Volume 10, Issue 2

April 2019, Volume 10, Issue 2

For a sustainable and desirable future

Solutions Solutions for a Win-Win Partnership Between Agriculture and Biodiversity

by Lauraine Mouysset, et al.

Transforming Bulk Harvest Seafood Production

by Garry Wilson, et al.

Transformations of Agriculture and Food Systems: Applications of the TEEBAAgriFood Framework

by Harpinder Sandhu Using EnviroAtlas to Build K-12 Environmental Literacy

by Jenna Hartley and Jessica Daniel

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Reimagining Our Sustainable Future

by Joe Tankersley

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Caniglia, B. (2019). Letter from the Editor. Solutions 10(2): 1. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/letter-from-the-editor

Letter from the Editor by Beth Schaefer Caniglia, Ph.D.

W

e are so happy with the excitement people have expressed over seeing Solutions back in print. Many thanks go out to the City of Denver for hosting a celebratory cocktail reception for contributors and friends of January’s special issue! If you haven’t signed up already, visit our website and join as a Platinum Member to receive print copies, as well as full access to our online archive, which contains all ten years of articles from our outstanding contributors.

We’re thrilled to bring you the second print issue in our Ten Year Anniversary volume. We want to thank our print layout designer Kelley Dodd and our publisher Allen Press for creating such a beautiful magazine for our readers and contributors.

It is also my pleasure to welcome two new Editorial Board members to the journal. Shar Olivier brings experience in socially responsible investing, social entrepreneurship, and climate resiliency to the magazine. You can follow Shar on Twitter @SharOlivier. We are also thrilled to welcome Paulette Blanchard, Geography MA, Citizen of Absentee Shawnee Tribe and descendant of Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma. Paulette is a feminist scholar and activist with expertise in the challenges and opportunities that Indigenous Peoples face in relation to climate change and climate justice. You can learn more about Paulette on LinkedIn. Sincere thanks to these women for being a part of Solutions.

With so many challenges in the world, it is heartening to read the articles in this issue. Every piece is written by scholars, practitioners, and dreamers who are looking for tools to solve real-life barriers to sustainability, well-being, and regeneration.

Technological tools feature prominently in the issue and highlight

areas of advancement in sustainability across sectors. In the fisheries field, authors Gary Wilson and his colleagues highlight a precision bulk harvesting technology used in New Zealand that reduces untargeted species loss and increases the regenerative capacity of targeted species by allowing juvenile fish to escape from newly designed nets. Steve Letendre and Josh VanHoesen offers a model for improved renewable energy forecasting that can increase grid efficiencies and empower both consumers and suppliers to make better energy management choices at multiple scales. Jenna Hartley and Jessica Daniel from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency share a wonderful new digital mapping tool, called the EnviroAtlas, designed to help young people understand environmental and climate change concepts by relating them to data from their local communities.

Another exciting trend you will find in these articles is a movement towards new ways to bring people together that lead to increased sustainability. For example, the issue includes pieces focused on worker cooperatives, maker spaces, and neighborhood solar cooperatives.

Each of these collaborative efforts offers ways for communities to join together for the common good, while empowering people and protecting the planet. In addition, a variety of pieces provide practical tools and guidance for existing organizations – especially government agencies and businesses, to increase the effectiveness of their sustainability efforts through full accounting of the human, ecological, financial, and physical resources involved in their operations.

Many of the articles are motivated by a recognition that sustainability, well-being, and regeneration are

The Solutions Journal Editor-in-Chief, Beth Schaefer Caniglia, Ph.D.

interlinked in complex ways.

Lauriane Mouysset and his coauthors, for example, highlight the relationship between farming techniques, biodiversity, and the critical stakeholders and interests that shape agri-environmental schemes.

Wilson and his team describe the competitive markets that can inhibit innovations that regenerate fish stocks – a desperate need across global oceans. Throughout, you will find attention to the need to recognize and account for the fact that complex-adaptive systems require new tools to overcome today’s sustainability challenges.

As always, we at The Solutions Journal invite you to share your comments on these pieces with your colleagues and friends through our social media channels. Follow our hashtag #Solutions and join the movement for a sustainable and desirable future! www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 1

Contents

April 2019

Features

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Solutions for a Win-Win Partnership Between Agriculture and Biodiversity

by Lauraine Mouysset, et al.

Biodiversity sustains key functions of the agro-ecosystem in support of food production.

In Europe, an estimated 50 percent of all bird species (~450 sp.) depend on farmland habitats for breeding and feeding. The mutual dependence between biodiversity and farming requires solutions for a win-win partnership.

A team of ecologists, agronomists, economists, and mathematicians recently developed a new framework model that explores management strategies aimed at reconciling farming and biodiversity in Europe.

The search for real answers begins with Solutions Join the Solutions Team Become a part of the global Solutions team. Applications are invited for volunteer section editors. Have Solutions delivered to your door or devices with our PDF subscription. Keep up to date on our latest articles and gain exclusive access to online and face to face Solutions events.

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Transformations of Agriculture and Food Systems: Applications of the TEEBAAgriFood Framework

by Harpinder Sandhu

Globally, agricultural and food systems need to transform and modify their approach and bring the desired change with new ways to integrate natural capital into social and economic systems. They also need to recognise and reward human capital. We recommend adoption of the TEEBAgriFood framework to measure and quantify all inter-dependencies between agriculture and the environment and to highlight the role of human and social capital.

Submit your thoughts, data, and innovations in the form of articles, news stories, features, or online comments. Follow us and shout out on Twitter @SolutionsMag on Facebook @SolutionsJournal and on Instagram @Solutions.Journal.

What are your #solutions?

Your contribution is essential to our work!

Click on our website ads or give a tax-deductible gift at www.thesolutionsjournal.com.

by Garry Wilson, et al.

New Zealand fish physiology scientists collaborated with leading seafood companies and the government in the Precision Seafood Harvesting (PSH) Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) to develop technologies to harvest key commercial fish species in minimally damaged, minimally fatigued condition to enable the quality potential to be realised for rested harvested fish.

Join the Dialogue

Become a Partner

Transforming Bulk Harvest Seafood Production

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Using EnviroAtlas to Build K-12 Environmental Literacy

by Jenna Hartley and Jessica Daniel

The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s EnviroAtlas project has developed a suite of STEM educational materials to build environmental literacy with a three-pronged approach: (1) incorporating cutting-edge technological tools, (2) bridging disciplines to build a broad range of skills, and (3) engaging students with hands-on classroom activities and outdoor environmental education experiences.

On the Web

Perspectives Lessons from Denmark: Enhancing Human Well-Being with Urban Green Spaces

by Danielle Vermeer, et al.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org Explore the Solutions website for more content and interactivity. What are your solutions? Share your vision for a sustainable and desirable future and learn more about the Solutions community.

Are Worker Cooperatives a Viable Way to Promote a More Equitable Economy?

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by Donal Malone

Publicly Available Renewable Energy System Production Forecasets: Reconnecting Consumers to Nature’s Energy Flows

by Steve Letendre and John VanHoesen

Envisioning

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08 Sustainability Reporting: Beyond TBL

Reimagining Our Sustainable Future

by Keith Murray

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by Joe Tankersley

Translational Environmental Restoration (TER) for Climate Solutions

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by Francesco Chiappelli

Noteworthy 12-Year-Old Starts Solar Solution: Neighborhood Rooftop Solar Coops Driving Expansion State by State

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Shifting The Burden: Using a Questionnaire and Panel Review to Ensure that Ecosystem Services are Taken into Account in Project Appraisal

by Samuel Barnard and Lawrence Susskind

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On the Ground

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The Revolution Will Be Hand Made: Prince Edward Island, Canada Demonstrates the Power of Making in Local Economic Development Contexts by Kaitlin Kish Maker Culture is reinventing what some might remember as the Do-It-Yourself movement. This movement, coined the third industrial revolution, represents a new democratisation of manufacturing as citizens participate in commons-based production. This movement represents a unique opportunity for sustainability research because it disrupts the larger economic system by internalizing production, optimizes materials by recycling as often as possible, and supports free/open source materials for learning and building.

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The Solutions Journal

Contributors 2

Editor-in-Chief: Beth Schaefer Caniglia Associate Editors: Robert Costanza Hunter Lovins Ida Kubiszewski David W. Orr History Section Editor: Frank Zelko

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Book & Envisioning Editor: Bruce Cooperstein Media Section Editor: Rebecca Sheehan Print Graphic Designer: Kelley Dodd On-Line Layout Design: Koen Dekeyser Editorial Board Gar Alperovitz, Vinya Ariyaratne, Robert Ayres, Peter Barnes, Bill Becker, Paulette Blanchard, Lester Brown, Alexander Chikunov, Raymond Cole, Rita Colwell, Bob Corell, Herman Daly, Thomas Dietz, Josh Farley, Lorenzo Fioramonti, Jerry Franklin, Susan Joy Hassol, Richard Heinberg, Jeffrey Hollender, Buzz Holling, Terry Irwin, Jon Isham, Wes Jackson, Tim Kasser, Frances Moore Lappe, Rik Leemans, Wenhua Li, Tom Lovejoy, Manfred Max-Neef, Peter May, Jacqueline McGlade, Bill McKibben, William Mitsch, Mohan Munasinghe, Norman Myers, Shar Olivier, Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir, Bill Rees, Wolfgang Sachs, Ken Sagendorf, Peter Senge, Rebecca Sheehan, Vandana Shiva, Anthony Simon, Gus Speth, Larry Susskind, David Suzuki, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Alvaro Umaña, Sim van der Ryn, Peter Victor, Mathis Wackernagel, Eugene Wilkerson, Mike Young In Memoriam Ray Anderson Ernest Callenbach Elinor Ostrom Subscriptions http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/subscribe Email: solutions@thesolutionsjournal.com Sponsorships & Partnerships http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/sponsor Email: solutions@thesolutionsjournal.com

On the Cover

Crop circles from above by Pixabay.

1. Katie Kish—Kish is a postdoctoral

fellow for the Economics for the Anthropocene project at McGill University and Vice-President Communications for the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics. Her background is in systems thinking and complexity science which she applies to her current research on exploring radical and disruptive political economies and possible pathways to alternative futures. Katie is currently co-editing a book titled Freedom on a Finite Planet: Rethinking Liberty and the Politics of the Anthropocene and two special issues on a research agenda for Ecological Economics in the Journal of Sustainability and the Journal for Ecological Economics.

2. Danielle Vermeer—Vermeer is an

undergraduate student at Arizona State University graduating in May 2020 with concurrent degrees in sustainability, urban planning, and a minor in Spanish literacy and cultural studies. Making change on a global scale may seem abstract, but she believes we can catalyze healthy human and environmental well-being in our own cities and communities. In addition to being passionate about promoting sustainable cities, she also strives to cultivate equity and inclusion in the spaces we create.

3. Lauren Bell—Bell is about to

graduate from the George Washington University with a degree in Geography and Sustainability. An Upstate New York Native, Lauren has always loved spending time in the outdoors. She began her work and study of sustainability in high school and continues to pursue a career in finding solutions to better the wellbeing of people and the Planet.

4. Steven Letendre—Steven

Letendre, PhD is a Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Green Mountain College and an online

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instructor for Vermont Law School.

He earned an M.S. in economics from Binghamton University and a Ph.D. in energy policy and economics from the University of Delaware. In addition to teaching, Steven also serves as an energy consultant to a variety of organizations from government agencies, non-profits, and corporations and he is the principal of solar consulting business under the Go Solar Coach brand.

5. Dr. John Van Hoesen—

Van Hoesen is a Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies at Green Mountain College. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and is a Certified GIS Professional (GISP) with a broad background in the geosciences.

Although the majority of his work focuses on modeling landscape processes like landslides and river erosion, he is currently writing a natural history of slate and the links between this industry in Vermont and Wales.

6. Deirdre Macnab—Macnab is

a member of the Advisory Board of Solar United Neighbors for both Florida and Colorado. Formerly president of the Florida League of Women Voters, and now a resident of Centennial state as well, she is working to replicate the program in Colorado. With an MBA from Columbia University, she has been awarded recognition as the Central Floridian of the Year by the Orlando Sentinel for her leadership in protecting voting rights and the successful placement of two amendments in the state Constitution to end gerrymandering.

Other awards include Florida Woman Environmentalist of the Year by Florida Audubon, and Florida Achievement Award by the Florida Commission on the Status of Women. A co-founder of the national on- line campaign to expand electric car ownership,

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NextCarPledge.org, she also serves on the Florida Federal Judicial Nominating Commission and the Colorado based Yampa White Green Roundtable.

7. Keith Murray— After 9 years

in the chemical equipment supply industry joined Edinburgh’s Heriot Watt University, Chemical and Process Engineering Department in 1970 and spent the next 35 years teaching, researching and consulting in an eclectic mix of subjects related to the environment, aquaculture, pollution control and wastewater treatment before retiring in 2003. In the early 80’s became the founder Editor of Elsevier’s Aquacultural Engineering (AE) Journal and Chairman of the UK’s IChemE’s AE Subject Group while in 1993, as Director of Teaching in the Department, initiated a post graduate MSc program with my colleague, Dr. Boron which was re-named Sustainable Process Management in 2000. Although retired I continue to be involved with a Post Graduate program in France and for fun completed a Masters from Aberdeen University in 2009; but, to be honest, really prefer planting trees on the croft at Breasclete on the Isle of Lewis.

8. Francesco Chiappelli—

Chiappelli, Ph.D., Dr. Endo. (honoris causa) is Professor Emeritus at UCLA Center for the Health Sciences, as well as California State University, Northridge, where he taught biostatistics as a part-time faculty for four years. Upon entering his retirement, Dr. Chiappelli decided to dedicate his expertise in the health sciences to contribute toward effective solutions to our climate crisis, particularly with respect to the plethora of medical consequences to global warming. He also commenced a new career as a writer of historical novels, mysteries and Christian disquisitions (francescochiappelli.com). As an avid lover of nature, and in particular the

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sea, he has grave concerns about the damage we have done, and are doing to our planet, especially with respect to plastic pollution. He and his loving wife, Olivia, have two dogs, and love all dogs, and all animals.

9. Donal Malone—Malone conducts

research on urban redevelopment and its impact on local neighborhoods and residents. His work focuses on how redevelopment can revitalize urban neighborhoods in a sustainable way without displacing residents. Worker cooperatives may play a key role in this process. He has teaches sociology and urban studies courses at Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City.

10. Garry Wilson—Chair, Precision

Seafood Harvesting. Garry is a consultant and company director with governance roles in the public, not for profit and private sectors. He has previously headed a number of public sector agencies and organisational reviews.

He also Chairs SPATnz – a similar PGP programme and has always encouraged innovation and managed and over seen successful change programmes 11. Greg Johansson—Then Sanford

Ltd. Greg has an extensive fishing industry career and became Sanford’s Chief Operating Officer COO in 2011. His involvement includes stock assessment, R&D, acquisitions & mergers and Public/ Private partnerships, Director on the Deepwater Group and Precision Seafood Harvesting, Chairing the Industry Toothfish Committee, and advising Government.

12. Harpinder Sandhu—Sandhu is a

transdisciplinary scientist with research interests in studying the interactions between society and the environment.

His current research focuses on measuring social, human and natural capital and applying true cost accounting for the transformation of agriculture and

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food systems towards sustainability.

He was a Lead Author of the Scientific and Economic Foundations Report of the TEEBAgriFood hosted by the UN Environment, Geneva. He is an academic affiliated with Flinders University and University of South Australia, Adelaide.

13. Alexander Müller—Müller is the

Managing Director of TMG – ThinkTank for Sustainability in Berlin/Germany. He was Study Leader of “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food (TEEBAgriFood)” hosted by UN Environment. From 2006 to 2013 he served as Assistant DirectorGeneral of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), during this time he was Member of Advisory Group of UNSG Ban Ki-Moon on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC) and Chair of UN Standing Committee on Nutrition. From 2000 to 2006 he served as State Secretary in the German Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture.

14. Pavan Sukhdev—Pavan Sukhdev

is a sustainability thought leader and an influential voice for change amongst business leaders, policy makers and international institutions. A career banker with a long-standing passion for environmental economics. While he was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank, Pavan took time out to lead two landmark UN reports: TEEB (‘The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity’) and UNEP’s ‘Towards a Green Economy’. He now heads GIST Advisory, a consultancy that develops metrics for corporate sustainability, Goodwill Ambassador of the UN Environment and is President and Board Chair of WWF-International.

Pavan was awarded the Blue Planet Prize, 2016.

15. Jenna Hartley—Hartley is

an ORISE Participant at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s

Office of Research and Development in Research Triangle Park, NC. She is also pursuing a PhD at North Carolina State University under the guidance of Dr. Kathryn Stevenson, focusing on environmental education. A former classroom science teacher, Jenna’s work centers on empowering students to be environmental change-agents in their families, schools, and communities.

16. Carolyn Pugh—Pugh is an ORAU

contractor for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program.

She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Environmental Science. Her interests include environmental justice, climate change mitigation and resilience, and research translation.

17. Sam Barnard—Barnard is

Senior Policy and Projects Officer at the Greater London Authority. Sam’s career has focused on urban climate policy and finance. He is interested in how development processes can be tailored to deliver outcomes that benefit the full range of affected stakeholders and the environment.

18. Lawrence Susskind—

Susskind is Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at MIT, founder of the Consensus Building Institute (a not-for-profit provider of mediation services in complex disputes around the world) and Vice-Chair of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

19. Joe Tankersley—Tankersley

is a futurist, storyteller, and advocate for better tomorrows. He helps local governments and tourist destinations create sustainable tourism initiatives and build resilient communities. More information about his work is available at www.uniquevisions.net

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Macnab, D. (2019). 12-Year-Old Starts Solar Solution: Neighborhood Rooftop Solar Co-ops Driving Expansion State by State. Solutions 10(2): 6–7. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/12-year-old-starts-solar-solution-neighborhood-rooftop-solar-co-ops-driving-expansion-state-by-state

Idea Lab Noteworthy 12-Year-Old Starts Solar Solution: Neighborhood Rooftop Solar Co-ops Driving Expansion State by State

by Deirdre Macnab As a speaker on solar energy speaking to community groups around Florida and Colorado, I like to wake my audience up with a couple of questions.

“How many of you in the audience have thought about going solar?” All hands go up.

Follow up question: “How many of you have actually gone solar?” With few exceptions, rarely do any hands raise. Consumers today are fascinated by solar, but the obstacles of price, lack of information, and oftentimes a lack of neighbors who have solar loom large.

This is where the solution of neighborhood solar co-ops comes in. Giving consumers the confidence, knowledge, and buying power to finally go solar and get a more vigorous return from the lower prices that come from bundled buying power.

After three years of a partnership between the non-profit Solar United Neighbors based in Washington DC, and the League of Women Voters of Florida, of which I was a former president, Florida has seen a major boost in distributed solar with a 110 percent growth in 2017. In the past three years of operation USD$25 million in rooftop solar installations have been spent through 45 separate cooperatives that have formed across the state.

The idea for Solar United Neighbors (SUN) started with a 12-year-old-boy, Walter, who came home from seeing the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” and told his mother: “Mom, we’ve got to go solar.” With persistence, his mother, Solar United Neighbors founder Anya Schoolman, looked into going solar. She soon realized how expensive and complicated the process would be. Walter persisted and she 6 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

challenged him to see if he could get the neighborhood interested to help reduce the price. So he did.

With his friend Diego, they distributed flyers all across their Washington DC neighborhood, and 100 people turned out, with most of them going solar. Other neighborhoods heard the news and approached Schoolman to do the same approach in their area.

And thus, Solar United Neighbors was formed.

That group helped 50 neighbors go solar. Word of the effort quickly spread across the city and soon other neighborhood groups formed.

In 2015, the organization formed a key partnership in Florida with the state’s large and active League of Women Voters organization. With 31 chapters and an army of advocates, the League has been a ground force along with a legion of volunteers from the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and many other groups to invite homeowners to neighborhood meetings to learn how solar can save them money, protect them from hurricane outages, and reduce their cost of installation by banding together.

Now in 13 states, with the newest being Colorado, participants join as volunteer solar advocates to help spread the word in their communities, encouraging their friends and neighbors to attend Solar Information Sessions and sign up to get a solar quote.

The solar co-op is free to join, and joining is not a commitment to purchase panels. For those who do decide to go forward after getting a quote, a small fee helps sustain the SUN organization in order that they may continue to facilitate more co-ops and

play the important role as a installer neutral group, to facilitate the installer selection committee meeting, where participants gather together and select their installer of choice.

The results have been remarkable.

More than 3,600 homes have gone solar through this effort. This has generated more than $70 million in rooftop solar, while educating tens of thousands about the benefits of distributed solar. Rooftop solar benefits solar and non-solar owners alike because it reduces demand on the electric grid and the need for expensive new power plants.

I’ve seen this first-hand in Florida.

In three years, staffing has grown to four, with two positions funded full time by grants from Miami Dade County and the City of St. Pete. Many other counties and cities are paying small amounts to fund co-ops in their areas. More than 1,200 homes have gone solar through the program.

Benefits to the community include new jobs (solar is now one of the fastest growing new employment sectors, outpacing the average growth rate), keeping savings from utility bills in the community and state, and a more resilient grid in the event of extreme weather events, which almost every state is now facing, not just Florida.

Many of Florida’s cities have now made commitments to procuring 100 percent of their energy from renewables by a set date in the future, and the co-ops have become a critical tool in their tool kit for making measureable progress toward their goal.

Support of solar transcends party lines, and even a state like Florida, which can be so politically divisive, has

Idea Lab Noteworthy

Laurie Wack

First Florida Solar Congress: Volunteers gather from all across Florida at Valencia College in Orlando to celebrate first year of multiple co-ops.

seen collaboration across party lines in both the state legislature, as well as local municipal and county efforts.

Solar energy is booming in Florida.

NREL forecasts Florida’s solar production could constitute more than 30 percent of the energy used in the state within the next decade. Much of this additional capacity will come from utility-scale solar, but consumer adoption in Florida is growing as well. Last year it hit triple digit growth. This is thanks in large part to the launch of neighborhood solar co-ops across the state.

This has created 330 new jobs and more than $25 million invested into Florida’s local economy. Counties and cities (Miami-Dade County and City of St. Petersburg) have funded full time positions to offer local homeowners continuous co-op opportunities.

The program has also spawned a network of thousands of solar advocates who have encouraged their local city and county commissions to support solar and now are beginning to encourage a wider push to clean energy and the adoption of electric vehicles.

“Working with the co-op it was easy to go solar,” said solar co-op participant Charlie Behrens. Behrens had gone solar on his own at a home where he lived previously. “I had to do all of the legwork myself; vetting the installers, researching different hardware, endless financial permutations and lots of cold feet second-guessing.

This time we had a good clear decision within a day, and at a lower price than we could ever get as just one rooftop.”

By joining the co-op, participants gain access to a wide array of benefits

when compared with traditional methods of procuring solar power.

Solar participants get a good deal on a quality installation as well as installerneutral assistance from Solar United Neighbors.

“They have helped us remove the cost associated with marketing, business development, and customer acquisition,” said Darren Goldin of Goldin Solar, an installer that has worked with solar co-ops. He explained that the co-op organizers help installers by finding customers, educating them, and building their trust in the solar process.

“Closing these deals is much smoother, and the customers benefit from a much lower solar price,” Goldin said. “We get to focus on our expertise: engineering and construction. It’s a win-win!” www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 7

Tankersley, J. (2019). Reimagining Our Sustainable Future: Gabby in Paradise. Solutions 10(2): 8–9. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/reimagining-our-sustainable-future-gabby-in-paradise

Envisioning

Reimagining Our Sustainable Future: Gabby in Paradise

by Joe Tankersley

The first step toward creating better tomorrows is to change the stories we tell ourselves about what futures are possible. In the case of creating more sustainable futures we need stories that touch both head and heart. These stories can inspire, inform and empower communities to risk the changes necessary to create a world that will be sustainable and abundant.

In this excerpt from Reimagining Our Tomorrows, Making Sure Your Future Doesn’t Suck! author Joe Tankersley offers one vision of life in a resilient coastal community.

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abby and Danh were sitting on a bench carved from a giant bodi log that washed onto the beach of their community in a recent hurricane. Like other storm debris, this one had been repurposed by one of the local artisans.

Gabby and Danh had taken to hanging out here so much lately that people had dubbed it the kissing bench. Not that anyone had been kissed there, at least not yet! Gabby and Danh looked a little like the old Mutt and Jeff characters. Where he was short and stout, like his Polynesian ancestors, Gabby was tall and willowy, with dark hair and coal black eyes. She stretched her long body out to capture as many of the sun’s early morning rays as possible.

“Oh, hey. S’posed to ask if you want to come to Pipo’s birthday party on Friday. It’s his eightieth, so Mom and Tía Maria are fixing all traditional stuff,” Gabby said.

“For sure” Danh exclaimed. “I mean if it’s cool with you and all.”

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Gabby tried to respond nonchalantly. “Whatever, it’s nice to have somebody my age around, you know.”

They spent the next few minutes sitting in silence, something they often did. At first these pauses felt awkward, but lately Gabby had realized that they were special moments—sharing the natural beauty of this place they were so lucky to call home.

Their reverie was interrupted by the arrival of Pipo, Gabby’s grandfather, out for his morning walk. He rarely missed a day and always wore the same outfit—a perfectly pressed guayabera shirt, linen slacks, and his trademark Panama hat. He stopped when he saw them.

“Why are you niños not in school?”

He demanded.

Gabby blushed and tried to explain to him, for the hundredth time, that it was not like the old days when sitting in a classroom was the only place you could learn. Gabby and her friends learned everywhere.

When she had finally finished her explanation, Pipo shook his head in bewilderment.

“Come walk with me, nieta.”

Gabby gave Danh a quick look and got up. “So, see you Friday, here in the park.”

“It’s a date,” he replied, hopping off the bench. When he realized what he had said he stammered quickly, “Gotta fly.” With that, he jumped on his hoverboard and zipped off.

She watched him disappear. A voice in her head was shrieking: A date? Is that really what he had said? She wasn’t sure if she was confused, excited, or both. She was so distracted, she didn’t even notice that Pipo had continued his walk without her.

She ran to catch up and took his hand as they walked toward the shore.

Pipo began to reminisce.

“You know, Gabriela, we use to live right here on this very spot. Our home wasn’t fancy, but it had been in our family for seven generations, ever since our people first came here to fish. It was not an easy life. Your family helped to build a tiny fishing village into a thriving community.

“Then came the summer of the great storms. Six hurricanes in less than three months. It seemed like we spent all our time getting ready for a storm or cleaning up after one; sometimes doing both at the same time. The last storm, the biggest one of all, hit right here. The entire village washed away. Destruido. Your abuela cried and cried for days.”

In the case of creating more sustainable futures we need stories that touch both head and heart.

Over the years, life after the storms had developed into a predictable pattern. First came the clean-up, sometimes taking weeks or months, then the insurance companies and the government would help them rebuild.

But this time the insurance companies didn’t come. They said there had been too many storms and they were out of money. The state’s catastrophe fund was empty, and there were no funds available from the federal government.

For the first time, the residents didn’t know how they were going to rebuild.

Envisioning That’s when Tía Maria came home.

She had been working up north as an urban planner. Under her leadership, a group of homeowners approached the city with a bold plan. In exchange for assistance in building new homes, the citizens would turn over their land along the shore. Everyone agreed that the old ways weren’t going to work anymore, especially as the sea levels continued to rise and the warmer ocean waters spawned more violent storms.

Still, there weren’t many in local government who could imagine how this joint private/public partnership would work. After months of negotiations, the officials learned what Gabby’s family had long known; you don’t argue with Tía Maria. And that was how Bahía del Paraíso was born.

First, they had scraped the site of the old village clean. What remained of the buildings that had once crowded the coast were bulldozed over. They recycled much of the old building materials into functional art; sculptures, benches, and play areas, which now dotted the community. Where there had been concrete, mangroves were planted. All the area along the shore was given back to the bay.

Every new building was elevated to avoid damage from floods. They used smartbricks with carbon nanofibers to build walls that could withstand a category 5 hurricane. Gabby wasn’t sure she totally understood how the walls worked, but she knew she felt safe and secure in her bedroom, even when the big winds were blowing. Tía Maria also insisted the community be environmentally sustainable.

They got their energy from solar and wind power. They built an advanced rainwater collection and recycling system that was used to irrigate the community gardens.

Soon, the water in the bay was cleaner than it had been in over a

Dmitry Malov

Heart of Earth

hundred years. With a little help from local marine biologists, it had been easy to re-establish the oyster and scallop beds and bring back the fish and shrimp populations. The return of the seafood harvests was a reminder of what had brought many of Gabby and Danh’s ancestors to this coast originally.

Pipo stopped walking. Gabby knew they had reached his favorite spot on the beach. Just fifty yards offshore, an enormous, brightly-colored sea dragon rose out of the water.

The dragon’s scales were made from ceramic tiles, salvaged from Pipo’s old home. The tiles had been brought all the way from Cuba by Gabby’s ancestors.

“You know Gabriella, everything in our new village is so incredible. Our

lives have never been better. But we must not forget those who brought us to this place.”

Gabby agreed it was pretty neat that something from her family’s past was now part of her future. What was even cooler to a thirteen-year-old was the fact that some industrious volunteers had rigged the dragon up to use gas from the community’s biodigesters to breathe real fire. Of course, Tía Maria only allowed them to use it for special occasions.

Gabby knew there was a good chance they would light the dragon for Pipo’s birthday party. She imagined the scene. The dragon that represented her family, breathing fire under a starfilled sky, moonlight reflecting off the water. That might just be the perfect time and place for a first kiss. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 9

Vermeer, D., Bell, L., Medeiros, C., Plummer, T. and S. Cloutier. (2019).

Lessons from Denmark: Enhancing Human Well-being with Urban Green Spaces. Solutions 10(2): 10–15. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/lessons-from-denmark-enhancing-human-well-being-with-urban-green-spaces

Perspectives Lessons from Denmark: Enhancing Human Well-being with Urban Green Spaces

by Danielle Vermeer, Lauren Bell, Camille Medeiros, Tatyana Plummer, and Scott Cloutier

I

n a world of rapid urbanization, communities are losing green spaces to concrete jungles. Without green spaces, the economy, the environment and society are compromised. Imagine taking a walk through a modern city. You could be on your way to work, to run errands, or just to get some exercise. You are making your way along the sidewalk and to one side of you there are massive buildings towering high above you. To your other side you see loud, fuming cars whizzing by you on the street.

The air around you is thick and foggy, making your breathing heavier as you walk through the dense city. How do you feel?

Now, imagine you are on the sidewalk in the city of Aarhus, Denmark.

On one side of you, there are still buildings. However, these buildings are topped with green roofs and community gardens which provide better water quality, less runoff, reduced air pollution and greater biodiversity.

To your other side you see a street with cars, but it is not busy. Even during rush hour, you have plenty of room on the sidewalk. There is an abundance of bike lanes with cyclists happily making their commutes.

As cyclists move through the city, they are getting physical activity while simultaneously reducing air pollution. You continue down the street and you see an inviting, green oasis—another park amongst many in Aarhus. People are congregating, picnicking, exercising or just taking a break from the day.

Which of the two cities we describe above would you rather be taking a stroll through? We spent four weeks on the ground in Denmark, 10 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Rachael Rosenstein

Urban garden plot in Ø Haven, the largest community garden in Denmark.

exploring why the country is consistently ranked happier and how green spaces in Denmark play a role in promoting well-being. Denmark has been successful in creating beautiful green spaces on three grounds: municipal planning, national legislation and community engagement.

In fact, the public played an integral role in ensuring the implementation of green spaces became a reality. By being involved at every step of the planning and legislation process, greenspace creation has been tailored to meet the unique design preferences of Denmark’s diverse communities.

During the planning process, workshops and meetings were facilitated to engage local communities in developing their vision for green spaces.

These events resulted in hundreds

of innovative ideas being generated.

Not only was public involvement an important part of the planning process, but it continues to be vital for the maintenance of these green spaces today. Volunteers remain dedicated and engaged by continuing to help care for their community green spaces. When locals cultivate relationships with their communities and green spaces they not only have the opportunity to improve their environment, but their quality of life as well.

While green areas promote sustainability and biodiversity,1 they also contribute positively to human quality of life.2 Without the presence of urban green spaces, individuals are more susceptible to poor mental health such as depression and anxiety3.

Perspectives

Rachael Rosenstein

Summer flowers in Denmark’s urban green spaces.

Inaccessibility to green space can also cause social isolation, induced stress, feeling unsafe, and create limitations on physical activity.4 As a result, it is necessary to promote the creation, revitalization, and use of green spaces to foster healthy well-being.

Across the globe, solutions are needed to move toward a sustainable and happy future. Green spaces can serve as solutions to address our quality of life. Some countries are better than others at maintaining or including green spaces while developing—Denmark happens to be one of those countries. According to the World Happiness Report, Denmark is also frequently ranked as one of the

happiest countries in the world. The United States has never been ranked in the top ten. We also explored the link between access to greenspace and human well-being in Aarhus, Denmark, especially for women.

Finally, we observed and interviewed park users to provide more insight on the effects of green spaces. Drawing on Denmark as a case study, this paper promotes a vision of why and how the prevalence of green spaces might be increased in other countries like the United States. Specifically, we consider the potential for green spaces as sustainability solutions through four lenses: planning, design, well-being, and gender.

Well-being Increasing access to green spaces can serve as a solution to enhance wellbeing, including aspects of emotional, physical, mental and spiritual health.

In a world of violence, increased depression, anxiety, and obesity, cities can take an active role to promote enhanced well-being for all of humanity. During our time in Aarhus, we considered how green spaces might promote the well-being of park users.

While many cities around the world lack access to green spaces, it is easy to access multiple green spaces from most locations in Aarhus. When it comes to physical activity, it is important to have access to green areas. Over www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 11

Perspectives

Rachael Rosenstein

Ø Haven, the largest community garden in Denmark.

73 percent of women we surveyed said they would rather use green spaces than any other location for physical activity. Research also indicates that physical activity is necessary for a happy and healthy life.5 Green spaces also promote a sense of calm and reduced levels of anxiety.6 Over 93 percent of survey respondents we surveyed said that on a calmness scale of one to ten (ten being extremely calm), they were at least an eight. In city life, many people are not able to escape the chaos of cars, noise pollution, air pollution and busy streets. In these green areas, respondents selfreported they feel relaxed rather than stressed and anxious. We also found that green spaces were a wonderful 12 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

place for park users to access social interaction, and most respondents reported consistently high levels of happiness. Overall, green spaces in Denmark seem to have a significant, positive impact on the lives of their users. Therefore, if other countries learn from their examples, potential solutions exist to improve mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Gender Within this piece we want to recognize the nuances of how different people are affected by accessibility to parks. Our research in Aarhus focused specifically on women. We discovered however, that no matter what gender (if any) one identifies themselves as, all

people want to feel safe and included.

The way that we build spaces can make people feel more or less comfortable depending on their interpretation of the local environment. Not only should these spaces make people feel comfortable, but they should actually decrease the likelihood of feeling unsafe (e.g. assault, crime). Safe green spaces can be designed with open lines of vision, with windows facing toward them, and by making them interesting and engaging enough for people to hang around. Given that Denmark is one of the safest countries in the world, we were not surprised when interviewees reported they felt neither more or less safe in urban areas versus green spaces.

Perspectives

Rachael Rosenstein

Community garden and open green space in Denmark.

We can build safety into our shared spaces and must take the perspectives of all city dwellers into account.

Even though interviewees reported feeling moderately safe in parks, safety is an area we identified for improvement. Out of the 50 women we interviewed, three women detailed stories of how safety is not always associated with parks in Denmark.

More specifically, there have been safety concerns attributed to the botanical gardens. In 2003, there was an attack and attempted rape that gave these gardens a negative reputation.

As a result, women express concerns with venturing alone in green spaces at night. Today, the memory of this incident continues to be present in

the minds of those who use the parks.

Safety throughout all green spaces is a necessity to ensure positive experiences for park users. Implementing blue light emergency alert systems may be an effective approach for improving park safety. These lights can be seen from anywhere in the park and allow park users to contact emergency services with the simple touch of button.

Urban Planning Urban planning plays a fundamental role in the way that residents interact with their city. Currently, four out of five United States residents live in cities, and, as development continues, the proportion of city dwellers will

only continue to grow.7 In the face of rapid urbanization, planning and developing cities that include green spaces will be an important step in developing solutions to improving societal well-being.

In Aarhus, accessibility to green space is growing, as green spaces are never far out of reach. In fact, the city of Aarhus has aggressive plans to make green spaces accessible to 90 percent of the population within just 500 meters of their homes. The United States could take similar strides. Policy for new development could require planners to incorporate a certain percentage of green space (e.g., parks, rooftops, community gardens) into new developments. For www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 13

Perspectives example, there are an estimated eight billion parking spots in the United States, amounting to about eight parking spots for every car in the country. Small changes like reducing the amount of pavement and asphalt in our cities and replacing these areas with grass, native plants, community pavilions, picnicking destinations, or playgrounds will help us reintegrate green space into places that are already developed.

Urban green spaces bring life into cities. Other countries like the United States can look to Denmark’s ambitious approach for expanding green space and develop policies to incorporate high quality green spaces that are accessible for all members of society.

opportunities these spaces afford the users. Within Marselisborg, families are given the opportunity to connect and meet other young families. In the Botanical Garden, couples are provided with intimate spaces where they feel secluded, but not socially excluded.

The University Park provides users with an escape from the city, supporting a long stay or a short repose.

On a global scale, there are many megacities that could benefit from better park systems. Regardless of location, however, we should emphasize the importance of quantity and variety within park systems. A space designed for children is not a space that young couples would want to go for a romantic picnic. Design has the ability to

Access to more green spaces not only helps us take care of the environment, they also support our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

Design of Spaces We visited three different green spaces during our time in Aarhus, with varying layouts and designs: (1) Marselisborg, (2) the Botanical Garden, and (3) University Park. Marselisborg was open, allowing for a clear line of sight from one side of the park to the other, and included a play area for children. The Botanical Garden allowed for a stroll along an intimate path shaded by trees, secluded from the city.

Finally, the University Park provided a green space for pause within the middle of the city without complete isolation from the urban environment.

Each park allowed for different experiences and connections. While one design cannot be hailed as a universal design for parks everywhere, it is important to acknowledge the 14 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

shape the way people feel in a space and can be used as a solution to evoke feelings in support of a sustainable future. By creating sustainable designs we can hope to inspire sustainable behavior in the users. Sustainable behavior can be characterized by virtuous characteristics. This behavior is altruistic and equitable. If our designs can inspire this behavior in the users, the users will be able to connect better and focus on actions that benefit the community instead of individuals. The green areas will be able to create more meaningful social interaction through their design.

Conclusion Now more than ever, our cities are plagued by poor health and wellbeing. We can move toward a future

that sustains our happiness, health, and environment. Green spaces are a potential solution that affect more aspects of the human experience than just well-being; they benefit our overall quality of life. Access to more green spaces not only helps us take care of the environment, they also support our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

Aarhus’ green planning sets an example for cities around the world to promote healthier and more sustainable lifestyles for their residents. No matter where in the city a person lives or how much money they have, they are able to enjoy and use green spaces. We can learn from Denmark’s example because their green spaces provide all residents more places to be physically fit, socially engaged, relaxed and healthy. Aarhus has been able to create beautiful locations for residents to have meaningful relationships with their communities and their environment. In the midst of the urban chaos, green spaces in Denmark do not disappoint in fostering a truly healing escape from the stresses of everyday life.

The way that we build our environment elicits varying emotions, and designing smarter spaces promotes positive mindsets. It is important to not only design our cities to allow for better, easier access, but to also design spaces that people feel comfortable in.

Overall, cities and parks should work together to enhance benefits for urban residents.

Denmark is a mecca of urban greenspaces. The urban oases throughout Denmark are accessible on a large-scale, providing residents with spaces that benefit health and community cohesion. Even though policymakers played a pivotal role in Denmark’s reintegration of green spaces, the movement is not

Perspectives

Rachael Rosenstein

Garden plots nestled within Denmark’s public parks.

entirely dependent on bureaucracy, as residents have played a significant role. With goals of sustainability and well-being, the cities in Denmark have been able to not only make urban planning efforts that benefit the biodiversity and resiliency of the city, but also provide spaces for increased physical activity and improved mental health. In Aarhus, if you are to walk out of your residency, you can quickly access fresh air, trees, space for exercise, space for your children to play, and space for social gathering all while connecting with nature. The combination of municipal planning, policy change and volunteer/advocacy work by

the public has transformed visions to reality in Denmark. This work has driven the design of spaces that benefit all residents, giving way to an equitable and sustainable city.

activation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 112, 8567–72.

4. Beyer, K. M., Kaltenbach, A., Szabo, A., Bogar, S., Nieto, F. J. & Malecki, K. M. (2014). Exposure to neighborhood green space and mental health: evidence from the survey of the health of Wisconsin. International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health, 11, 3453–72.

References 1. Busse-Nielsen, A., Annerstedt, M., Maruthaveeran, S. & Konijendijk Van Den Bosch, C. (2013). Species richness in urban parks and its drivers: A review of empirical evidence. Urban Ecosystems, 16.

2. Ward Thompson, C., Roe, J. & Aspinall, P. (2013).

Woodland improvements in deprived urban communities: What impact do they have on people’s activities and quality of life? Landscape and Urban Planning, 118, 79–89.

3. Bratman, G.N., Hamilton, J.P., Hahn, K.S., Daily, G.C. & Gross, J.J. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex

5. Balish, S. M., Conacher, D., & Dithurbide, L. (2016).

Sport and recreation are associated with happiness across countries. Research quarterly for exercise and sport, 87(4), 382–88.

6. Hartig, T. (2007). Three steps to understanding restorative environments as health resources. In: Thompson, C. W. & Travlou, P. (eds.) Open Space: People Space. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis.

7. Shanahan, D. F., Lin, B. B., Bush, R., Gaston, K. J., Dean, J. H., Barber, E., & Fuller, R. A. (2015). Toward improved public health outcomes from urban nature. American Journal of Public Health, 105(3), 470–477.

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Malone, D. (2019). Are Worker Cooperatives a Viable Way to Promote a More Equitable Economy? Solutions 10(2): 16–21. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/are-worker-cooperatives-a-viable-way-to-promote-a-more-equitable-economy

Perspectives Are Worker Cooperatives a Viable Way to Promote a More Equitable Economy?

by Donal Malone

I

n a capitalist economy dominated by large corporations can worker co-operatives play a role in creating living-wage jobs and help rebuild local economies? That is the hope and promise of a small industry of non-profits, foundations, academics and activists who see worker co-ops as a key part of a new and more equitable economy. The New Economy Coalition (NEC) is a group of 140 organizations around the USA that envisions an economy wherein “… capital (wealth and the means of creating it), is a tool of the people, not the other way around.”1 This new economy would be one that, “… meets human needs, enhances the quality of life and allows us to live in balance with nature.”1 Although officially created in 2012, the NEC has roots dating back to 1980.

The NEC is part of a larger global social movement called the “social” or “solidarity” economy. Although centuries old, it has gained new energy and adherents in the past two decades with global competition and corporate relocation leaving many unemployed and underemployed.

With the decline of government support to meet basic needs, individuals, groups and organizations have banded together to create their own economic opportunities. While there are various definitions of the social or solidarity economy there is general agreement among participants in this movement on a set of principles set forth by the Quebec Task Force on the Social Economy. Foremost among them are that economic enterprises must serve social needs and that profits should be reinvested for this purpose. They also support democratically run businesses free from government control and 16 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

empowerment through economic development.2 Frustrated by the failure of decades of community development efforts to eliminate poverty, the NEC espouses a new form of economic growth based on “… cooperative, ethical, and community-rooted enterprises.”3 Linked to the community development field and its focus on urban poverty, this coalition put a renewed emphasis on rebuilding poor neighborhoods from the inside out. Low-income communities would be encouraged to create their own jobs and wealth through a variety of economic strategies and mechanisms. They would establish worker cooperatives and partnerships with businesses, create manufacturing hubs, city-owned utilities and banks, as well as community land trusts, to produce sustainable jobs and economies, building wealth from within communities.4 The renewal of interest in worker cooperatives that began in the 1990s, and re-emerged with more urgency after the Great Recession in 2008, is a key part of this movement toward a more democratic and socially responsible economy. However, this strategy for economic revival raises several questions: Are worker cooperatives a viable way to create more jobs and promote economic development in low-income urban neighborhoods?

Will they be able to grow in size and scale to make a meaningful difference in the lives of workers, families and communities? Or will they remain economically marginal as they are now? And if they become a larger part of local economies, will they be able to compete effectively with other businesses less burdened by

the social needs of their workers?

Or will they be forced to act like other major businesses in a capitalist economy, squeezing workers to remain competitive?

The Promise of Worker Cooperatives The supporters of worker cooperatives see them as central to transforming the way in which community economic development takes place.

Worker cooperatives are viewed as a vehicle for workers and local communities to create their own businesses, jobs and wealth without relying on outside investors. Their presence is said to have a “multiplier effect” as the profits and income resulting from them are re-circulated in the community increasing their economic impact.4 They are viewed as a more a sustainable form of economic development since they encompass a variety of businesses leaving the local economy less susceptible during economic downturns. Their willingness to put labor before capital in taking losses to save jobs rather than short-term profits also promotes their longevity according to supporters. Labor often comes first in these enterprises as workers determine the conditions of their employment resulting in higher productivity and wages in comparison to traditional enterprises.5 However, the record is mixed, as many worker cooperatives have not always acted in the best interests of workers, putting employers’ or customers’ needs first.4,5 The potential of worker cooperatives to have significant impact, at least on a local level, is illustrated by Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), a home health care company

Perspectives

New Economy Coalition

in the south Bronx. With over 2,000 employees CHCA is indicative of the potential impact of worker cooperatives on workers’ lives and communities. Its size makes its impact much greater in the community as it transforms the lives of so many. Zaida Ramos is one example.

Before she joined Cooperative Home Care Associates she was a single parent on public assistance with a low paying job. With her new position at CHCA, she had a steady income, flexible hours, health and dental insurance, as well as a share in the company’s profits. She has also been able to pay half of her son’s tuition at a Catholic school as well as support her daughter in obtaining a college degree. Working at CHCA has given her a level of economic stability she did not have before. As she says, “I’m financially independent. I belong to a union, and I have the chance to make a difference.”6 Si Se Puede, is another workerowned enterprise that has changed the lives of its members. Located

in Brooklyn, New York, this is a business that specializes in doing housecleaning in an environmentally friendly way. Olga Cruz, who came to the U.S. from Puebla, Mexico in 1996, epitomizes the members of this cooperative who are immigrant women struggling to provide for their families. For Olga, Si Se Puede allows her to have, “more control over my schedule, so I can be with my family when I need to.”7 Si Se Puede is small in comparison to CHCA but tries to make up for this by being part of a network of worker cooperatives locally in Brooklyn across New York City and nationally, sharing ideas and resources. They are part of the Solidarity Economy Network, another national coalition loosely linked with the New Social Economy Network. Their aim is to build a new social economy by creating jobs that provide the wages and working conditions that support workers, their families and communities. For both groups, the common goal is to create a more just and equitable economy.

The Reality of Worker Cooperatives How viable are worker cooperatives as an economic model? Are they part of a niche market that only exerts marginal impact or are they much more? What does the evidence show?

In a review of two decades of research on worker cooperatives in Western Europe, the United States and Latin America, Virginie Perotin found that, overall, worker cooperatives are more productive, efficient and sustainable than conventional businesses. They tend to have as much capital investment and last as long. They are also better at preserving jobs during economic downturns because they adjust pay while traditional businesses lay off workers.8 These findings have been supported by other research focused solely on U.S. worker cooperatives.5 One of the defining features of worker cooperatives is worker control which helps explain these findings.

Workers who have a say in the work process are more likely to work more effectively and efficiently than www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 17

Perspectives

Cooperative Home Care Associates

Members of Cooperative Home Care Associates Co-op.

those who do not, resulting in higher productivity. There is some evidence that these worker-owners have higher job satisfaction and fewer stress related health problems in comparison to other workers. However other evidence shows that worker-owners feel more stress from ownership responsibilities leading to lower levels of job satisfaction.5 Worker control explains why worker-owners are more likely to choose job security over pay, preferring pay cuts to layoffs. It may account for pay differentials between executives and workers which are much lower in worker cooperatives than in conventional firms.9 Worker managed firms also keep a larger share of their profits than other businesses 18 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

reserving capital to maintain jobs and salaries.9,5 Globally, worker cooperatives, while only a small proportion of all businesses in their countries, vary in size and number. For example, Italy has 25,000 worker cooperatives, followed by Spain, with17,000. In contrast, France has 2,600 while Britain and the USA have only a few hundred.

Worker cooperatives tend to be larger than traditional small businesses.9 This may be because they begin as collective enterprises with some countries requiring several individuals to start this kind of business. Some worker cooperatives are very large having subsidiaries and employing thousands of workers. The largest

worker cooperative in the world is Mondragon, a global corporation of 261 subsidiaries, 101 of which are worker cooperatives. This Spanish giant’s cooperatives employ almost 30,000 workers. While Mondragon attests to the potential of worker cooperatives to become very large, most employ less than 20 workers.9 Worker cooperatives can be found in a variety of industries ranging from manufacturing, transport, construction and retail to banking, hospitality, agriculture, forestry and fishing, among others. On average, worker cooperatives have as much capital as other businesses but also a greater proportion of businesses without adequate capital than conventional

Perspectives ones. They also have a survival rate equal to that of traditional businesses.9 Despite their promise as a business model, worker cooperatives remain a small part of national and local economies. This may be due to a lack of awareness about worker cooperatives and how they are created. This void is supported by the finding that industries with the most co-ops also have the highest number of new ones.9 More cooperatives provide more examples of an alternative business model for potential entrepreneurs.

This is the case in the United States, as well as in Israel and Spain, where more cooperatives are created in industries that already have the highest proportion of these enterprises.9 Worker cooperatives in the USA today are a negligible part of the economy numbering about 300 and employing around 7,000 people.10 Limited public knowledge of and government support for this business model are causes. Unlike European governments, the United States Government has done little to support the development of worker cooperatives while at the state level a variety of complex laws and requirements make it difficult to establish them.11 Access to capital is also an inhibiting factor. Those attempting to start worker cooperatives have limited seed money for these businesses as well as little in the way of collateral to secure bank loans. Banks, used to dealing with individual borrowers, generally resist lending to a group sharing the responsibility for a loan.12

The Potential of Worker Cooperatives Despite the fact that most worker cooperatives are small they have the potential to operate on a much larger scale with much greater impact. The example, cited above, the CHCA, is the largest worker cooperative in the USA.

CHCA is a home health care company founded in 1985 in a community struggling with poverty and high unemployment. Today, it has 2,300 members who earn almost double the average pay in their industry, work regular hours and have family health insurance. CHCA’s turnover rate of workers is 15 percent versus almost 60 percent in the industry. The ratio of executive pay to worker pay is 11:1 versus 175:1 in the healthcare industry. CHCA workers also receive training to improve their skills and peer-mentoring support in dealing with the challenges of their work. This has raised the wages and status of an occupation dominated by women, mainly Latin American immigrants.

CHCA’s success and size are held up as an ideal example of the potential impact of worker-co-ops on one community.6 Boosting the income of so many in one neighborhood can have a ripple effect as workers spend much of their income locally.

The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative in Cleveland, Ohio is another relatively large worker cooperative cited for its success in creating jobs and helping revitalize a low-income community. This effort was part of a larger, citywide approach to develop worker cooperatives .

In 2008, the Cleveland Foundation brought together an assortment of local government and nongovernment stakeholders such as, University Hospitals, the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western Reserve University, city officials, and local nonprofits, with the aim of creating ten cooperative businesses and 500 family wage jobs for local residents. These stakeholders provided the funds for the first worker-owned business, Evergreen Cooperative Laundry. Starting with one shift of 25 workers, it contracted with these institutions to provide laundry services. While it has faced

many challenges in getting established, the laundry is a profitable business today. Another related and profitable cooperative is Evergreen Energy Solutions which helps businesses become more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. A third related cooperative, Green City Growers, which grows fruits and vegetables in mineral nutrient solutions without soil, is on a path toward profitability. Overall, the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative employs 120 people today and receives only15 percent of its income from its original institutional customers.13 The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative represents an attempt to increase the size and impact of worker cooperatives in local economies.

Some of the leaders of the worker cooperative movement see this as the next stage in their development.

Accordingly, “scaling up”—increasing the number and size of cooperatives is viewed as a way to create more living wage jobs by becoming a larger part of local and regional economies.

Scaling up also means creating an “ecosystem” in which worker cooperatives work with each other and major public and private stakeholders in local economies to promote further growth and economic impact. As one recent report on this effort in 20 cities noted: “What’s emerging is a systems approach to creating an inclusive, sustainable economy where all can thrive. The work is place-based, fed by the power of anchor institutions, and built on locally rooted and broadly held ownership. It’s about building community wealth.”4 The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative represents another stage in the attempt to make worker cooperatives a major part of revitalizing inner-city neighborhoods.

However, as worker cooperatives succeed in becoming larger and more prevalent in the USA’s economy, they www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 19

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New Economy Coalition

face what is perhaps their greatest challenge, becoming like any other business in order to compete and survive in the marketplace. How can worker cooperatives provide living wages and benefits for their workers while many of their competitors do not? How can an economic model that puts labor before capital prosper in a system based on the primacy of capital? This is the central dilemma or contradiction for worker cooperatives today that aspire to become a greater part of the economy: how can they remain viable as they socialize production in a marketplace based on capitalism?

The Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Spain, the world’s largest and most successful worker cooperative, is a case in point. Today, it has 74,000 workers in 257 businesses operating in sixty countries.

However, only half of its businesses are cooperatives, and only one third of its workers are cooperative members. Mondragon’s workers who are cooperative members are guaranteed their jobs and, in slow times, maintain them through pay cuts, increasing their investments in the corporation and by transferring to other cooperatives. Mondragon’s other employees, 20 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

temporary workers in Spain and wage laborers in overseas subsidiaries, have none of these privileges.14 One result is that the benefits of Mondragon’s cooperative members rest on the exploitation of its second and third tier workers. In order to remain competitive with other global corporations, Mondragon is pressured to behave in the same way.

Mondragon’s experience also highlights another dilemma all worker cooperative face, that of its members’ dual roles as owners and workers. The roles of owner and employee may conflict. Typically, workers want good wages, benefits and control over working conditions while owners want to increase production while keeping costs down and profits up. These opposing interests may undermine the development of class-consciousness among worker-owners and their identification with workers in general as well as the emergence of a critique of capitalism in support of a movement for a more equitable and sustainable economy. Kasmir cites the failure of Mondragon’s worker-owners to come out in support of striking workers in Spain as evidence of their lack of identification with other workers.14

Mondragon’s experience is a cautionary tale for the worker cooperative movement in the USA today whose goal is to increase its size and impact in local and regional economies. Will their growth put them in direct competition with traditional businesses and result in the same problems faced

by Mondragon? Will they be forced to act like any other enterprise in capitalism? Will the worker-owners in large American cooperatives see themselves more as entrepreneurs and less able to identify with other workers in common cause?

Based on her research, Sharryn Kasmir argues that to avoid repeating the mistakes of Mondragon, worker cooperatives in the USA must become part of a much larger movement for social change. One example she cites in the USA are unionized worker cooperatives such as those sponsored by the United Steel Workers union who provide worker-owners with union membership, allowing them to bargain collectively with managers in their workplaces whose interests may conflict with theirs. According to Kasmir, union membership will unite these cooperative workers with other workers in noncooperative businesses

Perspectives creating the potential for a broader labor movement for worker rights.14 The kind of social activism and mutual assistance suggested by Kasmir is being carried out in another way by some members of the NEC. It seeks to make worker cooperatives a much larger part of local and regional economies by partnering with key players in these economies. This “ecosystem” consists of worker cooperatives collaborating with “anchor” institutions such as hospitals, universities, nonprofits as well as banks and other major local businesses. Together, with local government support, they may have the resources to become much larger parts of local economies. This is part of an attempt to build community wealth on a much larger scale.4 As worker cooperatives become a greater part of the economy, they may have more say in how their enterprises can compete in the capitalist marketplace without abandoning their social mission.

By becoming a larger part of the economy, worker cooperatives may also be better able to advocate for more state and federal support. Currently, most government subsides to promote economic development go to large corporations. According to one report, during the past 15 years the federal government provided $68 billion in grants and special tax credits to the business community, allocating two-thirds of it to large corporations.15 Given this bias, small businesses may join with worker cooperatives in pressing for a larger share of government subsidies for businesses.

The increasing social activism in support of worker cooperatives has resulted in some important gains. In 2014, New York City was the first city to make a major investment in the development of worker cooperatives when its city council allocated $1.2 million for a Worker Cooperative

Initiative. This effort engaged 11 community-based organizations to create 28 new worker co-ops and 234 new jobs. It also included funds for education, training and technical support for 20 existing co-ops.16 Funding for worker co-ops was increased to $2.1 million in 2016 and $2.2 in 2017.17 In 2016, the city council of Berkeley in California passed an ordinance supporting the creation of workerco-ops. It provided tax and land-use incentives for worker cooperatives, information on them, and facilitated the purchase of services and products from these enterprises.18 With 50 worker-owned cooperatives, Berkeley, and the area surrounding it have the highest concentration of workerowned cooperatives in the USA.18 Many other cities across the country have demonstrated support for worker-owned co-operatives such as Oakland and Richmond in California, Cleveland, Ohio, Madison, Wisconsin and Jackson, Mississippi. Community activism was the catalyst behind these initiatives.18 Community activism is the driving force for increasing the size and scope of worker cooperatives making them a larger economic player with the potential to have more impact on how capitalism operates. Worker cooperatives are one way to limit the excesses of capitalism by reducing its negative effects on workers and communities.

As they become a more significant part of the economy, they increase their ability to make it more responsive to the needs of workers, families and communities. They have the potential to play a role in curbing the excesses of capitalism, redirecting it to serve social needs. This is what worker movements have done in many countries in Europe.19 Worker cooperatives are a part of the larger movement among workers to tame global capitalism to serve social needs.19,20

References 1. New Economy Coalition [online] (2017). https://neweconomy.net/about 2. Chantier De L’ Economie Sociale [online] (2017). http://www.chantier.qc.ca/?module=document& uid=867 3. New Economy Coalition [online] (2017). https://neweconomy.net/about 4. The Democracy Collaborative [online] (2017). http://democracycollaborative.org/ 5. Wright, C. Worker Cooperatives and Revolution (booklocker.com, Inc., Bradenton, Florida, 2014).

6. Flanders, L. The Kind of Job That Lifts You Up. Yes Magazine. (Fall 2014).

Wang, Amy X. (2018, Feb. 15). What American CEO’s Earn Compared With Their Rank and File Workers.

Retrieved from Quartz at Work https://qz.com/work/1196106/how-much-do-ceosmake-140-times-what-their-median-employee-does/ 7. Si Se Puede Women’s Cooperative [online] (2017). http://www.wecandoit.coop/members.html 8. Perotin, V in ILO-ICA. Symp. Research Conference on Cooperatives and the World of Work, Antalya (Turkey) 9-10 November 2015.

9. Perotin, V. Worker Cooperatives: Good, Sustainable Jobs in the Community. Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity 2, 34–47 (2014).

10. Democracy at Work Institute [online] (2017). http://institute.coop/worker-cooperative-faq 11. Rothschild J Workers’ Cooperatives and Social Enterprise: A Forgotten Route to Social Equity and Democracy. American Behavioral Scientist 52, 1023–1041 (2009).

12. Nadeau, E.G. The Cooperative Solution (The Cooperative Foundation, Madison, WI, 2012).

13. Brodwin, D. A Cleveland Success Story.

U.S. News & World Report (July 2016).

14. Kasmir, S The Mondragon Cooperatives and Global Capitalism: A Critical Analysis.

New Labor Forum 25, 52–59 (2015).

15. Good Jobs First [online] (2017). http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/ 16. Ifateyo A. A Co-op State of Mind: New York City Jumpstarts Worker Cooperatives. In These Times (August 2014).

17. Abello, O. NYC Set to Triple the Number of Worker Cooperatives. Next City (January 2016). [online] (2017). https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/nycworker-cooperatives-jobs-increase 18. Hachadourian, A. Berkeley Votes to Boost Co-op Economy in the Face of Gentrification.

Yes Magazine (February 2016).

19. Hill, Steven. Europe’s Answer to Wall Street.

The Nation. (5/10/10).

20. Wright, Erik Olin. How to Be an Anti-Capitalist Today. Jacobin. (12/02/15).

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 21

Letendre, S. and J. Van Hoesen. (2019). Publicly Available Renewable Energy System Production Forecasts: Reconnecting Consumers to Nature’s Energy Flows. Solutions 10(2): 22–29. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/ publicly-available-renewable-energy-system-production-forecasts-reconnectingconsumers-to-nature’s-energy-flows

Perspectives Publicly Available Renewable Energy System Production Forecasts: Reconnecting Consumers to Nature’s Energy Flows

by Steven Letendre, PhD and John Van Hoesen, PhD

T

he 2015 Paris Agreement represents the most recent step to forge a coordinated global response to reduce CO2 and related GHG emissions and limit the rise in mean global temperatures. Countries representing 97 percent of global GHG emissions submitted non-binding commitments in advance of the Paris conference. For example, the Obama administration pledged to cut domestic GHG emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. It is widely recognized that existing commitments, both those ratified by nations and those that have not—including the US—are insufficient to meet the Paris agreement’s goal to limit the rise in global mean temperatures to well below 2°C.1,2,3 Energy-related GHG emissions account for approximately two-thirds of total global GHG emissions. There are many approaches to reducing the GHG emissions from the energy sector, including efficiency and conservation, fossil fuel switching (e.g., coal to natural gas), expanded use of nuclear power, and carbon capture and sequestration.

It is also widely accepted that displacing fossil fuels with zero carbon, renewable sources of energy can and should play a significant role in addressing energyrelated GHG emissions .4,5 The yearly renewable energy potential is many orders of magnitude larger than current global consumption with direct solar radiation offering the greatest potential of all renewable sources.6 In 2016 renewable forms of energy represented just over 19 percent of global final energy consumption.7 Of all renewable energy sources, solar and wind have experienced the most rapid growth over the past several 22 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

years. In 2016 solar photovoltaics (PV) achieved an historic milestone with capacity additions accounting for more additional net capacity than any other power generating resource. Net new generation capacity subtracts new fossil fuel capacity installed to replace decommissioned fossil fuel plants. In the same year solar accounted for 47 percent of newly installed renewable power capacity. Wind and hydropower accounted for 34 percent and 15.5 percent respectively of the total new renewable generation capacity added in 2016.7 The multi-year trend in the growth of installed solar and wind capacity is driven largely by declining costs, growing demand for electricity in some regions, and government incentives/programs to encourage investments in renewable generation.7 The prospects for continued price declines for wind and solar are good, thus it is likely that solar and wind deployment will continue to accelerate in the coming decade.

The Variability of Renewable Energy Production Power grids are complex systems connecting a fleet of large electric power stations to households and businesses through a sprawling network of transmission and distribution lines. These systems evolved to reliably provide power to end-users continuously to meet the minute-by-minute variations in electricity consumption. This just-in-time production and delivery system requires a complex set of institutions and markets to assure reliable low-cost power to consumers when and where they demand it.

In the US, balancing authorities (including regional transmission

organizations (RTO), independent system operators (ISO), or utility companies) serve this role dispatching generation based on forecasted demand for electricity and managing markets or generation resources to balance supply with demand in real time.

Generation sources with different characteristics play different roles in this delicate balance between electricity use and production. Power plants that are slow to start and stop, taking hours or days, serve the role of providing baseload power. Fast response generation resources are well suited to meet the peak demand for electricity that often occurs only a few hundred hours each year. The one unifying characteristic of the vast majority of existing generation resources today is dispatchability, meaning they can deliver power to the grid when called upon by grid operators.

The rapid growth in the deployment of variable sources of generation, including solar and wind, is challenging the fundamental operational paradigm that has governed the management of electric power grids for over a century. It is generally understood that the grid must evolve to become more flexible using advanced smart grid control systems.

This approach would leverage big data and information networks to both improve system reliability and power quality based on an evolving supply mix with increased production of low cost power from wind and solar generation sources.8,9,10,11 There are numerous strategies to create a more flexible grid on both the supply side and demand side.

Supply solutions include geographical

Perspectives

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Lighting from space.

dispersion of variable sources of generation, larger balancing areas, fast responding generation with both fossil fuel-based (gas turbines) and renewable-based (hydroelectric) sources, and energy storage to name a few.9,12 These approaches either reduce the overall variability in aggregate on a grid or provide buffer energy to offset variable output from solar and wind systems.

Demand-side resources have become increasingly important in managing peak power demand. In many jurisdictions, homeowners and businesses are compensated for decreasing demand for electricity during peak load events when reserve margins fall below a certain reliability-based threshold. Demand response programs designed to reduce peak demand for power could evolve to allow demandside resources to respond to variable

production of energy from wind and solar resources.13 Increasingly, these systems are being automated so that no individual needs to physically turn off and on equipment in response to a signal from a grid operator.14 The emerging vehicle-to-grid (V2G) concept represents a hybrid of both a supplyand demand-side approach to increase grid flexibility. Electric vehicles (EVs) can provide load shaping by scheduling charging during times of maximum generation from variable sources; with V2G grid-interactive systems EVs can supply power from the onboard battery in response to shorter-term fluctuations from variable sources of generation.15 Both demand- and supplyside approaches to grid flexibility can be made more effective when control strategies are informed with renewable energy generation forecasts.16,17

The Practice of Renewable Energy Forecasting Weather forecasting is an advanced science that serves a vital role in our daily lives and the economy. The process referred to as numerical weather prediction (NWP) utilizes complex models with embedded algorithms to predict the weather. These models are typically run on large, powerful government computers. The U.S. Global Forecast System (GFS) is the weather forecast model run by the National Center for Environmental Information, which is within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Another leading weather model is the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) model run by an independent international organization supported by 31 European www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 23

Perspectives

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Balancing energy inputs and peak demand.

countries. These models are “initialized” using actual weather conditions gathered from millions of sensors and recording devices scattered around the globe, including weather balloons, geostationary satellites, buoys, radars, sensors on commercial aircraft and ships, coastal and river gauges, and networks of ground-based observing stations. Mesoscale weather models provide greater horizontal resolution to generate smaller-scale details of weather forecasts. The Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) is one of the leading mesoscale weather models in use today, which was developed in the later part of the 1990s.

Physical wind and solar production forecasting methods require wind speed and direction 24 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

and ground-level irradiance and temperature respectively derived from weather models like those referenced above and input into engineering models. These models use specific technical and physical characteristics of particular wind farms or solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays to forecast energy production.

These forecasts are improved over time using statistical methods based on historical real-time generation data in an effort to “tune” forecasts produced from inputs generated from NWP models.18 For shorter-term forecasts, a basic statistical model known as persistence forecasting is commonly used, which assumes that current levels of renewable energy generation will remain unchanged in the near-future. This and other

purely statistical methods do not rely on physical system characteristics and instead rely on numerous data sources to developed a forecast using autoregressive and artificial intelligence predictive models.19 Short-term solar power production forecasting often makes use of cloud images obtained from either geostationary satellites or total sky imaging devices. The cloud movements, both direction and speed, are used to predict the impact of cloud cover on the short-term variability of a solar PV array production.19 Renewable energy generation forecasts can be produced for varying time frames. Although there is no standard characterization of renewable energy forecast time frames, it can be broken down as follows:

Perspectives • Ultra-short-term forecasting: From few minutes to one hour ahead.

• Short-term forecasting: From one hour to several hours ahead.

• Medium-term forecasting: From several hours to one week ahead.

• Long-term forecasting: From one week to 1 year or more ahead.20 The forecasting method that yields the most accurate results is linked to the time frame under consideration.

For example, forecasting approaches based on NWP data produce more accurate forecasts for day-ahead production versus a persistence forecast and the reverse with regard to short term intra-hour forecasts.

The intended use of the forecast dictates the forecast time-frame that is most appropriate. For example, grid operators produce day-ahead dispatch schedules based on forecasted load and thus can integrate day-ahead renewable energy system forecast into the scheduling process to avoid starting and stopping conventional generation unnecessarily, saving fuel and money.18 Energy imbalance markets and real-time dispatch decisions require intra-hour renewable energy forecasts in ten-minute time steps for up to 6 hours ahead allowing market participants and grid operators to avoid costly under or over generation and maintain system reliability.18 Another important distinction between different forecasting approaches is between area forecasts and point forecasts.21 An area forecast aggregates estimates from numerous renewable energy systems to produce an estimate of aggregate output within a broader geographic control area. In contrast, a point forecast is produced for one particular renewable energy system be it a single wind farm or solar array. It is widely understood that area forecasts lower uncertainty due to the canceling effect of individual

system variability due to aggregation.18 Most wind generation resources are connected at the transmission level and thus are typically included in the system dispatch planning enabled by day-ahead and hour-ahead forecasting.

In contrast, much of the solar deployed today is distributed on the customerside of the meter and thus ultimately impacts the load that appears on the system. As a result, solar energy forecasts play an important role in determining estimates of net load dayahead, hour- ahead and in real time for regions with high penetration of distributed solar installations.22 Today numerous companies provide renewable energy forecasting services. The main market for their services is for grid operation and renewable plant management. Many grid operators in areas with high penetration of wind and solar either subscribe to these services or produce their own internal renewable energy forecasts to improve the management of grid resources given the variable output of renewable resources within the network. Wind forecasting is more mature and in wider use given the greater scale of wind energy deployment historically relative to solar.22 As both utility-scale and distributed solar installations expand, there will be growing interest in and use of solar forecasting services for grid operations and renewable energy plant management. A yet untapped use for renewable energy forecasts is by energy consumers allowing for individuals and organizations to plan energy use around renewable energy production. This is referred to as a bottom-up approach to managing the variable nature of renewable energy production. This stands in contrast to the top-down approach whereby grid operators seek to manage the impacts of variable sources of generation on system reliability.

Openly Accessible Renewable Energy Forecasts for the Public Good As discussed earlier, societies must transition back to a point whereby the majority of energy supplies come from renewable sources. In essence, society needs to reconnect with renewable energy flows that served as the foundation for most of human existence.

We argue that making renewable energy forecasts publicly available to consumers is an important first step toward reconnecting society with renewable energy flows. With access to this information, consumers could consciously shift the use of energy based on the availability of renewable energy production. This could occur actively such as making a deliberate choice to delay the use of a household appliance like say a dishwasher or washing machine to a day in the week when the forecast predicts significant renewable energy production. An approach with perhaps more potential would be to leverage smart appliances and information networks to passively schedule appliance use based on embedded algorithms that are informed by a customer’s preferences to match household energy use with renewable energy generation.

National survey data indicates strong support for renewable energy by the general public. A 2016 in-depth survey by Pew Research Center found that over 80 percent of Americans support expansion of solar and wind farms.23 This level of strong support suggests that individuals may be willing to change behaviors if they were given the necessary information for the efficient integration of more solar and wind on their regional grid.

Another survey found a significant portion of respondents indicated motives beyond saving money underlie energy efficiency behavior changes; these motivations include reducing www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 25

Perspectives impacts from climate change, acting morally, and feeling good about themselves.24 There is ample evidence that consumers respond to feedback on energy use and consciously alter behaviors when given the appropriate information and clear instructions on the appropriate actions.25,26 Thus, it is reasonable to anticipate that if consumers are given access to userfriendly renewable energy production forecasts and the necessary information and tools they will adjust energy use accordingly.

incentives depending on the value their actions via reducing the cost of top-down efforts to manage the variable output of renewable sources of generation.

Over the long term, we imagine the federal government playing an important role in providing local weather forecasting data. The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which currently maintains the Renewable Resource Data Center (RReDC), provides access to an exten-

We argue that making renewable energy forecasts publicly available to consumers is an important first step toward reconnecting society with renewable energy flows.

Consumers that voluntarily shift energy use in response to renewable energy production are providing a benefit to society by allowing the efficient integration of low carbon sources of energy. One of the sectors that could gain economic benefit from this include grid operators, many of which already subscribe to a renewable energy forecasting service or generate their own forecasts internally. Thus initially, these organizations should be encouraged to make their forecasts available to the public in a user-friendly manner.

While initially providing an area forecast for renewable energy production within the regional grid, the systems could be developed to allow for point forecasts that provide consumers with the anticipated output of renewable energy systems on their home or within their communities.

Consumers who actively use the publicly available forecasting information may be eligible for financial 26 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

sive collection of renewable energy resource data, maps, and tools. NREL could serve the role of developing and providing publicly accessible renewable energy forecasts for all locations across the country. Similar to the federal government’s role in providing weather forecasts, public access to renewable energy forecasts serves a public good and could lower the costs of integrating renewable sources of energy into our existing grid system. Through a mobile app or online interface (see Figure 1) consumers would be able to tailor the forecasts they receive based on geographic location, type of forecast (area or point), timeframe (dayahead, hour-ahead, or real-time), and intended use. This service should be accompanied by information about strategies consumers could adapt to alter behaviors that would allow for the low-cost integration of increasing penetration of variable sources of generation on regional grids. This

bottom-up approach would serve to complement the top-down approach to grid integration of variable sources of generation by regional grid operators.

Potential User Interface for Renewable Energy Forecasting Mobile App A likely first use case for publicly available renewable energy forecast is to link electric vehicle (EVs) charging with renewable energy production.27 As EVs represent a large, flexible new load emerging on regional grids, they are well suited to align charging with renewable energy production.

EV owners are often motivated by the environmental benefits that are possible when using electricity for transportation. However, the environmental benefits are directly related to the sources of generation and thus EV owners may prefer to charge during periods of high renewable energy production on their regional grid. Many EV owners also invest in a home solar photovoltaic system to assure that they are charging from a clean source of energy. A survey of EV owners in California found that 39 percent of EV owners also invested in a home solar energy system.28 Net metering arrangements allow homeowners to get credit for energy that is produced and not used and thus the timing of vehicle charging does not necessarily align with the output of a home solar array. At work charging, however, could leverage the fact that EVs are stationary when solar production is at its peak. General Motors did an early demonstration in collaboration with Google transmitting renewable energy production data from PJM, the regional transmission organization covering a large part of the mid-Atlantic and mid-western states, through its OnStar vehicle communication systems to allow the charging

Perspectives

Figure 1. This image illustrates the type of hyperlocal weather forecasting interface consumers might use to modify energy use patterns in response to projected renewable energy production. The mobile app would allow users to either search for a specific location or manually click on an area of interest.

of a fleet of 17 Chevrolet Volts to be coordinate with times when renewable energy production on the PJM grid were at their highest.29 Smart grid solutions more broadly will play a central role with the integration of renewable energy sources. Numerous technology firms are entering this space and developing solutions that provide the grid flexibility that is necessary to cost-effectively manage the variable nature of wind and solar production.30 The potential for bottom-up approaches to grid integration extends well beyond EV charging. Thermal and cooling applications for residential, commercial, and industrial customers are also well suited for load shaping given the latent energy storage capacity of heating and cooling systems.

Furthermore, a bottom-up approach to grid integration through load shaping could reduce the amount of renewable energy curtailment, which occurs most often during periods of low demand.31 Initially, this strategy would have a negligible impact on load shapes, but over time load forecasting techniques would need to evolve in anticipation of increasing levels of bottom-up load shaping to support the overall goal of low-cost grid integration of variable sources of generation. Research is needed to characterize suitable end-uses for load shaping, estimate the intermittency management potential of a bottomup approach, and gauge customer receptivity to altering energy use patterns in response to renewable energy forecasts.

Conclusions Carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise and are now well above pre-industrial levels leading to an inevitable rise in mean global temperature. The 2015 Paris Agreement represents the first time in the multi-decade multilateral process to foster a global response to climate change with a general agreement to keep the future mean global temperature rise to well below 2°C. The years leading up to this global agreement have seen the renewable energy industry experiencing exponential growth. Renewable sources of energy now represent the lowest cost new power supply in many regions.

In recent years, the deployment of renewable sources of generation has surpassed the deployment of new conventional sources of generation. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 27

Perspectives

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Renewables are the future.

The technical challenges of managing a grid with increasing supplies of variable sources of generation have been studied now for at least a decade, and grid operators are currently deploying various strategies.32 The increased grid penetration of variable sources of generation requires a more flexible grid using many different approaches both on the supply side and demand side. Most strategies place grid operators and utility companies at the center of managing the grid impacts of increasing variability of electricity supply. Renewable energy forecasting has evolved rapidly with numerous companies providing forecasting services that are being increasingly used by grid 28 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

operators to manage the variable output of wind and solar generation.

Emerging sensor technologies and data aggregation techniques will likely provide the data necessary to radically improve forecast accuracy for individual renewable energy generators.

Global societies have largely become disconnected from renewable energy flows that have supported humans for most of their existence.

This paper argues that public access to renewable energy forecasts represents an avenue to reconnect society to renewable energy flows, and could provide a valuable bottomup approach to managing variable sources of generation. Experience in

the efficiency field demonstrates that people respond to energy information to reduce consumption through altering behaviors not only for economic gain but also for altruistic reasons.33 Thus, it is likely that given the public support for wind and solar and past experience with energy behavior changes in the efficiency field, that individuals may voluntarily alter behaviors in an effort to shape loads to accommodate increasing amounts of variable generation from wind and solar resources. Additional research is needed to assess the costs and benefits of making renewable energy forecasts publicly available and to determine what institutions would be best equipped to provide these services.

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models to results. Energy Policy. 30(10), 58–63.

White%20Paper_SunShot_2016_v1.pdf.

Energy Efficiency Action Network.

12. Lovins, A. (2017). Reliably integrating variable

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Murray, K. (2019). Sustainability Reporting—Beyond TBL? Solutions 10(2): 30–33. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/sustainability-reporting-beyond-tbl

Perspectives Sustainability Reporting— Beyond TBL?

by Keith Murray

W

hy has Sustainable Development (SD) become so complex for business? The more I read in the academic literature, trade press and business news sections of the convoluted approaches organisations, academics and professional advisers treat this serious issue the more despondent I become.

I’m sure Brundtland did not foresee this when she put her name to the publication, Our Common Future, (OCF) back in 1987. That was 30 years ago and just look at the mess we’re still in, trying to agree on a strategy for survival; Global Warming looks to be “on the cards”1 if something is not done immediately; the UN’s ambitious 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) for 2030 have a long way to go if they are reach their targets.

In this morass of complex issues with respect to what action to take, large corporations are caught between a rock and a hard place on Sustainability Reporting.

They are expected to portray “good Sustainability practices” such that outside bodies can “feel” comfortable in being seen to being associated with them i.e. financial, insurance, shareholders etc. So, is this SD reporting purely publicity, a marketing exercise; something the corporation can use to “sustain” its position in the marketplace? Surely not!2

But what is Sustainable Development? We all know what it is, or do we?

Over the last 25 years it has been most often defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to 30 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

K. Murray

meet theirs. This has been translated to the three pillars of Sustainability: economic, environmental, and social, informally referred to as people, planet and profits. Companies have used this Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework in their Sustainability Reports and to illustrate the popularity of this, going on line and keying in Triple Bottom Line (TBL) gave +10 million sites.

(Sept. 2018)

Why has this TBL approach been accepted?

Simple really when you think about it, our historical prevailing paradigms or perceptions are implicit or explicit beliefs that mould our behaviour.

Business takes these on in the same way that society does. It is not surprising therefore that on the whole companies have continued to behave as if there were infinite resource availability and waste assimilation capacity in nature. Consequently, in the loose relationship between economics and the environment, business happily accepts one-to-one pollution control strategies, supported by legislative controls.

This dominates industrial thinking in relation to defining good sustainable business practice through their TBL reporting with economics

dictating the final objectives i.e.an “acceptable” environment or social trade-off.

This is very difficult to change as so many Sustainability Professionals in the last 20 years have been brought up on this approach. It has been suggested that this is rather like the Economists “groupthink” on GDP as a “growth indicator”. Woe betides anyone who dares to challenge that status quo! 3 However, this “TBL Groupthink” on SD for companies has, in the last 10 years, been questioned in both academic and commercial journals. They have all questioned the ill-developed and incomplete notion of TBL as a true reflection of SD. Many suggest that businesses may well have limited their ideas to only issues about themselves.4

Reflections on the Chemical Process Industry (CPI) A lot has changed over the 60 years since I started out as a student apprentice Chemical Engineer working in a large Chemical Process Plant manufacturer/contractor. Much has changed over a wide range of business practices. I know, firsthand, that in the 50s–60s, H&S issues were very relaxed on commissioning projects and throughout the 60s and even into the early 80s the solution to pollution was

Perspectives

Flixborough 1974

dilution; higher chimneys, sea/river dispersion or land-fill waste disposal.

But, of course, over these six decades there have been quite a lot of “environmental/ safety/ethical” procedures and practices implemented that have had a major “impact” on how and what the CPI now does in respect to “good practice”- ISO management systems accreditation for example.

Legacies of the past, particularly Flixborough and then Bhopal, drew attention to environmental and ethical issues for business organizations and, by the beginning of the 21st century, it was very evident that Global Business Organisations (GBOs) were taking an ever increasing interest in these constraints with respect to their corporate business progress.

As well, regulators, insurers, financiers and stakeholders generally were all increasingly demanding evidence of excellence by imposing institutional pressures on production processing plants and their parent companies. Just in the last decade, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)5 Criteria are now considered central factors in measuring the sustainability and ethics of an investment in a company or business.

As I write, the latest acronym in Corporate Reporting is TCFD. A Task

Bhopal 1984

Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures6 (TCFD) is to be set up— a working group tasked with creating a set of comparable and consistent disclosures that companies can use to demonstrate climate change resilience to their capital providers.

It is expected that the TCFD recommendations will change sustainability reporting. It will add further pressure on companies to disclose ESG data and thus enabling the market to arrive at a more informed view on how climate change will impact different businesses sectors.

As recently as August 2018, Facebook7 was pledging to use 100% renewable energy by 2020; a major announcement on their commitment to corporate sustainability (CS). Some nine months earlier in an article on the three pillars of corporate sustainability A. Beattie8 reported that Sustainability had become the buzzword with many “corporate giants” naming it “a key priority in moving forward”.

However, this TBL-SD reporting would appear to be getting more complex with further ambitions being presented to the corporations on what is expected from them in the great scheme of things pertaining to Sustainable Development, e.g. the UN’s 2030 Agenda on the

17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). These SDG’s are wide-ranging and presumably they are expected to “appear” somewhere in the Corporation’s annual CSR?9 Wow, little wonder that SD reporting is causing Senior Management problems! How can they see, plan, develop and implement a strategy for their future sustainable business with all this going on?

Their purpose, focus and strategy are being clouded by: • The questionable paradigm of SD-TBL • The sweeping wish-lists presented in the UN’s Company and Supply Chain management guidelines.

• Academics/Practitioners still arguing that SD is the same as Sustainability!10,11 But, of course in taking this seriously, it being “a key priority to moving forward”, companies now employ in-house SD “experts” or bring in “SD Consultants” to help. I looked, over and above the “big four”12 surely there can’t be +38 x 106 out there (Number of hits on Google, Sept. 2018) and wondered how many of them were prepared to challenge the TBL-SD norm? I suspect there are a few but to www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 31

Perspectives challenge the TBL “status quo” is to incur the wrath of some very powerful SD protagonists!

However it is not enough to just say “the TBL approach” is missing the mark; it is essential to be able to present a clear and unambiguous approach—one that does reflect the OCF’s quoted definition- the meaning of which has somehow been lost since the publication in 1987.

Sustainable Business Thinking—Continuance.

Having worked over these 60 years across a range of disciplines within the CPI, both at plant, research and senior management level and having also to “communicate” succinctly with under-grads, post-grads, research staff and academic colleagues, I have found that the more complex the problem the more important it is in keeping the approach/solution/method as simple as possible. KISS I think is the jargon title: Keep It Supremely Simple.

Organisations should be looking at the reasons why the unsustainable issues/practices have appeared in the first place, i.e. what are the organisations “Un-sustainable Activities”?

The company, wherever it sits within the framework of “supplying needs satisfaction” to the population at large, because of the activities it is involved in will create negative side effects, social and/or environmental.

These negative side effects are the root of the problem.

So, companies that are supplying a needs satisfaction, wither it be a service or a product, should start by looking at what they do and how do they do it.

To coin an old line from a jazz song of the 1930s: “It’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it—that’s what gets results.”

32 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Marion Wellmann / pixabay.com

www.cobaeurope.com

TBL and beyond

It’s surprising how easy it then becomes to identify those issues/activities within the factory fence that are un-sustainable. By investigating what and why the unsustainable practices occur it is possible to prioritise their elimination/substitution with and without a concern for the economics.

Why, because economics (profits) are “man-made”.

It is possible to do this too with very little beating of breasts or hair pulling! Why, because it is simply asking the question: “Can we as a company keep doing this process/ operation/activity without undermining the resources it relies on?”

It is then possible within a relatively short period of time to implement something similar to what

Perspectives

K. Murray

the Environmental Management System (ISO 14001) insist on, a Baseline Audit, but in this case a Total Sustainability audit of the factory.

Armed with this profile, what goes on “within the factory fence,” the in-house SD professional can then expand his/her thinking and explore the impact of those organisations up and down their company’s supply chain. Armed then with these “external audits” prioritising the action of “negative side effect removal” can be evaluated within the present economic climate.

In many respects this audit will produce a reality check on where the company sits with respect to the ideal, a “Totally Sustainable Organisation” and from it an alternative strategic “Plan B” will emerge which can be produced in parallel to that being portrayed in the annual “ TBL SD marketing report”.

Unfortunately, although this approach appears simple enough, there is often a reluctance to accept the

concept of zero resource availability infringements (no “Negative side effects”) which is the company’s total sustainability target, the comment being “It’s not profitable!”

This is akin to the reluctance of Companies in accepting the concept of zero defects13 when striving for Total Quality in TQM. However profits are only a reflection of the current economic climate and it is that which is changing.

So, this relatively simple systematic approach to tackling a company’s key un-sustainable practices is easily assimulated; and, armed with this, the SD professional can explore the capability of a particular company’s potential to achieve Total Sustainability as the economic climate changes. It also offers a strategic plan that the Board of Directors can at last “hang its hat on.”

References 1. IPPC Special Report on Global Warming. https:// report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15 (accessed Feb.2019)

2. http://www.ethicalcorp.com/users/karen-luckhurst (accessed Oct. 2018) 3. Fioramonti, L. Gross Domestic Problem (Zed Books 2013) ISBN 9781780322728 4. Milne, MJ, Bell A & Gray R. W(h)ither Ecology?

J. of Bus. Ethics Vol. 118, No. 1 pp. 13-29(2013) 5. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), https://www.investopedia.com (accessed Feb. 2019) 6. Task Forces on climate-related Financial Disclosure, https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/ (accessed Oct. 2018) 7. https://www.fastcompany.com/90228674/facebookwill-power-itself-with-100-renewable-energyby-2020 (accessed Jan. 2019) 8. Beattie A. https://www.investopedia.com/ articles/investing/100515/three-pillars-corporatesustainability.asp (accessed Oct. 2018) 9. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/sustainability/SDG/ sdg-reporting-2018.pdf (accessed Feb.2019) 10. Jones, PD, Selby DS & Sterling S.) (eds) Sustainability Education: Perspectives and practice across Higher Education, Earthscan. ISBN: 978-184407-877-6. (2010) 11. Leal Filho, W. Brandli LL, Castro, P & Newman, J. (Eds.) Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education, Pub. Springer (2017) 12. https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2016/ beyond-big-four-12-sustainability-consultancieswatch-2016/29361 (Accessed March 2019) 13. Crosby, PB. Quality is Free. (Pub. McGraw-Hill, 1979).

ISBM 0-07-014512-1.

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Chiappelli, F. (2019). Translational Environmental Restoration (TER) for Climate Solutions. Solutions 10(2): 34–39. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/translational-environmental-restoration-(ter)-for-climate-solutions

Perspectives Translational Environmental Restoration (TER) for Climate Solutions

by Francesco Chiappelli

From Climate Change to Climate Crisis It behooves us to entertain the validity of climate solutions from the perspective of systems thinking.1 As we have outlined in our recent discussion of the increased risk of HIV, AIDS, IRIS and Neuro-AIDS consequential to climate change,9 our survival, and the survival of all prokaryotes and eukaryotes, including mammals, and ultimately our species, depends upon their ability to adapt to changes in their microenvironmental milieu and to the challenges of their surrounding macroenvironment. Our microenvironment is our physiology: the context within which our organs, tissues, and the cells that compose our bodies survive, thrive, grow and divide. It is a biological system made up of complex and finely controlled pathways, regulatory feed-back loops and delicate biochemical check-andbalances, which together modify and modulate the expression of our genes to the ultimate end of improving our adaptability to the demands of the surroundings. These epigenetic alterations, which can be short-lived (i.e., one cell division), or sustained for several cell multiplication cycles, are concerted sub-cellular changes, intended to ensure our survival, although they may precipitate cell death either by necrosis or by the programmed process of apoptosis.

Epigenetic changes are fundamental alterations in the organism’s molecular, biochemical, cellular and physiological balance, which we call homeostasis, in response to, and for the adapting to disturbances in the complex systems of biologic processes and responses that constitute its 34 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

microenvironment. The microenvironment system, which preserves us into health and prevents us from falling into ‘dis-ease’, is constantly challenged by alterations in the macroenvironment system multidimensional set of factors (e.g., temperature, humidity, altitude) that surrounds us.2 What biologists and physiologists call the macroenvironment, earth scientists call the climate: that is, the set of data and evidence that defines and characterizes global patterns of weather beyond decades, into centuries and millennia. Climate patterns describe cyclical variation in several meteorological variables, including temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, sea currents, polar ice sheet, eternal snow packs, wind and precipitation, atmospheric particle count (O2 content, CO2 concentrations, methane and other toxic gases and particulates) in various regions of the globe over long periods of time. By contrast, the weather describes the short-term conditions of these variables in any given region.

As noted,9 the climate of any specific region of the globe arises from that region’s climate system, which is dictated by properties of the air, the earth and the waters. Scientists describe the climate as composed of five distinct components: 1. atmosphere (i.e., layer of O2, CO2 and other breathable gases), 2. hydrosphere (i.e., the surrounding mass of water – sea or fresh, drinkable or toxic), 3. cryosphere (i.e., the proportion of surrounding water that is in ice form),

4. lithosphere (i.e., the solid mass in that region: ground, plains, mountains, sand, rocks), and 5. biosphere (i.e., the extent to which that region can sustain life).

Significant variations in the balance of these parameters have been recorded across the globe (e.g., increased global temperature: global warming) in the last decades. These alterations bring about important changes in the earth climate, which are above and beyond expectations due to causes such as processes internal to the earth (e.g., volcanic activity), or external forces (e.g., variations in sunlight intensity). The Australian National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other national and international organizations describe as climate variability those variations proved beyond doubt to be of non-human origins.

The changes in climate registered in the last 100–75 years are attributed primarily to wanton human activities,9 such as massive and irresponsible deforestation, sea pollution, increased air pollutant emission, among many others. Human activities detrimental to the global climate are so intense and have been so persistent over the past centuries that, even if their effect have been curbed slightly in the past decade, the change in climate they have caused has become an emergency climate crisis.

Heat stress, breathable air and water—fresh and sea—acidity increase due to raised CO2 levels, clean water deprivation and drought, release of toxic gases are among the

Perspectives most important consequences to the climate change crisis all living organisms are experiencing at every latitude. It matters not what the weather is in any given site on any given day: climate patterns have changed widely worldwide. That the situation is growing worse by the day has contributed to the recently proposed Green New Deal10, which, while it is a laudable political effort that hold strong promise toward curbing some of these detrimental consequences, is yet imperfect and incomplete in the solutions it proposes.11,12 Experts do not speak of climate change any longer, but of a climate crisis: a serious, aggressive, existential and extreme crisis that threatens all species—vegetal and animal, is human beings included—and our planet.

This is not an overstatement: climate data best available evidence base convincingly show the precipitating downward pattern of life on earth as a direct consequence of climate change.2 The climate crisis brings along such gargantuan macroenvironmental alterations that our organisms are ill-equipped to face. It engenders medical emergencies that threatens our survival because it causes serious threats to biological system. Together, the macroenvironmental stressors of heat challenge, de-oxygenation and carbon dioxide pollution of potable and sea water sources with consequential poisoning of planktons and fish, air particulates and their impact on depressing cellular immune surveillance to a variety of blood and solid tumors across vertebrate species, worsening lung disease, emphysema and asthmatic conditions, and psychocognitive and sleep disturbances are major threats to health in our society.9 Just as serious is the outcome of the climate crisis on ocean and air current (e.g., jet stream, gulf stream), which pushes temperate climatic zone

Chiappelli

Big Sur, CA Spring 2019

towards the pole. Consequently, the ice caps show dangerous melting patterns, and torrid humidity and heat spreading wider from the equatorial band.

With that expansion of the tropical zones, mosquito-borne disease spread wider and faster into heavily inhabited cities. Novel infectious diseases, including Ebola, Zika, Dengue and others pose new challenges to public health and health care in Western societies.2-5,9 When making the case for patient-centered care,6,7 it behooves

us to take into serious consideration the important role of the individual responses of each individual patient to the climatic macroenvironmental stressors. To be clear, patient-centered translational health care will only be achieved when the specific physiologic profile of each patient as it responds to the demands of the climate crisis—the allostasiome2—will be systemically defined and characterized, and taken in account in the clinical treatment planning and delivery. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 35

Perspectives Multiplicity of Climate Solutions Concerted research on the systemic complexity of climate change informs policies directed at countering, salvaging and restoring our healthy survival on our planet.9,10 There are two principal classes of policies that counter, and possibly reverse the human-caused climate crisis, and which, we propose, ought to be better integrated in the Green New Deal.

• Firstly, as noted elsewhere,9 solutions arise from individual determination.

Individual personal lifestyle changes and choices can make an important contribution in reducing society’s overall carbon impact, and therefore help lower greenhouse gas emissions to safer levels. A voluntary drive to eliminate the burning of coal, oil and, eventually, natural gas could go a long way toward that end; but, many citizens of richer nations rely for their comfort on products from such fossilized materials, and the energy stored in such fuels, which are fundamental to the global economy, and citizens of developing nations want, and arguably deserve the same comforts. Individuals could be advised, or required to move closer to their place of work, or to engage in cycling, commuting or utilizing shared or public transportation: increasingly this is the trend, even in cities such as Los Angeles, which is notoriously a city where people preferentially choose first to drive rather than to share a ride.

• Secondly, certain solutions to the climate crisis depend on the community, local, national and international politics, institutions and organization, such as the UNFCCC mentioned above, as well as international consortia and treaties, such as the ambitious Paris 36 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Chiappelli

Seascape, Cambria, CA Spring 2019

Agreement. Concerted actions call for infrastructure upgrade almost in every city and in every country: buildings worldwide contribute over 33 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and bad roads lower the fuel economy. Visionary politicians must understand that investing in infrastructure – buildings, roads, bridges, and the like—help cut greenhouse gas emissions and drive economic growth by generating new and profitable jobs. One drawback to this calculus is that the cement required for infrastructure rebuilding produces

large volumes of CO2: in the US alone, for example, production of cement in 2005 liberated close to 51 million metric tons of CO2. Mining copper and other elements needed for electrical wiring also causes globe-warming pollution. Therefore, before improving infrastructure can be called a beneficial solution to the climate crisis, improved cement production techniques, and mining must be developed to reverse this nefarious trend. Nuclear power could replace fossil power for this and other demands, but it would certainly not be as safe and

Perspectives environmentally sound and clean as wind, sea current or solar energy.

Coal still supplies nearly 50 percent of the electricity demands in the US on average, and no alternative can reliably reduce the dependence on fossil fuels in the US now. States, such as California, have made the laudable commitment to be 100 percent fossil fuel-independent by 2045 (cf., SB-100), and certain countries, such as Sweden have met their 2030 green energy target as early as 2018. In other words: it is possible! There is hope! As arduous as the process will be, the tipping point is in sight, but we are still far from the goal, in large part because we have now been able to establish systematically which of the solutions now at hand is more effective. In brief, this hopeful stance is the central message of the Green New Deal10, and its proponents fully recognize that it is a work in progress, a systematic portfolio of solutions that need to be worked out in all their fundamental and elemental details.

In brief, the natural gas boom of the last decades has made plastic feedstocks cheap and readily available. An estimated $50 billion will be invested into new and expanded plastic production facilities in the US alone, tripling the amount of plastic exports by 2030! That includes 400 new plastic processing facilities, in addition to plastic manufacturing facilities and plastic additive processing facilities, which can produce some significantly harmful chemicals including pthalates and brominated flame retardants. Polyethylene production alone is expected to increase by as much as 75 percent by 2022, a rise in production attributed to expected sharp increases in demand for disposable plastics. In other words, should the individual demand for plastic

cups, bags and others not increase so dramatically, production of plastics could be curbed, and perhaps arrested if the plastic recycling industry could be improved. The surge in non-biodegradable plastic solid waste that is predicted could be avoided. Any solutions to this crisis needs to be more effectively coordinated at the level of the individual consumer, the community awareness, and national and international interests.9

The Macroenvironmental System Our planet is mostly air, water and crust. The atmosphere is a thin layer of gases that surrounds the earth. Gravity keeps the gases from drifting away from the planet into outer space. The lower layer of the atmosphere is rich enough in O2 for plants and animals to survive. A substantial portion of the CO2 released by the planet—in greater proportion from human activities beginning with the industrial revolution in the mid 1800’s and largely after WWII in the mid 1900’s—is trapped by the atmosphere, and creates the greenhouse effect that is responsible for increasing the planet’s temperature.

There are two types of earth’s crust: the continental crust contains the continents and rocks of lighter density, and the oceanic crust contains dense rock from the upper mantle that are rich in iron minerals. Both crusts are in constant motion, as a complex function of both the inner and outer temperature of the planet. The top soil that covers the continental crust absorbs a substantial proportion of the atmospheric gases, including CO2 and methane. Polar ice entraps top soil gases, which are released into the atmosphere as polar ice and the permafrost melt consequential to the rise in global temperature.

Oceans are as complex systems as the earth’s crust and its atmosphere.

There are four major oceanic zones where plants and animals live in the ocean, which in toto contain the largest ecosystem on earth.

• Intertidal zone: the area of the seafloor between high tide and low tide, which signifies the bridge between land and water. Tide pools, estuaries, mangrove swamps and rocky coastal areas are examples of the intertidal zone. Much of the superficial water pollution (i.e., oil, floating debris, plastics) is observable in the intertidal zone.

• Neritic zone: the waters found above the continental, including coral reefs, underwater forest of kelp and grassy meadows of sea grass, which house tiny fish, green turtles, sea cows, seahorses and shrimp.

Excessive gaseous polluants, such as CO2 and methane, are found in elevated concentrations and, together with increased temperature of these waters, are responsible for the destruction of neritic flora and fauna.

• Open ocean zone: the water body that lies beyond the continental slope and contains close to 70-75 percent of the oceanic waters. This zone is divided further into three subzones. °° The sunlit zone is where photosynthesis takes place.

Plankton, jellyfish and most animals living in the open ocean inhabit the sunlit zone.

Giant oil spills, immense plastic and garbage patches, and increased CO2 and temperature directly threaten that habitat. °° The twilight zone is a layer of oceanic waters at a depth of 3,000–4,000 feet, where some light can still penetrate. Viper fish, firefly squid, deep water fish, bioluminescent jellyfish, and the chambered nautilus www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 37

Perspectives live in this zone. Its deepest layer, the midnight zone extends into darkness to the seafloor. As the luminosity of the waters is altered by temperature and gaseous rise, the viability of this deep water oceanic zone (i.e., the twilight and the midnight layers) is endangered. °° The benthic zone includes the seafloor. It houses close to a quarter of a million species of plants and animals, which do not need sunlight to exist and which survive at relatively cold temperature and strong pressure. Hydrothermal vents provide an exquisite variety of flora and fauna in this abyss, which is threaten by the CO2 absorbed in the oceanic waters As CO2 is absorbed into the oceans, the acidity of the waters increase, which is toxic to corals and to most marine life. As the planet’s temperature increase, the ocean water temperature increases as well, which is deadly to most fish species, plankton and other marine life. As the planetary temperatures increase, not only do oceanic waters rise consequential to polar ice melting, but atmospheric wind patterns (e.g., jet stream) change, and oceanic currents (e.g., gulf stream) are disrupted.

In brief, a systems perspective1 on our macroenvironment reveals three intertwined domains: the atmosphere, the crust and the oceans.

Alterations severe enough to disrupt any one domain will have serious and significant implications for the other two, and therefore for the equilibrium of our planet. It is timely and critical to develop, test and evaluate effective solutions to the climate crisis, because it is a serious existential threat to all flora and fauna of the planet, including 38 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

us. These solutions must go beyond the current interventions, some of which we have briefly outlined above, and must be stringently evaluated for effectiveness in the same manner as we stringently evaluate clinical interventions for patients: our planet is the patient, and it deserves the same attentive deployment of research activities. Novel interventions must be directed not only at preventing further disruption in the planet’s climate, blunting or blocking global warming, but as well, if not more importantly so, at restoring the balance of our environment system.

Translational Environmental Restoration (TER) Concerted scientific effort must be directed at obtaining evidence-based interventions to the climate crisis. One model provided by the extensive study of climate change in Tasmania supported by the Australian Government (Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) and the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility in 2013 serves as Proof of Concept. In a cogent systematic review, the authors explored several domains of the system of climate change in that region of the continent.

They concluded that significant gaps of knowledge remain in our understanding of adaptation needs and successes across all areas of the system they studied, including marine life, land use, infrastructure, business, stakeholders and policy makers. A range of research priorities were identified as solutions based on the best available evidence. They noted a need for better climate system understanding, and improved evaluation of adaptation options. Based on their interactions with stakeholders, they resolved a myriad of societal issues around adaptation to the climate crisis. Future evidence-based research

needs were identified particularly with respect to engaging stakeholders and end-users at the earliest stages of research design, including the refinement of research objectives and questions.8 We propose a Translational Environmental Restoration (TER) paradigm that integrates the model proposed by McDonald and collaborators8, and follows the framework of translational health care.6,7 In brief, the movement of translation health care emerged as a response to the need to find the best available research evidence from fundamental basic biomedical research, to incorporate the best evidence base into novel clinical interventions, and to evaluate them for effectiveness. Two sides of the same coin soon emerged: • translational research, for basic research on clinical biopsies obtained from the patient to suggest to the clinician treatments that are targeted to that patient, and • translational effectiveness, for direct head-to-head comparison of clinical protocols for efficacy and effectiveness.

Concerted efforts were made in the last decades to refine and to validate research designs and methods in translational health care to ensure optimal patient-centered care.6,7 In translational research, new and improved physiologic, histologic, cellular, biochemical and molecular methodologies were tested and deployed, which now provide valid and reliable data to characterize the pathologic processes in patient biopsies. Based on these characteristics, a patient and pathology profile can be drawn by the clinician, who can, at this stage, entertain alternative treatment modalities. Based on these

Perspectives criteria, the PICOTS question is generated that defines and characterizes the patient (P), the preferred intervention (I) and alternative comparator (C) interventions, the clinical outcome (O) sought, within the projected timeline (T) and in the available clinical setting (S). The resulting PICOTS research question, and the analytical framework that is derived from it in consultation with stakeholders, informs the hypothesis-driven process of the systematic review for translational effectiveness. This research component of translational healthcare utilizes the research synthesis design, psychometrically validated instruments, acceptable sampling analysis and meta-analysis to establish the best evidence base in support of that, among the projected intervention, which is preferable to the others on criteria of effectiveness. Translational health care culminates in the translation of the systematic review into a critical review, a statement of the best evidence base in clinician-friendly and in patient-friendly language, which can be disseminated by tele-care and other means, so that the best evidence base information becomes available to all clinicians globally. In brief, translational health care is, by its very nature and definition, patient-centered care, effectiveness-focused care, and evidence-based care.6,7 Here, we propose that specific issues and problems consequential to the climate crisis, such as for example, plastic pollution of ocean waters, could be investigated by a two-prong process akin to the study of clinical interventions.

• Firstly, the clinical situation of the patient is examined and characterized by means of translational research. In a similar manner, the ecological situation of plastic oceanic pollution must be

defined and characterized: detailed data must be gathered on the type of plastic, oceanic current, effects of prolonged exposure to sea water on the molecular structure of the plastic, and the like.

• Secondarily, clinical interventions are investigated and evaluated in the context of translational effectiveness. Similarly, the effectiveness of diverse protocols for the gathering and processing of oceanic plastics should be compared (e.g., shredded vs. composted plastic) in stringent, structured, detailed and accurate systematic review studies.

The depth and scientific excellence as the systematic review report by McDonald and collaborators8 is a Proof of Concept for the Translational Environmental Restoration (TER) paradigm we propose here.

References 1. Seibert M., Systems Thinking and How It Can Help Build a Sustainable World: A Beginning Conversation, The Solutions Journal 9 [online] July 2018, https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/ systems-thinking-can-help-build-sustainable-worldbeginning-conversation/ 2. Chiappelli F. Bioinformation Informs the Allostasiome: Translational Environmental Restoration (TER) for the Climate Crisis Medical Emergency. Bioinformation 14, 446-448 (2018 In Press) 3. Chiappelli F, Bakhordarian A, Thames A, Du AM, Jan AL, Nahcivan M, Nguyen MT, Sama N, Manfrini E, Piva F, Rocha RM, Maida CA. Ebola: translational science considerations. Translational Med 13:11, 2015 doi: 10.1186/s12967-014-0362-3. PMID: 25592846 4. Chiappelli F, Santos SM, Caldeira Brant XM, Bakhordarian A, Thames AD, Maida CA, Du AM, Jan AL, Nahcivan M, Nguyen MT, Sama N. Viral immune evasion in dengue: toward evidencebased revisions of clinical practice guidelines.

Bioinformation. 10(12):726-33. 2014 PMID: 25670874 5. Chiappelli F, Balenton N, Khakshooy A. Future Innovations in Viral Immune Surveillance: A Novel Place for Bioinformation and Artificial Intelligence in the Administration of Health Care. Bioinformation, 14(5): 201-205. 2018 PMID: 30108416 6. Chiappelli F. Fundamentals of Evidence-based Health

Acknowledgements The author thanks all the students he was honored to mentor throughout his career for the erudite and thoughtprovoking discussions. To be clear, he has learned more from them than they from him. The author also thanks the Climate Reality Project for training close to 30,000 leaders now engaged in disseminating the facts (best evidence base, BEB) about the climate crisis, and—more importantly perhaps—the hopeful solutions that are at hand and, in part at least, already working. In that regard, the author thanks Al Gore, Ken Berlin, the hundreds of mentors and the thousands of trained leaders of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps for their consistent, indefatigable, hard and dedicated work at saving our planet. The author thanks other organizations also involved in the laudable fight to restore our planet from the climate crisis, such as for example 5Gyres.

Care and Translational Science. (Springer–Verlag, Heidelberg 2014).

7. Chiappelli F. (Ed.) Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER): New Methods, Challenges and Health Implications. (NovaScience Publisher, Inc., Hauppauge, NY 2016) 8. McDonald J, Harkin J, Harwood A, Hobday A, Lyth A & Meinke, H. Supporting evidence-based adaptation decision-making in Tasmania: A synthesis of climate change adaptation research, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, 2013), 169 pp.

9. Chiappelli F, Reyes E, Toruño R. Climate Crisis Impact on AIDS, IRIS and Neuro-AIDS. Chapter 37 In Shapshak P, Somboonwit C, Chiappelli F, Menezes L, Kangueane P, Sinnott JT, Balaji S. (co-Eds.) Global Virology III: Virus Bioinformatics in the 21st Century.

(Springer-US, New York, NY, 2019 In Press) 10. Green New Deal; 116TH Congress - 1ST Session H. RES. 109 11. Herman C. Green new deal and the question of environmental and social justice. International Labour Office, Global Labour University. - Geneva: ILO, 2015 (Global Labour University working paper; No. 31, ISSN: 1866-0541; 2194-7465 12. Carlock G & Mangan E. A Green New Deal: A Progressive Vision For Environmental Sustainability And Economic Stability. Policy Report by Data for Progress; Copyright Data for Progress 2019.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 39

Barnard S. and L. Susskind. (2019). Shifting The Burden: Using a Questionnaire and Panel Review to Ensure that Ecosystem Services are Taken into Account in Project Appraisal. Solutions 10(2): 40–45. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/shifting-the-burden-using-a-questionnaire-and-panel-review-toensure-that-ecosystem-services-are-taken-into-account-in-project-appraisal

Perspectives Shifting The Burden: Using a Questionnaire and Panel Review to Ensure that Ecosystem Services are Taken into Account in Project Appraisal

by Samuel Barnard and Lawrence Susskind

The Problem: A Gap Between Ecosystem Services Theory and Practice Natural ecosystems are being lost to development in fast-growing countries around the world. While land development may often be a desirable objective, conversion from one land use to another rarely takes account of the myriad benefits that natural ecosystems, directly or indirectly, provide to humans. This is because markets often fail to capture the value of these benefits monetarily. If there were an easy way to compute the market value of ecosystem services, and local regulations required that their loss be taken into account, the disincentives to development that requires largescale conversion of natural ecosystems would likely be substantially higher.

While the measurement and valuation of ecosystem services at global, national and landscape scales have been the focus of considerable research, how to best apply the ecosystem service lens to project appraisal at the local level remains unclear. Most studies describing real-world application of local ecosystem services assessment are primarily accounts by the authors to describe what they tried.1 Thus, we have a growing number of novel theoretical and methodological proposals, but no generally agreed upon set of practices.2 Practitioners need a set of legally defensible methods that can be applied in many different contexts at modest cost.3 It is important that researchers continue efforts to refine best practice methodologies, which have the potential to improve outcomes and generate learning where practitioners can apply 40 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

them. However, we contend that, due to many common constraints, it will rarely be feasible for most of the methodologies proposed in the literature to be implemented at the project scale, especially in developing countries. Key constraints include a pervasive lack of reliable and fine-scale data,4,5,6 the short time frame available for conducting studies between when projects are proposed and when regulatory approvals are granted;7,8 the lack of study funding available to most stakeholders and local governments,3,9 and a lack of the interdisciplinary expertise required to implement the complex ecosystem service analyses called for in the literature.10 Only highly simplified methodologies have any chance of being adopted.

A number of relatively simple digital modelling and mapping tools have been developed over recent years (e.g.

InVEST,11 ARIES12). However, as with all models, the outputs that these tools produce are constrained by the quality of the inputs that go in; a lack of high resolution data often prevents them from producing meaningful or accurate results at the project scale.13 The barriers to thoughtful application of ecosystem service assessment methodologies are particularly high in the private sector. There is scope to test best practice methodologies in largescale, publicly funded research studies.

Yet because national environmental impact assessment (EIA) regulations rarely mandate the inclusion of ecosystem services analysis, or prescribe methodologies for doing so, private developers (facing strong imperatives to generate quick results so that development can proceed) are unlikely to

include such considerations in their project impact studies. When they do, their analyses are likely to be highly simplified, cursory efforts.

This reality creates the potential for project proponents to either disregard ecosystem services in their impact assessment reports or to integrate inaccurate or even intentionally misleading information. Thus, the burden often falls on local stakeholders who depend on ecosystem services to question the proponent’s findings and attempt to influence the outcome of the appraisal process—a significant challenge for stakeholders with limited resources and political power.

Instead of seeking ever greater technical ‘accuracy’ in methodologies for forecasting the size and value of ecosystem service impacts, we think it is important to acknowledge the constraints in practice, and offer pragmatic advice for how to make ecosystem service analysis most useful in this context. More importantly, we want to empower concerned stakeholders to raise provocative questions about the ecosystem service benefits at risk if land conversion is allowed to proceed, and to enhance their ability to hold developers and decisionmaking authorities accountable for these losses in a public manner.

The Solution: An Ecosystem Services Questionnaire and Panel Review Procedure We believe there is a simple approach that policy makers can introduce to ensure that, at a minimum, public deliberation takes place about the likely ecosystem service impacts of large-scale projects. Importantly, it

Perspectives

Takeo Kuwabara and Griffin Smith, 2018

Construction of high-density towers and luxury villas on the first island of the Forest City megadevelopment project.

would shift the burden for demonstrating the significance of these likely impacts so that responsibility does not fall entirely on those who stand to lose.

We propose that local, state, or national authorities require proponents of projects that exceed a defined threshold of probable impacts or that involve certain activities (e.g. land reclamation) to respond to a standardized questionnaire describing the impacts their projects are likely to have on ecosystem services.

The questionnaire would ask the developer to define the key ecosystem services relevant to their project and describe their plan to reduce or avoid the negative impacts their project is likely to have on these services.

The developer would also have to explain how they determined the value of these services, how they intend to ensure that the services will be provided in some other way, and how their proposed project might be designed to protect or enhance

important ecosystem services in the area.

The relevant authority would be required to appoint an independent panel to review developer responses to such a questionnaire on behalf of the city or territorial government. The panel would include technical experts such as ecologists, engineers, economists, along with planning agency and other staff and designees of elected officials like the mayor or city council.

Crucially, the relevant public agency would make developer responses to the questionnaire publicly available for review, arrange for a period of public comment, and require a response from the developer. In some cases, it might provide concerned stakeholders with resources to assist them in scrutinizing the project proponent’s response. Civil society organizations might provide a list of questions that concerned stakeholders could ask during any discussion of the questionnaire responses.

The relevant agency could hold an

informal public hearing to discuss the proponent’s response to the questionnaire as well as public reactions. An agency would not be required to have specific legal authority to hold such an informal public discussion.

The most important benefit our approach provides is to shift the burden of assessing a project’s likely impacts on ecosystem services from those who stand to lose to those who stand to benefit the most. It would force project proponents to acknowledge that ecosystems offer important benefits to local populations. Groups with concerns would not have to prove that they can forecast benefits and costs with precision. Rather, they would be able to expect the developer or sponsoring agencies to account for how they have estimated ecosystem services likely to be lost, and how they intend to make sure that the public receives these same benefits in other ways.

We argue that requiring a project proponent to show that they have www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 41

Perspectives considered the effects of their development on ecosystem services, if only briefly, is more important than the precision of the methods used to carry out such analyses. Much of the project review literature focuses on the importance of using ecosystem services information to inform decisions, but there are steps that need to be taken before decision-makers can use such information effectively.14 By forcing all sides to engage with the idea of ecosystem services, our proposed process will heighten public awareness and prod more strategic thinking among private developers, decision-makers, and public stakeholders.

The questionnaire, public comment and panel review we are proposing have the additional benefit of opening up a proponent’s methodological approach and assumptions to scrutiny.

Many non-objective judgements must be made prior to initiating any ecosystem service valuation (these include setting the scope of the study area, choosing the services to be included, deciding the time frame for the assessment, etc.).15 Any findings will be extremely sensitive to how these parameters are set. With increasing experience in assessing responses to the questionnaire requirement we are suggesting, decision-making agencies and concerned publics should become more adept at assessing the validity of project proponent’s technical choices.

Additionally, our approach need not be established through a change in the law, simplifying the administrative process for any city or state to introduce the questionnaire/panel idea as a pilot initiative.

In the following section, we consider how our proposed approach might have altered outcomes for stakeholders, using a controversial real estate development project on reclaimed land off the coast of Malaysia.

42 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

An Illustration: The Case of Forest City in Johor, Malaysia Introduction

This case illustrates how ecosystem services have been handled by private developers in a country where environmental regulations and review processes are enforced, but ecosystem services have been given scant attention. We first describe what occurred, before imagining a different outcome if our proposed questionnaire and panel review procedure were in place.16 The country’s southern tip in the state of Johor was designated as a special economic zone in 2006.

The Iskandar Development Region, as it was named, was intended to take advantage of Johor’s immediate adjacency to prosperous Singapore to attract foreign investment. Since the zone was established, there has been a rise of foreign-owned real estate investment along the Johor coast.

In January 2014, Chinese developer Country Garden began a 2,000 hectare land reclamation project, Forest City, in the straits between Malaysia and Singapore. The vast project appeared to have been developed independently of regional planning efforts; Forest City did not feature on any maps created by the Iskandar Regional Development Agency (IRDA).

Environmental Concerns

The Forest City site is directly atop the largest seagrass bed in peninsular Malaysia and adjacent to a large mangrove area designated as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance in 2003. A 2011 IRDA shoreline management plan describes the project site as explicitly preserved for resources management in order to “protect marine flora and fauna, especially [the] seagrass bed”.17 Country Garden began reclamation work without having completed

an EIA as required under Malaysian federal law for projects of this size, because the proponents proposed to divide the project into smaller pieces – each just under the scale that would trigger a mandatory EIA. Neither local fishermen nor the Singaporean government were aware of this major reclamation project until barges began depositing large amounts of sand in the ocean. In May 2014, Singapore submitted an official enquiry to the Malaysian federal government, triggering the Malaysian Department of Environment (DOE) to issue a stop work order to Country Garden and require that it complete a detailed EIA (DEIA).

The DEIA

Country Garden hired a local consultant to produce the DEIA report, which was approved by the DOE in January 2015 after a costly year-long halt to construction and extensive project redesign. Country Garden scaled down the project to 1,600 hectares and altered the plan from a single island to four smaller islands surrounding the seagrass bed, now designated a “preserve” (Fig. 1).18 The Malaysian DOE’s Handbook of Environmental Impact Assessment Guidelines includes identifying the environmental costs and benefits of a project to the community as one of five objectives of an EIA. The DOE’s 2008 ‘Guidelines on the Economic Valuation of the Environmental Impacts of Prescribed Activities’ 19 suggests a framework to use in calculating the monetary value of project impacts on the environment that cannot be eliminated through mitigation measures. The EIA practitioner retains the discretion to choose their methods, including which impacts they consider significant enough to monetize.

Chapter 16 of the Forest City DEIA focuses on the economic value of the

Perspectives project’s likely impacts on ‘environmental services’. The consultant hired

by Country Garden focused on mudflats lost to reclamation, the impact on the seagrass area, and the heightened travel costs for local fisherman whose fishing grounds would be destroyed (not technically an environmental impact). They chose not to estimate the impact the project might have on water quality on the grounds that Country Garden planned to install silt curtains intended to limit adverse effects to negligible levels. The consultant did not consider the impact of the project on ecosystem services provided by adjacent mangrove forests.

The consultant used a benefit transfer approach to estimate the monetary value of the environmental services included in the analysis. For each service, the consultant determined monetary value based on the results of studies conducted elsewhere, at varying times and scales. The DEIA does not include a bibliography that would permit crosschecking of the referenced studies.

The DEIA estimated the total annual value of environmental impacts at RM10.26 million, or US$3.14 million.20 This equates to a net present value over 50 years of RM115.98 million (US$35.37 million) at an 8 percent discount rate or RM193.21 million (US$59.09 million) at a 4 percent discount rate. The reduction in fishing revenues caused by permanent loss of mudflats account for almost 90 percent of these impact figures.

The DEIA does not include an interpretation of the relative scale of the estimated monetary value associated with Forest City’s likely impacts. The results of the economic valuation exercise are presented in a half-page of text at the end of the 74-page DEIA Executive Summary.

However, the Summary notes that

Samuel Barnard and Lawrence Susskind

Figure 1. Map of planned Forest City landforms and surrounding area.

a “huge commitment is needed by the Proponent [Country Garden] in implementing all mitigation measures proposed so that this development will be beneficial not only to the Proponent, but also to the local communities and the State of Johor.”21 How was the Economic Valuation Used?

It is not clear that the economic valuation of Forest City’s projected impacts on ecosystem services influenced subsequent environmental management deliberations or decisions to compensate affected stakeholders.

Country Garden was compelled by the Johor State government to provide a compensation fund for local fishermen of RM104 million.

Malaysian DEIA guidelines require consultation with affected stakeholders. In a public meeting to present the DEIA, Country Garden received unexpectedly vociferous pushback from local stakeholders, who were not satisfied with the assessment of Forest City’s projected environmental and

economic impacts or the process by which it was approved.21 Imagining an Alternative Process

The process undertaken in the Forest City case generated suboptimal results for most parties involved. The developer faced a very expensive delay, was required to redesign its project and forced to compensate fishermen it had harmed, lost trust in the eyes of local stakeholders, and suffered hits to its local and international reputation.

Villagers’ livelihoods were severely damaged by the disruption to the fishery on which they depended. The state of Johor and the regional development authority lost credibility by not initially requiring a full-blown EIA and allowing a flawed project to proceed.

The national government lost credibility with its neighbor, Singapore. How might an alternative approach have altered the process and the outcome?

In this section, we imagine hypothetical implementation of our proposed ecosystem services questionnaire and panel response. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 43

Perspectives The Questionnaire. Imagine that,

as part of an established procedure, IRDA had required Country Garden to complete in parallel a questionnaire regarding their project’s likely impact on ecosystem services. Box 1 lists some simple questions that might have been included.

The Panel. In the case of Forest City,

IRDA would convene a panel of five experts to review the questionnaire response, such as a representative of the Johor DOE office; a local hydrological engineer; a coastal ecologist; an IRDA staff member; and an economist.

The role of the panel would have been to review the project proponent’s responses, ask clarifying questions and request additional detail. The panel would convene after the proponent submitted its DEIA, but before the DOE made a decision about whether to approve or reject the project. It would have a month to review the questionnaire response, during which time it might have consulted with additional technical experts and NGOs. After a month of deliberation and investigation, the panel would prepare a public letter to IRDA summarizing its review of the adequacy of the proponent’s responses. The panel’s judgement would not be legally binding, but it would have brought substantial publicity and enormous pressure to bear on the DOE as it made its decision regarding the adequacy of the DEIA. The letter might have asked about Country Garden’s lack of consideration of Forest City’s impacts on ecosystem services provided by the surrounding mangrove forest. It might have asked whether the proponent had conducted a sensitivity analysis regarding the effectiveness of proposed mitigation measures such as silt curtains. It might also have decided that certain studies used to calculate ecosystem service values were too 44 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Box 1: Illustrative Questionnaire Questions Q1. What are the anticipated environmental impacts of the proposed project?

Q2. Which ecosystem services are likely to be affected by the project?

Q3. How have you accounted for the impact of your project on these ecosystem services in your project design and management plan?

Q4. What level of uncertainty is associated with the ecosystem service impacts you have estimated?

Q5. Which stakeholders were consulted to identify and assess likely ecosystem service impacts?

Q6. How will you ensure that any ecosystem services threatened by your project are provided in other ways, and that those affected receive appropriate compensation?

In the case of Forest City, we imagine that Country Garden’s submission would be similar to the economic analysis of environmental impacts included in the DEIA it was ultimately required to prepare.

far-removed physically or temporally to generate credible figures.

We can imagine a scenario in which some stakeholders were not content with the consultant’s technical approach to preparing its ecosystem services analysis. After the panel’s decision was made public, we assume there would be numerous letters to the editor, social media reaction and even a meeting organized by advocacy groups regarding Country Garden’s response to the panel’s concerns.

Outcomes. We assume that the Panel

would have attended the advocacy meeting. The dialogue that ensued might have had (1) an educational impact—helping everyone better understand the issues at stake; (2) a political impact—rousing various groups to band together to make recommendations to Country Garden and the relevant regulatory and political bodies insisting on further changes in the plan; (3) a financial impact—some of the sources of Country Garden’s project funding might have raised concerns

in light of the Panel’s criticism of the project; and (4) regulatory impact— other regulatory agencies that also had to provide approvals might have been swayed by the Panel’s thorough report, and decided to hold Country Garden to a higher set of standards.

This process might also have reshaped the way EIA practitioners in Malaysia interpreted prevailing EIA requirements. If a reknowned consultant used by Country Garden wanted to be selected by other similarly situated clients, they might push Country Garden to respond to the Panel’s concerns.

Reflection This is a hypothetical imagining to clarify what it would take to implement our proposal. Critics might be concerned about the added time and cost burden associated with an additional development review process and the proposed process’ lack of legal teeth in regulating appraisal outcomes. We respond to those concerns here and reflect on the potential

Perspectives benefits of our proposed approach for encouraging what we call “deliberative environmental management.”

Additional Time and Cost Burden

While the process we have suggested would represent an additional requirement for obtaining project approval, we believe the added time and financial costs involved are small, especially in light of the impact and longevity of projects of this magnitude, which will last for many decades, or even generations. Modest investments of time and money can actually save on long-term costs. They can certainly help to sustain the reputation of the development entities involved.

Lack of Legal Teeth

Although the panel convened to review the developer’s questionnaire response would not have legal authority to approve or reject the proposed project, it would shed light on the developer’s assumptions and forecasts, as well as their approach to mitigating negative effects (and maximizing beneficial effects) for local residents.

The political will required to use the informal (i.e. non-binding) process we are proposing will depend on the fortitude of the political leadership in the country and the region.

The Benefits of Deliberative Environmental Management

By requiring an interdisciplinary panel review and creating an opportunity for focused public deliberation, the process we propose seeks to introduce a level of engagement into what is otherwise likely to be almost exclusively top-down decision-making. It responds to calls for the creation of ‘platforms for decision making that marry the interpretative (social) complexity of sustainable resource management and the analytical (scientific) needs of informed—evidence based—decision

making.’22 This analytic-deliberative approach also acknowledges that social values are central to the way scientific results are interpreted, and that it is not credible to pretend otherwise.23 Moreover, increasing opportunities for affected stakeholders to participate in local discussions and hold decisionmakers accountable, increases the prospect that the results will be “owned” by all parties involved.24

service approaches to inform real-world decisions.

Ecological Economics 115, 11–21 (2013).

11. InVEST [online] https://www.naturalcapitalproject .org/invest/.

12. ARIES (ARtificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services) [online] http://aries.integratedmodelling.org/.

13. Vorstius, A & Spary, C. A comparison of ecosystem service mapping tools for their potential to support planning and decision-making on a local scale.

Ecosystem Services 15, 75-83 (2015).

14. Mckenzie, E, Posner, S, Tillmann, P, Bernhardt, JR, Howard, K & Rosenthal, A. Understanding the use of ecosystem service knowledge in decision making: lessons from international experiences of spatial planning. Environment and Planning C: Government

Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Sam Tak Lee Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab at MIT.

and Policy 32, 320–40 (2014).

15. Spangenberg, JH & Settele, J. Precisely incorrect?

Monetising the value of ecosystem services.

Ecological Complexity 7, 327–37 (2010).

16. The details of the Forest City case were compiled in the course of preparing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology digital case study on

References 1. Laurans, Y, Rankovic, A, Billé, R, Pirard, R & Mermet, L. Use of ecosystem services economic valuation for decision making: questioning a literature blindspot.

Journal of Environmental Management 119, 208–19 (2013).

2. McComb, G, Lantz, V, Nash, K & Rittmaster, R. International valuation databases: overview, methods and operational issues. Ecological Economics 60, 461–72 (2006).

3. Baker, J, Sheate, WR, Phillips, P & Eales, R. Ecosystem services in environmental assessment help or hindrance? Environmental Impact Assessment Review 40, 3–13 (2013).

4. Bagstad, KJ, Semmens, DJ, Waage, S & Winthrop, R. A comparative assessment of decision-support tools for ecosystem services quantification and valuation.

Ecosystem Services 5, 27–39 (2013).

5. Rosenberger, R, & Phipps, T in Environmental Value Transfer: Issues and Methods (Navrud, S & Ready R, eds), Ch. 3 (Springer Netherlands, 2007).

6. Troy, A & Wilson, MA. Mapping ecosystem services: practical challenges and opportunities in linking GIS and value transfer. Ecological Economics 60, 435–49 (2006).

7. Brown, G & Fagerholm, N. Empirical PPGIS/PGIS mapping of ecosystem services: a review and evaluation. Ecosystem Services 13, 119–33 (2015).

8. Johnston, RJ, Rosenberger, RS, Rolf, J & Brouwer, R. Benefit Transfer of Environmental and Resource Values 1-582 (Springer, New York City, 2015).

9. Johnston, RJ & Rosenberger, RS. Methods, trends and controversies in contemporary benefit transfer.

Journal of Economic Surveys 24, 479–510 (210).

10. Ruckelshaus, M, McKenzie, E, Tallis, H, Guerry, A, Daily, G, Kareiva, P, Polasky, S et al. Notes from the field: lessons learned from using ecosystem

the project. Most of the information detailed in this section is contained and sourced in the case study: Susskind, L, Kuwabara, T, Williams, M, Mukahhal, A, Allen, N et al. Forest City: a case study of a real estate megaproject in Asia. MIT STL Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab [online], http://bit.ly/ ForestCityMalaysia. The site should be accessed using Google Chrome.

17. IRDA. Shoreline Management Plan Blueprint for Iskandar Malaysia 21 (Iskandar Regional Development Authority, Johor Bahru, Malaysia, 2011).

18. Renderings based on the Forest City masterplan by Sasaki Associates are available at: http://www.sasaki.com/project/383/forest-cityconceptual-master-plan/ 19. DOE. Guidelines on the Economic Valuation of the Environmental Impacts for EIA Projects (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Putrajaya, Malaysia, 2008).

20. 2014 figures. Converted at average exchange rate for 2014 (RM3.27 per US$) 21. Dr. Nik & Associates. The Proposed Forest City Island Reclamation and Mixed Development, Johor: Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (Dr. Nik & Associates, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2014) Appendices B.6 and C. 22. Fish, R. Environmental decision making and an ecosystems approach: some challenges from the perspective of social science. Progress in Physical Geography 35, 671–80 (2011).

23. Karjalainen, RP, Marttunen, M, Sarkki, S & Rytkönen, AM. Integrating ecosystem services into environmental impact assessment: an analyticdeliberative approach. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 40, 54–64 (2013).

24. Slootweg, R. Ecosystem services in SEA: are we missing the point of a simple concept? Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 34, 79–86 (2015). www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 45

Mouysset, L., Sabatier, R., Teillard, F., Doyen, L., Jiguet, F., Léger, F. and M. Tichit. (2019).

Solutions for a Win-Win Partnership between Agriculture and Biodiversity. Solutions 10(2): 46–53. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/solutions-for-a-win-win-partnership-between-agriculture-and-biodiversity

Feature

Solutions for a Win-Win Partnership between Agriculture and Biodiversity

by Lauriane Mouysset, Rodolphe Sabatier, Félix Teillard, Luc Doyen, Frédéric Jiguet, François Léger, and Muriel Tichit

François Léger

Whinchat Saxicola rubetra, one agricultural specialist bird species

B

iodiversity underpins a number of ecological processes crucial to agricultural production. Agro-landscapes are instrumental for the conservation of biodiversity, including wild and domestic species. A key challenge for European agriculture and conservation policies is to develop land-use strategies that reconcile agricultural production and farmland biodiversity.

In this perspective, a range of agri-environmental policies including the Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES) have been developed and implemented. However, over the past 25 years of implementation, their effectiveness for enhancing biodiversity is debatable. Reasons for this low 46 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

effectiveness include the insufficient uptake of the most constraining policies and the lack of tailoring to different contexts, stakeholders and issues. Farming involves a range of stakeholders: farmers, of course, but also food manufacturers and retailers, consumers, residents of rural areas, naturalists…. Each has an interest in particular outcomes, and some outcomes that are considered desirable by one stakeholder may be irrelevant or even undesirable to another. The consideration of the multifunctional nature of farming is required to develop a sustainable management of resources and biodiversity, bringing together economic, environmental, and social viewpoints. For this

In Brief Biodiversity sustains key functions of the agro-ecosystem in support of food production. In Europe, an estimated 50 percent of all bird species (~450 sp.) depend on farmland habitats for breeding and feeding. The mutual dependence between biodiversity and farming requires solutions for a win-win partnership. A team of ecologists, agronomists, economists, and mathematicians recently developed a new framework model that explores management strategies aimed at reconciling farming and biodiversity in Europe.

purpose, several scientific disciplines must be combined in broad, collaborative efforts. Moreover, insufficient knowledge about agro-ecological processes as well as biophysical and market uncertainties make the decision-making process increasingly complex. In this context, assessing and comparing different solutions through quantitative methods is useful.

A Scientific Definition of “Reconciliation” To grasp what is meant by reconciling agriculture and biodiversity, we propose a two-stage definition. First we formulate a normative statement that can be interpreted as an axiom.

We define reconciliation as the maintenance of a hard core of irreducible basic needs of a socio-ecological system (SES), defined as a system of people and nature. We focus here on agro-ecosystems, agro-ecological entities that are functionally and geographically consistent, including interactive living and nonliving, human and non-human components.

The basic needs of this SES refer to humanity’s essential needs as well as those of the ecosystem. These needs are not all defined in an absolute way; especially, humanity’s needs emerge from the moral and social goals of a civil society and government. These basic needs may refer to different characteristics of the SES, such as the ecological, economic, or social performance, and may involve different subgroups of the society (farmers, consumers, conservationists, etc.).

We argue that this normative definition of “reconciliation” is sufficient to deduce a set of four properties representing the practical characteristics of reconciliation: 1. The irreducibility of basic needs implies a limited substitutability between the different criteria representing these needs. By definition, a decision underlies trade-offs among different

criteria; final decision represents a specific combination of these criteria within the set of available combinations. It is possible to switch from one combination to another by substituting one criterion for another. For example, some people accept that they must

Key Concepts • European farmlands host a unique and rich biodiversity, which contributes to ecosystem processes that are essential to agricultural production.

This mutual dependence between agriculture and biodiversity has been neglected in the past and solutions for their reconciliation are urgently needed.

• We propose a new, normative definition of reconciliation: the maintenance of irreducible basic needs of a socio-ecological system.

This definition relying on basic needs involve a limited substitutability between criteria, a diversity of reconciliation solutions across systems, the importance of inter-temporal equities and of uncertainties.

• The viability theory is a mathematical tool for the multi-criteria analysis of dynamic systems, which makes it very relevant to tackle reconciliation issues.

• The FarmBird project relied on modeling and on the viability theory to identify a set of management solutions for the reconciliation of agricultural production and farmland bird biodiversity across France.

These solutions targeted different levels organizations, from the field to the landscape and the national territory.

increase their working hours to earn more money. However, this substitutability is not infinite because of the basic needs of sleeping or eating. In this example, basic needs define the limit of substitutability. By extension, for the reconciliation of agriculture and biodiversity, the limits of

substitutability come not only from social choices (avoiding shrinking economic growth, a less meat-oriented diet, saving specific species from becoming extinct, etc.) but from climatic, ecological and bio-physical needs. The key ecosystem services, such as soil structure and fertility, pollination, are good examples of these needs.

Along with production factors, these needs influence the capacity of the land for food production and other ecosystem services at sustainable levels.

2. The choice of SES as unit of work plaids in favor of a portfolio of solutions to reconcile agriculture and biodiversity at large scale.

Indeed the diversity of needs across societies and agro-ecological conditions leads to a variety of SESs in both composition and structure. For example, moral statements about genetically modified organisms differ in Europe and the USA; insects are eaten in 29 and 36 countries in Asia and Africa, respectively, but do not represent an edible protein source in Europe. Similarly, climatic and biophysical needs vary within different geographical regions. Due to the diversity of SESs, different agricultural management options coexist today, ranging from lowinput wildlife farming to industrial agriculture. This range of options deserves evaluation and should be combined in a portfolio of solutions to reconcile agriculture and biodiversity.

3. Basic needs are related to society as a whole. Society shall not be seen in a static way. In this sense, irreducible basic needs have to be defined for both present and future generations, which implies taking careful consideration of the temporal aspect. The balance between different criteria among actors from the same generation has to extend to the other www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 47

generations. The balance between intra- and inter-temporal equities should be assessed according to social preferences and taken into account.

4. The integration of non-human components, both living and non-living, implies uncertainties (such as climatic and market uncertainties). Their combined effects make the context of farming structurally uncertain.

In this context, the fulfillment of basic needs is more successful by handling the uncertainties rather than ignoring them. Dealing with the unpredictable events requires a paradigm shift from controlling the environment to working with environmental uncertainty.

This implies assessing properties such as resilience, robustness or adaptability of SES.

How Viability Theory Helps the Reconciliation of Agriculture and Biodiversity The viability theory was developed by the French mathematician Jean Pierre Aubin. Its main principle is to define objectives as red lines not to be crossed instead of criteria to be maximized. A two minutes video on viability theory is available at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?time_ continue=12&v=LOkRWFubB28.

Mathematically, viability denotes the simultaneous respect of a set of constraints. These constraints represent limits within which a dynamic system should be maintained throughout time. In our case, one limit can represent for example a minimum threshold of production performance, a second one can correspond to a social threshold, and a third can stand for an ecological threshold. These limits are defined according to the basic needs of the SES. The viability approach aims to identify the set of solutions (e.g., in terms of land-use management or public policies) to ensure that the whole set of basic needs is met. By 48 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

maintaining the SES within these limits, these solutions enable its sustainability. They are thus denoted ‘viable’ and form the viability kernel (see box).

We argue that the viability framework offers a new theoretical prism to explore the reconciliation of agriculture and biodiversity. There are four related arguments, highlighting the relevance of this theory for sustainable management: 1. By identifying solutions that satisfy a set of constraints, viability theory is consistent with the multiple criteria approach to reconciliation.

Accounting for each criterion separately instead of adding them to form a single criterion limits the substitutability among criteria and ensures the satisfaction of safe minimum standards for each criterion. Moreover, viability theory makes it possible to assess each criterion within its measurement unit, avoiding the technical and philosophical problems of aggregating criteria into a single unit (often a monetary unit).

2. By promoting a set of viable solutions instead of one unique optimal solution, viability theory is able to account for the spatial heterogeneity of the SES. A portfolio of viable options can be revealed to deal with local specifics, which takes advantage of environmental variability.

The viability theory thus offers management flexibility at national scale that is required to reconcile agriculture and biodiversity over the range of the local SES. 3. By accounting for a temporal context, viability theory ensures that constraints are respected over time. The combination of short- and long-term constraints according to social preferences helps formalize temporal trade-offs.

Beside constraints related to short

term sustainability, it is possible to formalize constraints at time horizon that will reflect the state in which the system shall be left to future generations. The viability theory identifies present solutions that avoid future crises without penalizing the present generation.

Taking into account dynamics makes the viability theory explicitly able to address transitory states, which could be crucial to manage non-equilibrium SES. 4. By taking into account uncertainties, these viable solutions can be interpreted in relation to the resilience of the SES. The viability theory is particularly suitable to assess the resilience of a system that has no equilibrium state or in which the state of equilibrium is not the desired state (e.g. extinct populations).

By explicitly accounting for management actions in an adaptive framework, the viability theory makes it possible to measure the adaptability, flexibility and robustness of a system to different types of perturbations. Assessing the adaptability of the system makes it possible to face a strong variability and leads to the design of resilient systems.

Options for Reconciliation A recent project called FarmBird, designed by three major French research institutes, aims to identify a generic set of sustainable management strategies for major agro-ecosystems across France. A process-based modeling approach uses viability theory to assess reconciliation in agroecosystems, where food production conflicts with bird conservation. One novelty of this modeling approach is to explore options at different levels of organization (field, farm, landscape, small region, and national territory). It combined five different components: policy decision makers, farmers, land uses, habitat quality,

and bird biodiversity. There is an explicit distinction between decisions made by individual farmers and those made at the policy level. Policies are implemented at national level by allocating subsidies relative to the given budget and social preferences.

Management decisions by farmers are local and affected by national policy.

Land-use patterns arising from such decisions have a direct impact on food production and both direct and indirect impacts on biodiversity. The outcomes of agro-ecosystems are thus split into a private component (food production performance) and a public component (ecological performance).

Ecological performance emerges through the links between land use, habitat quality, and species’ traits.

Finally, the economic, production, and ecological outcomes are assessed and subsequently influence the policy component.

François Léger

Figure 1.

Planning the spatial allocation of land use improve biodiversity without impairing production

The trade-off between agricultural production and biodiversity conservation is influenced by land use, including its diversity and spatial configuration.1 Several studies highlight landscape heterogeneity as a factor promoting the diversity of available habitats, thus allowing higher levels of biodiversity.2 At larger scale, land use and intensity allocation strategies have been emphasized as solutions for reconciling production and biodiversity.3 The FarmBird project took a step further by demonstrating that the spatial allocation of land use and intensity shifts the boundary of the trade-off between production and biodiversity. At the landscape scale, the simulation of a large number of land use configurations reveals that for a given level of agricultural production, bird population sizes can be improved by changing the spatial arrangement of mowed and grazed fields.4 On a larger spatial scale, over the entire

François Léger

Figure 2.

Introducing spatial heterogeneity in agricultural landscapes (i.e. moving from Fig. 1 to Fig. 2) leads to improvements in biodiversity without losing either the quantity or value of agricultural production

French territory, we also demonstrated that land-use intensity and its spatial allocation are two complementary options to shift the trade-off boundary.

Notably, some specific allocations lead to improvements in biodiversity without losing either the quantity or value of agricultural production.5 The benefits of land use heterogeneity emerge from the existence of interacting suboptimal habitats, where each type of land use provides some of the necessary resources, and

species mobility among land-use types enables bird populations to obtain all needed resources.

At both the landscape and national scale, solutions relying on the spatial allocation of land uses and intensities require spatially targeted changes.

For example at national scale, many small decreases in extensive areas can reinforce spatially the extent of “High Nature Value” areas and provide a high net benefit in terms of biodiversity.6 At the landscape scale, small land use www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 49

François Léger

Adjusting grazing intensity is an efficient solution to streamline the temporal variations in both grazing period and intensity.

changes in the right areas can improve heterogeneity and provide bird access to complementary resources within their mobility range. Such solutions are interesting to explore with policymakers in terms of the consequences of new policies, helping them to identify and assess regions of higher and lower grazing intensities. They can lead to higher awareness among policy makers and farmers regarding the scope of biodiversity-friendly land use strategies and the need for spatially coordinated and targeted decisions to attain them.

Farming and biodiversity can coexist if a fine tuning of land use management is implemented

A long history of research on the impact of grazing management on farmland biodiversity reveals the production/biodiversity trade-off.

These studies generally conclude that 50 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

both intensive and no-grazing areas are detrimental to the grassland bird life cycle, in contrast with light-tomoderate grazing.7 Many authors have suggested that decreasing livestock density is a key management tool to conserve grassland birds. However, these arguments lack quantitative assessments and implicitly suggest that improving the biodiversity performance of a productive grassland system simply involves the introduction of light-to-moderate grazing.

Using a viability model accounting for both direct and indirect effects of grazing on population dynamics of the Northern Lapwing and Common Redshank, we showed that for a given level of production, different management timeframes can lead to different ecological performance.8 The management practices that are the most suitable for these two bird species are

characterized by a fine adjustment of the timing of grazing (i.e., temporal heterogeneity of grazing). At the farm level, this model also shows that the proportion of land uses with different intensities determines the trade-off between production and bird population size.9 We suggest that adjusting grazing intensity is an efficient solution to streamline the temporal variations in both grazing period and intensity. We provide a quantitative tool for a twofold assessment of negative impacts of either the absence of grazing or the inappropriate temporal distribution of grazing intensity. This solution helps to explore how grazing can be used as a tool for managing habitat quality to benefit both bird populations and livestock. All viable grazing strategies include spring grazing, which is an interesting result given that the

exclusion of livestock during spring has been advocated as a desirable way to manage grasslands for the benefit of grassland birds in Europe,10 despite of the importance of spring grazing for production.

Adopting result-oriented agrienvironmental schemes (AES) allows more management flexibility

Result-oriented AES have been proposed to improve the efficiency of biodiversity and ecosystem service policies.11 Unlike action oriented AES, they rely on payment for effective biodiversity conservation that is independent of the management practices implemented by farmers.

Result-oriented schemes are expected to allow farmers to develop innovative management practices that would make both productive and ecological performance more efficient. However, the relative performance of actionoriented vs. result-oriented AES is unknown; whether result-oriented AES are likely to improve ecological or productive performance without decreasing performance in other dimensions is still being discussed.

Using the viability model, we revealed that result-oriented AES lead to much a better ecological performance than do action-oriented AES, whereas productive performance remains quite similar in both types of AES.12 The authors show that result-oriented AES enable a higher management flexibility. This difference in flexibility is even greater when the grassland agro-ecosystem is exposed to climatic uncertainty.12 Current action-based AESs result in poor effects on biodiversity13,14 and are often subjected to the opportunistic behaviors of farmers. Result-oriented AESs can lead to greater commitment of farmers to conservation issues if these issues are perceived as opportunities rather than constraints, enabling payment of farmers for the production of biodiversity and promoting situations in which farmers are not told

The Viability Theory The viability theory is a mathematical tool for the multi-criteria analysis of dynamic systems.

Its goal is to find a set of viable trajectories, i.e. respecting a set of constraints on several objectives over time. Constraints guarantee a satisfying level of performance on different objectives. For instance, the criteria 1 and 2 in Fig. 3 could correspond to food production and biodiversity conservation but additional criteria could be considered, such as social or economic objectives. The different objectives do not need to be expressed in a common unit or sorted according to some hierarchy. These properties make the viability theory very relevant to address sustainability issues. In Fig. 3, the trajectories in black respects all constraints over time (dotted lines) and is therefore considered as viable. Viability models inform decision by revealing the succession of management actions driving viable trajectories. The viability kernel regroups all initial states leading to viable trajectories. In Fig. 3, the viability kernel is the circle in black at the initial time.

Figure 3. Schematic representation of the viability theory. Viable trajectories must respect the set of constraints over time.

how to modify their management practices but are left free to experiment, choose, and adapt practices that favor biodiversity in their local context. This approach results in greater management flexibility and improves the ability of farmers to adapt to environmental variations.

Apparently contradictory objectives can be reconciled with relevant public policies

Most studies based on optimal control approaches revealed a Pareto optimality between the ecological and economic performance of agriculture.15 In other words, there was no unique win-win public policy in which economic and ecological performance would be simultaneously maximized. Other studies have shown that different biodiversity objectives

can be antagonistic, such as between the mean trophic level and the degree of specialization of farmland bird communities.16 We showed that viable policies combining different policy instruments are able to promote economic performance on farms while conserving farmland bird populations.17 Such viable policies make apparently antagonistic objectives compatible, since income-based indicators, budgetary indicators, the Farmland Bird Index, the mean trophic level, and the mean specialization degree of farmland bird communities are simultaneously satisfied. Viable policies tie reduced subsidies or even taxes on crops and increased subsidies on extensive grasslands. While most of the focus has been today on local and specific measures, our results highlight the www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 51

François Léger

Agricultural landscape in Normandie (France). Using simultaneously the agricultural policies dedicated to croplands and grasslands is a way of reconciling ecological and economic performance of agriculture.

importance of using simultaneously all the kinds of policy tools available in the CAP in the reversal of biodiversity declines.

From a policy perspective, our study suggests that the current CAP is one of the key drivers that negatively impacts agricultural sustainability, as it is not able to efficiently manage a satisfactory balance between externalities. On one hand, negative externalities, such as those emerging from intensive crops, should be penalized, or at least not be encouraged. On the other hand, positive externalities from grasslands should be both supported and subsidized. However, this solution raises questions in terms of 52 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

social acceptability. Subsidies do not generally raise substantial concerns in terms of acceptability among farmers, as they constitute a financial gain.

By suggesting the maintenance and reinforcement of direct subsidies for extensive grasslands, which have been implemented since 2005, our results are in line with current public policies.

In contrast, there are questions about the acceptability of decreasing crop subsidies, particularly among arable farmers. The analysis of all viable strategies offers fruitful information in terms of acceptability and governance.

Budgetary issues are not the most stringent constraints of all viable strategies, as some strategies have solvent

budgets.18 A monetary redistribution could thus be considered for farmers incurring private costs and losses due to crop subsidy reductions. Such a financial reallocation could be an interesting option to promote the acceptability and governance of such strategies.

Conclusion Reconciling agricultural production with biodiversity conservation will lead to mutual benefits and to improve the sustainability of farming. We provide an innovative definition of reconciliation which focuses on the maintenance of essential needs of humanity and ecosystems. This

definition tackles key issues related to sustainability: its multi-criteria nature and the limited substitutability between criteria, the diversity of goals and solutions across systems, and the importance of the time dimensions for harnessing uncertainty and equity.

Within the frameworks of this definition, the FarmBird project adopted a modeling approach to identify several solutions for reconciliation. The theory of viability—which seeks solutions satisfying a set of multi-criteria constraints over time – provided a uniquely adapted mathematical framework to explore reconciliation.

Solutions for the reconciliation of farming and biodiversity are identified at different scales: field, farm, landscape, region and country. These solution include optimal land use allocations, temporal management and flexibility of grazing, result oriented measure and redistribution of the subsidies. The extensive agrienvironmental policy mechanisms in the European Union provide a strong potential for the implementation of these solutions; however, limitations of the current policy tools also challenge this implementation. Several tools already exist but should be disseminated (e.g. result oriented measures) or developed for other scales, which could be challenging. For instance, applying spatially targeted measure to reach optimal land use allocations at the landscape or country scale would require coordination between different stakeholders. Other tools would involve radical changes of the current CAP (e.g. redistribution of the subsidies) and could raise challenges for social acceptability.

Acknowledgements This work was carried out with the financial support of both the ANR—Agence Nationale de la Recherche—under the “Systerra program—Ecosystems and Sustainable Development”, project “ANR-08STRA-007, FARMBIRD”.

References 1. Foley, J.A. DeFries R., et al (2005). Global consequences of land uses. Sciences, 309, 570–574 2. Groot, J.C.J., Jellema, A., Rossing, W.A.H., 2010.

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10. Hart, J.D., Milsom, T.P., Baxter, A., Kelly, P.F., Parkin, W.K., (2002). The impact of livestock on Lapwing Vanellus vanellus breeding densities and performance on coastal grazing marsh. Bird Study 49, 67–78.

11. Schwarz G, Moxey A,McCracken DI, Huband

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4. Sabatier R, Doyen L, Tichit M (2014), Heterogeneity and trade-offe between ecological and productive functions of agro-landscapes: a model of cattle-bird

delivery of environmental public goods and services supplied by Agri-Environment Schemes. 108 p.

12. Sabatier R, Doyen L, Tichit M (2012) Action versus result-oriented schemes in a grassland agroecosystem: a dynamic modelling approach,, PLoS ONE 7(4): e33257 13. Kleijn, D., Baquero, R. A., Clough, Y., Dı´az, M.,

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Verhulst, J., West, T. M. and Yela, J. L. (2006). Mixed

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Implications for conservation policies. Agriculture, Ecosystem and Environment, 149,135–143.

6. Doxa A, Paracchini ML, Pointereau P, Devictor V, Jiguet F (2012) Preventing biotic homogenization of farmland bird communities: the role of High Nature Value farmland. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 148: 83–88.

7. Durant, D., Tichit, M., Kerneis, E., Fritz, H., (2008).

Management of agricultural wet grasslands for breeding waders: integrating ecological and livestock system perspectives—a review. Biodivers. Conserv. 17, 2275– 2295.

8. Sabatier R, Doyen L, Tichit M (2010), Modeling trade-

European countries. Ecology Letters, 9, 243–256.

14. Princé K, Jiguet F (2013) Ecological effectiveness of French grassland agri-environment schemes for farmland bird communities. Journal of Environmental Management 121: 110–116.

15. Polasky, S., Nelson, E., Lonsdorf, E., Fackler, P. and Starfield, A. (2005). Conserving species in a working landscape: land use with biological and economic objectives. Ecological Applications 15(6): 2209.

16. Mouysset L, Doyen L, Jiguet F, (2012). Different policy scenarios to promote various targets of biodiversity.

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51–76

Muriel Tichit 1968–2019 Muriel Tichit died on March 29, 2019.

Exceptional scientist, she had been the soul and the heart of the project from which this article was derived.

She left us as she lived, calm and straightforward, caring for everyone and attentive to everything.

We will not forget her.

May her example and ideas survive her, for a better Earth.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 53

Wilson, G., Johansson, G., Woods, D., McIsaac, R., Penno, S., Palmer, J., Heaphy, C., Jerrett, A., Black, S., Janssen, G., Moran, D., Stuart, G., Tocker, R., Connor, R., Reid, N., Barratt, E., Short, K. and B. Falconer. (2019). Transforming Bulk Seafood Harvesting by Producing the Most Authentic Wild Fish. Solutions 10(2): 54–62. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/transforming-bulk-seafood-harvesting-by-producing-the-most-authentic-wild-fish

Feature

Transforming Bulk Seafood Harvesting

by Producing the Most Authentic Wild Fish

by Garry Wilson, Greg Johansson, Dave Woods, Ross McIsaac, Steve Penno, James Palmer, Charles Heaphy, Alistair Jerrett, Suzy Black, Gerard Janssen, Damian Moran, Graham Stuart, Ross Tocker, Robin Connor, Nathan Reid, Eric Barratt, Katherine Short, and Bill Falconer

The Primary Growth Partnership ended in March 2019 having achieved much. Key concepts and 6 project workstream results are summarised and further papers will cover technical and policy/regulatory developments.

The gear will be commercially available worldwide in 2022 and be underpinned by this independently peer reviewed information.

P

recision Seafood Harvesting was catalysed by two scientists in 2005 noticing in video footage of inside a fishing net, that there was a low velocity waterflow zone just in front of the cod-end where Hoki, an important commercial fish species, were swimming easily. These fish physiologists from the Plant and Food Research (PFR) Seafood Group had spent a decade researching how to minimise fish stress by understanding which harvesting conditions did not match target fish species physiological limitations. They then handline 54 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

caught Hoki to better understand its more natural attributes i.e. when brought up from approximately 200m, Hoki is iridescently coloured with translucent flesh, along with other attributes of minimally fatigued fish—in stark contrast to conventionally trawled Hoki with poorer condition through for example scale loss. They realised the enormous innovation potential to revolutionise New Zealand’s biggest fishery, and potentially transform bulk harvest fishing globally.

New Zealand has small fisheries by volume yet is a significant political player in fisheries management and seafood business globally. It had the earliest, most comprehensive fisheries management reform in introducing the Quota Management System (QMS) in 1986 and creating the Māori Fisheries Settlement called The Sealord Deal in 1992. More than 130 different fish species are caught commercially with a focus on about twelve. Eight are wild-caught finfish and arrow squid. All of these have the potential to be improved through

Precision Seafood Harvesting (PSH).

Seafood companies Sealord Group, Moana New Zealand and Sanford co-invested with the New Zealand Government (Ministry for Primary Industries, MPI). PFR provided the technical services to develop the designs and specifications to create the Modular Harvest System (MHS) in this 7-year, $43 million project focussed on Hoki, Snapper and Arrow Squid. These represent key species sought commercially and all had significant value improvement potential. Together, these fishing companies hold 30 to 60 percent of the nine top species quotas, fished in New Zealand waters. Moana New Zealand is owned by the Māori people of New Zealand and owns 50 percent of Sealord Group, along with Nissui. New Zealand’s largest seafood company, Sanford Ltd is publicly listed. These partners are committed to finding ways to sustain the natural resource that their enterprises, and much of New Zealand’s marine economy, rely on. Designing new harvesting and handling technologies and new branding and product

development can create new, high value seafood products to be marketed to increasingly discerning customers.

The primary challenge was to embrace innovation, create momentum and shift the seafood industry from a quantity to a quality mindset in the trawler fleet.1 The PSH programme occurred alongside industry commitment to fishing fleet modernisation.

The sustainable management of New Zealand’s fisheries is overseen

by Fisheries New Zealand, now part of MPI. Under the QMS, allowable catches are unlikely to increase significantly in the future using current fishing methods, so increasing value will come from improved quality. In parallel, harvesting practices must ensure that the fisheries resource is maintained, or better grows, into the future, and that ecological and environmental impacts continually reduce. The PGP intent was that harvesting precision would come from using modular trawl systems with components customised for vessel and target species, to deliver high quality fish on board through giving the operator control over the species and sizes of fish that are landed.

Catalysing Innovation People drive change and are motivated by negatives (e.g. fear, shame, financial loss) or positives (e.g. love, respect, fame, passion, glory and/or financial gain). Significant paradigm shifts often arise from aspects of both occurring in tandem.

Internal

New Zealand’s deepwater industry prides itself on the QMS’s control of commercial catch and was recognised as the first Marine Stewardship Council certified trawl fishery globally.

This brought many benefits including fostering a continuous improvement culture. Industry has continued to address issues such as Hoki pinking and blood spots, fleet modernisation, decommodification, improving

Key Concepts • Well-managed fisheries increase value through improving productivity, quality and efficiency rather than increasing volume. From being a frozen, commodity fishery, the New Zealand Hoki fishery has learnt how to preserve fresh inherent, natural qualities.

• Trawling is economically efficient bulk fish harvesting and has relied upon collecting exhausted fish in the cod-end. Fish are physically damaged and highly exercised i.e. every uncontrolled interaction is a potential deficit.

• New Zealand fish physiology scientists collaborated with leading seafood companies and the government in the Precision Seafood Harvesting (PSH) Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) to develop technologies to harvest key commercial fish species in minimally damaged, minimally fatigued condition to enable the quality potential to be realised for rested harvested fish.

• They envisaged and developed a modular harvest system (MHS) to match the internal waterflow velocity with key species’ swimming speed.

MHS fish could surface alive, neither injured nor stressed and smaller fish and unwanted species, including megafauna, could escape or be released and survive. Being rested, the muscle/raw protein material quality is significantly improved which dramatically increases higher value product options.

• This MHS is in commercial operation in New Zealand deepwater fisheries and under trial in inshore fisheries.

• It could significantly transform bulk harvest fisheries worldwide.

efficiency and value, reducing environmental impacts and rationalising research. Sanford operates in both inshore and deepwater fisheries whilst Moana New Zealand focusses on the inshore where key issues include aging vessels and skippers, challenges finding and keeping crew, spatial

pressure from recreational fishing and for marine protection, and declining marine ecosystem health due to, for example, sedimentation and climate change. Sealord Ltd is a major deepwater company 50 percent owned by Moana New Zealand. Both Sanford and Moana New Zealand have explicit corporate sustainability journeys alongside the PSH PGP programme.

External

Bulk harvest seafood production marine ecosystem effects have been a noted concern since the famous 1866 bottom trawling British Royal Commission. The New Zealand Seafood industry recognises that bottom trawled seafood is contentious.

There are divergent views on the 74 percent by volume of New Zealand deepwater species that are Marine Stewardship Council certified as well as more broadly on New Zealand fisheries management, operational practices and spatial management i.e. the Benthic Protected Areas (BPAs). These are where the fishing industry proposed, and Government implemented, closing large areas of New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to protect the seabed from trawling in 2007. Although the BPAs voluntarily protect the benthic biodiversity of approximately 30 percent of the EEZ from trawling, including many of the known seamounts, and active hydrothermal vents, how they count against the Aichi Convention on Biodiversity Marine Protected Area (MPA) targets is debated. Many conservation advocates note that the BPAs do not constitute a comprehensive, adequate or representative network of MPAs, and do not protect either the water column above, or the substrate, and so are at risk, for example from mining.2 Genuine Intent

The proportional nature of the QMS encouraged industry players in their understanding of: www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 55

• the importance of culture change from frontier/hunter gatherer to resource stewardship, • the importance of improving environmental performance themselves to protect their economic sustainability and to improve public perception, and; • the latent growth opportunity in the negative impacts of the then trawling methods.

Another factor in driving forward the PSH PGP programme is that two of the three commercial partners also have Māori ownership with inherent deep commitment to kaitiakitanga (stewardship).

The Primary Growth Partnership

New Zealand is a relatively young country with a low population and significant natural capital. It has long been a food basket for the world. As the nation has realised the limits of the impacts on natural capital, significant resource management innovation occurred in creating the Resource Management (1991) and Fisheries Acts (1983 and 1996). In 2008 the Labour Government established the Fast Forward Fund3 to encourage primary industries into higher value primary industries. The National Government reformed this into the PGP in 2009 to increase primary sector investment in innovation, economic growth and sustainability by encouraging vertical integration and horizontal collaboration and to meet increasingly discerning customer requirements.

Then Minister of Agriculture and Minister for Biosecurity, the Hon. David Carter noted: “A real feature is how it has been closely developed with industry. It is unashamedly industry-led and simple in its structure.”4 MPI is the New Zealand Government’s PGP programme partner and manages, co-invests in, 56 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

regulates and monitors the participating sectors. MPI considered the PGP programme to be important to achieve the then Government’s Business Growth agenda (June 2012) goal to double primary industry export value by 2025 and encourage more private investment in research and development. Its innovation origins and new collaboration/quasi-independent structures resulted in MPI being extremely cautious and requiring exacting performance measures of the PSH PGP programme. A 2015 Office of the Auditor General (OAG) report noted that the “PGP was set up quickly but was not always smooth.”5 It noted that, at the time of the review, the PGP partnerships were working well and management had improved over the five years it had been operating. Three recommendations for improvements were provided were subsequently adopted.6 Collaboration

In fisheries, generating true commitment to collective goals among common pool resource users is difficult under normal circumstances.

The QMS brings secure resource access and quota owners are incentivised to collaborate with government in management processes. This led the co-investors to co-operatively commission this research and overcome a major fisheries research barrier, the access to commercial fishing vessels.

This seafood research and development alliance is an unprecedented example of New Zealand seafood sector pre-competitive collaboration.

The critical steps to deliver this transformation in thinking and practice to the seafood industry were: • Advance the design and development of novel wild fish harvesting, handling and processing technologies, to the stage of commercially viable equipment for inshore and deepwater vessels and deliver

The Company Goals Moana New Zealand ••Improve inshore trawled fish quality so as to enter new markets and achieve price premiums.

••Enable more sustainable ways to harvest fish through the Precision Seafood Harvest modular system.

••Better understanding and control of the trawl footprint of our fishers.

Sanford ••Enhance the Sanford brand with sustainable, innovative fishing techniques.

••Improve returns from existing assets, aquaculture and fishing operations.

••Realise seafood market opportunities through improved product quality and consistency.

Sealord ••Transform its core New Zealand fishing business.

••Develop new fish species, both wild catch and farmed.

••Grow Australasian marketing.

training programmes to industry to ensure their implementation.

• Work with MPI to demonstrate that the new harvesting technologies meet or exceed their sustainability standards for current harvesting methodologies, to enable regulatory change so that the new harvesting methodologies can be used commercially.

• Develop methods, protocols and technologies for holding and onrearing live fish caught using the new methods, to allow fresh fish to be provided when required by the market.7 • Develop a NZ Inc. branding strategy for seafood products caught and handled using these new rested harvesting technologies and develop exemplar products to demonstrate the high-quality attributes valued by seafood markets.

Key Concept—Transforming Bulk Seafood Harvesting This initiative sought to completely rethink bulk harvest from traditional trawl incentives i.e.: • Regulation to limit fishing efficiency e.g. net mesh size aiming for smaller fish escapement— although fish are often damaged escaping and may clog the mesh.

• Discarding unwanted fish species and sizes to reduce handling and storage costs and make room on board for more valuable catch.

• Enforcing anti-discarding rules is difficult.

• Little or no restrictions on where trawling could occur.

Fish-friendly, Controlled, Low Velocity Harvesting Produces Happy Fish

This research programme built on previous research investigating quality attributes, fish tissue physiology and controlled environment trawl cod end development (See Figure 1).8 Inherent fish muscle biochemical properties mean that rested fish has a longer shelf life, translucent appearance and firm texture, as opposed to the opaque appearance, fragile and flaccid texture and poor processing and storage properties of exhausted fish.9 A prototype inshore trawl cod end was developed which created conditions matching target species’ stamina, senses and behaviour. This comprised a low cost, self-inflating, modular fish ‘refuge’ attached in the place of the netting cod end bag. This is landed, retaining the harvested fish completely differently, from how a standard cod end is landed onto a fishing vessel deck.

As one industry participant involved commented: “It was a mind bender when the scientists told us they were proposing that we tow a bag of water through the water.”

Precision Seafood Harvesting

Figure 1. The Modular Harvest System configuration

Precision Seafood Harvesting

Figure 2. The translucent quality of PSH caught hoki.

The critical mechanism is to control the water velocity within the modular harvesting system to within the stamina of the catch, allowing fish to regain control, individualise and look after themselves during the fishing event. The graded water flow inside the MHS is achieved with

strategically positioned and sized escapement ports along the length of the MHS to allow water (and undersize catch) to escape. The PSH PGP programme set out to explore how to exploit the target species’ own physiological control systems to maintain their condition during the capture www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 57

• The technology has enabled fishing strategy changes including longer tows without compromising fish quality.

3. Regulatory

Precision Seafood Harvesting

Figure 3. The Modular Harvest System configuration

process through reducing physical and tissue degradation. Prototypes of the proposed new technology have already shown their ability to allow unharmed juveniles and small adult fish to escape at capture depth.

Such fish have a very high chance of survival compared with fish that may escape from a conventional trawl near the surface and which are often both exhausted and injured. An objective of the new designs was to target an optimal size range of species for both sustainability and value. Allowing small fish to escape unharmed is key to maintain stock productivity and a significant opportunity to improve commercial fishing stock sustainability overall. Furthermore, the new harvesting structures developed for bottom trawling have the potential to be active hydrodynamic bodies that “fly,” rather than be dragged across the sea floor, although this research component remains to be developed.

Innovation Snapshots 1. Research

• PFR scientists had extensive experience in improving fish flesh quality, harvest and rearing, 58 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

and were linked into world leading fishing gear technological improvements.

• The PGP drove collaboration, coinvestment and innovation.

• The technology research and development investment risk was made acceptable through the 50/50 industry/government funding model and fishing vessel access.

• Scientists iterated with the skippers, company vessel managers, and government observers.

2. Technological

• Multiple interchangeable components (modules) designed for different cod ends and use in inshore fisheries and some middepth and deepwater fisheries.

• PFR scientists designed the MHS, new onboard handling systems, fish quality assessments and underwater in-trawl camera equipment required for the research.

• Significant new vessel innovation and existing fleet reconfiguration to enable MHS uptake and optimise quality improvements.

• Industry could land the fish, caught under experimental conditions (MPI Special Permits) during the research phase, and record it against commercial catch (quota).

• The regulatory changes under the MPI Future of Our Fisheries review included the new Enabling Innovative Trawl Technologies (EITT) regulations, which create an innovation pathway to shift from concept to approved commercial harvesting systems.

• Deepwater permits were approved.

• Industry’s need to have the use of the MHS incentivised over mesh e.g. recognising the difference in discard survival for quota declarations or enabling release at depth technology when using the MHS (mitigate against protected species captures etc.).

4. Commercial

• Industry could recoup lost commercial vessel operational time/cost through being able to sell MHS fish.

• Creating many more product development options through improved raw material quality.

• The industry partners have 3-year exclusive gear use rights from programme completion, 31st March 2019.

• PSH and PFR have patented the gear and will sell the Intellectual Property (IP) worldwide.

• The trademarked Tiaki brand and logo (Fig 4.) were created to market PSH seafood products.

5. Improving Sustainability

The environmental performance objectives the PSH PGP set out to achieve were:

• To selectively harvest species sought by the market at any given time: °° reduce the incidental catch of undesired fish species, and, °° reduce any potential mortalities from discarding undesirable fish at sea.

• To harvest only desired target species size: °° to reduce juvenile mortality rates and conserve the stock overall, potentially leading to increased fish populations as the juveniles grow and reproduce, and, °° to match product characteristics to market demand.

• To harvest seafood species only and no other marine biota of any type.

• To minimise impact on the benthic environment, as an important part of the marine environment in which seafood harvesting takes place.

It was envisaged that the proposed seafood harvesting transformation would improve sustainability by reducing impacts in at least the first three objectives. Reducing by-catch and improving selectivity will ensure that fish stocks are maintained and can grow into the future. Reducing benthic damage was an aspirational goal potentially to be addressed during later stages of gear design. In the feasibility studies for the PSH project there were no financial estimates made of the improvements in resource sustainability. It now appears that the environmental impact of small fish escapement and return to the sea live during or post harvesting are likely to be as significant as the commercial benefits calculated from improved value of fish quality.

Workstream Results 1. Programme Management

The partnership functioned for 7 years across multiple challenges in research and development, the regulatory environment and commercial roll-out.

Precision Seafood Harvesting

Top: Snapper swimming inside the MSH. Middle: Landing the MHS gear. Bottom: Crew holding a wriggling PSH caught hoki. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 59

Precision Seafood Harvesting

Figure 4. The PSH Tiaki Brand and Logo

2. Communications, Marketing, Brand Development and Intellectual Property

Consistent messaging of programme achievements is essential and was managed with a professional communications strategy.

A trademark protected brand “Tiaki” was developed. Tiaki means to save/guard/protect/care for, in Te Reo Māori.

Intellectual Property: the MHS IP is largely patented in countries of interest and owned by PFR with the co-investor companies benefitting from percentage royalties and through having the right of perpetual use.

Technology Uptake and Performance: PSH has worked with Trident Systems1 to develop an acceptable format of quarterly reporting based on catch effort data for the new designs, in both the inshore and deepwater fisheries.

These describe rapid technology [uptake] and the reporting and analysis will continue.

3. Revolutionary Trawl Technology

MHS comes in two inshore and one deepwater sizes. The deepwater design was approved 60 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Plant and Food Research

Figure 5. Research progression towards rested harvesting

for commercial use for the Hoki, hake and ling fisheries in May 2018. MPI is considering the inshore design application.

The MHS designs all maintain the caught fish in a low water velocity environment which the co-investors believe significantly and positively effects: • landed fish quality; • potential discard survival; and, • reducing damage during escapement.

The designs have some significant and unique requirements for the construction material strength, and their manufacture has been tailored

for the PSH programme and is being fine-tuned for commercial usage.

The individual modules have unique identifiers fitted to track working life, catch performance, and to secure against IP theft. These PSH designed security systems were co-selected with MPI to meet new compliance system requirements also tailored to PSH. MPI is approving the designs based on their performance against four criteria and where they have proven a “no worse” performance against the existing mesh trawl designs: • Selectivity (size), • Species composition, • Benthic impacts, and; • Protected species.

6. Validation

Precision Seafood Harvesting

A PSH caught gurnard.

There are now anecdotal reports that the MHS designs may also be slightly more fuel efficient than the mesh designs which is a further research area. Furthermore, in the inshore fishery MHS use has enabled fishing further from port and in deeper waters, improving catch composition (species) and reducing overall quantities of undersized snapper being landed (quarter on quarter). The deepwater vessels are now experimenting with the escapement hole sizes in the approved MHS design, to further decrease the capture of smaller sized Hoki. Furthermore, observer evidence is that the MHS has a lower incidence of seabird interactions than mesh trawls.

4. Onboard Handling

Deepwater: To date the industry standard Hoki tow time has been 4 hours. The lively condition of MHS Hoki has encouraged tow time experimentation and demonstrated that the fish can be hauled in significantly better condition and when the factory needs new raw material, resulting in: • increased vessel efficiency, • better value-add results; and,

• increased deck crew availability to the factory.

The programme has developed optimal Hoki handling protocols and invested in modifying a fish pound on-board the Sealord vessel “Ocean Dawn” to prove full scale application of the protocols for chilled and stabilised fish pound storage.

Inshore: The inshore designs aimed to improve (i) fish quality and (ii) discard survival, with several vessel fish handling system designs improving quality. A relationship between tow catch quantity and fish quality exists and is being explored through developing a prototype “Datalink” system to improve skipper tow performance control. PSH has demonstrated MHS discard survival potential which is exciting the fishermen using the gear. This remains to be independently verified.

5. Wild capture, on-rearing

This was not progressed, and its objectives were either dropped or merged with other projects.

Proving the new technology performance through developing new performance metrics for sustainability (selectivity and survivability), fish quality, and measurement and reporting methods is a critical ongoing challenge.

For example, determining the acceptable evidence levels that are required to prove the “no worse” case against the four criteria and secure regulatory approval. It is difficult to state definitively which methods or metrics are universally accepted by the PSH stakeholders, and decisions are based on a balance of all operational results, which vary by company, and are not always an obviously “better” or “worse” position. This is particularly true when considering differences in species composition between two different harvest systems.

Conclusions This research has demonstrated how innovation, collaboration, perseverance and culture change can break the mould of an entrenched commercial fishing harvest method. MHS reduces defects and increases product quality, landed values, product cascade outcomes and yields, in key inshore and deepwater species. There remains the potential to further develop novel, value-added seafood products/categories for new, higher value markets. It has also improved fuel and operational efficiency, enabled changes in fisher behaviour, and boosted morale. All three companies are committed to fleet modernisation, which MHS success will support, and which has implications for quota holdings and family fishing businesses. Once an individual and/or entity (company or institution) are on a sustainability journey and achieves some successes, the improved sense of capability and multi-faceted rewards create potential to reinforce their sustainability www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 61

3. Beehive [online] https://www.beehive.govt.nz/ speech/new-zealand-fast-forward-launch and https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/new-zealandfast-forward-launch-0 accessed 12.12.18 4. Beehive [online] https://www.beehive.govt.nz/ speech/nz-pork-industry-board-conference 5. Controller and Auditor General [online] https:// www.oag.govt.nz/2015/primary-growth/docs/ primary-growth-partnership.pdf accessed 12/12/18 6. Controller and Auditor General [online] https:// www.oag.govt.nz/2015/primary-growth/docs/ primary-growth-partnership.pdf accessed 12/12/18 7. This part of the programme was shut-down by the Governance Group early in the programme.

Market risk around animal welfare issues that are starting to be applied to the handling of live fish.

8. FRST-funded (Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, now MBIE) Creating Higher Value Seafoods (C02X0302); MSI-funded (Ministry for Science and Innovation, now MBIE) Higher Value

Michael Bradley

PSH Sushi

Seafood (C02X0811) and FRST-funded (now MBIE) Wildfish 2020 (C02X0706).

9. Black, S.E., Digre, H. and Holland, A.J. Post-mortem comparison of a rested harvest and a commercial

journey and become even more ambitious. This is the case with the PSH commercial partners. In such a significant multi-year, multi-stakeholder, and multi-strand research project, iteration and adaptation are inevitable and can challenge evolving management agencies.

A significant unintended benefit is the strategic fishery sustainability potential the PSH MHS gear brings given its greatly improved larger fish selectivity (at least Hoki and snapper), i.e. increased juveniles escaping alive, undamaged, and theoretically able to grow on and reproduce. This remains to be formally quantified and yet has significant ramifications for overall population health as well as for the science modelling and thus for management. At least industry participants believe that this gives greater certainty that the major fish species’ populations that they rely upon can be fished with increased precision and thus caution. They accept that this caution is essential given the major risks to commercial fisheries from, for example, climate change and other accumulating marine environmental threats such as sedimentation. This greater overall confidence enables investment, 62 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

deeper analysis, and reflection on how to tackle the harder public policy and science issues to ensure sustainable seafood production, such as securing the biogenic habitats that underpin seafood production across the EEZ. Key remaining challenges are to: (i) ensure further innovative research capitalises on the knowledge and momentum to date; (ii) agree upon appropriate metrics across industry and government to measure performance; iii) fine tune the implementation of new regulation; (iv) transition to a modern New Zealand fishing fleet using the MHS; (v) research the performance of the MHS in “flying over benthic habitats”; and (vi) support the transformation of bulk harvest globally to underpin truly sustainable fisheries and marine ecosystem health recovery.

harvest of Chinook Salmon (Onchorhynchus tshawytscha). NZKS Bulwer site, 11 (2007).

10. A specialist fishing data analysis company.

Additional Sources Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd (now called Moana New Zealand), Sanford Limited and Sealord Limited.

Precision Seafood Harvesting. High quality seafood from novel harvesting technologies. (PGP Business Case, New Zealand (2010) Bentley, N. An analysis of catches and fish survival associated with the Modular Harvest System (MHS) and conventional commercial trawl gear. Trophia Ltd (2015).

Black, S, Janssen, G, Moran, D. Quality Benefits of new trawl, on-board handling and storage systems for Hoki.

(Plant and Food Research, New Zealand2015).

Jennings, S, Lee, J, Hiddink, J. Assessing fishery footprints and the trade-offs between landings value, habitat sensitivity, and fishing impacts to inform marine spatial planning and an ecosystem approach, ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69, 1053– 1063 , (2012), (doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fss050) Love, T. The Kermadecs Conundrum marine protected areas and democratic process. Policy Quarterly 13–17.

(2017)

References 1. In this project and paper, bottom trawling refers to the traditional use of mesh gear whilst the MHS is

Ministry for Primary Industries. Enabling Innovative Trawl Technologies. Regulatory Impact Statement.

(2017).

designed to be used on trawl vessels to float and not

Precision Seafood Harvesting. White Paper. Special

drag on the bottom.

Group. (2013)

2. Dominion Post [online] https://www. pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-dominionpost/20180922/281590946481380, https://www.

Sanderson, K, Dixon, H. Wider Economic Benefits of Precision Seafood Harvesting. Berl Economics. (2010).

victoria.ac.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/1175090/

Tocker, R. Validation of the Value Proposition Project.

Love.pdf Accessed 28.1.19.

(2015)

Sandhu, H., Müller, A. and P. Sukhdev. (2019). Transformation of Agriculture and Food Systems: Application of TEEBAgriFood Framework. Solutions 10(2): 63–69. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/transformation-of-agriculture-and-food-systems-application-of-teebagrifood-framework

Feature

Transformation of Agriculture and Food Systems: Application of TEEBAgriFood Framework

by Harpinder Sandhu, Alexander Müller, and Pavan Sukhdev

H. Sandhu

Canola field in South Australia

In Brief The focus of global agriculture since the Green Revolution of 1960s is only on increasing productivity by practicing intensive agriculture. This intensive agriculture is often supported by large quantities of subsidies for inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and improved seed etc. Worldwide research shows, however, that these intensive practices have resulted in negative consequences for biodiversity, the environment and human health. And at the same time more than 800 million people are still hungry. Therefore, such a focus on productivity supported by subsidised agriculture that leads to perverse and pervasive outcomes is obsolete for future agriculture and food systems. Globally, agricultural and food systems need to transform and modify their approach and bring the desired change with new ways to integrate natural capital into social and economic systems. They also need to recognise and reward human capital.

We recommend adoption of the TEEBAgriFood framework to measure and quantify all inter-dependencies between agriculture and the environment and to highlight the role of human and social capital. This transformed approach has the potential to secure food and ecological security to all, and to improve planetary health and well-being in society.

www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 63

A

griculture is the foremost agenda for many governments around the world due to growing demand for diverse types of food from increasing and wealthier populations. Although global agriculture provides sufficient calories overall for today’s human population, more than 800 million nevertheless remain undernourished.1 According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, there is a need to double food production by 2050 to meet the demands of over 9 billion people.2 The Green Revolution of the 1960s, through the use of intensive agriculture techniques, crop and livestock improvements and agrochemical use has resulted in many-fold increases in agricultural production. At the same time, increasing production through intensive agriculture has resulted in irreparable damages to biodiversity and the natural environment over the last five decades.3 Another alarming and related consequence is that the global burden of diseases such as obesity, cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes, etc., is increasing globally.4,5 Therefore, there is a need to take stock of the current situation and measure all the costs and benefits of agriculture and food systems so that they can be transformed to meet the growing food demand as well as protect planetary and human health through appropriate policy responses.6

What’s Wrong?

Intensification supported by subsidies in agricultural inputs has been the dominant and indeed the only narrative to meet the growing need for food that has prevailed since the 1960s.7 ‘Subsidy’ is a form of financial support for increasing output, while keeping prices low for consumers. In agriculture, these subsidies are provided by the public sector to the inputs industry so that farmers continue to produce food in large quantities and the market can keep food prices low. For example, 64 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Key Concepts • There is growing global insight that today’s food systems are not prepared to provide enough healthy food for a world with more than 9 billion people.

• Today more than 800 million people are hungry and billions are malnourished, producing food has a huge impact on environment and climate, one third of all food is not eaten but wasted and hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers are poor and too many are hungry.

• There is also global recognition of damages to the environment and human health caused by the current agriculture and food systems.

• Today’s economic and policy systems are unable to internalise these damages in their accounting systems due to lack of a universal and comprehensive framework.

• We recommend a comprehensive, universal, and inclusive framework (the ‘TEEBAgriFood’ framework) in order to evaluate all significant costs and benefits of agriculture and food systems, be they economically visible or invisible. The framework includes natural, human and social capital in addition to produced capital, and can be applied to a wide range of analyses—from policy scenarios, to different diets, to the accounts of society. It provides a foundation to assess health of people and planet.

• Three examples illustrate the application of the framework and provide an insight into how future assessments can help address challenging policy questions at production, processing and consumption stages of the food value chain.

• A TEEBAgriFood assessment permits policymakers to understand where, along the food value chain, multiple costs as well as benefits are occurring. Thus, policy makers can better understand where measures to address costs might be applied, in a more holistic manner, to provide incentives for effective transitions to systems with benefits in multiple dimensions.

rice is a staple food for half of the world’s population. Rice production is increased by adding large amounts of fertilsers and pesticides in addition to improved seeds, inputs which are subsidised by many governments.

In the absence of these subsidies, prices of agro-inputs will escalate, and many resource-poor farmers will not be able to purchase the inputs required for production, hence negatively impacting agricultural output, livelihoods of farmers and also resulting in higher food prices to consumers. While agricultural subsidies are farmer and consumer friendly, worldwide research indicates that many farmers ended up adding more fertilsers and pesticide than the required amount due to their low and subsidised costs, which often results in pest resistance and leaching of fertilsers from excessive use (e.g., nutrients in surface run-off, nitrates in groundwater, nitrous oxide from rice paddies, which is 300 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon-di-oxide, etc.).

As regards the private sector, large food corporations support industrial scale, mass production of food commodities such as soybean that is largely used in cattle production, which is then available for human consumption. In this case, research has demonstrated linkages with clearing of rainforest in South America especially in Brazil and Argentina for the production of soybean which is exported to China and the European Union for beef production8. This beef is then exported globally so that consumers can have access to year around availability of low-priced beef.

It is therefore not surprising that the environmental footprint of such food production, processing, transportation and consumption is very large.

Subsidies ignore damage to natural resources, biodiversity, impact on human health and do not recognise any benefits of alternative production systems such as

agro-ecological or organic production systems. Agroecology utilises ecological concepts and principles for sustainable and fair agriculture and food systems9. Such production systems generate many benefits to the environment (improved soil health, more pollinators, better wild habitats, less energy intensity, less or no agrochemical use) and to society (employ more local workers, provide fair wages, promote community participation, etc.). Such costs or benefits to the environment and to society at large are widely known as ‘externalities’ in an economic system. An externality is a positive or negative consequence of an economic activity to a third party that is not accounted for by the parties to that economic activity. In the case of agriculture and food systems, the “third party” is the planet and society at large.

Subsidised agriculture based on the technology and policies of the 1960’s continues to dominate current agricultural systems and are favoured by large scale producers in the name of a dominant narrative: we need to produce more food to feed human population. However, at what cost?

Such focus has caused more harm not only to the planet but also to human health. The so called ‘cheap’ food has a very ‘high’ cost to society in terms of damages to the environment, biodiversity and to human health.6,10 These costs are neither accounted for in farm results or national accounts, nor corrected by policies on agriculture and food, nor broader economic policies. This often leads to perverse outcomes. Regions that adopted the ‘Green Revolution’ in 1960s successfully experienced growth in food production, however, these regions are now facing degradation of natural resources. For example, depletion of groundwater in Indo-Gangetic plains11 (food bowl of South Asia), loss of soil in Yangtze river plains in China,12 and shrinking of the Aral sea13 (the largest freshwater lake) due

to intensive cotton cultivation during the last five decades. Continuing business as usual undermines the ability of the world’s ecosystems to produce enough food (and fiber) for a growing population.

How to Transform Global Agriculture and Food Systems?

Global agriculture has been unable to internalise externalities due to the lack of a common framework or approach and tools to assess them in a way that can be understood by all concerned stakeholders—farmers, business, governments and society at large.6 This lack of tools and procedures is also a major barrier in understanding the full scale of costs and benefits associated with agriculture and food systems worldwide. Once these impacts are known, policies and programs can be developed to incentivise good practices and penalise detrimental practices and reduce the ecological footprint of agriculture and food systems.

In order to address this challenge, United Nations Environment’s initiative known as the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Agriculture and Food (TEEBAgriFood), which is supported by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, has developed a universal and comprehensive evaluation framework to measure, capture and disclose all significant positive and negative externalities.6 Its main goal is to quantify all costs and benefits of agriculture and food systems using true cost accounting (TCA) in order to stimulate an appropriate policy response to fix the food equation.14 TCA includes all major environmental and social costs and benefits of agriculture and food systems. TCA uses the damage function approach (damage costs) and the cost of control approach (avoidance, restoration, abatement and maintenance costs) to estimate the true cost of food production through the value chain.6,10

What is the TEEBAgriFood Framework?

There are four key elements of the TEEBAgriFood evaluation framework—stocks, flows, outcomes and impacts. The framework describes stocks through the description of four types of capitals—produced, social, human and natural.6 Stocks of these capitals are accumulated over time, whereas flows are the changes over a period of time. Flows can be described in the form of ecosystem services, agricultural inputs and output, and any residual flows such as pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Outcomes are defined to reflect changes in stocks that impacts wellbeing. Four capitals included in this framework are described below.

Produced Capital

Produced capital includes all manufactured, built and financial capital in the farming sector. For example, farm buildings, machines and equipment, physical infrastructure (roads, irrigation systems), processing plant, storage, warehouses, retail stores, knowledge and intellectual capital embedded in seed development etc.

The produced capital can be measured by concepts and definitions of accounting standards at farm level, landscape level and corporate level (processing), by using definitions from the System of National Accounts.

Social Capital

Social capital in agricultural value chains includes farming networks, trust amongst group members, and societal norms that enable a farming community to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives.15 Social capital is essential to ensure that the other forms of capital are effective in generating incomes, and it is therefore very valuable. However, social capital of its own does not generate incomes. It can be measured by assessing structural (patterns of connections), relational (relationship and www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 65

Stocks

Human Capital

Natural Capital

Natural capital includes natural resources such as air, water, soil, biodiversity and ecosystems that provide various benefits to human beings in the form of ecosystem goods and services.19 Natural capital can be measured by using the System of EnvironmentalEconomic Accounting (SEEA) .20

Flows Flows are the benefits and impacts during the use of various capitals in agriculture. All inputs and outputs in a production system through the value chain can be captured using farm accounts, business accounts as recorded in System of National Accounts (SNA).

Ecosystem services are defined as the benefits that are provided by agricultural landscapes to support farming and rural society21. In agriculture, ecosystem services include nutrient cycling, pollination, carbon sequestration, soil health maintenance, water regulation, conservation of habitat and biodiversity, recreation, cultural services etc. and amenity values. The framework also includes social justice 66 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Ecosystem services Residual flows Impacts

Human/ Social capital

Inputs

Outputs

Labour

Provisioning services

Regulating Cultural services services

GHG

Pollution

Environment Economic

waste

Production

Human capital comprises an individual’s health, knowledge, skills and motivation that are essential for productive work. In agriculture, it consists of farmers knowledge, proficiency in farm practices, use of software, health etc. It is based on the premise that individuals and society derive economic benefits from investments in people17. Human capital increases with improvements in these attributes, and is reduced by the loss of skills and experience and by damage to human health.18

Produced capital

Processing

Flows

Natural capital

Consumption

interactions) and cognitive (shared goals and values) dimensions of social capital16 and it can be valued by assessing the loss of income-generating capacity from other capitals as a result of reduced social capital.

Legend

Health/Social

Descriptive information Quantitative information Monetised information Not included

H. Sandhu

Figure 1. Elements of the framework covered in the rice productions systems study.

and equity in the agriculture and food systems in terms of accounting for unequal power in communities.

Residual flows include waste, food losses, greenhouse gas emissions on farm, processing and consumption of the food. These can be measured by using SEEA Central Framework.20

How to Apply the TEEBAgriFood Framework?

TEEBAgriFood seeks to focus on the capacity of different systems, in the agriculture and food sector, to contribute to increases in stocks of produced, natural, human and social capital, and thus to human well-being. We highlight three examples: agricultural production systems (rice production), agricultural product (palm oil) and policy evaluation (pesticide tax in Thailand) that illustrate key components and potential applications of the framework.22

Rice Production Systems Rice is central to the food security of half the world, therefore, a study23 that focused on rice production systems in the Philippines, Cambodia, Senegal, Costa Rica and California, US is being used here to demonstrate the application of TEEBAgriFood framework. An

analysis of rice production systems in these countries found out that an alternative rice production system (e.g., agro-ecological) provides a range of ecosystem services (positive externalities; such as habitat for wildlife, natural pest control and cultural values) beyond food production. At the same time, conventional rice production generates negative externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution and overuse of freshwater consumption. Due to the importance of rice as a staple food, many governments often have policies to support the consistent, low-cost supply of rice to consumers. Such policies involve subsidies for pesticides and fertilsers. The analysis in this study concluded that if all externalities were to be included in prices of pesticides and fertilsers then these subsidised inputs would become much more expensive. Here the question of interest for policy makers becomes: how to reduce trade-offs and enhance synergies, generating positive externalities and minimising negative ones?

Figure 1 shows various elements of the framework being investigated in this study.23 The agricultural output in terms of rice production, income

Stocks

Impacts

Inputs

Outputs

Labour

Provisioning services

Regulating Cultural services services

GHG

Pollution

Environment Economic

waste

Processing

Residual flows

Human/ Social capital

Production

Ecosystem services

Produced capital

Consumption

Flows

Natural capital

Legend

Health/Social

Descriptive information Quantitative information Monetised information Not included

H. Sandhu

Figure 2. Elements of the framework covered in the study on pesticide tax in Thailand.

and purchased inputs were captured at the farm level in the agricultural production side of the value chain.

Other provisioning services (for example, energy generation from rice husks) were monetised using direct market valuation. Regulating services (nutrient cycling, pest control, genetic diversity etc.) or supporting services (such as habitat provisioning) were also assessed where data was available.

Cultural ecosystem services such as heritage, tourism, access to traditional rice varieties were also captured in the study. The study also describes but does not measure impacts on human health due to pesticide exposure, and impacts on ground water and air.

As shown by this analysis, subsidised pesticides and fertilsers lead to their intensive use, resulting in pest resistance and the need for even higher amounts of inputs. In addition, various impacts on natural resources, biodiversity and public health remain unaddressed as the existing policies are confined to production systems only and are motivated to support consistent supply of low-cost rice. Policy on prices of pesticides and fertilisers should be designed to reflect these negative externalities and encourage

alternative management practices. It suggests that alternative rice production systems have potential to improve water and nutrient management, reduce use of agricultural inputs, and integrate fish in rice paddies when pesticides are not present. At macro level, the savings in inputs could permit greater support for farmer training and extension services to promote agro-ecological practices. In addition, this can also ensure consistent supply of low cost ecologically produced rice in sufficient amount to meet the needs of a growing population.

Palm Oil The Palm oil study24 quantifies and monetises key natural capital impacts of palm oil across the 11 leading producer countries, with a focus on Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer. It quantified human capital impacts and also captures visible and invisible natural capital costs linked to the growing, milling and refining stages of palm oil production. Given increasing global demand for palm oil, the policy question that an application of the TEEBAgriFood evaluation framework can help address is how can markets be built to recognise and

reward the value of natural, social and human capital, and the contribution of small holders in providing them?

The study states that palm oil production in the 11 countries has a natural capital (e.g., land degradation, loss of biodiversity, air and water pollution) cost of US$43 billion per year compared to the commodity’s annual value of US$50 billion. Producing one tonne of crude palm oil (CPO) has a natural capital cost of US$790 while one tonne of palm kernel oil costs US$897. The results also show that underpayment and occupational health impacts have a total human capital cost of US$592 per full-time employee, or US$34 per tonne of palm oil and US$53 per tonne of palm kernel oil.

This study covered some elements captured at the production and processing side of the framework as demonstrated by the Figure 2. It captured visible and invisible flows in terms of ecosystem services at the production side only using avoided cost and damage cost methods. It captured changes in stocks of produced, natural and human capital and also provided information on health impacts.

Pesticide Tax in Thailand Until the late 1990s policies in Thailand supported the use of pesticides, as in other lower income countries in East and Southeast Asia, in order to stimulate agricultural production. Subsidized farm credit programs and other causes led to the greater use of pesticides.25 Over the period from 1987 to 2010 agricultural pesticide use in Thailand increased from one kg/ha to six kg/ha, on average, while pesticide productivity (gross output per unit of pesticide use) decreased from 400 USD/kg to 100 USD/kg. Besides the negative effect of pesticides on the environment, the health of farmers, farm workers and consumers were also exposed to risks.

The study provided a quantitative analysis of the external costs www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 67

Ecosystem services

Produced capital

Human/ Social capital

Inputs

Outputs

Labour

Provisioning services

Regulating Cultural services services

GHG

Pollution

waste

Residual flows Impacts

Environment Economic

Health/Social

Consumption

Flows

Natural capital

Processing

68 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Stocks

Production

of pesticides, to help policy makers understand who was bearing these costs and where policy might intervene to reduce or eliminate these. A question of interest for policy makers is in determining where interventions will provide the most benefits? If clear negative externalities can be quantified, a pesticide tax may not be sufficient to change outcomes, therefore what other measures might accompany or replace tax measures?

This study used two approaches. In one approach, a set of base values for eight external costs (related to farm worker health, consumer health, and the environment) associated with the application of one kg of active pesticide ingredients was calculated, using the Pesticide Environmental Accounting (PEA) methodology. This analysis showed that by far the highest cost of pesticide externalities falls on farm workers and their health (83 percent) while health costs to consumers are estimated at 11 percent.

The second approach used data on government spending related to pesticide use, which was collected from government agencies,26 to estimate the actual cost of pesticide use, looking at specific policy measures such government budgets for pest outbreaks, pesticide research and enforcement of food safety standards.

Between these two analyses, the priority revealed by government spending shows that greater importance is placed on food safety, while considerably less resources are allocated to the protection of farm worker health. The impacts of a pesticide tax were considered but research from various countries shows that the demand for agricultural pesticides is typically inelastic and that a tax would have a weak effect on demand, though it would generate considerable government revenues. The study estimated that an environmental tax would raise pesticide prices by 11-32 percent, yet would be insufficient to address the problem. Since the greatest costs are

Legend

Descriptive information Quantitative information Monetised information Not included

H. Sandhu

Figure 3. Elements of the framework covered in the palm oil study.

currently being incurred on the farm by pesticide appliers and pickers, it can be questioned if a pesticide tax will actually address these costs unless it is explicitly formulated to do so. To best target where interventions are needed, the study recommends the introduction of measures supporting non-chemical pest management methods, focusing on on-farm practices, such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM) methods, Farmer Field School (FFS), farmer training and education.

We applied the TEEBAgriFood framework to the variables used in the study, to demonstrate how policy makers might use such studies to make external costs visible, and thus help to define economic policies (e.g. taxes or incentives) for pesticide use (Figure 3). To be effective, policies and social institutions must address areas of greatest costs and benefits along the food value chain.

Conclusion TEEBAgriFood’s framework is universal, inclusive and comprehensive as it includes all impacts and dependencies along the food value chain to holistically investigate agriculture and food systems6,27. The above examples

provide preliminary evidence that a comprehensive application through the entire value chain can enhance potential development of sustainable agricultural and food systems.

This information then can be used to inform policy for appropriate responses at local, national and global level. An initial exploration through existing examples provides an introduction to a process that will continue, as lessons are learned with each application of the framework.

Through applying the framework and bringing the results into policy making arenas, it will be possible to identify and address the significant externalities that distort the current economic system. The three examples demonstrate the potential utility of the framework for policy makers to analyse alternative production systems, products and policies.

The current approach to assess agriculture is like the Galileo’s telescope which can see stars and planets from the Earth. But Hubble telescope can see better than a view from Earth using Galileo’s telescope. Similarly, the dominant approach and narrative that prevailed since 1960s is no longer relevant to address the current and future

A Systematic Review. Network for Business Sustainability South Africa. Retrieved from: nbs.net/ knowledge 17. Sweetland SR. 1996. Human capital theory: foundations of a field of inquiry. Review of Educational Research 66(3), 341–359.

18. OECD, 2001. The Well-being of Nations: The role of human and social capital. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

19. Costanza R, d’Arge R, De Groot R, Farber S, Grasso M, Hannon B, Limburg K, Naeem S, O’Neill RV, Paruelo J, Raskin RG, Sutton P, van den Belt M. 1997. The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387, 253–260.

20. UN. 2014. System of Environmental Economic Accounting 2012—Central Framework. United Nations, European Union, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, The World Bank.

21. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005.

Ecosystems and Human Well-being: General Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC. 22. Sandhu, H, Gemmill-Herren, B, de Blaeij, A, van

H. Sandhu

Wheat and agroforestry system in Punjab, India

Dis, R & Baltussen, W 2018. Application of the TEEBAgriFood framework: case studies for decisionmakers. TEEB for agriculture & food: scientific and economic foundations report, UN Environment, Switzerland, ch. 8, pp. 292–325.

challenges of global agriculture. There is need to adopt a new and improved ‘wide-angle lens’ of TEEBAgriFood framework with TCA as an ‘eyepiece’ to see hidden costs and benefits of agriculture and food systems and stimulate policy response to improve planetary health and well-being of the society.

References 1. FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2018. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018.

Building climate resilience for food security and nutrition. Rome, FAO. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. 2. High Level Expert Forum 2009. How to Feed the World in 2050? Office of the Director, Agricultural Development Economics Division. Economic and Social Development Department. FAO, Rome.

3. Kesavan PC, Swaminathan MS, 2018. Modern technologies for sustainable food and nutrition security. Current Science 115, 1876–1883.

4. Tilman D, Clark M 2014. Global diets link environmental sustainability and human health.

Nature, 515: 518–22.

5. FAO 2018. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. FAO Rome. http://www.fao.org/stateof-food-security-nutrition/en/ 6. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity 2018. TEEB for Agriculture & Food: Scientific and Economic Foundations United Nations

Environment, Geneva http://teebweb.org/agrifood/ scientific-and-economic-foundations-report/ 7. Tilman, D., Cassman, K. G., Matson, P. A., Naylor, R.

23. Bogdanski, A., R. van Dis, Attwood, S., Baldock, C., DeClerck, F., DeClerck, R., Garibaldi, L., Lord, R., Hadi, B., Horgan, F., Obst, C., Rutsaert, P., Turmel, M.-

& Polasky, S. 2002. Agricultural sustainability and

S., Gemmill-Herren, B. 2016. Valuation of rice agro-

intensive production practices. Nature 418, 671–677.

ecosystems. TEEB Rice. Final report. UNEP/FAO,

8. Nepstad et al. 2014. Slowing Amazon deforestation

project report for The Economics of Ecosystems and

through public policy and interventions in beef and

Biodiversity (TEEB) global initiative for Agriculture

soy supply chains. Science 344, 1118–1123.

and Food. http://www.teebweb.org/agriculture-and-

9. Gliessman SR, 2014. Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems, Third Edition 3rd Edition.

CRC Press.

10. Sandhu, H 2018. TEEB AgriFood valuation

food/rice/ 24. Raynaud, J., Fobelets, V., Georgieva, A., Joshi, S., Kristanto, L., de Groot Ruiz, A., Bullock, S., Hardwicke, R., 2016. Improving Business Decision

framework and true cost accounting in agriculture.

Making: Valuing the Hidden Costs of Production

International Symposium on Agroecology for

in the Palm Oil Sector. A study for The Economics

Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, Food and

of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and

Agriculture Organization of The United Nations, pp.

113–126.

11. MacDonald, A. M. et al. 2016. Groundwater quality and depletion in the Indo-Gangetic Basin mapped from in situ observations. Nature Geoscience 9, 762–766.

12. Yang, SL, Xu, KH, Milliman, JD, Yang HF, Wu CS,

Food (TEEBAgriFood) Program.

25. Praneetvatakul, S., Schreinemachers, P., Pananurak, P., Tipraqsa, P. 2013. Pesticides, external costs and policy options for Thai agriculture. Environmental Science & Policy 27, 103–113.

26. Jungbluth, F. 1996. Crop protection policy in

2015. Decline of Yangtze River water and sediment

Thailand. Jungbluth, F., 1996. Crop Protection

discharge: Impact from natural and anthropogenic

Policy in Thailand: Economic and Political Factors

changes. Scientific Reports 5, 12581.

Influencing Pesticide Use, Pesticide Policy Project

13. NASA 2000. The Shrinking Aral Sea. https:// earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/AralSea 14. Sukhdev P 2018. Smarter metrics will help fix our food system. Nature 558: 7.

15. Putnam RD. 1993. Making democracy work: civic

Publication Series. Institute of Horticultural Economics, University of Hannover, Hannover.

27. Sandhu H, Müller A, Sukhdev P, Merrigan K, Tenkouano A, Kumar P, Hussain S, Zhang W, Pengue W, Gemmill-Herren B, Hamm MW, von der Pahlen

traditions in modern Italy. Princeton University

MCT, Obst C, Sharma K, Gundimeda H, Markandya

Press: Princeton NJ.

A, May P, Platais G, Weigelt J. In Press. The future of

16. Acquaah M, Amoako-Gyampah K, Gray B, Nyathi NQ. 2014. Measuring and Valuing Social Capital:

agriculture and food: evaluating the holistic costs and benefits. The Anthropocene Review

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Hartley, J. M., Pugh, C., Stevenson, K. T. and J. Daniel. (2019). Using EnviroAtlas to Build K–12 Environmental Literacy. Solutions 10(2): 70–77. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/using-enviroatlas-to-build-k-12-environmental-literacy

Feature

Using EnviroAtlas to Build K–12 Environmental Literacy

by Jenna M. Hartley, Carolyn Pugh, Kathryn T. Stevenson, and Jessica Daniel

The Challenge: Building Environmental Literacy in K-12 Students Environmental science in the United States is at a critical point: in the face of numerous environmental challenges, the public consistently ranks environmental issues among their lowest priorities,1 scientific literacy is on the decline,2 and politics (rather than science) often dictates environmental action.3 To address this predicament, environmental education provides an opportunity to help individuals and communities feel empowered with knowledge and skills to protect the environment.

Specifically, environmental education aims to build environmental literacy,4 which includes the knowledge, dispositions, competencies, and motivations for environmental action.5 Harnessing the rapid development of programs focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) for K-12 students is one way to build environmental literacy and address environmental issues, as STEM education has been shown to contribute positively to student attitudes on environmental problems.6 The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s EnviroAtlas project has developed a suite of STEM educational materials to build environmental literacy with a threepronged approach: (1) incorporating cutting-edge technological tools, (2) 70 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Keith Tarpley, Contractor to the US EPA.

Students participate in one of the activities provided in the US EPA’s EnviroAtlas educational materials.

bridging disciplines to build a broad range of skills, and (3) engaging students with hands-on classroom activities and outdoor environmental education experiences. The goal of using this three-pronged approach is to provide a well-rounded learning experience that bridges students’ affinity for technology with real-world scenarios and outdoor experiences.

Despite the increasing national focus on and funding for STEM subjects,7 many students “perceive science to be a difficult subject and are minimally engaged in it.”8 One way to increase student interest in science is

through technology,9 especially since the educational landscape is changing to reflect a focus on digital media and STEM.10 Students need certain skills to navigate technology use in their daily lives and to succeed in the increasingly digitized workforce. These skills include the ability to identify quality data sources, analyze large datasets, and make evidence-based decisions, all of which are addressed in the EnviroAtlas educational materials. These competencies can serve students in a broad range of contexts, not only opening doors to new career options, but also increasing students’

EnviroAtlas is a project in the Office of Research and Development (ORD) at the US Environmental Protection Agency.

self-confidence and personal sense of empowerment, or self-efficacy.11 Selfefficacy has implications for student learning, as it has been shown to have impactful effects on human behavior, motivation, success, and failure.11 Illustrating the personal connections between scientific concepts and students’ lives can also help foster student curiosity in the sciences. Research shows that children frequently use technology even while outdoors.12 Although some may find this problematic (e.g., detracting from the nature experience),13 others suggest that incorporating technology with outdoor experiences may be a particularly effective way to encourage youth engagement (i.e., capitalizing on existing interests and habits).14 Finding ways to engage children with the natural world becomes more important as children are increasingly disconnected from nature and are spending less time outdoors,15 which can affect their physical, intellectual, and emotional health and development.16 Environmental education is a form of instruction that increases awareness and knowledge about environmental issues and enhances problem solving, critical thinking, and decision-making skills.17 As the educational landscape shifts towards forging technologically literate students, educators can complement this with environmental

Jenna Hartley, ORISE Participant, US EPA.

Top: Human health outcomes associated with Air Quality from the Eco-Health Relationship Browser.

education. One important component of environmental education is giving students time outdoors to facilitate their connection to nature. This connection to nature can be even more impactful when paired with local, place-based learning because research has shown that a person’s sense of place attachment can influence their environmental attitudes and dispositions towards environmental issues.18-19 Additional studies have found that those with stronger attachments to a particular setting are the most sensitive to human impacts in that place.19 Tying environmental issues to places where students live is one way that EnviroAtlas reinforces stronger student connections to nature.

EnviroAtlas Can Help to Meet the Challenge Using the three-pronged approach to environmental education (incorporating technology, bridging disciplines, and engaging students with hands-on and outdoor activities), EPA researchers are working to empower educators and students in STEM using accessible tools and resources, including EnviroAtlas

(https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas).

EnviroAtlas is a free, web-based, interactive tool that allows users to explore human-environment relationships in a broad range of contexts. EnviroAtlas was designed for research and community decision making, putting maps and peer-reviewed research at the fingertips of many who otherwise would not have access. It contains over 400 map layers on a national scale, with additional layers at a finer resolution for almost 1200 cities and towns across the United States. EnviroAtlas can be used in education to teach digital skills and encourage students to engage with realworld STEM topics via a high-tech tool.

Seeing the potential for EnviroAtlas as a powerful educational tool, EPA researchers developed a suite of educational materials that cover standardized science concepts. These educational materials were written with input from over 20 formal classroom educators and pilot-tested with approximately 300 students prior to their public release.

They include four lesson modules, student handouts, supplementary activities, and teacher scripts, all of www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 71

Jenna Hartley, ORISE Participant, US EPA.

4th and 5th graders use the EnviroAtlas Interactive Map.

which align with all 50 State science educational standards. The lessons were designed in a blended learning format, a style of education that integrates online and in-person activities to maximize engagement and allow for personalized learning.20 Designed in the three-pronged approach, the EnviroAtlas educational materials merge outdoor experiences and digital skills by incorporating a technology portion, a hands-on activity, and an outdoor segment in each lesson plan. The following lesson modules are available online from the US EPA’s EnviroAtlas: • “Exploring Your Watershed” for grades K–6 • “Introduction to Ecosystem Services” for grades 4–6 • “Connecting Ecosystems to Human Health” for grades 4–12+ • “Building a Greenway: Case Study” for grades 9–12+

EnviroAtlas Tools & Resources American students are using technology in educational settings. As there are many environmental careers that require a mix of outdoor and digital skills, the EnviroAtlas materials use a blended learning format to allow students to investigate local, 72 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

environmental issues using online technology. Classrooms that use technology in engaging, creative ways provide more effective learning environments than those that primarily use technology to complete the same activities they would have otherwise.10 The EnviroAtlas Interactive Map puts hundreds of geospatial layers on environmental conditions, uses, and stressors, transparent metadata, and socioeconomic overlay capability at the fingertips of anyone with internet access. Students can conduct guided or independent research, come up with a scientific question, identify relevant data sets, and analyze data from geographic information systems (GIS). As a UVA professor noted, “[EnviroAtlas] promotes critical thinking, uses actual data, and students can ask many types of environmental questions and explore the tool in search of answers.”

The Interactive Map is also freely available, requires no special software installation, and no specialized skills to use—as a 5th grader said, “it’s easy.”

Considering that “few fields of inquiry are so clearly interdisciplinary in nature” as investigations of human feelings about places,21 the merging of science, technology, place, and students’ perceptions of their role in

the environment all come together using the Interactive Map. Having easy access to these vast resources also helps students develop the critical skill of being able to sift through and make sense of data and information.

The more that students interact with these types of information, the more they build confidence in identifying quality data and sorting through data to determine what is most relevant to the situation at hand. Through educational materials like these, educators can foster a generation equipped not only to navigate the digital world, but to thrive in it.

In addition to the Interactive Map, EnviroAtlas contains the Eco-Health Relationship Browser, a graphical literature review which allows students to explore the relationship between ecosystem benefits and human health.

Like the Interactive Map, the Browser is extremely easy to use. It’s simple to manipulate, manageable to read, and provides scientific information in short, digestible pieces. However, behind its front-facing simplicity are robust data from over 500 peerreviewed scientific journal articles, all of which are also available in a bibliography. The Browser’s emphasis on peer-reviewed evidence and the readily accessible documentation on study size, methods, and additional information for each article encourages students to think about the quality of information and practice forming arguments from evidence.

Furthermore, the educational activities that leverage the Browser encourage students to select health outcomes that resonate with them or are somehow connected to their personal lives. This personal connection has been effective with students, as many come to realize through this lesson plan that they are intricately entwined with the environment and its systems. As one eighth grade student said, “I didn’t realize that protecting the environment meant protecting the people that I love.”

Keith Tarpley, Contractor to the US EPA.

Students participate in the “Connecting Ecosystems and Human Health” activity.

Making it Personal: Understanding the Eco-Health Connection Making concepts personal and relevant to students’ lives is another powerful strategy for increasing student interest in environmental topics. The extensive array of data layers on the EnviroAtlas Interactive Map allows students to research locations and topics relevant to them. A student from rural North Carolina could investigate land use patterns and temperature change over time in the Southeast, while a student in Phoenix, Arizona may be more interested in layers showing the health impacts of air pollution in their community. Both students could explore available maps and have compelling visual support for their research questions within minutes.

In the digital portion of the “Connecting Ecosystems and Human Health” activity, students spend time exploring the interactive EnviroAtlas Eco-Health Relationship Browser.

Rather than researching a predetermined set of topics, students can choose to investigate health impacts that directly impact themselves or their loved ones. By focusing on these personal connections and strengthening the understanding that people are connected to nature, not separate from it, abstract concepts can become tangible. As one educator commented, “[Using EnviroAtlas] is a good way to connect AP Environmental Science concepts to the daily lives of my students.”

During the outdoor portion of “Connecting Ecosystems and

Human Health,” participants create a tangible web of connections between ecosystem services and human health outcomes.

Participants then discuss how ecosystems may affect ecosystem services. Students are also encouraged to share relevant personal experiences or related knowledge as they go along. The activity reinforces the idea that protecting ecosystem health is about more than conservation; it is also about improving a vast array of human health outcomes, from reduced risk of multiple cancer types to better mental health.

The “Connecting Ecosystems and Human Health” activity is not limited to formal education settings and has been used by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 73

Jenna Hartley, ORISE Participant, US EPA.

Left: 5th grade students cut, paste, and color in one of the “Introduction to Ecosystem Services” activities from the US EPA’s EnviroAtlas project.

Right: During the “Exploring Your Watershed” lesson, 1st grade students navigate their outdoor environment using maps from EnviroAtlas.

(NCDEQ) Air Quality Division to increase awareness of the impacts of ecosystem benefits on air quality and public health.

Balancing Digital Skills and Outdoor Experiences While the EnviroAtlas educational materials aim to increase students’ digital skills using EnviroAtlas and geospatial technologies, the materials also strive to strengthen students’ connection to nature. The irony of using digital media to engage students while simultaneously encouraging them to spend more time outside is not lost.

However, it is important to balance the emphasis on technology with environmental literacy. More hours connected to screens and technology can contribute to spending less time engaged with nature.12 This is noteworthy because time spent outdoors and exposure to the outdoors have been found to have both preventative and health-promoting benefits.16,22-25 Preventative benefits include protection against anxiety, depression, and obesity disorders—some of the same 74 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

health challenges associated with increased screen-time.16,23 Healthpromoting benefits of time spent outdoors include improved physical health,24 mental health,25 and social relationships.16 Emerging research has also shown that these impacts are not only limited to childhood, but that they can have long-lasting effects into adolescence and adulthood.25 On a national-scale, researchers found an association between higher levels of exposure to nature during childhood and a lower risk of developing “any of a multitude of psychiatric disorders later in life.”25 In addition, time spent outdoors has been shown to increase conservation-related attitudes and behaviors,26 which is one step towards building environmental self-efficacy and environmental literacy. Each of the EnviroAtlas lesson plans get students outside, encouraging curiosity and exploration of the surrounding environment. While practical barriers exist to nature exposure in many areas, the lessons can still be conducted in most schoolyards, or even in a parking lot.

In the “Exploring Your Watershed” lesson for younger children, the three-pronged approach promotes practical skills like using geospatial tools, outdoor navigation, and understanding the concept of watersheds.

Through a hands-on modeling activity, students visualize the way that water flows from ridgelines in a watershed.

Using maps of the local area and the EnviroAtlas Raindrop Analysis Tool online, students can then map out the path of a raindrop from their location. This lesson plan aims to take watersheds, a concept often perceived by students as very abstract, and then use EnviroAtlas to make it personal, local, and visible. In an optional outdoor activity, students can practice navigation and exploratory learning by following the path of their local raindrop to the nearest body of water.

Through this place-based exploration, the activity brings the connection between abstract concepts, digital tools, and the natural world to life.

The “Introduction to Ecosystem Services” lesson module, aimed at students in 4th–6th grades, starts

with taking students outdoors to explore the benefits of nature in their own backyards. The lesson module contains a suite of six mini-lesson activities that are designed to be stand-alone or conducted together.

The mini-lessons build on each other, with students first engaging with and exploring the outdoors, then exploring the tools and resources available in EnviroAtlas, and finally elaborating on their ideas by making high-level analogies between ecosystem services and common household items. The suite of mini-lessons captures all goals in the three-pronged approach. Student exploration of self-chosen topics can increase their connection to nature, while also enhancing critical thinking skills and leading to a stronger sense of self-efficacy for environmental science.

The lesson plans demonstrate how valuable going outdoors can be, they allow students to use the EnviroAtlas tools to explore health benefits of spending time in nature, and then they solidify student understanding through personal outdoor experiences.

Improving Student Self-Efficacy in Science When students learn STEM concepts and practices, they build their sense of self-efficacy as scientific and environmental agents, which has been linked to pro-environmental behaviors.27-30 Contributing to environmental science self-efficacy in students is at the forefront of the EnviroAtlas educational materials. Bandura suggested that although self-belief may not necessarily translate directly into success, “self-disbelief assuredly spawns failure” (p. 77).11 Therefore, empowering students to believe in themselves, their ideas, and their futures in scientific and environmental fields is imperative for our collective environmental future.

Considering that future social and economic demands for STEM professionals are expected to increase sharply in the coming years and

decades, building student self-efficacy and interest in STEM careers will be critical to meet those demands.30 The likelihood that students in kindergarten through 12th-grade (K–12) will choose a STEM career depends on their attitudes towards STEM.31 Students are more likely to pursue higher education in STEM fields if they have high self-efficacy in math or science.28,29 This development of science and math self-efficacy can have impacts on a student’s educational career as early as middle school: one study found that eighth-grade students who believed science would be beneficial in their future were more likely to pursue STEM degrees later in life.29 One way to build scientific self-efficacy is to engage students in making arguments from evidence.32 The EnviroAtlas “Building A Greenway” lesson plan accomplishes this by asking students to use geospatial data as evidence for supporting their decision-making. Provided with a set of maps showing different data layers from the EnviroAtlas Interactive Map, students are assigned a role to play as a certain stakeholder in their community. The students then select which data layers are relevant to their stakeholder group, whether that be a local business-owner or wildlife conservation group, and form an argument for where a greenway should be built. Sometimes students will struggle with the decision, recognizing that for their stakeholder group, not enough information has been presented to make an informed decision.

The lesson guidance suggests that educators use the teachable moment and confirm students’ instinct to request more information—after all, feeling empowered enough to demand more information prior to making a decision is one more step towards scientific self-efficacy. As current or future decision-makers, students should have the scientific self-efficacy to feel empowered enough to demand more information on an issue. This is

especially true before they are asked to make a decision, even a hypothetical one, as in the “Building a Greenway” lesson plan, that has the potential to influence environmental and community well-being for years to come.

The “Building a Greenway” activity has been applied to community-level analysis in Fresno, California. During a demo of the activity in a California State University-Fresno undergraduate classroom, it came to light that local Parks and Recreation staff were actively considering placement of a greenway in Fresno. Students and Parks and Recreation staff agreed to evaluate EnviroAtlas maps in their consideration of the greenway placement, bringing a simulation of decision-making into part of the actual planning process for the City of Fresno.

Applications of EnviroAtlas Using technology effectively in the classroom requires the time, skills, and resources to select and incorporate engaging digital content.10 The biggest strengths of the EnviroAtlas educational materials are that they are free and ready-to-go, saving educators some of their most precious resource—time.

The EnviroAtlas team has put significant effort into helping educators feel comfortable using the tools and resources in their classrooms through formal conference presentations, informal presentations, classroom visits, and training workshops. In total, the team has conducted the activities with 1,600 student participants, primarily from low income/low resource schools, and just over 2,250 teachers, educators, and professional staff.

The EnviroAtlas team’s work to meet educators where they are and support them in incorporating these lesson plans has earned the materials an overwhelmingly positive response.

One workshop participant, a trainer for STEM educators, reported back that she had distributed the EnviroAtlas educational materials to every science teacher in her county. Although it is www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 75

high school English teacher explored crossing the barrier between STEM and Language Arts using EnviroAtlas to investigate world literature through the lens of the eco-health connection.

Those English students read a variety of texts from war-torn countries and browsed the EnviroAtlas tools to learn about ecosystem benefits and the potential health impacts in the wake of conflict. Finally, they formed arguments for who is responsible for remediation and revitalization efforts in the wake of conflict or war.

The possibilities for creative expansion are endless, and in the future, the EnviroAtlas team hopes to collaborate even more with educators to create and publish additional educational materials that use EnviroAtlas.

Conclusion

Jenna Hartley, ORISE Participant, US EPA.

High school students collaborate on decision-making in the “Building a Greenway: Case Study” lesson activity.

hard to track and quantify the impacts as they spread, the exponential potential for growth and new, creative uses of the tools is immense.

Other educators have contacted EPA researchers with creative ideas for use of EnviroAtlas in a variety of subject areas, ranging from geometry to the history of war-torn areas. The head of one middle school science department noted that she planned to create a club for 6th–7th graders at her school based on investigative learning using the EnviroAtlas tools.

76 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

A high school Sustainability Academy teacher suggested an entire year-long portfolio project of studentdesigned projects based on EnviroAtlas data and tools.

In addition, emphasizing technology and applicable skills in the classroom applies to more than STEM subjects. Many art and language educators work to cross content areas and recognize where skills overlap, forming clear connections between classroom concepts and future life skills and careers. One North Carolina

Building environmental literacy, developing digital skills, and increasing connection to nature are large, global challenges that will require efforts across disciplines and generations.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s EnviroAtlas project can contribute to those efforts.

The EnviroAtlas tool and associated lesson modules make state-of-thescience technology accessible for a variety of classrooms. The lesson plans can help teachers incorporate blended learning strategies while also achieving mandated education goals, going outdoors when possible, and providing opportunities for personalized learning. Students might not care about distant concerns like melting permafrost in boreal forests, but they likely know someone with asthma or have someone in their family with diabetes. By emphasizing connections between scientific concepts and students’ own lives and communities, the educational materials are designed to foster both scientific and environmental engagement. By structuring student learning such that students eventually generate their own solutions, EnviroAtlas aims to build

self-efficacy. Together, these materials can help to foster new generations of technologically and environmentally literate decision-makers.

Today’s students are tomorrow’s decision-makers, and now is the time to empower them with the skills, resources, and environmental literacy needed to meet the challenges ahead.

The free EnviroAtlas educational materials can be found online at https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/ enviroatlas-educational-materials Acknowledgements This work was completed by Jenna Hartley under an ASPPH Fellowship (Associations of Schools and Programs for Public Health) and an ORISE Fellowship (Oak Ridge Institution for Science & Education). The authors would like to thank Laura E. Jackson, Ecologist with the US Environmental Protection Agency, and Susanna Klingenberg for their editorial assistance. In addition, thank you to Kelly Witter and Lauren Bamford with the US EPA RTP (Research Triangle Park) STEM Outreach Program, who made many of the local classroom visits for pilot tests possible via their program.

Lastly, thank you to the teachers, students, and participants that allowed us to visit your schools, classrooms, and programs, especially those who inspired us with creative new ways to engage with EnviroAtlas in the classroom.

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Kish, K. (2019). The Revolution Will Be Hand Made: Prince Edward Island, Canada Demonstrates the Power of Making in Local Economic Development Contexts. Solutions 10(2): 78–84. https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/the-revolution-will-be-hand-made-prince-edward-island,-canadademonstrates-the-power-of-making-in-local-economic-development-contexts

On The Ground

The Revolution Will Be Hand Made: Prince Edward Island, Canada Demonstrates the Power of Making in Local Economic Development Contexts

by Dr. Kaitlin Kish

W

hat happens when you give a fourth grader a power drill?

With some wood and a little direction, she’ll create and decorate her own keepsake box. Change the drill out for a soldering iron and she’ll learning first-hand how to direct and manipulate the power of electricity. Children all over the world are learning how to use their hands and participating in the burgeoning Maker revolution.

Maker Culture is reinventing what some might remember as the Do-ItYourself movement. This movement, coined the third industrial revolution,1 represents a new democratisation of manufacturing as citizens participate in commons-based production.

This movement represents a unique opportunity for sustainability research because it disrupts the larger economic system by internalizing production, optimizes materials by recycling as often as possible, and supports free/open source materials for learning and building. Reclaiming production, combined with new patterns of local economic trade and development, have major implications for the dominant regime.

A Brief Maker History The modern culture of making is backed by a rich history beginning with movements against industrialisation. In the 1880s the Arts and Crafts movement marked the beginning of Maker Culture philosophy. John Ruskin was one of the most prominent scholars promoting the movement: 78 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

… if the man’s mind as well as his heart went with his work, all this will be in the right places, and each part will set off the other; and the effect of the whole, as compared with the same design cut by a machine or a lifeless hand, will be like that of poetry well read and deeply felt to that of the same verses jangled by rote.2 William Morris brought Ruskin’s philosophical and architectural ideals to a more general level. He argued for social and economic reform via labour reform and bringing art back into society. He sought to advance ideals in consumption such as simplicity, utility, honesty, and nature. He argued that we should have ‘nothing in [our] houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’.3 The Arts and Crafts movement was largely characterized as anti-industrial, or at least as a reaction against the rise of industrial production. Ruskin saw the new technologies of manufacturing as a radically transformative force, for the worse. Machine manufactured goods were missing the imperfection of handiwork that provides warmth of life.

Pre-industrial craft ideals and Arts and Crafts philosophy are now taken up in a late-capitalist context. The resurgence of making comes at the same time as the increasing popularity of online marketplaces, the online sharing economy, innovations in

creation such as 3D printers, and a mass movement toward knowledge freedom and sharing with projects like open sourcing, and Massive Open Online Courses. In 2011 nearly 12,000 maker projects raised nearly $100 million and $300 million in 2013. By 2016, roughly half of American adults called themselves Makers as there is ‘an increased awareness of how broad making can be and how inclusive it can be…Makerspaces...have existed for huge amounts of time…woodshops, home-economics centers, model shops, and computer labs’.4 Craft is sometimes framed as an act of resistance as it empowers selfdetermination, challenges passive consumption, and undermines a highly resilient capitalist system.5-9 Makers want to identify as more than just a consumer within a capitalist state—their vision extends beyond neoliberalism with an underpinning of grassroots uprising or simply undermining the larger processes of production.10 Making can be easily incorporated into early education to begin transforming the way young people innovate, consume, and think about raw materials. Modern technology has made it easier than ever to find plans and tutorials, disseminate and share ideas, distribute items, create trusted transactions, and produce items in local contexts.

The new movement of Makers represents a real challenge to the larger capitalist system, but more specifically it counteracts alienation

On The Ground from the economy, and also from community. Coupled with growing environmental concerns and the rising cost of what were once cheap goods, Makers are filling an economic niche that also positively contributes to individual and collective psychology.

Makers are reclaiming production and denying the formal economy their participation.11 By making, repairing, and hacking products, they are interrupting the formal economy, and empowering community members to take control of the process of production and de-alienate the process of production. Some Makers also believe that it is important to understand gadgets and products as a form of power over capitalist systems. This kind of politic resonates with those who resent the restraint and monotony of urban and city life.

Making as a Piece of a Holistic Informal Economy In the small city of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (PEI) on the East Coast of Canada, a group of particularly inspiring Makers are transforming their local economy.

While the transformative role of making in cities has been repeatedly questions, PEI demonstrates how making can become central in a struggling economy, highlighted in four take-home messages: 1. Making generates communityowned economic structures, resources, and production

When beginning my research on the rise of Maker Culture across Canada, I wasn’t expecting what I found in Charlottetown. In major urban centres such as Toronto or Vancouver, Makers are meeting in maker spaces, selling their goods on Etsy, and attending large craft fairs—but it wasn’t changing the pattern of life for individuals involved with it. In Charlottetown,

making is central to livelihood and lifestyle, not simply a supplementary job or hobby. Making in Charlottetown is central to a holistic alternative economy.

In the course of a year, I met with 152 Makers, 32 percent of whom are from Charlottetown, PEI, or nearby.

The Makers I met in PEI all use making as their primary contribution to the household. The average age of PEI participants was 68 years old—40 years older than the average age of those practicing Making in Toronto and Vancouver. 97.2 percent are married or in a long-term domestic partnership, while only 77 percent of those in Urban settings are in long-term committed partnerships. 97.2 percent of PEI Makers had children, while only 5 percent of urban Makers had children.

Makers in PEI depended upon various trade relationships in their community to produce their goods or as a means for well-being. Some trade raw materials that they themselves sourced (sheep’s wool) for other necessary materials for their crafting (dyes). Some trade their final products for another person’s final product or for locally produced foods.

I met with the director of Culture PEI, and he suggested that there is a feedback loop between networks of trade among Makers in PEI and the increased importance of relying on community. Eastern Canada has struggled for some time with questions regarding economic security—a reason many Makers turned to an entrepreneurial path—with that growing sense of insecurity came stronger community ties and a greater commitment to

Reciprocity and redistribution need to be combined in new ways that result in more localized, faceto-face relationships, and a redefining of success while continuing to utilize high-tech gadgetry and maintaining global empathy.

I expected to see Makers in PEI utilizing online platforms such as Etsy, as it was so pervasive in other areas of Canada—yet only 5.5 percent have an active Etsy shop and an additional 5.5 percent sell their goods on their personal websites.

It’s not just their demographics that are different. Makers in PEI also have different priorities. They are committed to ethical making practices, dislike multinational corporations and actively avoid them, and sell primarily at local and community events. While there is no bartering or trading among Makers in urban centers, nearly half of all

local production, trade, and helping one another out. As making became increasingly popular, it strengthened these bonds to include not just emotional ties but material livelihood ties—the kind of economic structures present in pre-industrial societies. PEI Makers rely on one another for success and sometimes see one another as extended members of their own family.

In two instances I was inside the homes of two new mothers; their homes had been outfitted with needed infant and toddler goods from others in their community such as toys, blankets, bassinets, cribs, and clothes. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 79

On The Ground This relationship extends to the land, as well. PEI Makers tend to prefer materials that are locally sourced— they will either forage on their own or trade their goods for more raw materials. This improves the relationship with the land and instills a stronger sense of place. It also strips away the complexity of the global supply chain, eliminating overhead costs such as transportation, packaging, mass advertising, and storage.

In communities facing economic decline, it could be that making empowers a new kind of local economic production that improves emotive community relationships, reties economics to livelihood, and improves human-Earth relationships.

2. Makers create high quality, recycled, and meaningful goods

Katie Kish at her home in Montreal

Although 3D printers are not commonly used in maker spaces (there is often one there, but not utilized), they are likely to become ubiquitous when the technology improves. Right now, the technology is too costly, but as the price comes down Makers will be able to print any simple thing they need in their homes. In the middle of my field research period, a part broke off a fan we have in our home. The broken piece was a four-foot long piece of plastic, with two hooks on either end—one of the hooks had broken. I called the manufacturer to see how much it would cost to fix—unsurprisingly, they said it couldn’t be fixed and we would simply need to buy new. Two weeks later, I attended a maker workshop at the Guelph Public Library, and brought the piece with me, along with a picture of the fan so I could show them how it attached. 40 minutes later, the broken piece had been printed—at no cost to me. This process will be extremely disruptive to existing business models. Not only will companies have to start thinking

about how to make their products modular and repairable, but they will also have to provide the files for printing the pieces that people need. This would work against cheap throwaway goods for more expensive and longer lasting goods.

The very idea of repairable home goods is revolutionary enough on its own, but an inexpensive, reusable, and replicable house could change the face of poverty forever. Such ideas introduce an entirely new kind of economy. Rather than a growth economy, a Maker economy would help re-orient individuals away from a culture of work and production, and instead focus on what they need to psychologically thrive. Makers in PEI, and increasingly across the world, demonstrate that this doesn’t need to rely on 3D printing.

For now, the powerful outcomes of Maker Culture are the community, the specialness of products, and the higher quality of build. In Modernity

80 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Katie Kish

and Self-Identity Giddens argues that a main feature of the modern experience is the construction and maintenance of self-identity as a narrative of the self.12 One of the biggest challenges to individuals in this experience is the great deal of choice people are presented with, accompanied by very little assistance in knowing what is the best choice. This is the reason why marketing and brand relationship building is so vital for companies.

Individuals become so obsessed in this process, and so susceptible to advertising, that consumption develops into a substitute for “genuine development of self”.13 In the film Century of the Self Curtis makes very clear the extent to which, from the 1930s, psychological advertising and mass consumption simultaneously solved two problems: the problem of under-demand and the need to constantly create artificial needs and desires so as to sustain high levels of economic activity; and the problem of the political integration

On The Ground of individuals in an unstable mass society.14 With regard to the latter, and working for the American State Department, Freud’s nephew and pioneer of psychological advertising Edward Bernays argued that political consent could be manufactured by transforming rebellious citizens into passive consumers.

By the 1990s, individuals in search of community had integrated themselves into society via consumer behaviour to design and manage social identity. Consumption effectively replaced community as the vehicle of social integration. And thus, these processes discourage community to be included in evaluating the relationship between society and the environment. If a society is deeply embedded in this system of manufacturing self-identity via consumption, ecological political and economic interventions should attempt to break this relationship for the benefit of both the environment and wellbeing of individuals.

The role of ‘thoughtful consumption’ could play a significant role here.

I’m referring to consumption that is focused on needs, the purchasing of special products, and buying local as often as possible—as well as a ban on advertising. One participant remarked on this, suggesting that once citizens own the means of production there would be greater likelihood of a reduction in consumption overall because there would be fewer, higher quality, and repairable goods for citizens to consume.

Another argued that this is important because people are beginning to crave “something special and physical, not just virtual and disposable. People want things that have meaning and are special, something that will last.

There is a growing desire to have fewer, but more meaningful things.”

14.8 percent of the participants

referenced individuals that bought a piece of their work for something special such as wearing the necklace at birth or commemorating a special moment in their life. I purchased a necklace from one of my participants with the birth gem for my daughter, who was born just a few months before I conducted my interview with this Maker—I understood this desire to purchase something special to commemorate a special event in my life.

One participant suggested that sometimes individuals fall in love with certain pieces because it brings them joy, and that “doesn’t often happen with mass produced materials that you would buy at a chain retailer.

3. Making contributes to an economy that supports community

Making as a central figure to local economic development also helps to garner and strengthen community.

Makers rely on the network of other Makers, in their community and online, to learn to perfect their skill and to share resources. There is also a thriving gift and barter economy between Makers. While conducting my research in Prince Edward Island, I found that almost every Maker is willing and interested in bartering with other Makers.

During interviews conducted with Etsy shop owners across Canada, they are similarly open to trades and bartering.

Some Makers trade for the materials

Maker culture’s encouragement of local economies through sharing, trading, and local buying bolsters the self-esteem of individuals participating in it,20 creating a positive feedback loop for creating alternative local economies.

Then, the meaning goes even further, it becomes something in the consumer’s life that is a ritualized piece of their day. If it’s a mug, they use that special mug to drink every morning.

If it’s a necklace, they remember something specific when they put that necklace on”. One participant argued that therefore crafters thrive better in communities “because people know their story more. That’s the huge strength of selling at a local craft show, you can attach the narrative to your piece and the experience and human connection”. However, consumption is a social structure and shifting one’s intention within that structure is very difficult.

necessary to make their products while others trade their finished products (for example, beer and bread for pottery).

Both kinds of trade are common.

Making as a community activity is an outcome that I expected to see in nearly all participants, however only 31.1 percent comment on the explicit need for community in their craft.

This number grows slightly to 49.5 percent when including participants who comment on the need for community in relation to mentorship, trading, bartering, selling, or simply socializing and friendship.

These networks of trade among rural Makers increase the importance of community. 81.4 percent of the www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 81

On The Ground participants in PEI are members of the Crafter Guild which gets together as a community to socialize and to ensure that all crafters have what they need to be successful. Of this community, one participant said she ‘owed everything’ to them, because they had supported her through difficult times and continue to ensure she is taken care of while helping to get her back on her feet. 66.6 percent of PEI participants agreed that the community in PEI would certainly be there to catch one of their own if they fell into a state of need. One PEI maker said that their community “is everyone here that I live with, and they will always come first before anyone else who lives off of this farm. This community provides me with sustenance and satisfaction, so I don’t need to go beyond them.”

The community aspects to crafting and making are important to urban Makers as well, but only to the extent that another maker functions as an extended friend network. This could be less of a function of the urban and rural divide, and more of a function of mainland versus East Coast divide.

Canadian East Coasters are stereotyped as being ‘friendlier’ and there are far fewer people so they’re more likely to build a community with one another. However, it could also be due to the Makers living closely to one another and relying on one another for goods —while urban Makers consume as regular citizens and buy materials online.

One participant stated that some Makers may be looking to fill a social void. In an open question to those at a Makerspace, 58.3 percent of the attendees said that they are joining hobby groups to fill a social void in their life.

When asked why those chose maker groups one said it is because ‘it is social while learning something’ and another said ‘it isn’t just important to meet new people but meeting those 82 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

people should also make you feel happier. Being here makes me happier because I’m learning, socializing, being creative…’

4. Making contributes to an economy that improves mental health

A recent article in the Guardian entitled “Creating is not just a ‘nice’ activity; it transforms, connects and empowers”, argued that making leads to increased feelings of satisfaction, self-esteem, creativity, and joy in those that participate in it.15 My research echoes this argument. Thus, not only does the act of making challenge the dominant capitalist way of thinking, but it also inserts meaning into the process of consumption and production.

A participant in PEI was an accountant for four years. She hated it and ended up with debilitating depression.

She quit and moved to PEI to be a potter where her depression quickly dissipated. Another was a software analyst for 19 years before quitting due to stress and depression. She also moved to PEI to become a potter, and her life drastically improved. One participant reflected on life after she began a new career and stopped making and quickly became depressed.

She ‘wasn’t on the mend until [she] started making again’. She continued, saying ‘I tell all these young mom’s— do not under any circumstances stop making. It’s not only good for your life, but for the life of your children’.

Participants who left stressful mainstream jobs to become Makers, saw a significant improvement in their mental health. They all attributed this to becoming a Maker. Some even reflected that when they stopped making, their depression and anxiety would return until they began making again. While my sample size is too small to make a generalized or overarching statement, my findings are backed

up by various studies.16-19 Making seems to be a useful tool for improving mental health, especially in women.

Making has been shown to improve self-esteem, confidence, and to provoke feelings of pride in one’s self.

91 percent of respondents in a pilot study conducted the year before my research noted that making provides them with a sense of accomplishment.

Unprovoked, 70.7 percent of PEI participants said they moved to PEI or participated in craft to have a better quality of life. One specifically said she gave “up income for quality of life” and another phrased it as getting “paid in quality of life”—in both instances this quality of life was significantly enhanced by the act of making.

Additionally, maker culture’s encouragement of local economies through sharing, trading, and local buying bolsters the self-esteem of individuals participating in it,20 creating a positive feedback loop for creating alternative local economies.

This links back to Herman Daly’s early arguments that community is the most important determinant of a socially responsible economy.21 If a group of people have a strong community, there may be a greater chance that the local prefigurative politic will take hold because there is critical mass. Therefore, in community settings, self-esteem inducing behaviours such as making can flourish more freely because they feed into the larger project of community success. This explains why Makers in PEI are more likely to share or gift their goods, and commented more regularly on the important and vital role community plays in their lives, hobbies, and livelihoods. Those in stronger and more holistic socio-economic settings are more likely to demonstrate inclinations towards the characteristics of the ecological economic social sphere that I have laid out.

On The Ground

Katie Kish

Figure 1. How the elements of Maker culture come together to increase demand for more sustainable consumption patterns.

Making As a Prefigurative Politics Makers offer possibilities that, taken together with other social movements, could tip us toward a new alternative green modernity emerging from existing green radical agendas. This is the basis for ‘prefigurative politics’, which is the development of “shadow networks”22 of alternatives that could rapidly expand their reach in the wake of nonlinear systems change.

Prefigurative politics consist of social movements which create or embody the ontologies and structures they envision for a transformed society “by structuring their own practice according to the principles they want

to see govern the whole society”23. For social movements working toward radical change, prefigurative politics is a way to enact new patterns of social relations that can be imagined from within the current system, but that diverge too much from the mainstream to gain widespread traction under existing conditions24. Most social movements in the 20th and 21st centuries such as those for women’s rights, the environment, peace, anti-globalization, anti-capitalism, economic equity, and Indigenous rights have included prefigurative elements.

Breines argues that the crux of prefigurative politics lies in the

substantial task for individuals to live the practice of their movement so that relationships and political forms of the desired society are already in action.24 John Holloway argued that for those seeking to fundamentally transformation society the solutions is simple: “Refuse-and-create”!25 The route to overthrowing capitalism, Holloway argues, “lies in the proliferation of small-scale rebellions against capitalist logic”26 envisioned by “a multiplicity of interstitial movements” all with the same unifying thread: to overcome the alienation characteristics of capitalist labour and replace it with work and activities that are fulfilling, voluntary, and socially useful. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | April 2019 | Solutions | 83

On The Ground While a lot of current literature on prefigurative politics focuses on how activists should build social movements, the “original concept of prefigurative politics involves a politicization of everyday life”,27 so to capture the full spectrum of prefigurative politics we need to see changes in everyday life as radical acts of resistance—such as making, parenting, and being with family.

Conclusion Makers combine elements from the high-tech world, green communities, and DIY culture—in doing so they implicitly encourage open source technologies, place making, and repairable/modular designs. All of which undermine the process of modern capitalism.

The outcomes of this maker study suggest that a prefigurative politic, such as Maker Culture, can potentially provide a widely appealing alternative to consumer society. This alternative can easily be supported by a municipal government, such as Kitchener’s ‘Make it Kitchener’ economic development strategy, adopted as a hobby for individuals, and bring people together in a community setting. Maker Culture does this in a way that improves individual’s self-esteem, disrupts the production chain in wider society, provides experience-based education opportunities, and is empowering for those who want to make a livelihood outside of mainstream systems.

While doing so, it potentially reduces stress on the biosphere by providing meaning outside of consumption, supporting a culture of reduce, reuse, recycle, and encouraging a local economic system with elements of trade, bartering, and sharing.

Reciprocity and redistribution need to be combined in new ways that result in more localized, face-to-face relationships, and a redefining of 84 | Solutions | April 2019 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org

success while continuing to utilize high-tech gadgetry and maintaining global empathy. Maker culture begins to do this and is therefore a key piece in designing a political-economy for the future.

Acknowledgements Funding for this project was provided by the Metcalf Foundation. Portions of the research were conducted with Dr. Stephen Quilley, University of Waterloo and Dr. Jason Hawreliak, Brock University.

8. Neel, L. & Marano, H. Crafting the Resistance: 35 Projects for Craftivists, Protestors, and Women Who Persist. (Skyhorse Publishing, 2017).

9. Tapper, J., Zucker, G. & Levine, F. Craft Activism: People, Ideas, and Projects from the New Community of Handmade and How You Can Join In. (Potter Craft, 2011).

10. Mason, P. The end of capitalism has begun. The Guardian (2015).

11. Jourdain, A. Analysing the Symbolic Economy with Pierre Bourdieu: The World of Crafts. Forum Soc. Econ. (2015).

12. Giddens, A. The consequences of modernity. (Stanford University Press, 1990).

13. Giddens, A. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. (Stanford University Press, 1991).

14. Curtis, A. The Century of the Self. (2002).

15. Briggs, P. Creating is not just a ‘nice’ activity; it transforms, connects and empowers. The Guardian

If a society is deeply embedded in this system of manufacturing selfidentity via consumption, ecological political and economic interventions should attempt to break this relationship for the benefit of both the environment and wellbeing of individuals.

(2016).

16. Ingold, T. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. (Routledge, 2013).

17. Kouhia, A. Crafting the collective sense: A descriptive case study on recreational textile craftmaking in Finnish adult education. Int. J. Educ. Art 11, 7–20 (2015).

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