiencing nature”.

Visit rates were highest in North America, where protected areas receive a combined total of over three billion visits a year, and lowest in Africa, where many countries have less than 100,000 protected area visits annually.

̽��ֱ��Golden Gate National Recreation Area near San Francisco had the highest recorded visit rate in the database with an annual average of 13.7m visits, closely followed by the UK’s Lake District and Peak District National Parks, with 10.5m and 10.1m. By contrast, Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park got an annual average during the study period of 148,000 visits.

Team member Dr Jonathan Green, based in Cambridge, points out that it is far from just exotic places and large national parks that contribute to the visitation value of protected areas. “For many people, it’s the nature reserve on their doorstep where they walk the dog every Sunday”. Fowlmere nature reserve, a few miles south of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��, receives an average of almost 23,000 visits a year.

By combining regional visit rates with region-specific averages for visitor spending – on everything from entry fees to transport and accommodation – the researchers were able to derive the most complete picture yet of the global economic significance of protected area visitation.

“Our US$600 billion figure for the annual value of protected area tourism is likely to be an underestimate – yet it dwarfs the less than US$10 billion spent annually on safeguarding and managing these areas,” said Dr Robin Naidoo of World Wildlife Fund, another author of the study. “Through previous research, we know that the existing reserve network probably needs three to four times what is currently being spent on it”.

“While that may seem a lot of money, it’s a fraction of the economic benefit we get from protected areas – nature-based tourism is just one part,” said Balmford.

By way of context, he points to the recent announcement by computing giant Apple of record profits of US$18 billion in a single quarter. “Stopping the unfolding extinction crisis is not unaffordable. Three months of Apple profits could go a long way to securing the future of nature. Humanity doesn’t need electronic communication to survive. But we do need the rest of the planet.”

Researchers say that the first study to attempt to gauge global visitation figures for protected areas reveals nature-based tourism has an economic value of hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and call for much greater investment in the conservation of protected areas in line with the values they sustain – both economically and ecologically.

We’ve shown that through tourism nature reserves contribute in a big way to the global economy – yet many are being degraded through encroachment and illegal harvesting

Andrew Balmford

Robin Naidoo

Visitors in Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia

Top ten most visited Protected Areas:

Protected Area	Average annual visit numbers
Golden Gate National Recreation Area, US	13.7m
Lake District National Park, UK	10.5m
Peak District National Park, UK	10.1m
Lake Mead National Recreation Area, US	7.7m
North York Moors National Park, UK	7.3m
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, US	5m
Dartmoor National Park, UK	4.3m
New Forest National Park, UK	4.3m
Grand Canyon National Park, US	4.29m
Cape Cod National Seashore, US	4.1m

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