This paper presents the responsible operating space (ROS) framework, a framework that includes both the common governance of the global environmental concerns and the comprehensive management of environmental sustainability. The ROS framework determines environmental objectives regarding the global concerns using a footprint perspective, and defines coherent integrated environmental objectives for

The concept of ‘wellbeing economy’ (WE), that is, an economy that pursues human and ecological wellbeing instead of material growth, is gaining support amongst policymakers, business, and civil society. Over the past couple of years, several national governments have adopted the WE as their guiding framework to design development policies and assess social and economic progress. While it shares a number

The ALIMASSENS Collaborative Project funded by the French National Research AgencyANR-14-CE20-0003The AgreenSkills fellowship programmeFP7-609398

We offer an ethnographic account of how forest conservation is diversely assembled at the contiguous Tambopata National Reserve and Bahuaja Sonene National Park, biodiversity hotspots in the southern Peruvian Amazon. In so doing, and revising Elinor Ostrom and collaborators' Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework, we put together a theory framework of forest institutional change, informed

In light of growing pressure on forests benefit sharing is increasingly gaining attention as a governance approach to facilitating more equitable and sustainable interactions and outcomes. While benefit sharing is one of the key components of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks) programs and policies under the United Nations

The co-existence of customary and statutory land tenure institutions makes land tenure a complex issue for farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, land tenure systems are gendered, which is often to the disadvantage of women. We outline a land tenure framework, which acknowledges the interactions between gender and different land tenure institutions and their impact on investments in agroforestry

The relationship between a household's income and its carbon emissions is often summed up by a number, the elasticity of the carbon footprint with respect to income. I survey here the cross-sectional studies of household carbon footprints and their estimation of the elasticities with respect to income and with respect to expenditures. The difference between these two elasticities comes from the personal

AbstractNorway recently increased the effective levy used to fund its export promotion programme for whitefish by 21 per cent. Study results suggest the intensified programme is welfare increasing. The net social gain, defined as the difference between the increase in economic surplus associated with the increased advertising and the decrease in economic surplus associated with the increased effective

At the global level, two Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) systems, i.e., protocols and certification, have grown significantly in standardizing forest management practices. Protocols are driven by multi-stakeholder groups that outline a series of standardized criteria and indicators agreed upon by participating countries. On the other hand, forest certification involves market-driven multi-stakeholder

Mangrove ecosystems in Indonesia show great promise in contributing to climate change mitigation, but they continue to experience significant degradation primarily because of aquaculture conversion. This work analyzes the mangrove governance in Indonesia and how it fits the country's high emission reduction. The study is mainly based on the analysis of existing regulations, interviews with relevant

AbstractThe African Continental Free Trade Area agreement will create the largest single market in the world in terms of the number of countries and people. We analyse the effects of regional trade liberalisation on production fragmentation and networks using a global computable general equilibrium model adapted to take into account the value-added structure of international trade. This permits the

For the forest sector, it is important to produce wood in an efficient and cost-effective way, while at the same time satisfying customer needs. This requires careful management of the wood product supply chain; from the point of production (forest owners) to the intermediates who transform these into intermediate goods and final wood products (forest-based industries), and deliver these goods to the

If governments are serious about meeting environmental and social goals, they should overcome dominance of the GDP indicator in political discourse. Institutionalizing a beyond-GDP metric would be an essential step, in interaction with a shift in the direction of an “agrowth” paradigm. For a significant step forward, a permanent UN panel could be charged to explore the options and prepare a metric

We analyzed the interdependency between forest land conversion and economic land use in Brazilian Legal Amazon (BLA) from 2006 to 2017. More specifically, we assessed incremental economic gains from forest conversion in the perspective of environmental efficiency, and we analyzed the causes and implications of the interdependence based on a Forest Transition framework. Results suggested that despite

Societal transformations are necessary to address critical global challenges, such as mitigation of anthropogenic climate change and reaching UN sustainable development goals. Recently, social tipping processes have received increased attention, as they present a form of social change whereby a small change can shift a sensitive social system into a qualitatively different state due to strongly self-amplifying

Policies for investment in biofuel production facilities and feedstock may be necessary in order to meet climate and renewable energy targets. These policies entail a trade-off between high transportation costs of biomass and economies of scale of production facilities. We develop a spatial optimisation model and investigate the cost-effective localization of production facilities for ethanol from

This paper studies the impact of foreign labour on the competitiveness of Italian dairy farms relying on the theory of foreign labour in profit functions. Application of an endogenous switching regression model identifies the drivers of adoption of the immigrant workforce. A counterfactual analysis performed on unit labour costs between farms employing and non-employing immigrants suggests the essential

AbstractAgricultural policymakers call for the operationalisation of farm resilience as a dynamic concept. Therefore, we quantify farm resilience along the dimensions of robustness, adaptation and transformation. Using the rich Farm Accountancy Data Network panel data set, we explore which farm(er) characteristics affect resilience. We employ a control function approach to address the presence of endogeneity

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 to work towards a sustainable society in which economic prosperity is achieved and social and environmental concerns are met. Under the SDGs, businesses are expected to assume increasingly active roles. However, little is known about the relationship between the preferences of stakeholders and businesses'

This article contributes to the discussion on socio-environmental conflicts and extractive projects in the Arctic region. Fifty-three socio-environmental conflicts are analysed, using data from the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. Based on descriptive statistics, regression and network analysis, the paper reveals that socio-environmental conflicts predominantly overlap with Indigenous peoples'

Grassroots Innovation is a typology of innovation that develops in civil society and is driven by social and ideological concerns. This paper focuses on the strategies of resistance developed by Grassroots movements in response to capture and mainstreaming processes and on the role that ideology has in the evolution of Grassroots Innovation. The study refers to the Arenas of Development framework.

In the last decade, multiple scientists and policymakers have been promoting bioeconomy for decarbonisation and as a way to tackle the ongoing socio-ecological crises. An effective transition to the bioeconomy in developing countries, which are predominantly agrarian,depends partly on its amenability to existing land access regimes and how actors in such countries are able to manage competing claims

We analyze recycling decisions for bioplastics using a natural field experiment. Bioplastics have environmental benefits – such as reduced energy use in production and enhanced biodegredation – compared to conventional plastics. Recycling decisions that are not consistent with government guidelines, however, may cause a rebound effect. For instance when biobased plastics contaminate organic waste streams

There is an emerging body of evidence to suggest that nudges can motivate behaviour change. The question as to whether using nudges in tandem ‘crowds out’ the marginal effectiveness of each one has attracted little attention. Using a randomised survey experiment consisting of 1,800 farmers, we tested the impact of two nudge interventions (injunctive norm and social signalling) when used individually

This article examines global trends likely to influence forests and tree-based systems and considers the poverty implications of these interactions. The trends, identified through a series of expert discussions and review of the literature, include: (i) climatic impacts mediated through changes in forests, (ii) growth in commodity markets, (iii) shifts in private and public forest sector financing

This article reviews recent endeavors to incorporate big data and machine learning techniques into energy and environmental economics research. We find that novel datasets, from high frequency smart meter data to satellite images and social media data, are already used by researchers. At the same time most of the analyses rely on traditional econometric techniques. Nevertheless, we find applications

The transformation of the electricity sector is a central element of the transition to a decarbonized economy. Conventional generators powered by fossil fuels have to be replaced by variable renewable energy (VRE) sources in combination with electricity storage and other options for providing temporal flexibility. We discuss the market dynamics of increasing VRE penetration and its integration in the

This survey distills recent work on the price elasticity of demand for urban and agricultural water and outlines how it can inform the design of market-based approaches to manage increasingly scarce water resources. We offer a brief description of the water sector, including the primary users, main water sources, and market failures in the allocation and use of surface water and groundwater. A review

We survey the rapidly growing economic literature on environmental catastrophes and the various approaches developed to address the hovering threats. Various theoretical descriptions of catastrophic occurrences are classified with respect to the uncertain conditions that trigger the events, the postoccurrence dynamic regime, and the form of the inflicted damage. We show that variations in each of these

Global agriculture consumes substantial resources and produces significant pollution. By shifting its production to new locations, and inducing changes in technology and input use, trade has a substantial impact on environmental sustainability of the world's food systems, but due to suboptimal environmental policy, the exact nature of these impacts is in dispute. We review the literature on agricultural

This review provides a description of common and distinct characteristics of economic and ecological systems; examples of the ways in which these characteristics can be incorporated into models adequately describing the coevolution of the two-component systems to produce a unified ecological-economic system in time, space, and appropriate scale; and a discussion of policy design when the policy maker

Many food crops rely on pollination by animals. Historically, wind and wild organisms provided pollination as an ecosystem service that varied across agroecological zones, cropping systems, and time. The value of these pollination services is likely substantial but has not been estimated reliably. More recently, pollination services in major crop-producing regions have been provided through organized

The shale gas boom revolutionized the energy sector through hydraulic fracturing (fracking). High levels of energy production force communities, states, and nations to consider the externalities and potential risks associated with this unconventional oil and natural gas development (UOGD). In this review, we systematically outline the environmental, economic, and anthropogenic impacts of UOGD, while

We survey the growing literature on fat-tailed distributions in environmental economics. We then examine the theoretical and statistical properties of such distributions, focusing especially on when these properties are likely to arise in environmental problems. We find that a number of variables are fat tailed in environmental economics, including the climate sensitivity, natural disaster impacts

The United States and United Kingdom have long-standing traditions in the use of environmental benefit-cost analysis (E-BCA). While there are similarities between how E-BCA is utilized, there are significant differences too, many of which mirror ongoing debates and recent developments in the literature on environmental and natural resource economics. We review the use of E-BCA in both countries across

As of 2020, carbon taxes were in effect in 30 jurisdictions around the world. This article provides a theoretical overview of carbon taxes along with some empirical evidence on the macroeconomic impacts of existing taxes, including emission reductions. It compares and contrasts carbon taxes with other policy instruments to reduce emissions. It also highlights issues that have recently attracted the

In the wake of 25 United Nations Climate Change Conferences of the Parties (and counting), international cooperation on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions to avoid substantial and potentially irreversible climate change remains an important challenge. The limited impact of the Kyoto Protocol on curbing emissions, and the gap between the ambitions of its successor and the Paris Agreement's lack of

This article reviews the recent literature on the developmental effects of resource abundance, assessing likely effects and channels with respect to key development outcomes. To date, this area has received less analysis, although it is relevant to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals agenda, as a significant number of the world's poor live in African resource-rich economies. We argue

With new possibilities offered by information and communications technology (ICT), an abundance of products, services, and projects has emerged with the promise of revitalizing agricultural extension in developing countries. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that not all ICT-enabled extension approaches are equally effective in improving adoption, productivity, income, or welfare outcomes

Irrigation has been a key component of agricultural intensification and transformation in Asia and has the potential to take on the same role in Sub-Saharan Africa. Irrigation has contributed to increased food production, lower food prices, higher rural employment, and overall agricultural and economic growth. At the same time, irrigation—through its large consumptive water use—has accelerated water

Food systems are currently facing unprecedented challenges. More than 690 million people still suffer hunger while climate change, rapid depletion of natural resources, and loss of biodiversity further threaten future food systems. Influential global reports emphasize the need for fundamental transformations of food systems for human and planetary health, but few incorporate economic considerations

In 2010, the White House announced the goal of eradicating food deserts—low-income neighborhoods without nearby supermarkets—in seven years. The efficacy of this initiative is premised on the presumption, mostly untested in 2010, that food deserts significantly contribute to health disparities in low-resourced communities. We synthesize the post-2010 line of research that seeks to establish causality

Agricultural economists have a long history of emphasizing and analyzing the spatial dimension of agricultural and food markets. Despite a rich body of literature and important contributions to agricultural and spatial economics, one aspect is frequently disregarded: the oligopsonistic nature of agricultural markets due to spatial competition of neighboring buyers of farm products. This review presents

We review recent developments in the analysis of price transmission in agricultural markets. Markets may be separated in time, form, and space (as well as in combinations of such factors). Transactions and storage costs as well as production and marketing factors delineate these markets. We show that much of the research on spatial market linkages has reflected methodological advances that have led

The labor supply response to agricultural wages is critical to the viability of crop production in high-income countries, which hire a largely foreign farm work force, as well as in low-income countries, where domestic workers move off the farm as the agricultural transformation unfolds. Modeling agricultural labor supply is more challenging than modeling the supply of other agricultural inputs or

We review the recent theoretical and empirical literature on the capitalization of agricultural subsidies into land prices. The theoretical literature predicts that agricultural subsidies are capitalized into land prices when land supply is inelastic and land markets function well. The share of capitalized subsidies significantly depends on the implementation of farm subsidies, local land-market institutions

Data sets providing repeated observations of land use at fine spatial scales have enabled a new generation of land-use studies. In the past decade, these analyses have put increasing emphasis on empirical research designs that provide more convincing causal estimates. I review the use of instrumental variables, matching, difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity design, and randomized controlled

Payments for environmental service (PES) programs have been increasingly promulgated worldwide recently to secure broader environmental benefits and provide financial assistance to environmental custodians. This study highlights the incentive design of PES and ecosystem providers' behavioral responses using a standard principal-agent model. Based on a theoretical model characterized by a screening

To identify whether EU certified food – here organic and geographical indications – is more sustainable than a conventional reference, we developed 25 indicators covering the three sustainability pillars. Original data was collected on 52 products at farm, processing and retail levels, allowing the estimation of circa 2000 indicator values. Most strikingly, we show that, in our sample, certified food

Market-based forest governance mechanisms such as reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) are implemented in many forests rich countries to conserve biodiversity and mitigate against global climate change. The assumption is that communities will be better motivated to participate in forest conservation if monetary payments are provided to compensate for past efforts or future

The public forest policy's response to the threat of deforestation in Mexico has relied on different environmental tools for forest management, conservation, and survival. The present study compares the updated version of the Index of Economic Pressure for Deforestation (IRDef, in Spanish), one of the most commonly used public policy tools, to an alternative version this index incorporating a modification

Timberland ownership in the world, especially in the United States, has experienced significant changes in the past few decades. In this commentary, I reviewed a recently published book by Daowei Zhang under this theme. The book examined the driving forces of institutional timberland investment by compiling a number of landmark events through corporate reports and interviews with major parties involved

Protecting biodiversity matters for the sustainability transition, but nothing yet seems to be able to halt the rate of biodiversity loss. The promotion of green jobs fuels questionable ideas, among which that there are green vs non-green jobs, and that the latter can be progressively replaced by green jobs. The option of developing jobs that could act to offset environmental damage is also attractive

We investigate the complementarity among different treatments which involved “boosts” (provision of information) and “goals” (ambitious or modest goals) by means of a field experiment conducted in the Principality of Monaco between December 2018 and May 2019. We collected data from 77 households in four groups: ambitious electricity reduction goal combined with information (Treatment 1), modest electricity

Divestment from fossil fuel companies could help align financial flows with climate targets and reduce the related risk exposure of investors. Yet, investors reach different conclusions whether to divest. In this article, we derive hypotheses for financial and non-financial divestment motives to explore the determinants of divestment. Using a newly compiled data set on the 1000 largest European pension

Agriculture is a major source of air pollution in Europe, with adverse impacts on human health. Having recognized the serious health outcomes, and in direct response to public demand for a cleaner environment, European public policies are aiming to reduce air pollution. This study proposes a shift to more plant-based human diets to help achieve bold reduction targets for air pollution from agriculture

The uptake of actions to mitigate climate change at the household level might crowd out subsequent policy at the national level, which is problematic because national policy often has a larger mitigation potential than individual household measures. This study analyses crowding out between the uptake of low-cost actions and the support for national climate change policy in the agricultural sector.

Ecosystem Services (ES) can contribute to several aspects of human well-being (WB) that we understand as the subjective perception that individuals have of their quality of life, depending on a set of factors. We compare the relative weights of the WB factors resulting from ES (ES-based) and those that do not depend on ES (non-ES-based), from an online survey (N = 1006) relating to ES linked to fish-farming

Ecological economics has existed as a field for over 30 years. The field has since its inception strived to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries and incorporates many substantially different perspectives. Despite continuous discussion about the fundamentals and direction of the field, ecological economists maintain a perception that ecological economics is at its core one field, although there

Mineral aggregates (sand and gravel) have been the fastest growing and the most volumetrically extracted material group extracted over the 21st century. This growth has been associated with large-scale ecological degradation and violent localized extractive operations. Further, the ongoing rates of sand extraction are already resulting in emerging global and local sand scarcities. However, there is