Periodic Reporting for period 2 - COUPLED (Operationalising telecouplings for solving sustainability challenges related to land use)
Berichtszeitraum: 2020-01-01 bis 2022-06-30
Land use is central to many of the largest sustainability challenges of today, including global food security, climate change mitigation, and biodiversity conservation. Finding pathways for sustainable land use is challenging because of the complex processes of globalization that tie distant places together. The products we consume are often directly or indirectly connected to far away land-use changes such as deforestation in the tropics. These links are embedded in a net of flows of products and raw materials, but also of people, information, discourses, policies, and capital. These flows are difficult to untie and lead in many places to abrupt and unexpected land-use changes.
Scholars in the field of land system science have started analyzing such global connections through the concept of telecoupling. COUPLED put the approach of telecoupling into action for contributing to a better understanding of processes and actors that influence land use in an increasingly interconnected world. Specifically, COUPLED strived to understand where and how systematic changes in land use occur, how these changes affect societies and the environment, and how to identify governance tools to steer telecoupled systems onto desired pathways.
Scholars in the field of land system science have started analyzing such global connections through the concept of telecoupling. COUPLED put the approach of telecoupling into action for contributing to a better understanding of processes and actors that influence land use in an increasingly interconnected world. Specifically, COUPLED strived to understand where and how systematic changes in land use occur, how these changes affect societies and the environment, and how to identify governance tools to steer telecoupled systems onto desired pathways.
• Evaluation of methods to assess telecouplings by reviewing concepts to capture and quantify flows that link land systems across large distances, including feedbacks and unexpected couplings.
• Definition and mapping of actors that couple land systems by reviewing a broad range of land systems and the key actors engaged in creating and maintaining flows
• Definition what constitutes telecouplings by exploring different concepts of distance and how systems are defined
• Assessment of ‘mismatches’ (e.g. imbalances in power, between sending and receiving systems) by identifying unidirectional flows between systems, and identify tools to govern mismatches across scale in order to achieve desirable outcomes
• Concepts how to establish causality across scales and distances to determine that environmental, social, economic, or political impacts are caused by a telecoupling
• Development of concepts why particular impact occurs and whose interests this serves in order to quantify trade-offs across and within telecouplings
• Performance of two Synthesis Workshops and publishing three Synthesis Papers on concepts of distance and mismatches, trade-offs in telecoupled systems, and processes coupling land systems
• Identification of sector- and actor-specific tools and strategies to effectively manage telecouplings for more sustainable outcomes
• Publication and dissemination of six Practitioner Summaries on ensuring sustainability in telecoupled systems
• Publication and dissemination of a Policy White Paper on Governing Land Use Beyond Borders considering EU and international policies
• 45 peer-reviewed publications by end of the action and 20+ more under review and in preparation
• Organisations of 10 conferences, panels and workshops
• 114+ presentations given during conferences, workshops and lectures
• Website and blog and social media appearance on Twitter and Facebook
• Definition and mapping of actors that couple land systems by reviewing a broad range of land systems and the key actors engaged in creating and maintaining flows
• Definition what constitutes telecouplings by exploring different concepts of distance and how systems are defined
• Assessment of ‘mismatches’ (e.g. imbalances in power, between sending and receiving systems) by identifying unidirectional flows between systems, and identify tools to govern mismatches across scale in order to achieve desirable outcomes
• Concepts how to establish causality across scales and distances to determine that environmental, social, economic, or political impacts are caused by a telecoupling
• Development of concepts why particular impact occurs and whose interests this serves in order to quantify trade-offs across and within telecouplings
• Performance of two Synthesis Workshops and publishing three Synthesis Papers on concepts of distance and mismatches, trade-offs in telecoupled systems, and processes coupling land systems
• Identification of sector- and actor-specific tools and strategies to effectively manage telecouplings for more sustainable outcomes
• Publication and dissemination of six Practitioner Summaries on ensuring sustainability in telecoupled systems
• Publication and dissemination of a Policy White Paper on Governing Land Use Beyond Borders considering EU and international policies
• 45 peer-reviewed publications by end of the action and 20+ more under review and in preparation
• Organisations of 10 conferences, panels and workshops
• 114+ presentations given during conferences, workshops and lectures
• Website and blog and social media appearance on Twitter and Facebook
COUPLED made progress beyond the state of the art by:
• Providing a major push towards a more holistic, yet also more concrete theoretical foundation of telecoupling research
• Identifying actors and causal relations in telecouplings
• Creating a strong and rich empirical base of case studies rooted in the telecoupling framework for addressing sustainability challenges
• Integrating concepts and tools of place-based and flow/network-based methods and research to address sustainability challenges related to land use
• Analysing various types of distances, including social, institutional, economic, and geographic distance to identify telecoupled land systems
• Assessing a wide variety of flows and connectedness, including information, capital, biomass, energy, but also immaterial flows
• Analysing potential spill-over systems and displacement to allow for a more holistic understanding of the impact of land-use policies
• Proposing solutions to address governance mismatches for governing the environmental and social problems generated in telecoupled systems
The expected socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project are:
• As the EU’s overarching environmental framework, the Green Deal covers several areas and informs numerous policies and strategies. Viewing these areas through the lens of telecoupling will allow policymakers to understand how capital, commodities, energy, information, people, and waste currently move in these areas and how they change with the introduction of ‘greener’ policy interventions
• The results help policymakers to identify the environmental and social impacts of European trade so that they can reduce the unintended consequences of trade flows and consumption.
• By identifying the displacement of environmental degradation, the COUPLED results in telecoupling research are able to add value to global conservation discussions and reduce the unintended consequences of protection efforts and policies.
• Apply telecoupling frameworks to assess commodities linked to high-impact environmental degradation. Palm oil, soy, beef, and timber are implicated in deforestation worldwide. Applying a telecoupling lens to these commodities, allows the EU to gain a better understanding of how its consumption contributes to deforestation and, consequently, increased carbon emissions.
• Ensure traceability and transparency of trade flows through appropriate monitoring. At home, the EU already includes greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change, and forestry in its carbon emissions accounting. Including such data in trade data, allows policymakers to view the EU’s consumption footprint holistically.
• Recognise the displaced environmental impacts of trade in trade agreements. Include mandatory regulatory action in trade agreements with partners outside of the EU in areas of environmental concern, or at high risk of carbon “leakage” and displaced environmental impacts.
• Ensure multi-stakeholder engagement and transdisciplinary research to find solutions to telecoupled impacts. Global supply chains involve numerous actors, from governments to individual consumers. From COUPLED’s extensive work, researchers have found that solutions to global sustainability problems require multi-stakeholder engagement and transdisciplinary research. The EU should include such engagement in its trade agreements and policies. Also, the EU should actively foster research at the interface of science, business, and policy, as this is where solutions are most likely to be found.
• Providing a major push towards a more holistic, yet also more concrete theoretical foundation of telecoupling research
• Identifying actors and causal relations in telecouplings
• Creating a strong and rich empirical base of case studies rooted in the telecoupling framework for addressing sustainability challenges
• Integrating concepts and tools of place-based and flow/network-based methods and research to address sustainability challenges related to land use
• Analysing various types of distances, including social, institutional, economic, and geographic distance to identify telecoupled land systems
• Assessing a wide variety of flows and connectedness, including information, capital, biomass, energy, but also immaterial flows
• Analysing potential spill-over systems and displacement to allow for a more holistic understanding of the impact of land-use policies
• Proposing solutions to address governance mismatches for governing the environmental and social problems generated in telecoupled systems
The expected socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project are:
• As the EU’s overarching environmental framework, the Green Deal covers several areas and informs numerous policies and strategies. Viewing these areas through the lens of telecoupling will allow policymakers to understand how capital, commodities, energy, information, people, and waste currently move in these areas and how they change with the introduction of ‘greener’ policy interventions
• The results help policymakers to identify the environmental and social impacts of European trade so that they can reduce the unintended consequences of trade flows and consumption.
• By identifying the displacement of environmental degradation, the COUPLED results in telecoupling research are able to add value to global conservation discussions and reduce the unintended consequences of protection efforts and policies.
• Apply telecoupling frameworks to assess commodities linked to high-impact environmental degradation. Palm oil, soy, beef, and timber are implicated in deforestation worldwide. Applying a telecoupling lens to these commodities, allows the EU to gain a better understanding of how its consumption contributes to deforestation and, consequently, increased carbon emissions.
• Ensure traceability and transparency of trade flows through appropriate monitoring. At home, the EU already includes greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change, and forestry in its carbon emissions accounting. Including such data in trade data, allows policymakers to view the EU’s consumption footprint holistically.
• Recognise the displaced environmental impacts of trade in trade agreements. Include mandatory regulatory action in trade agreements with partners outside of the EU in areas of environmental concern, or at high risk of carbon “leakage” and displaced environmental impacts.
• Ensure multi-stakeholder engagement and transdisciplinary research to find solutions to telecoupled impacts. Global supply chains involve numerous actors, from governments to individual consumers. From COUPLED’s extensive work, researchers have found that solutions to global sustainability problems require multi-stakeholder engagement and transdisciplinary research. The EU should include such engagement in its trade agreements and policies. Also, the EU should actively foster research at the interface of science, business, and policy, as this is where solutions are most likely to be found.