Transcript Living with Environmental Change

Researching
Environment - Society Relations
Professor Philip Lowe
Newcastle University
Director of UK Research Councils’
Rural Economy and Land Use Programme
Structure
 Scientific Challenge of Sustainable Development
 Social Science and the Environment
 The Importance of Interdisciplinary Research (e.g.
Rural Economy and Land Use Programme)
 Examples of Upcoming Programmes
Scientific Challenge of
Sustainable Development
 Sustainable development:
 implies integration of economic, social and environmental objectives
in public and private behaviour
 Unsustainable development:
 fostered by fragmented thinking and blinkered disciplinary
perspectives
 Sustainable development:
 requires integrated solutions (socio-technical and socioecological adaptations)
Demands a key role for the social sciences alongside
the environmental sciences and technology
Social Sciences and the Environment
 UK has long track record of bringing social sciences – the
human dimension - to the heart of debates on the environment
 ESRC Global Environmental Change Programme 1990s
- Attitudes and behaviour
- Business and environment
- Policy and institutions
- Sustainability and resource management
 Particular advances from research included:
- Fiscal policies and development of environmental taxes
- Scientific approaches to environmental valuation
- Insights into public understandings and responses to risk and uncertainty
- Sources of social vulnerability to climate change
UK Principles of Sustainable Development
Living Within
Environmental Limits
Achieving a Sustainable
Economy
Using Sound Science
Responsibly
Ensuring a Strong,
Healthy and Just
Society
Promoting Good
Governance
The Environment and International
Development
Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to
Sustainability (STEPS Centre)
http://www.steps-centre.org/
Sustainability and Corporate
Responsibility
Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability
and Society (BRASS)
 Overarching themes:
 The socio-environmental impacts of business
 Sustainable consumption and production
 Responsible management
 Examples of research:
 Developing local and regional Sustainability Indicators
 Ecological footprinting of major events
 New decision tools for improving the sustainability of
business activity
http://www.brass.cf.ac.uk/
Importance of
Interdisciplinary Research
 Social science increasingly called
upon to address solutions to
environmental challenges
Calls for:
 Interdisciplinarity across social and
natural sciences
 More socially accountable science
Interdisciplinary Research
Rural Economy and Land Use
Programme (RELU)
Key public challenges include:
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Restoring trust in food chains
Promoting robust rural economies
Sustaining agriculture in a liberalised economy
Tackling animal disease in a socially
acceptable manner
 Mitigating threats from climate change and
invasive species
 Reducing stress on water catchments
http://www.relu.ac.uk/
Interdisciplinary Research (RELU)
Socio-Technical Innovation
 Barriers to alternative pest management strategies
 Political science, entomology, microbiology,
economics
Reframing Science
 Management of animal and plant diseases
 Economics, microbiology, veterinary medicine,
epidemiology, plant pathology, science studies
Spatiality of Changing Land Use
 The effects of scale in organic agriculture
 Human geography, sociology, economics,
development studies, environmental informatics and
modelling, hydrology, civil/water engineering
Upcoming Programmes (LWEC)
Living with Environmental Change
 Predicting what will happen and where impacts
will be
 Examining the provision of ‘ecosystem
services’
 Finding ways to use limited resources
sustainably
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/lwec/
Living With Environmental Change (LWEC)
Over the next ten years the programme
will:
 connect natural, engineering, social, medical and
cultural researchers with policy makers, business, the
public and other key stakeholders
 focus on the regional and local impacts of
environmental change from seasons to decades
 provide decision-makers with best information to
manage environmental change and protect vital
ecosystem services
Upcoming Programmes (ESPA)
Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation
 Improve ecosystem management policies
 Loss of services from ecosystems reduces wellbeing
 International focus
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/espa/
Anglo-Chinese Collaborations
Examples:
 Sino-European Dragon Programme
 Ecosystems Services for Poverty
Alleviation (ESPA): China Regional
Analysis and Research Strategy
 Living With Environmental Change
(LWEC): seeking a partnership with
China
Conclusions
 Sustainable development calls for new ways of doing science
 Understanding complex environment-society relations
demands interdisciplinary research combining social and
natural sciences
 Such interdisciplinarity promises more integrated, more
socially accountable and more applicable solutions
 Global environmental change demands effective scientific
collaboration not just across disciplines but across nations
too