stewardship for planet earth - uclgulbrandsen, l.. (2009). the emergence and effectiveness of the...

Stewardship for Planet EarthSustainable Resources & Governance –

Evidence, Challenges & Solutions

6 & 7 November 2014University College London

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources

cover image (c) istock Photo

Welcome to London, welcome to UCL!

Being called London’s Global University, UCL has always had an ambition for transdiciplinary research that brings the benefit of learning to society. In our days, UCL has defined the four Grand Challenges of Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction, Human Wellbeing and Global Health as key problems that ought to be addressed and where research can make a difference to solving them.

This year’s symposium is dedicated to the Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction. Our focus on stewardship has been derived out of a number of discussions with experts throughout UCL and beyond. Seen as an ethically inspired concept for better governance of resources there are a number of questions that this symposium seeks to address. Throughout the two half days we’ll move from identifying problems towards comparing and assessing ongoing experiments and experiences and, finally, discussing the lessons learned and the way forward.

Our journey will be done together with speakers from the UK, other parts of Europe, Africa, Asia & Pacific, and Australia. There will be an enormous amount of evidence from local case studies, country experiences and different areas – spanning a range of methodologies, and likely to arrive at different conclusions on the status quo and the steps ahead.

I look forward to a fascinating symposium!

Professor Raimund BleischwitzBHP Billiton Chair in Sustainable Global Resources


BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities & UCL Grand Challenge Symposium 2014

Stewardship for Planet Earth


STEWARDSHIP FOR PLANET EARTH - A PREPARATORY NOTE

Climate change, unprecedented urbanisation, and increasingly transnational flows of people, capital and materials are profoundly challenging a sustainable management of resources. Stewardship is a way of responding to these challenges by invoking an ethics of responsible planning and management.

There are on-going discussions about stewardship and policy-relevant initiatives, primarily in forestry (FSC) and fishery (MSC), often driven by attempts of non-state actors to act responsibly and establish accountability along value chains. While assessments of these initiatives arrive at mixed results, there are emerging discussions that extend the concept of stewardship to also address materials and metals, water and nutrients. And, indeed, there have been broader discussions, in environmental research, ethics, health, economics, and management theory. But, with globalization continuing and ‘planetary boundaries’ being debated, thoughts about any future earth stewardship are at stake.

These observations give rise to a number of challenging questions that will be discussed during this symposium. Existing stewardship initiatives feature a clear focus (usually one commodity), a limited number of actors, and a visible link from early stages of the product life cycle to the end-consumer. They develop labels, standards and certification schemes that can be implemented by a number of actors. Accordingly, the dominant governance structure is a network where public and private actors collaborate.

Promises and pitfalls underline the ‘normal’ challenges of implementation and enforcement, along with negative side-effects when standards are simply by-passed. This leads to issues around legitimacy to decide, to intervene and control. Who decides, and how?

What we can expect, in addition, are new challenges of complexities: utilizing one resource may take advantage of the provisioning service of ecosystems but may undermine the long-term resilience of the surrounding ecosystem, aggravating the access to resources by local people. Risks of such ‘single issue’ approach become evident when the resource interlinkages (the ‘resource nexus’ of water – food - energy) are being debated. The new complexities of scale, time, and intercultural dialogues are likely to require a new vision of value creation and well-being. A few key questions to be addressed at the symposium are as follows:

Understanding Stewardship> What methodologies can be accessed to capturing stewardship, what theories help us interpret it across a number of areas? What does economics tell us about ethical motivations beyond the homo oeconomicus? What are some lessons from the history of civilizations? What could we learn from earth science about global cycles and regional management? > Could research conceptualise stewardship as an attempt for rule establishment under uncertainties and for knowledge generation, rather than a mechanism for planning, control, and implementation?

The discussion will enable participants to look forward to other sessions of the symposium.

Bottom up: Addressing challenges at regional and national scales> What characterises cases as useful to illustrate challenges of multilevel and polycentric governance of resources?> What are the special challenges invoked by the resource nexus, planetary boundaries, historical path dependencies, and security ramifications at a regional scale?> What is the national context of stewardship, for example with regard to institutional and behavioural support mechanisms and socio-cultural connotations?

Local approaches to stewardship: Cultures of ownership, conflicts, & cooperation > How do local communities deal with stewardship? What forms of national or international stewardship might help them to maintain their livelihoods?> What existing rules enable cooperation at the local level? What are the prospects for the future?> What is a role for business in local sustainable resource management? What would a social license to operate look like?

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A Global Challenge: International Dimensions to Resource Stewardship> What are the drivers and indicators for international resource use?> What would a polycentric type of international governance look like, what should the supra- national complement to resource stewardship be?> What is the underpinning of stewardship, for example as regards to institutional and behavioural support mechanisms and socio-cultural connotations?

Concluding with a panel discussion on emerging new forms of governing stewardship will take advantage of in-sights from MSC, FSC, and related evidence from experts. The panel will discuss the power of information, transparency and disclosure, as well as a better coordination and strengthening of initiatives. It may also address actors and institutions and new concepts for a better stewardship for planet earth.

Selected references:Bleischwitz, R. (2014). Transparency in the Extractive Industries: Time to Ask for More. Global Environmental Politics 14 (4), in print.Bleischwitz, R. (Ed.) (2007). Corporate Governance of Sustainability: A Co-Evolutionary View on Resource Management. Edward Elgar Publisher.Chapin, F.S. III, et al. (2010). Ecosystem stewardship: Sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet”, Trends in Ecology and Evolution 25: 241-249Gale, F. and Haward, M. (2011). Global commodity governance: state responses to sustainable forest and fisheries certification. Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire.Gulbrandsen, L.. (2009). The emergence and effectiveness of the Marine Stewardship Council. Marine Policy 33: 654–660.ICMM. Materials Stewardship - Eco-efficiency and Product Policy. London.Schepers, D. H. (2010). Challenges to Legitimacy at the Forest Stewardship Council. Journal of Business Ethics 92:279–290.

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PROGRAMME

Thursday 6 November 2014

12.30pm Registration & Coffee

1.00pm Introduction and welcome addressOpening address via video link Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations

Welcome by Professor Raimund Bleischwitz, BHP Billiton Chair in Sustainable Global Resources, UCL ISR (Conference Chair)

1.15pm Understanding Stewardship Roundtable Panel Discussion and Q&ADr Jerome Lewis, Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, UCLProfessor Michelle Baddeley, Professor in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment, The Bartlett School of Construction & Project Management, UCLDr Graham Woodgate, Principal Teaching Fellow, UCL Institute of the AmericasDr Mohammad Shamsudduha, Research Associate, Inst for Risk & Disaster ReductionDepartment of Earth Sciences, UCL

Chair: Professor Raimund Bleischwitz, BHP Billiton Chair in Sustainable Global Resources

2.00pm Bottom up: Addressing challenges at regional and national scalesPlenary Session and Q&ADr Philip Andrews-Speed, Principal Fellow & Head , Energy Security Division, National University of Singapore Dr William Burgess, Senior Lecturer, Department of Earth Sciences, UCL Rajkumar Mayank Singh, Fellow, Overseas Development InstituteDr Alma Lopez-Aviles, Research Fellow, Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of SurreyDr Catalina Spataru, Research Associate, UCL Energy Institute

Chair: Dr Marc Brightman, Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, UCL

3.30pm Coffee break

4.00pm Local approaches to stewardship: Cultures of ownership, conflicts, & cooperation in partnership with UCL Anthropology Plenary Session and Q&ADr Jeanette L. Yasol-Naval, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of the Philippines & Jean L. Yasol-Lugasip, Project and Advocacy Officer of the Rice Watch and Action Network Dr Claire Bedelian, Teaching Fellow, Department of Anthropology, UCL John Manyitabot Takang, Founder and Executive Director, Environmental Governance InstituteDr Darien Simon, Research Associate International Energy Policy Institute, UCL Australia

Chair: Dr Jerome Lewis, Lecturer in Social Anthropology, UCL Anthropology

5.30pm Keynote AddressProfessor Frans Berkhout, Professor of Environment, Society and Climate, Kings College LondonChair: Professor Raimund Bleischwitz, BHP Billiton Chair in Sustainable Global Resources

6.30pm Networking Reception

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PROGRAMME

Friday 7 November 2014

8.30am Registration & coffee

8.50am Welcome from Prof Paul Ekins

9.00am ‘The Ethics of Stewardship’ Keynote AddressProfessor Kevin Chika Urama,Managing Director, Quantum Global Research LabChair: Professor Paul Ekins, Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy, and Director UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources

10.00am A Global Challenge: International Dimensions to Resource StewardshipPlenary Session and Q&AFrank Pothen, Researcher, Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) Dr Ulrich Kral, Post-doc Vienna University of Technology - Institute for Water Quality, Resources and Waste Management, Vienna University of TechnologyMr Nando Lewis, Doctoral Researcher, Department of Political Science, UCLDr Volker Zepf, Researcher, University of Augsburg

Chair: Dr Philip Andrews-Speed, Principal Fellow & Head, Energy Security Division, National University of Singapore

11.30am Coffee break

12.00 am Emerging new forms of Governing Stewardship Roundtable Panel Discussion and Q&AProfessor Kevin Chika Urama,Managing Director, Quantum Global Research LabProfessor Dan Osborn, Professor of Human Ecology, Department of Earth Sciences, UCL Dr Oliver Heidrich, Senior Researcher, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle UniversityRupert Howes, Chief Executive, Marine Stewardship CouncilRajesh S Kumar, Indian Forest Service (IFS)

Chair: Professor Raimund Bleischwitz, BHP Billiton Chair in Sustainable Global Resources

1.00pm Closing Remarks followed by Networking Lunch


ABSTRACTS

Dr Philip Andrews-Speed, Principal Fellow & Head, Energy Security Division, National University of SingaporeInstitutions and the governance of the resources nexus: the case of nitrogen fertilisers in ChinaThe use of nitrogen (N-) fertilisers in China provides an interesting case study of nexus governance, for two reasons. Firstly, the massive over-use of N-fertilisers damages water and soils, reduces crop yields and threatens human health. It also adds to greenhouse gas emissions and acerbates ozone layer depletion, as well as wasting coal. Secondly, the institutions which govern the agricultural sector appear to be strongly resistant to change. The term ‘institutions’ refers to the formal and informal rules, expectations, and behavioural norms of society. These institutions include the belief of farmers that greater fertiliser use boosts crop yields, inadequate support systems for farmers, weak organisations and systems for environmental regulation, and the nature of the economic incentives, as well as the interests and motivations of key actors. Improving the way in which N-fertilisers are used will require significant changes to the way in which the agricultural sector is governed, in China and in other countries.

Dr William Burgess, Senior Lecturer, Department of Earth Sciences, UCLUnsustainable, but how long is long enough for a secure supply?Since 1990, arsenic pollution reaching up to 100 times the WHO guideline drinking water limit has become evident in shallow groundwater exploited for water supply across the densely populated floodplains of the Bengal Basin. Deeper groundwater, free of excessive arsenic, is becoming widely used as a de facto response. Pressure on deep groundwater will be exacerbated by urbanisation and irrigation, yet deep wells are vulnerable to pollution being drawn down from the shallow arsenic source - the deep pumping strategy is ultimately unsustainable. Supply engineers, regulators, policy makers and development scientists in Bangladesh challenge a rigid adherence to sustainability. We ask: how long is long enough for secure, ultimately unsustainable resource development? In London, 100 years of unsustainable deep groundwater pumping enabled economic and social development. Applying a 100-year modelling comparison of alternative development strategies in Bangladesh, we propose expansion of carefully monitored, robustly regulated, unsustainable deep groundwater pumping.

Rajkumar Mayank Singh, Fellow, Overseas Development InstituteLiberia’s Post Conflict Experience with Natural Resource ManagementPrudent natural resources management practices for awarding and managing natural resource contracts are critical for securing long-term sustainable economic development in post-conflict resource rich countries like Liberia. In 2013, post-award audits of Liberia’s natural resource contracts signed between 2009 and 2012 revealed that only six out of the 68 contracts were fully compliant with the applicable laws and regulations governing the award process. The paper aims to evaluate, explain and address these deviations from the legal framework. Moreover, many investors have failed to meet their production targets and exportation time lines, which has in part been due to bottlenecks such as weak infrastructure and deteriorating relations with the affected communities. The paper concludes with providing possible means to address these bottlenecks.

Dr Alma Lopez-Aviles, Research Fellow, Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of SurreyThe Climate Change Adaptation Program in Ethiopia: stewardship opportunities for sustainable management of resources Seven projects developed via the African Adaptation Program (AAP) of the Japanese Government between 2010 and 2013 were recommended as ‘examples of good practice’ by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) of Ethiopia. The projects were designed as stewardships involving local communities of farmers, school children, fishermen, and vulnerable residents including women and children to overcome some of the challenges they experience such as water, fuel and food scarcity, and to take ownership of their local resources via afforestation, flood defence, fruit-tree and bamboo planting, jatropha and biofuel production, and sustainable fishing initiatives. However, although there are some modest positive outcomes, e.g.

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more sustainable fishing practices in Lake Logo, the outcomes were generally below the expectations of the communities involved. These consistently expressed that they had little or no legitimacy to decide, intervene and control what the project aimed to achieve and how, and they blamed the partial success of the initiatives on the top-down multi-layer approach to decision- making, as well as on the small and often delayed amount of funds that ‘filter down’ to grass-root level. Based on the evaluation of these projects, it is concluded that the complexity of institutional arrangements, the layers of bureaucracy, lack of transparency and national interests taking priority over grass-root projects all contributed to the slow implementation of these initiatives. Stewardships are need in Ethiopia at present for improved sustainable management of resources such as water, fish, and forest, and for these stewardships to be successful, it is crucial that donors engage directly with local communities beyond national institutions and economic and/or political interests.

Dr Catalina Spataru, Research Associate, UCL Energy InstituteExploring Geopolitics of Energy Resource Use and New Trading Associations Due to uneven distribution of natural resource deposits across countries, the pattern of use of resources varies from one region to another. This depends on the type of materials and their accessibility under different law agreements. The interlink nature of such systems makes it difficult to interpret the energy resource nexus. Integrated simulation models are needed to better represent the uncertainties invoked by the resource use, trade and security. We discuss the challenges we face in terms of energy resources trade with examples of representative cases, such as the trade of Russian natural gas through pipelines through Ukraine and Belarus to Western Europe. Various events have occurred throughout the history and lessons can be learnt for future prospects to achieve the integration which sit at the crossing point of many critical financial, political and social issues.

Dr Jeanette L. Yasol-Naval, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of the Philippines & Jean L. Yasol-Lugasip, Project and Advocacy Officer of the Rice Watch and Action NetworkEnvironmental Stewardship in the Practice of Community Seed Banking: A Conceptual Analysis of Stewardship in Theory and on the GroundThis paper aims to explore the conceptual dimension of environmental stewardship. It will present, evaluate and develop concepts (or theories) on stewardship grounded on some philosophical and ethical frames. It will proceed to provide a conceptual distinction between an anthropocentric attitude towards nature and a stewardship attitude. The study is also interested to consider how stewardship is understood on the ground as used by environmental advocates, NGO’s and local communities. A case study on the philosophy behind the community seed banking system in the province of Bohol, Philippines. We ask: How a stewardship attitude may be glimpsed from the culture of ownership by the local community; and what sets this apart from other efforts of conservation? How is it understood by local communities? What were the challenges encountered by the local communities? In the end, it aims to propose an attitude of stewardship as a guide and motivation for maintaining long-term sustainability of resources.

Dr Claire Bedelian, Teaching Fellow, Department of Anthropology, UCLNew approaches to stewardship in the privately–owned rangelands of the Mara, KenyaIn the recently privatised rangelands in the Mara, conservation partnerships exist between Maasai pastoral landowners and tourism operators. Wildlife conservancies have been set up where landowners agree to lease their land to tourism operators, with the aim of securing habitat for wildlife and providing incomes from tourism to participating landowners. New conservancy institutions, governed by landowners, conservancy managers and tourism operators, control access to conservancy land and resources, and distribute tourism incomes. In an area of evolving and often contested conservation and development initiatives, wildlife conservancies appear to offer landowners improved incomes from tourism and prevent the further fragmentation of rangeland. However, conflicts arise due to livestock grazing restrictions and pastoralists increasing struggles to access sufficient forage. Inequalities also arise as participation is based on land title, leaving out certain groups within the community, and causing intra-household and gendered differences.


John Manyitabot Takang, Founder and Executive Director, Environmental Governance InstituteContested Forests, Disenfranchised Peoples – REDD (+) and Stewardship for Forest Peoples in CameroonFor local communities and indigenous peoples, who have served as stewards for the earth’s resources over millennia, stewardship promises to be a more inclusive concept than sustainable development. In Cameroon, notwithstanding underlying claims by local communities, and forest and indigenous peoples, forests predominantly remain state property. Therefore, as forests take centre-stage in the post-2012 climate change regime, REDD (-plus) initiatives constitute and important component of the national strategy. However, who benefits what from such initiatives remains fraught with conflicts. It would seem therefore, that for REDD (-plus) to succeed as a forest stewardship programme, REDD (-plus) must at the same time serve as co-investment in stewardship for local communities and forests peoples. This paper explores conflicts over benefits arising from schemes such as REDD (-plus), highlights evidence for cooperation and draws some lessons for the future of such initiatives.

Dr Darien Simon, Research Associate International Energy Policy Institute, UCL AustraliaCollaborative Stewardship - Lessons Learned and Adaptation ChallengesThis paper will report on Collaborative Stewardship, a concept developed by the US Forest Service to resolve bitter conflicts that was so successful it briefly became the primary form of community engage-ment and stewardship for the Forest Service across the US and was used to bridge the gap between cattle ranchers, environmentalists and government to address over-grazing and revegetation requirements on public lands. The lessons learned from these experiences are informing the regional transition to a low carbon economy in the Yorke and Mid North region of South Australia. Collaborative engagement with communities, regional authorities and other interests is revealing both a broader agreement on the need for long-term local or regional stewardship of the land and resources, and conflicts in the vision for the regional future. It is also identifying key challenges to regional action, such as the relative lack of ability to influence state and commonwealth policies.

Prof Frans Berkhout, Professor of Environment, Society and Climate, Kings College LondonAnthropocene futures and planetary stewardshipThe idea of the Anthropocene is linked to the idea of ‘planetary stewardship’ in the future. Much of the de-bate about the Anthropocene has been concerned with global-scale change and with the past. I will argue that there is a need for a greater focus on Anthropocene Futures that are relevant to societal actors now and in the relatively near-term future. This suggests that social science perspectives will play an important role in translating insights emerging from the Anthropocene analysis into knowledge that resonates with the lived futures of real people and organisations.

Prof Kevin Chika Urama, Managing Director, Quantum Global Research LabStewardship for Planet Earth: Challenges and Opportunities in a World Hooked on GrowthThe paper will examine the challenges and opportunities for “stewardship” as an ethic that embodies the responsible planning and management of resources in contemporary society. Drawing inferences from continued but partly unsuccessful global efforts to respond to major drivers of unsustainability in our world today, including climate change, unprecedented urbanization, inefficient land use, and poverty, it will examine the geopolitics and ethics of knowledge, resources and technology flows required for effective stewardship for the planet earth. It will argue for fundamental shifts and systemic innovations in the economic development planning at the global and national scales for effective stewardship for planet earth. It concludes that current mechanisms of institutional governance of resources may not deliver successful stewardship for the planet earth, in the global south.

Frank Pothen, Researcher, Centre for European Economic Research ‘Bigger Cakes with Fewer Ingredients? A Comparison of Material Use of the World Economy’The amount of materials used worldwide in production and consumption increased by 56 per cent from 1995 to 2008. Using an index decomposition analysis based on the logarithmic mean Divisia index, we investigate the drivers of material use, both on a global and a country scale. We exploit a panel dataset

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of 40 countries, accounting for 75 per cent of worldwide material extraction and 88 per cent of GDP, from 1995 to 2008. The results show that economic growth and structural change towards material-intensive countries explain most of the growth in global material use. Slight gains in material efficiency and falling importance of material-intensive sectors have decelerating effects. The country-level analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity. Some nations exhibit stable or falling material use, while it increases notably in most countries. Improving material efficiency is able to dampen growth of material use in important industrializing nations like China or India.

Dr Ulrich Kral, Post-doc Vienna University of Technology - Institute for Water Quality, Resources and Waste ManagementThe challenge to measure regional sink constraints: A new indicator for policy performance evaluation regarding sinksToday’s “anthropogenic metabolism” involves a huge material turnover. After utilization, materials either remain in the anthroposphere as recycling products, or they leave the anthroposphere as waste and emission flows. To accommodate these materials without jeopardizing human and environmental health, limited natural sinks are available; thus, man-made sinks have to be provided where natural sinks are missing or overloaded. The goal of this study is the development of a new indicator that specifies on a regional scale which fractions of anthropogenic material flows to sinks are acceptable. Case studies show that appropriate governance of anthropogenic material flows and stocks is needed in order to avoid overloading of sinks, resulting in harm on humans and the environmental. Based on the results, the advantage of using this indicator is threefold: first, it satisfies the need for transparency and accountability in policy performance evaluations; second, it allows comparing and benchmarking regions in view of sink limitations; third, the indicator aggregates complex information into an easy to understand score and is therefore highly instrumental for communicating scientific results to decision makers and the public.

Mr Nando Lewis, Doctoral Researcher, Department of Political Science, UCLHow do changing trends in international resource prices affect the peaceful stewardship of resources?Over the past 15 years, statistical analyses of the relationship between natural resources and civil conflict have consistently claimed that resources foster conflict. However, the factors affecting the peaceful stewardship of resources are only recently becoming apparent. This is due primarily to improvements in the data available as well as the statistical analyses used. This paper reviews these changes for the most commonly analysed resource: oil. Using a spatially disaggregated dataset of over 10,000 55km2 grid cells covering the whole of Africa, an analysis is conducted investigating the effects of changes in oil price on the likelihood of civil conflict occurrence in onshore oil producing areas. The results indicate that an increase in oil price increases the likelihood of civil conflict in oil producing regions. These findings support recent research indicating that civil conflict is more likely when local communities do not benefit from the oil produced in their areas. This paper concludes that a shift in government attitudes towards resource producing areas is necessary.

Dr Volker Zepf, Researcher, University of AugsburgResource use – are we talking about the right thing? The fear for resource shortages or even depletion has challenged the world since Meadows ‘Limits to growth’. Climate change adds on top as an imperative to act. In order to identify the best actions, the term ‘resource use’ will be disentangled to show the various meanings and expectations. Next to the obvious materialistic side of resource use which relates to planetary boundaries, the intangible sense of resources incorporates people, the know-how, patents, education etc. which deserves a completely different outlook towards stewardship. The sequel to this basis is an analysis of the reasons for resource use, the fulfilment of basic human needs. These have to be differentiated between societies and cultures. Now the challenges to be anticipated in today’s globalised world will be shown to derive the necessary frameworks to be set up to enable global actions.


PHILIP ANDREWS-SPEED is a Principal Fellow at the Energy Studies Institute of the National University of Singapore. Until 2010 he was Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Dundee and Director of the Centre of Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy. After that, whilst a Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund of the US, he co-authored a report entitled The Global Resource Nexus. The Struggles for Land, Food, Water and Minerals. Recent books include The Governance of Energy in China: Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012).

MICHELLE BADDELEY is Professor in Economics and Finance of the Built Environment at UCL. She has a BA (Psychology) and BEcon from University of Queensland, and an MPhil and PhD (Economics) from University of Cambridge. She was Principal Investigator on a Leverhulme Trust project working with neuroscientists analyzing financial herding and learning using brain-imaging techniques. She has used experiments to explore social influences on housing demand and jury deliberations. Current projects include behavioural analyses of household energy decisions, infrastructure supply chains and online deception. She was a member of UCL’s Green Economy Policy Commission, is a member of Defra’s Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee, and is an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP). Her books include Behavioural Economics and Finance (2013), Running Regressions: A Guide to Quantitative Analysis (2007) and Investment (2003).

FRANS BERKHOUT is Professor of Environment, Society and Climate in the Department of Geography at King’s College London, and Interim Director of the Future Earth programme, based at the International Council for Science (ICSU) in Paris. Between 2004 and 2012, Prof Berkhout was director of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at the VU University Amsterdam in The Netherlands, and from 2010 to 2013 director of the Amsterdam Global Change Institute. He is a lead author in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (2014) and a member of the Research Evaluation Framework (REF) of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). He sits on the editorial boards of Research Policy,

Global Environmental Change, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Current Opinion on Environmental Sustainability and The Anthropocene Review. His early research was concerned with the economic, political and security aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle and radioactive waste management. His more recent work has been concerned with science, technology, policy and sustainability, with a focus on climate change.

RAIMUND BLEISCHWITZ is the BHP Billiton Chair in Sustainable Global Resources, UCL ISR. Until July 2013 he had been Co-Director on ‘Material Flows and Resource Management’ at the Wuppertal Institute (WI) in Germany. Since 2003 he has been Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. He spent fellowships at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C, at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington D.C. and with the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. Publications include ‘Sustainable Resource Management’ (Greenleaf 2009) and ‘International Economics of Resource Efficiency’ (Springer 2011).

MARC BRIGHTMAN is Lecturer in Social Anthropology and co-director of ABaCuS, the centre for the Anthropology, Behaviour and Cultures of Sustainability, at University College, London. His research interests range from native Amazonian leadership to global political ecology and forest governance. His publications include Animism in Rainforest and Tundra (Berghahn), with Vanessa Grotti and Olga Ulturgasheva, and two forthcoming volumes, Ownership and Nurture: Studies in Native Amazonian Property Relations (with Carlos Fausto and Vanessa Grotti), and The Imbalance of Power: Leadership, Masculinity and Wealth in Amazonia.

WILLIAM BURGESS is a hydrogeologist with research interests in groundwater flow and quality. He concentrates on establishing field relationships, to explore processes and constrain conceptual and numerical models, mostly in contaminant hydrogeology, including arsenic in alluvial groundwater systems in the Bengal Basin, fluoride in crystalline basement groundwater environments (East Africa, India), and extensive contaminant

BIOGRAPHIES

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plumes in the double-porosity Chalk aquifer of the UK. He has contributed to a UNICEF review of deep aquifers of Bangladesh, and provided policy guidance to the Government of Bangladesh on the security of deep groundwater abstraction (EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Report, 2013).

PAUL EKINS has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of London and is Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy and Director of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources at UCL. He is also Deputy Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, in charge of its Energy Resources and Vectors theme. He was a Member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution from 2002-2008. He also has extensive experience consulting for business, government and international organisations. Prof Ekins’ academic work focuses on the conditions and policies for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy. In 2012-14 has been the Chair of the UCL Green Economy Policy Commission, which recently published its report, Greening the Recovery.

OLIVER HEIDRICH is a fully qualified civil engineer who works with national and international companies, local authorities and central government in environmental, life cycle assessment, stakeholder and corporate management since 1992. He was a director of SEQM, where he provided consultancy and training courses to a range of organisations; and designed and implemented management systems such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and CSR programmes. Oliver is a senior researcher and lecturer at the School of Civil Engineering and Geoscience at Newcastle University. He teaches sustainability and resource management to the civil engineers and develops new approaches in resource management and standardised systems in urban environments.

RUPERT HOWES has been Chief Executive of the Marine Stewardship Council since October 2004. MSC’s mission is to contribute to the health of the world’s oceans by recognising and rewarding sustainable fishing practices, influencing the choices people make when buying seafood, and working with partners to transform the seafood market to a sustainable basis. Mr Howes came to the MSC from the influential sustainable development organisation, Forum for the Future, which works in partnership with business, capital

markets, governments, and others to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable way of life. He was Director of the Forum Sustainable Economy Programme. Before that he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit, Sussex University and Research Officer at the International Institute for Environment and Development. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG and holds an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, University of London and a BA (Econ) Hons. from Sussex University. He received a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2007 for his work in establishing the MSC as the world’s leading fishery certification and eco-labelling programme and a WWF “Leaders for a Living Planet” Award in 2009. He was also awarded a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Award in 2014.

ULRICH KRAL holds a post-doc position at Vienna University of Technology - Institute for Water Quality, Resources and Waste Management. He is educated in civil engineering and now active in the fields of resource and waste management. He specialises in methods to analyse, evaluate and manage stocks and flows of anthropogenic materials. The goal of his research is to optimise the anthropogenic material turnover in terms of resource conservation and environmental protection.

JEROME LEWIS is a lecturer in Social Anthropology at UCL and studies hunter-gatherers and former hunter-gatherers across Central Africa. After studying the impact of the genocide on Rwanda’s Twa Pygmies he worked with Mbendjele Pygmies in Congo-Brazzaville on child socialisation, play and religion; egalitarian politics; and communication. Studying the impact of global forces on many Pygmy groups across the Congo Basin has led to research into human rights abuses, discrimination, economic and legal marginalisation, and to applied research supporting conservation efforts by forest people. He is co-director of the Extreme Citizen Science Research Group, and of ABaCuS, studying the Anthropology, Behaviour and Cultures of Sustainability.

NANDO LEWIS completed a BSc in Psychology at University College London in 2013. Following this he made the short journey up Tavistock Square to study an MSc in Security Studies within the Department of Political Science. He is interested in the quantitative research of civil conflict focussing


on the relationship between natural resources and civil conflict as well as refugees, internally displaced persons, and their effects on future conflicts. He plans to begin studying for a PhD in September 2015.

ALMA LÓPEZ-AVILÉS has a PhD in hydrology/fluvial geomorphology from the University of Leeds and her areas of expertise are flood risk management and climate change adaptation. Her PhD research and subsequent work in consultancy focused on studies about flood magnitude and frequency, and erosion-sedimentation patterns associated with flood events. While working for ATKINS and SKM-Enviros consultancies, she undertook numerous flood risk modelling and mapping projects as well as water pollution and low flow studies for the Environment Agency (EA) and Local Authorities. She was also an Associate Professor (Reader) at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia where she taught and advised postgraduate research students as well as consulted for UNICEF Ethiopia. Dr Lopez-Aviles currently teaches at the University of Surrey and her research is focused on water resource efficiency systems (grey water recycling and rainwater harvesting) and policies in Europe. She is a chartered scientist (CSci, Science Council) since 2006, and chartered manager with the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) since 2005.

DAN OSBORN joined UCL in June 2014 after working with the UK Natural Environment Research Council in various senior roles. He is interested in the ways in which research evidence affects public policy and the practical success of legal and governance arrangements. Current interests include the links between natural resources, ecosystems and people’s well-being as the latter is fundamental to health and prosperity. He is a lead contributor to the evidence report for the next UK climate change risk assessment and co-authored part of the recently published report from the UK National Ecosystem Assessment Follow-On project.

FRANK POTHEN studied economics at the University of Muenster and at the Tel Aviv University. The emphases of his studies were the economics of energy and transportation, public finance and econometrics. Since January 2010, he has been working as a researcher at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Department

of Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management. His research interests are international trade and natural resources, with a focus on metals. Dr Pothen develops and applies partial as well as general equilibrium models. He, furthermore, conducts research employing index decomposition analyses.

DARIEN SIMON is a post-doctoral Research Associate with the International Energy Policy Institute, UCL (Australia). Her research is focussed on the trans-disciplinary fields of community engagement and sustainability with a primary emphasis on energy and resources issues. She has particular expertise in systems thinking in sustainability and community engagement, reuse of contaminated lands, sustainable living and behaviour change and collaborative processes for climate change adaptation. Dr Simon has a PhD in Urban Planning and Public Policy, an MSc in Educational Psychology and Counselling and a BSc in Marine Biology. She is a Full Member of the Institution of Environmental Sciences.

RAJKUMAR MAYANK SINGH (Raj) recently served as an Economist in Liberia’s Ministry of Finance & Development Planning advising the government on negotiating and managing investment contracts in the extractive sector. Previously, he worked as a Research Consultant with McKinsey & Co’s Center for Government in London and as a Financial Analyst at Goldman Sachs’ Private Wealth Management Division in Philadelphia. Raj received his Masters in Public Administration in International Development from the London School of Economics & Political Science and a Bachelors in Business Administration from Drexel University.

CATALINA SPATARU’s expertise is on energy systems, networks and security. She has been involved in projects funded by EPSRC, EC, British Council, industry and led projects on power blackouts, energy networks, Ukraine-Russia-EU energy future. She is supervising PhD students, teaching smart energy systems for MSc students at UCL, acted as scientific committee chair for conferences, delivering several invited talks at international events, participating in public engagement activities. She had a Socrates—Erasmus scholarship at Complutense de Madrid in 2002 and it has been a visiting researcher at MIT, USA working on vulnerability of interdependent energy networks (gas and electricity) in May 2014.

November 6-7, 2014

ACHIM STEINER was unanimously elected as the Executive Director of UNEP by the UN General Assembly in 2006. He became the fifth Executive Director in UNEP’s history. The Secretary-General also appointed Mr Steiner as Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON). Before joining UNEP, Mr Steiner served as Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) from 2001 to 2006, and prior to that as Secretary General of the World Commission on Dams.

JOHN TAKANG holds a BSc in Environmental and Resource Management and MSc in Environmental Sciences from the University of Cologne, specialising in environmental law and governance. He was a Resident Scholar at the United Nations University (UNU-IHDP) in Bonn and was formerly the Academic Officer of the International Master of Environmental Sciences (IMES) Programme at the University of Cologne, where he equally taught classes in international environmental law. Dr Takang is a Fellow of the African Good Governance Network (AGGN). He is also the founder and the Executive Director of the Cameroon-based Environmental Governance Institute (EGI).

KEVIN URAMA Holds a First Class Honors degree and a Master of Science in Agricultural Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, a Master of Philosophy degree with distinction, and a PhD in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge. He is currently the Inaugural Managing Director of the Quantum Global Research Lab, an independent research facility established in Switzerland, dedicated to leading innovation and excellence in the delivery of bottom-up econometric models of African economies. He was most recently the Executive Director of the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) . An Extra-Ordinary Professor in the School of Public Leadership, Stellenbosch University, South Africa; Professor Urama is also an Adjunct Professor at the Sir Walter Murdoch School of Public Policy and International Affairs, Murdoch University, Western Australia; and a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS). He serves on several international and intergovernmental scientific panels and advisory boards including the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), and the International Resource Panel (IRP). He is a member of the Editorial (Advisory) Boards of many international journals, including Science and Public Policy, Ecological Economics; and Responsible Innovation,

and Environmental Policy and Governance.

GRAHAM WOODGATE trained as a forester before entering academia and in addition to being a Principal Teaching Fellow in Environmental Sociology at UCL, he works as a forestry consultant and manages his own woodland smallholding in southern England. He is co-editor of a series of volumes that map the development environmental sociology from the 19th century to the present and is a member of the Editorial Board of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. His forthcoming publications include “The European Contribution to Environmental Sociology” and “Agroecology as Post-development Discourse and Practice”.

JEAN YASOL- LUGASIP is a project coordinator for Rice Watch and Action, a network of NGOs in the Philippines working on projects related to rice, climate change and other agriculture related issues. She has over fourteen years of experience in rural development programs and sustainable development projects in Southeast Asia which include establishments of community seed banking in the Philippines, Bhutan and Vietnam. Currently she heads the implementation Climate Resiliency Field School as Climate Adaptation – Disaster Risk Reduction Program in the twelve municipalities in the Philippines.

JEANETTE YASOL- NAVAL is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Chairperson of the Department of Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman. She has BA-MA degrees in Philosophy from the University of the Philippines, Diliman and PhD in Environmental Studies from Miriam College. She just finished a post-doc research fellowship on Rice at Kobe University, Japan. She specialises in Environmental Ethics. Her current researches are in the areas of food ethics, gender and climate change, Filipino philosophy, and environmental philosophy and ethics in the history of philosophy.

VOLKER ZEPF’s first career was within the German Military. From 2005 to 2009 he studied Geography in Augsburg. Since 2009 he is researcher and lecturer at the Chair for Resource Strategy, University of Augsburg, where in 2012 his PhD thesis around Rare Earth Elements was finished. Since 2013 he is coordinator for a graduate school project. Main research topics are rare earth elements, rare metals and the nexus of lifestyles and resulting resource issues, considered along geographical aspects.

ENCOURAGING CROSS-DISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

It is the aim of the UCL ISR and Grand Challenge for Intercultural Interaction to foster cross-disciplinary research at UCL. As part of the Stewardship for Planet Earth Symposium, UCL ISR and GCII have provided funding for five research projects through our Catalyst Grants scheme.

Catalyst Grants are aimed at enabling researchers to develop realistic and relevant research partnerships across disciplines, and research strategies with the potential for significant national or international impact. These grants are designed to facilitate the development of projects which have the potential to produce on-going research activity.

Details of the five projects supported as part of the symposium are outlined below, and posters describing the projects will be on display throughout the conference.

Environmental & System Stewardship for Greenland’s Rare Earth ElementsProject lead: Beverley Gibbs, UCL STEaPP

Greenland is at a critical point in its development. As international developers move in to extract resources, the Naalakkersuisut, the Danish government and the EU are faced with the challenge of negotiating what effective stewardship means in this context.

This project explores two concepts of ‘stewardship’ around the extraction of rare earth elements (REEs) in Greenland. Environmental stewardship highlights the tensions generated in protecting an important natural environment, whilst the exploitation of natural resources raises expectations of economic and political independence. System stewardship draws on concepts of global governance to explore how public, private and civil sectors might build a sustainable, stable and equitable REE industry.

Through archival research, document analysis and interviews we examine what various actors mean by ‘stewardship’ in the context of Greenland’s development at the very moment that decisions are being debated and locked-in. This will leverage and synthesise expertise across the disciplines of engineering, business, policy, history and earth sciences. We will identify competing ‘socio-technical imaginaries’, consider how they shape policy development, learn how governance networks coalesce and explore what role policymakers play as ‘governance system stewards’.


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November 6-7, 2014

Food versus Fuel: beyond biofuelsProject lead: Dr Julia Tomei, UCL ISR

In less than a decade, biofuels transitioned from being a socially and politically acceptable alternative to conventional transport fuels to a deeply contested solution. Claims of land grabs, forest loss and food riots emerged to undermine the sustainability rationale that originally motivated their adoption. One of the early controversies to hit biofuels was that of ‘food versus fuel’. This framing drew attention not only to the competing uses of land i.e. for food or for fuel, but also to the impacts of consumption on marginalised people, particularly in the global South.

While the debate has provided a useful hook on which to hang criticisms of increased demand for biofuels, it also masks a more complex reality. In particular, the multifaceted and multi-scalar linkages between the stewardship of land, the food sector, and global energy policies. This research has used the debate on food vs. fuel as a lens to examine the interdependencies between the multiple end-uses of feedstocks and the multifunctionality of land.

Revealing a more nuanced understanding of the realities of agricultural networks, land use conflicts and the values of the people managing land, through this research we argue that the simplification achieved by food vs fuel, although effective in generating public resonance that has filtered into political response, has failed to capture much that is at the heart of the issue.

Impact of Cultural & Political Perspectives in the Management of Natural Resources: the Case of the Chinese Emission Trading Pilot SchemesProject lead: Dr Paolo Agnolucci, UCL ISR

Emission Trading Schemes (ETS) are policies normally consisting in the introduction of a cap on certain polluting emissions, the allocation of allowances to emit and the trading of allowances among regulated parties. China has introduced seven carbon pilot schemes in Shenzhen, Bejing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hubei and Guangdong, as a testing environment for the introduction of a national policy.

We have conducted literature and policy reviews on the difference across the schemes in terms of 1) Emission thresholds; 2) Allocation methods; 3) Price stabilisation mechanisms, and 4) Measuring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of allowances and emissions. We conducted semi-structured interviews with ten experts, in which we evaluated the market performance of Chinese ETS so far, assessed different types of uncertainty relevant to ETS, and analysed its impact to investment decision-making.

Our results indicate that among the design characteristics of the Chinese ETS, those related to measuring, reported and verification are considered those requiring the most considerable improvements; furthermore, policy and market certainty were considered equally important by our experts with technology uncertainty of secondary importance and that the state of the Chinese ETS market environment has a minor role in determining investment patterns of regulated firms, according to the experts we interviewed.

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Closing the loop - translating best practice across regional culturesProject lead: Dr Joanna Williams, Bartlett School of Planning

Closed-loop systems can be used to increase the efficient use of resources in cities and thus are central to resource stewardship. The research question is what are the key challenges encountered translating closed-loop best practice across regional cultures? The project focuses on the translation of one particular concept – the closed-loop system – developed in Sweden to Asian countries.

The closed-loop model was designed and implemented in Hammarby (Stockholm) It is being exported globally by consultants and the Swedish Government. To date there has not been a single closed-loop system which has been successfully completed in Asia. The question is why? Four key areas where issues of translation could arise have been identified and are the focus of the study: technical, cultural, economic and institutional.

The question is explored through the following research activities:a) Review of the grey and academic literature (completed);b) Interviews with key Swedish players involved in the development and export of the concept to Asia;c) Interviews with key consultants involved in the transfer process;d) Cognitive mapping exercise;e) Workshop with practitioners to test translation tool developed.

Between Green & Blue: New Models Of Stewardship & Sustainability For Shellfish in the Intertidal Zone: Thames EstuaryProject lead: Dr Caroline Garaway, UCL Anthropology

An anthropological project in collaboration with engineering science, this project has been designed to addresses two current global challenges in sustainable stewardship: coordinating science/society initiatives, and developing marine monitoring which lags far behind terrestrial monitoring by focussing on the shellfish industry in the Thames Estuary. The project is organised in two phases; the first consists of ethnographic fieldwork on the little-known shell-fishing industry; the communities and their environment. The second phase involves identifying how software applications (e.g. smartphone apps) might address constraints to improved shellfish stewardship.

Key findings to date include:The Thames cocklers see themselves as ‘fishermen’, and have restored their fishing grounds through a tightly managed system of regulation, monitoring, licensing a limited number of boats, and a restricted fishing season lasting four months a year. Thames oystermen see themselves as ‘cultivators’, and are involved year round in marine enhancement and restoration with significant investment in a resource that, like cockles, takes 3-5 years to reach maturity.

Both industries were destroyed by the harsh winter of 1963, and have since suffered frequently from many things beyond their direct control such

as water quality issues, disease (bonamia and herpes for oysters, periodic mortalities for cockles) and predators (e.g. starfish, slipper limpets.).

Despite constant challenges both industries show remarkable resilience due to their adaptability, their commitment to working with others and finding common ground and their locally led, context -specific management.

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UCL ISR would like to thank the organising committee for their support in developing this event.

Prof Raimund Bleischwitz, UCL ISR Prof Elizabeth Graham, UCL Institute of Archaeology Professor Maria Wyke, UCL Centre for Research on the Dynamics of Civilisation Professor Georgina Mace, Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research Professor Michael Rowlands, UCL Anthropology Prof Peter Jones, Dept of Civil, Environ & Geomatic Engineering Dr Caroline Garaway, UCL Anthropology Dr Liza Griffin, Development Planning Unit Dr Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, UCL Institute of Archaeology Dr Darien Simon, UCL Australia Dr Yijie Zhuang, UCL Institute of Archaeology Dr Vivienne Lo, UCL China Centre for Health and Humanity Dr Adrianna Allen, Development Planning Unit Dr Lou Atkins, UCL Centre for Behaviour Change Dr Julia Tomei, UCL ISR Dr Charlotte Johnson, UCL ISR Alison Parker, UCL ISR Kiran Dhillon, UCL ISR Dr Ian Scott, Grand Challenges, UCL Dr Francois Guesnet, Grand Challenge for Intercultural Interaction, UCL Dr James Paskins, Grand Challenge for Sustainable Cities, UCL Michael Reade, Grand Challenge for Intercultural Interaction, UCL Katherine Welch, UCL ISR


About the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources:Established in 2012, the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources is a cross-disciplinary institute, set up to carry out in-house research in the areas of its research themes, as well as pull together the research capabilities in these areas from across UCL. UCL ISR is part of the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, and is a partner institute to the UCL Energy Institute and the UCL International Energy Policy Institute (UCL Australia).

UCL ISR supports all four of the UCL Grand Challenges posing questions and searching for solutions in the areas of sustainable cities, global health, human wellbeing and intercultural interaction.

About the UCL Grand Challenge for Intercultural Interaction:The relationships between people, communities and culture are complex and continually evolving. Religion, politics, ethnicity and cultural heritage are closely interwoven and often volatile subjects, and throughout history to the modern day, scholars have tried to understand the complex factors which affect how societies relate to each other, and how we can support democracy and global stability. The UCL Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction draws on our strengths in the arts and humanities, social and political sciences, as well as laws, economics, history and heritage, to develop our understanding of societies, culture and civilisation.

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