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This paper aims to identify changes in food group consumption that may improve both health and sustainability scores of low-scoring population subgroups. As a case study, we assessed the impacts of the diets of a representative sample of Dutch consumers (age 18–75 y, n = 1242). The health impact of their diets was assessed using the Dutch Healthy Diet-index (DHD) and the environmental impact by greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs). As expected, a significant negative correlation was found between DHD and the GHGEs, indicating that health and sustainability can, to some extent, be improved in synergy with one another. Looking at population subgroups, (young) employed males were identified as an important target group (lowest DHD and highest GHGEs). Four food groups and energy were observed of which a reduced intake makes a diet healthier and more environmentally sustainable: meat, energy, cheese, snacks (cakes, pastry, biscuits, salted and fried snacks, potato chips), and alcohol. Besides, three food groups were observed of which an increased intake makes a diet healthier, but less environmentally sustainable when they do not replace other food groups: fruit, fish, and vegetables. Based on real-life differences in dietary patterns, four transition strategies were formulated that can raise the DHD and lower GHGEs: (I) Replacing snacks with fruit, especially between meals, (II) Replacing cheese with vegetables, during lunch as well as dinner, (III) Partly replacing meat with fish, (IV) Lowering the total energy intake, through reducing the consumption of alcoholic drinks. If deriving the highest environmental gain is the purpose of dietary adjustment, then halving the portions of meat consumed is a strategy (V). Actual unsustainable diet practices of specific subgroups require dedicated transition strategies. The study provides insights into the opportunities for improving both health and environmental sustainability scores of different population subgroups and underlines that these cannot be successfully achieved by adopting a single strategy.

Integration of relatively new policy tasks like climate adaptation into established higher-level policy fields is insufficiently understood in the academic literature. This paper proposes a framework to evaluate the integration of climate adaptation into the sectoral policy-making of the European Commission, particularly following the publication of the EU Adaptation Strategy (in 2013). The paper uses a framework of micro, meso and macro-level institutional behaviour drawing strongly on new institutionalism perspectives to identify and explain factors enabling and hindering policy integration. It focuses on integration in the coastal and marine policy sector, which is expected to be particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts, and draws from data collected through a document review and interviews with key informants. The findings show that the integration of climate adaptation is still at an early stage. The integration process appears to be largely dependent on institutional dynamics at the EU-level combined with how member states and wider sectoral stakeholders engage with adaptation concerns. In particular, the ambivalence of some member states and a lack of urgency among sectoral stakeholders has hampered the integration of adaptation goals.

The importance of actions by non-state and sub-national actors (e.g., companies and cities) is increasingly recognized, because current governmental commitments are insufficient to limit the increase of global temperatures to 1.5 °C. Orchestration, the alignment between ‘orchestrator’ (e.g., international organizations and governments) and ‘intermediaries’ (e.g., city networks and partnerships), could harness additional contributions by building catalytic linkages and by enabling a growing number of actions. Although most orchestration efforts have been made in the context of international climate negotiations, regional and national orchestration could be useful by contributing to the implementation of national commitments, and by inspiring greater ambition. We investigate whether and how regional and national orchestrators respond to shortfalls in international orchestration. Using insights from a comparative study, we provide an early indication of the catalytic potential of orchestration in Latin America, Europe, India, Argentina, and Sweden. We find considerable impacts of global level orchestration on the emergence of these initiatives, however orchestrators do not simply copy other efforts; they emphasize different catalytic linkages, including the engagement of underrepresented actors; implementation; and, the provision of ideational and material support. Catalytic linkages in a complex landscape with multiple orchestrators could sometimes be improved through coordination. Given the enormous scale of transformation needed, a focus on scale may seem natural. However, for socially just outcomes, orchestrators need to resist a sole focus on scale, and also aim at experimental and small-scale actions, which may not lead to immediate large-scale impacts but which may prove crucial in longer-term transformations.

In acknowledgement of the complexity of environmental challenges, research on learning in environmental policy has grown substantially over the past two decades across a range of disciplines. Despite this growth, there are few comprehensive assessments of the literature on learning in environmental policy. This article fills this gap by providing insights on the overall coherence and impact of this body of scholarship. To do so, we analyze a sample of 163 articles from 2004 to 2014 using a standardized coding framework. The results provide an in-depth assessment of the status of the literature on learning in the context of environmental policy, as well as the quality of the literature. We demonstrate that despite the diversity in research questions and goals, the literature is lacking with respect to diversity in cases and context, theoretical development, clear conceptualization and operationalization of learning, and advancements in empirical approaches to study learning. From these insights, we discuss the challenges and opportunities for scholars in studying learning and provide recommendations for building the theoretical and methodological rigor of the field.

Visualisations can highly contribute to the importance and authority of new ideas, concepts, and knowledge claims. Among the many visualisations, few become well-known and influential in environmental governance. Whilst these have been objects of specific research, this study questions what constitutes and underpins their influence. For this, the paper codifies influential visualisations and defines criteria for studying their visual characteristics. The criteria are applied to two case studies, the “traffic light” and the “planetary boundaries” diagrams. To increase the validity of the findings, the study also introduces two “failure cases” as a plausibility check.

There is a growing literature on the politics of sustainability transitions and its correlation with policy changes at the national level. This paper contributes to this debate by taking stock of energy transition processes in Nigeria's biofuels sector. It explores the socio-economic externalities that influenced the biofuels policy, how this policy process was negotiated and why it failed. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, it was observed that a drop in oil production and the need for economic diversification (GDP growth) created a favourable condition for the development of biofuels in 2005. However, the biofuels policy was insufficiently articulated when the window of opportunity opened. In the last 10 years, fluctuations in oil prices and changes in government have closed the window of opportunity for biofuels. Taken together, the results suggest that to successfully engineer transition, policy processes of this nature require a re-articulation of vision based on emerging externalities.

In this paper, I study the generative role of speculative promise in climate engineering research. My analysis operationalizes Alfred Nordmann’s call for a ‘forensics of wishing’, a variety of technology assessment which scrutinizes the politics of anticipation in technoscience. Using scientific articles and reports as primary sources I trace the uptake and contestation of bold claims made by atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen a decade ago. In 2006, Crutzen called for dedicated research on stratospheric albedo enhancement as a method to cool the planet. A back-of-the-envelope calculation invoking the eruption of the Mount Pinatubo volcano as a case to be mimicked served to illustrate the method. In the paper, I concentrate on the reception of this idea by fellow climate scientists. Besides fundamental objections being made to Crutzen’s climate paradigm, less idealized models appeared to produce much less promising calculations. The initial claims however kept re-appearing as well and continue to exert influence as idealized models take the idea further. Speculation thus continues to be an important driver of the research. In the conclusion, I discuss aspects of the worldview underlying the proposal, drawing on environmental humanities literature on the human condition in the Anthropocene.

Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. A growing number of regions in the developing world are targeted by transnational investors who are acquiring large amounts of land and natural resources. Driven by the increasing global demand for agricultural products, such investments are often considered an opportunity for economic development in the target country. However, there are concerns about the social and environmental impacts on local communities. In this brief review, we discuss some key socio-environmental controversies surrounding large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs). LSLAs often target common property systems and lead to privatization and commodification of land through long-term land concessions. There is a debate between supporters of foreign land investments as a means to attract modern agricultural technology that would decrease the yield gap in underperforming agricultural land and those who question such a development model because it is seldom coupled with policy instruments that would ensure that the benefits improve food security in local populations. Large-scale land investments displace a variety of systems of production ranging from small-scale farming to (arguably) “unused” land such as forests and savannas on which local communities often depend. Moreover, LSLAs entail an appropriation of water resources that may negatively impact local farmers or downstream human and natural systems. In most cases, investors keep the land fallow but, when they put it under productive use, they typically change land cover and land use to start intensified commercial farming, often for nonfood crops. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An innovative approach to mitigating climate change beyond the international negotiations and hard-law approaches is governing by disclosure – the acquisition and dissemination of information to influence the behavior of particular actors. This paper analyzes the institutionalization of carbon disclosure as an organizational field, focusing in particular on the role of governance entrepreneurs in this process. The emergence of carbon disclosure is scrutinized along four distinct stages of transnational institutionalization: start-up; competition and growth; convergence and consolidation; integration into international public policy. For each phase, the role and relevance of governance entrepreneurs is analyzed. The article finds that during the first stage, entrepreneurs mainly acts as innovators and “out-of-the-box” thinkers; in stage 2, entrepreneurs can be characterized as flexible adaptors and opportunity seekers, while in stage 3, the role of meta-governors in dominant. Finally, the last stage, entrepreneurs acts as connectors and bridge-builder between the transnational sphere of carbon disclosure and the wider international governance arena.

Although numerous studies have been conducted in recent years on energy transitions, they have been predominately developed and applied in industrialized countries. It is however important to examine the applicability of transition theories, as they are currently formulated, beyond OECD countries. This paper analyses renewable energy transitions in Africa, using Nigeria as a case study, to elucidate the analytical and methodological challenges that sustainability transition studies are facing in developing countries, particularly rentier states. In doing so, the paper employs the lens of the multi-level perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions - a well-established theory that emphasizes the role of ‘niches’, ‘regimes’ and ‘landscapes’ in instituting transitions. Based on a detailed analysis of Nigeria, we argue for a more nuanced enquiry of the construct ‘regime’ that better accounts for the rentier character of the state including the role of political elites and prevalent client-patron relationships. As such, our paper makes an important contribution to the further refinement and enrichment of the MLP by focusing on the political dimensions of energy transitions.

© 2017 The Authors Since small-scale farmers manage most of the cultivated land worldwide, the ongoing shift in systems of production associated with large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) may dramatically reshape the world's agrarian landscape, significantly impacting rural populations and their livelihoods. The societal, hydrological and environmental implications resulting from the expansion of large-scale agricultural production, through LSLAs, make their ultimate sustainability questionable. This study, through a literature review, analyses the negative impacts of LSLAs, their hydrological dimension and how they may affect the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The core literature on land and water grabbing is reviewed and systematized using the 17 SDGs as a framework, in order to highlight the relationship between LSLAs and the sustainable development agenda. The magnitude of the global land rush phenomenon and the criticism raised in scholarly research highlight the controversial role that transnational land acquisitions may be playing in the global development agenda.

Purposeful collective action is important for sustainably managing many kinds of natural resource issues in social-ecological systems. However, cultivating purposeful collective action is challenging in ambiguous and contested situations involving multiple issues, actors, levels, and drivers, and weak or missing feedback. A particular example is the problem of managing waterway health in large and diverse landscapes. This paper analyses the emergence of purposeful collective action for managing waterway health, focusing on a case study of a large and diverse region in Australia. It applies a heuristic developed to guide inquiry into 'enabling capacities' underpinning purposeful collective action, to analyse three local cases embedded within a broader regional landscape. A diverse range of enabling capacities at both local and regional levels, and cross-level interplay between these levels, are shown to be important. Findings imply that efforts to generate purposeful collective action require building enabling capacities across multiple levels of organisation, from which contextually-appropriate and adaptive action can emerge. Moreover, findings indicate the need for a practice-focused ‘knowledge-action perspective’ that recognises the importance of intersubjectivity and agency. The paper demonstrates a promising approach for investigating purposeful collective action in ambiguous and contested water and environmental governance situations.

Recent studies in the field of political science and environmental resource governance suggest that oil-exporting economies have begun to implement fuel subsidy reforms. However, while most studies on this issue focus largely on the broader environmental and economic consequences of fuel subsidy reforms, few have examined specifically the effects on renewable energy transitions. Drawing insights from the literature on political economy and the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions, with empirical examples from Nigeria, first this study provides an explanation of which factors triggered fuel reforms on the basis of the interaction between landscape and regime elements and second the effects of such fuel reforms on renewable energy transitions. Findings suggest that landscape factors such as global oil crashes and pressures from international financial organisations played crucial roles in the drive for fuel reforms. Nonetheless, rentier regime members responded to these pressures by adopting institutional, discursive and redistributive measures. Of all three strategies, the institutional strategy was significantly pivotal in the proliferation of renewable energy in Nigeria. This study concludes by discussing lessons learned in shaping a transition away from fossil fuels in Nigeria and rentier countries in general.

This editorial highlights the diversity in studies of experimentation that aims for solutions to climate change and wider sustainability challenges. The diversity is reflected in the theoretical underpinnings, the agency behind experiments, the niches in which experimentation occurs, in the governance of the experiments and in experiments with governance, in the way experiments contribute to learning and sharing of knowledge across levels and scales. This implies that experimentation and experiments can contribute to transitions in very different ways and that experimentation also runs the risks of merely becoming a distraction that maintains status quo instead of contributing to transformative change. In moving forward research should explore the diversity even more, and critically evaluate and discuss the possible contributions to policy and polycentric governance.

Contains fulltext : 175882.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) The purpose of this contribution is to turn an eye to the worldwide discussion on water governance of the past decades, and key innovations that have been proposed there. We do so because water is a major passion of Helen Ingram's, she is a critical follower of water governance innovations (see for instance Ingram, 2008), and she is a stern advocate for applying social science theory to water management issues (see, e.g., Blatter and Ingram, 2001). We also do so because water managers around the world are surrounded by increasingly uncertain and unpredictable social and ecological environments. 21 p.

This chapter deals with the performance of polycentric governance, focusing specifically on how well it handles the distinct complexities associated with climate change. The notion of polycentric governance emerged in the early 1960s, but its popularity increased greatly after one of its chief exponents, Elinor Ostrom, was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009 and thereafter began to apply it to the wicked problem of climate change. This chapter investigates whether the concept of polycentric governance as a solution for climate change holds weight or not, and why. To that end we first discuss what makes climate change so fiendishly complex, and what implications this has for attempts to govern it. Subsequently we describe what polycentric governance entails, and why its advocates believe it is ideally suited to addressing climate change – for instance because it is said to lead to more experimentation at local levels, enabling greater levels of exchange, learning and innovation between governors. In the final section we explore whether these theoretical expectations are actually borne out in practice, which leads to cautious conclusions.

Given the growing interest among drinking water companies in the customer ‘beyond the meter’, generic accounts of the ‘average user’ no longer suffice. Yet, segmentation on the basis of specific characteristics or behaviour seems to offer a limited explanatory value. Hence, there is an increasing need for more detailed empirical knowledge of the potential for, and significance of, customer segmentation on the basis of subjective views and preferences. To this end, this paper not only explores different customer perspectives on drinking water, but also quantifies their prevalence and distribution, at a deep analytical level, in the Netherlands. The paper draws on empirical data collected from both a Q-study, encompassing a focus group and more than 30 interviews, and two large-scale surveys with a 3-year interval. We conclude that four customer perspectives on drinking water can be distinguished: (1) ‘aware & committed’; (2) ‘down to earth & confident’; (3) ‘egalitarian & solidary’; and (4) ‘quality & health concerned’. The modern customer segmentation approach in this paper offers deeper insights into the satisfaction, interests, concerns, and sociodemographic characteristics of customers related to these perspectives, which can aid companies in their quest to become more customer-oriented and responsive to different customer needs.

The Paris Agreement requires mitigation contributions from all Parties. Therefore, the determination of additionality of activities under the market mechanisms of its Article 6 will need to be revisited. This paper provides recommendations on how to operationalize additionality under Article 6. We first review generic definitions of additionality and current approaches for testing of additionality before discussing under which conditions additionality testing of specific activities or policies is still necessary under the new context of the Paris Agreement, that is, in order to prevent increases of global emissions. We argue that the possibility of ‘hot air’ generation under nationally-determined contributions (NDCs) requires an independent check of the NDC’s ambition. If the NDC of the transferring country does contain ‘hot air’, or if the transferred emission reductions are not covered by the NDC, a dedicated additionality test should be required. While additionality tests of projects and programmes could continue to be done through investment analysis, for policy instruments new approaches are required. They should be differentiated according to type of policy instrument. For regulation, we suggest calculating the resulting pay-back period for technology users. If the regulation generates investments exceeding a payback period threshold, it could be deemed additional. Similarly, carbon pricing policies that generate a carbon price exceeding a threshold could qualify; for trading schemes an absence of over-allocation needs to be shown. The threshold should be differentiated according to country categories and rise over time. Key policy insights Without additionality testing, market mechanisms under the Paris Agreements might lead to an international diffusion of ‘hot air’. To avoid this, an independent assessment of NDC ambition is in order. Otherwise, activities under the mechanisms need to undergo specific additionality tests. Additionality testing of projects and programmes should build on the experience developed under the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms. Bold approaches are needed for assessing additionality of policies. To avoid cumbersome assessment of all activities triggered by such policies, highly aggregated approaches are suggested, ranging from payback period thresholds for technologies mandated by regulation to minimum price levels triggered by carbon pricing policies. Over time, the stringency of threshold values should increase.

Theoretical advances suggest that international governance in general and the Paris Agreement in particular provide a strong signal guiding sociotechnical systems toward decarbonization. We assess this signal and its effects empirically, by examining the struggle of competing narratives as present in the communications of leading US fossil fuel industry associations and companies. The results are then discussed in the context of the national and international climate and energy policy debates in a study period from late 2014 until the announcement of withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in June 2017. We find that the Paris Agreement has institutionalized a narrative paradigm that is surprisingly resilient. While the election of Donald Trump and his climate and energy policy led to a narrative shift in the coal industry, the oil and gas industry remained conspicuously silent in its immediate response and maintained its narrative strategies despite its alignment with the Paris Agreement.

Universal delivery of improved drinking water services in rural Africa and Asia has been an enduring policy challenge for decades. Whilst drinking water coverage has generally improved, only one in five countries below 95% coverage in 2015 is currently on track to achieve basic drinking water services for all by 2030. We identify and evaluate three periods of rural water policy in Africa and Asia between 1980 and 2030 to (i) identify four pillars of rural water policy design, (ii) consider how they have adapted over time, and (iii) propose priorities for progress. We argue for an increase in investments in designing and testing emerging institutional models for rural water services to evaluate the trade‐offs in performance across institutional, financial and operational dimensions. Stronger empirical evidence will allow policy and planning to balance and negotiate short‐term political goals with long‐term sector sustainability for the benefit of the poor.

The Paris Agreement combines collective goals with individual countries’ contributions. This hybrid approach does not guarantee that the individual contributions add up to what is required to meet the collective goals. The Paris Agreement therefore established the Global Stocktake. Its task is to “assess collective progress” towards achieving the long-term goals of the agreement as of 2023 and every five years thereafter. Corresponding to this role, this paper addresses three questions: What should an effective Global Stocktake look like? What information and data are needed? Is it possible to execute an effective Global Stocktake within the mandate of the Paris Agreement?

The Global Stocktake (GST) takes a central role within the architecture of the Paris Agreement, with many hoping that it will become a catalyst for increased mitigation ambition. This paper outlines four governance functions for an ideal GST: pacemaker, ensurer of accountability, driver of ambition and provider of guidance and signal. The GST can set the pace of progress by stimulating and synchronizing policy processes across governance levels. It can ensure accountability of Parties through transparency and public information sharing. Ambition can be enhanced through benchmarks for action and transformative learning. By reiterating and refining the long term visions, it can echo and amplify the guidance and signal provided by the Paris Agreement. The paper further outlines preconditions for the effective performance of these functions. Process-related conditions include: a public appraisal of inputs; a facilitative format that can develop specific recommendations; high-level endorsement to amplify the message and effectively inform national climate policy agendas; and an appropriate schedule, especially with respect to the transparency framework. Underlying information provided by Parties complemented with other (scientific) sources needs to enable benchmark setting for collective climate action, to allow for transparent assessments of the state of emissions and progress of a low-carbon transformation. The information also needs to be politically relevant and concrete enough to trigger enhancement of ambition. We conclude that meeting these conditions would enable an ideal GST and maximize its catalytic effect. Key policy insights The functional argument developed in this article may inspire a purposeful design of the GST as its modalities and procedures are currently being negotiated. The analytical framework provided serves as a benchmark against which to assess the GST's modalities and procedures. Gaps and blind spots in the official GST can and should be addressed by processes external to the climate regime in academia and civil society. �� 2019, �� 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Social capacity building is increasingly suggested as strategy for supporting vulnerable communities in dealing with natural hazards such as floods. However, research on the empirical implementation of social capacity building is still limited. This paper presents a conceptualisation and an empirical case study of participatory social capacity building for flood risk mitigation in the Netherlands. We designed and implemented two distinct participatory pilots, studied the processes and outcomes to assess what factors influence social capacity building, and assessed how existing capacity may be leveraged. Social capacity is herein conceptualised as consisting of five dimensions: Knowledge, Motivation, Networks, Finance, and Participation. The first pilot included a walk in flood-prone areas and a discussion session with citizens and flood risk authority representatives. The second pilot involved elementary school pupils interviewing senior citizens with flood experience. Based on qualitative observation and analysis of the processes, findings suggest there is good potential for mutual sharing of knowledge if all participating actors are equal in the participatory process, and that informal settings open up debates, but also that leveraging existing social capacities might inadvertently impede the dissemination of knowledge that is vital in coping with (future) disaster risks.

The notion of ‘familiarity’ has been propagated as a new policy tool to bridge the gap between scientific expertise and regulatory practice in the context of biotechnology risk assessment. This chapter analyses the scientific merits of the concept of familiarity. This criterion is designed to amalgamate normative and scientific aspects of the biosafety issue. Understanding the scientific meaning of ‘familiarity’ in this context is a prerequisite for appreciating its normative role in regulatory decision-making. The concept of ‘familiarity’ can only serve its purpose in biosafety assessment when it is reconstructed in terms of its underlying biological models. The Economic Cooperation and Development has cited familiarity with the environment as a relevant safety consideration. However, when it comes to identifying possible impacts of genetically manipulated organisms on ecosystems, there is no such thing as ‘familiarity with the environment’ without explicit consideration of the interactive relations between that environment and the organism.

Non-state and sub-national actors (e.g. cities, regions and companies) are increasingly taking action to address biodiversity loss. They set up standards and commitments, provide funding, create and disseminate information, and execute projects on the ground. As part of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) decided to implement the ‘Sharm El-Sheikh to Beijing Action Agenda for Nature and People’. While there is general support for a voluntary commitment process, the question now is how the Action agenda should look like, what form voluntary commitments for biodiversity should take and if and how the action agenda could become a meaningful pillar in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. A recent study by the authors reveals the actual depth and breadth of biodiversity governance beyond the CBD. This contribution argues that lessons learned from the ongoing climate change action agenda should urgently be taken into account when further developing the biodiversity action agenda.

This Commentary reflects on the state of the scholarship on learning for environmental and natural resource policy and governance. How have we been learning about learning? We highlight theoretical and empirical advancements related to learning, as well as areas of divergence between learning theories and frameworks, and underdeveloped knowledge around processes and outcomes. To address these limitations and improve progress in both theory and practice, we offer recommendations for learning scholarship by focusing on how to collectively engage in ‘learning about learning’.

The idea of improving the performance of environmental policies by combining various instruments and approaches in a smart way is attractive. However, from a theoretical perspective, the idea of optimal mixes seems problematic. This chapter starts from the assumption that governance fields (i.e. the multiple institutions, both public and private, that are operating within a given policy arena across multiple levels) can be best described as complex systems, and consequently develops an argument about the usefulness of complexity sciences in studying smart policy mixes. The area of climate change governance after the Paris Agreement serves as our empirical illustration.

In a contribution for the Foreign Affairs magazine in 2012, outgoing World Bank president Robert Zoellick explained ‘Why we still need the World Bank’. Taking Zoellick’s contribution as our starting point, we introduce the central theme of our book: the idea that it can no longer be taken for granted that a core institution of the post-war international order is needed and that international organizations have thus come ‘under pressure’. After laying out the ways in which our study goes beyond the state of our current knowledge, further sections elaborate on major aspects of our research design, on our core findings, and on the implications these findings have for the theory and practice of international organizations. A final section previews the content of Chapters 2 to 8.

In this research it is aimed to outline the role and potential contribution of insects towards food security and sustainability from a multidisciplinary perspective. First, ecological, economic and social aspects of food sustainability and food security are identified by prioritising the environmental impacts associated with food production and consumption. Subsequently, it is argued how protein supply is underlying and linking the top-3 of anthropogenic impacts, i.e. (1) biodiversity loss; (2) nitrogen cycle acceleration; and (3) carbon cycle acceleration (resulting in climate change). In order to address the production and consumption inefficiencies inherent to the current food system a ranked list of more sustainable options is proposed, based on their order of magnitude. Versatile side-stream valorisation returning losses to the food chain is deemed a unique selling point of insects. In addition to quantitative impacts, however, qualitative aspects relating to feasibility also play an important part. In that respect, just a minority of Western consumers are inclined to adopt insects as food. As an illustration, consumer acceptance of edible insects as attractive food items are quantified at the level of diets, dishes and ingredients (for the Netherlands). From the perspective of sustainability, the potential of insects is reflected upon. Meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals requires a relatively rapid transition towards a circular economy. In this light, insects are undeniably useful for food, feed, and other purposes. Health may be key to entice consumers to drop their conservative attitudes and progress towards a diet transition. However, an integrated, multidisciplinary approach including all stakeholders remains a prerequisite.

This special issue contributes to scholarly debates about the role of cities in global climate governance, reflecting on the promise, limits, and politics of cities as agents of change. It takes an empirically-informed approach drawing on multiple diverse geographical and political contexts. Overall, the special issue aims to stimulate reflection and debate about where understanding and practice needs improvement to advance the role of cities in global climate governance. Key questions that are addressed in the special issue include: To what extent do real world experiences confirm or disconfirm the high expectations of cities as agents and sites of change in addressing global climate change as expressed in urban climate governance literature? In what ways do internal political dynamics of cities enable or constrain urban climate governance? How is climate governance in cities enabled and constrained by interactions with broader governance levels? In what ways can climate governance in cities be advanced through critical attention to the previous issues?.

An examination of whether accountability mechanisms in global environmental governance that focus on monitoring and enforcement necessarily lead to better governance and better environmental outcomes.

Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement stand as milestone diplomatic achievements. However, immense discrepancies between political commitments and governmental action remain. Combined national climate commitments fall far short of the Paris Agreement's 1.5/2°C targets. Similar political ambition gaps persist across various areas of sustainable development. Many therefore argue that actions by nonstate actors, such as businesses and investors, cities and regions, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), are crucial. These voices have resonated across the United Nations (UN) system, leading to growing recognition, promotion, and mobilization of such actions in ever greater numbers. This article investigates optimistic arguments about nonstate engagement, namely: (a) “the more the better”; (b) “everybody wins”; (c) “everyone does their part”; and (d) “more brings more.” However, these optimistic arguments may not be matched in practice due to governance risks. The current emphasis on quantifiable impacts may lead to the under-appreciation of variegated social, economic, and environmental impacts. Claims that everybody stands to benefit may easily be contradicted by outcomes that are not in line with priorities and needs in developing countries. Despite the seeming depoliticization of the role of nonstate actors in implementation, actions may still lead to politically contentious outcomes. Finally, nonstate climate and sustainability actions may not be self-reinforcing but may heavily depend on supporting mechanisms. The article concludes with governance risk-reduction strategies that can be combined to maximize nonstate potential in sustainable and climate-resilient transformations. This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change Governance.

With global environmental problems worsening, policy makers and nonstate actors are looking for viable solutions through policy innovation, entrepreneurship, and experimentation. Research into the use of experiments to innovate is increasing, but the role of experimentation in policy change has yet to be specifically addressed in the context of climate governance. My aim is to improve understanding by examining how entrepreneurs, key agents of change, might use experiments to advance their climate innovations. Policy entrepreneurs can benefit in several ways from using experiments, including assessing public response to new ideas and learning. I address the question: What role can experiments play in an entrepreneur’s change strategies? To answer this, a set of 18 policy experiments from Dutch water management was analyzed to understand how the policy experiments functioned as 4 different policy change strategies. The results revealed that organizers use experiments to evaluate their preformed ideas, to soften local communities to the idea of experimentation, to build broad but centrally controlled coalitions, and to link with influential political actors and national programs to maintain visibility and relevance. These insights formed a list of suggestions that the experiment organizers identified as key to the change strategies. Based on this, a number of recommendations about design choices were made for entrepreneurs who want to experiment. Analyzing experiments as change strategies contributes a novel perspective on how policy experiments function as venues for invention and provides useful suggestions on how experiments can be designed to improve their influence over policy-making processes.

Despite the proliferation and promise of subnational climate initiatives, the institutional architecture of transnational municipal networks (TMNs) is not well understood. With a view to close this research gap, the article empirically assesses the assumption that TMNs are a viable substitute for ambitious international action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It addresses the aggregate phenomenon in terms of geographical distribution, central players, mitigation ambition and monitoring provisions. Examining thirteen networks, it finds that membership in TMNs is skewed toward Europe and North America while countries from the Global South are underrepresented; that only a minority of networks commit to quantified emission reductions and that these are not more ambitious than Parties to the UNFCCC; and finally that the monitoring provisions are fairly limited. In sum, the article shows that transnational municipal networks are not (yet) the representative, ambitious and transparent player they are thought to be., Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe, 105

As humanity continues to grow in size, questions related to human rights and the existing unequal distribution of food resources have taken on greater urgency. Is inequality in food access unjust or a regrettable consequence of the geographic distribution of biophysical resources? To what extent are there obligations to redress inequalities in access to food? We draw from a human rights perspective to identify obligations associated with access to food and develop a quantitative framework to evaluate the fulfillment of the human right to food. We discuss the capacity of socioeconomic development to reduce inequalities in per capita food availability with respect to the distribution of biophysical resources among countries. Although, at the country level, international trade shows the capacity to reduce human rights deficits by increasing food availability in countries with limited food production, whether it actually improves the fulfillment of the right to food will depend on within-country inequality.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 Archetypes are increasingly used as a methodological approach to understand recurrent patterns in variables and processes that shape the sustainability of social-ecological systems. The rapid growth and diversification of archetype analyses has generated variations, inconsistencies, and confusion about the meanings, potential, and limitations of archetypes. Based on a systematic review, a survey, and a workshop series, we provide a consolidated perspective on the core features and diverse meanings of archetype analysis in sustainability research, the motivations behind it, and its policy relevance. We identify three core features of archetype analysis: Recurrent patterns, multiple models, and intermediate abstraction. Two gradients help to apprehend the variety of meanings of archetype analysis that sustainability researchers have developed: (1) understanding archetypes as building blocks or as case typologies and (2) using archetypes for pattern recognition, diagnosis, or scenario development. We demonstrate how archetype analysis has been used to synthesize results from case studies, bridge the gap between global narratives and local realities, foster methodological interplay, and transfer knowledge about sustainability strategies across cases. We also critically examine the potential and limitations of archetype analysis in supporting evidence-based policy making through context-sensitive generalizations with case-level empirical validity. Finally, we identify future priorities, with a view to leveraging the full potential of archetype analysis for supporting sustainable development.

Last year's conference of the global climate change regime took place from 2 until 15 December 2018 in Katowice, Poland. The conference had two main objectives: operationalis-ing the Paris Agreement by adopting detailed rules for its implementation, and starting the process of strengthening Parties' climate protection contributions. This article covers the negotiations on these two sets of issues and also includes a discussion of other recent climate activities by Parties and non-Party actors. Success of the negotiations in Katowice was far from assured, but in the end COP24 concluded with the adoption of the ‘Katowice Climate Package’ setting out detailed guidelines on how to implement its various elements. However, the conference fell short on the first objective, none of the major emitting countries was ready to step up its climate ambition. The most important aspect of the Katowice outcome is therefore that it has brought the wrangling about implementation procedures to a close, making way for the true task at hand: the strengthening of national and international activities to protect the climate and the implementation of the existing pledges. Arguably, a key factor that has been slowing down climate policy is the power of entrenched interests. The article therefore concludes with a reflection on how such barriers to climate action may be overcome and what role future COPs may play in this regard.

Among many species of fish, sharks play a special role due to a tradition of consuming shark products in countries inhabited by ethnic Chinese. Offering dishes based on shark meat to guests showed hospitality, brought happiness, health and wealth. Currently, the attitude towards use of these species in Taiwan is changing and increasingly many people decide to protect them. As a consequence, educational campaigns on sharks have been launched, followed by a growing demand for tourist services related to sharks, especially watching these animals in their natural habitat. The goal of this study is to analyse unique conditions for development of shark-related ecosystem services in Taiwan, especially ecotourism. Key variables analysed are rising level of environmental awareness, support of formal and informal institutions and existence of role models for business. The paper presents a case study of a company offering shark diving, social and institutional conditions for its operations and their consequences for stakeholders. Research methods applied in this paper include a case study supported by document analysis, as well as individual interviews. Results show that Taiwan has favourable conditions to develop this market niche and coin a new ecosystem service from an ancient tradition. However, there are still major social challenges to overcome.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M The recent phenomenon of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) is associated with what has been described as a global agrarian transition. New forms of land exploitation and concentration have led to profound socio-environmental transformations of rural production systems in Latin America, South-East Asia and Sub Saharan Africa. Scholars have pointed out that the expansion of transnational land investments is often associated with detrimental social outcomes, has negative environmental impacts and can represent a potential impediment to the achievement of many SDGs. In this paper, our primary concern is on the mounting evidence that LSLAs preferentially target the commons, in the process altering long-standing customary resource governance systems. While it has been shown that in many instances of commons grabbing associated with LSLAs, different types of social conflict emerge, it is less clear what forms of social mobilization and organized collective re-actions are taking place to defend the commons and contest such processes of dispossession and enclosure. The main aim of this contribution is to fill this gap by synthesizing and describing the different typologies of social mobilization and collective re-actions that emerge as a result of commons grabbing associated with the transnational expansion of the agribusiness frontier. In order to do this our research synthesizes information from the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) shedding light on some of the key characteristics associated with the different forms and dynamics of social mobilization that are organized in reaction to agribusiness-related commons grabbing.

A shift to a more healthy and sustainable diet (as recommended by the EAT Lancet Commission report) is currently hampered by persistent choices for meat, which are based on stable preferences and positive feedback mechanisms at the individual, social, and economic/organizational level. This paper puts forward the view that proposals for a diet shift will fall short without broad social legitimation, aimed at a change in social norms. That what previously belonged to the domain of morally acceptable practices (eating animal protein sources) has to be strongly limited, whereas what was previously not considered particularly noteworthy (eating plant protein sources) should become an accepted and, subsequently, a preferable alternative. This process of reordering has been set into motion by a typically expert-based legitimation, but the pace of its progress will depend on many other forces operating throughout society. Building on van Leeuwen’s framework of persuasive strategies, this conceptual review paper aims to improve understanding of the various categories of legitimation, related to authority, moral evaluation, rationality, and story logic. Each category is examined with a view to how it may support (or oppose) the reordering of protein sources necessary for a diet shift. Key strategies are a further revision of the existing authority-based dietary guidelines, using the diversity of rationality-based legitimations to support them, avoiding polarization of moral-based ideologies and being cautious of myths, micro-myths and stories.

The protests that took place across Turkey in the summer of 2013 started as a bottom-up response to the plans of the government and Istanbul municipality to build a shopping mall on a small yet symbolic park in the cultural heart of the city. Taking the name of this point of origin, Gezi Park protests have quickly turned into a countrywide resistance movement against the hyper-developmentalist environmental and urban policies of the government, and the authoritarian tendencies of PM (now President) Tayyip Erdoğan. The movement unified opposition from all sides of the political spectrum, and transformed not only environmental discourses and policy-making but also the language in Turkish politics. Using Laclauian discourse theory and 25 semi-structured interviews with protesters and opinion leaders, this article documents how environmental policy has become the focus of popular dissent and analyses the signifiers around which the resistance has emerged. The hegemonic struggles between the government and the protestors and the lasting effects of the protests are critically discussed, to scrutinise the increasingly focal place of environmental discourses in the global conjuncture.