Social impacts of biodiversity offsetting: A review

Biodiversity offsetting is the widely studied last step of the mitigation hierarchy. Despite numerous studies and the methodological development completed for biodiversity calculations, the human aspect remains unsolved. Biodiversity conservation is typically governed at national or state levels, but the harm caused to biodiversity as well as people occurs locally. In biodiversity offsetting, biodiversity values can be relocated far from the original area, but relocating the values people hold regarding their nearby nature may not be possible. Acknowledging the local people's hopes and values may further complicate biodiversity offsetting, therefore it emphasises even more the need to avoid…

Justice in transitions: Widening considerations of justice in dietary transition

Just transition is gaining increasing attention. The need to consider social justice in sustainability transitions is finally being acknowledged. Research on this issue has, to date, mainly concentrated on energy systems. In this paper, we examine how the elaboration of dietary transition widens the spectrum of justice questions in sustainability transitions research. We explicate the arising normative questions along the dimensions of distributive, procedural and recognitive justice; widening the considerations further to restorative and cosmopolitan justice. Dietary transition widens the justice considerations to basic needs, food security and nutrition. By doing so, it evokes socio-cultu…

Justice in Finnish Food Policies

Abstract The need to create more sustainable food systems calls for careful attention to justice in making the transition. However, to achieve a just transition and create policies to support the goal of developing sustainable food systems, we need more knowledge of the ways current policies tackle justice. This knowledge can reveal blind spots and development needs and increase the transparency of potentially conflicting goals, which is essential for designing just transition policies. From the normative perspective of food justice, a food system should produce three principal outcomes: food security and nutrition, livelihoods and fair income, and environmental sustainability. In this arti…

Reilu siirtymä, ekologinen solidaarisuus ja kestävyysmurroksen mahdollisuus?

Ekologisen kriisin ratkaisemiseksi tarvittavan kestävyysmurroksen yhteydessä on lisääntyvästi alettu keskustella oikeudenmukaisuudesta tai reiluudesta. Reilu siirtymä tarkoittaa sosiaalisen oikeudenmukaisuuden nostamista keskeiseksi osaksi ympäristökriisin ratkaisua, mikä on tärkeää sekä siirtymän hyväksyttävyyden että toimivan toteutuksen kannalta. Samalla oikeudenmukaisuuden korostaminen pitää kuitenkin sisällään riskin ympäristökriisin ratkaisemisen hidastumisesta. Erityisesti näin voi käydä, mikäli oikeudenmukaisuus kääntyy tarkoittamaan oikeutta kestämättömien elämäntapojen ja yhteiskuntarakenteiden ylläpitämiseen. Tarkastelemme tässä katsauksessa reilua siirtymää kriittisesti ja nosta…

Ympäristökansalaisuudesta aineksia ilmastokriisin ratkaisuun?

Socio-cultural lock-ins and the difficulty of sustainability transition in fertilization : response to Struckman

This commentary discusses the socio-cultural context of farming and proposes ways to break related lock-ins in the context of sustainability transition research. To be able to change farming practices and design policies to promote the changes, it is essential to understand what actually needs to change. Do we need to change the ways farmers think, the ways that food markets operate, the requirements of plant varieties or the requirements related to protecting water quality? In a complex situation the needed change emerges from the intertwinement of many different issues, which simultaneously work to create the locked-in situation. A focus on people and their practices provides a good start…

Reilu ruokamurros : Polkuja kestävään ja oikeudenmukaiseen ruokajärjestelmään

Ruokajärjestelmämme kärsivät monista yhteen kietoutuneista kestävyysongelmista. Ongelmia ei korjata yksittäisillä teknologisilla ratkaisuilla, vaan muutoksia tarvitaan läpi koko ruokajärjestelmän. Muutosten laajuuden vuoksi on syytä puhua järjestelmän perustavanlaatuisesta muuttamisesta eli ruokamurroksesta. Tässä julkaisussa tarkastelemme, miten ruokajärjestelmän ilmastopäästöjä voitaisiin vähentää Suomessa siten, että ruokaturva ei vaarannu. Arvioimme ilmastotoimien toteutusta eri murrospoluilla, jotka keskittyvät maankäytön, ruokavalioiden, maatalous- ja ruokateknologioiden muutoksiin. Arvioimme eri murrospolkujen vaikutuksia maatalouteen eri alueilla ja eri väestöryhmien ravitsemukseen.…

Environmental citizenship in geography and beyond

The need for wider action against environmental problems such as climate change has brought the debate about the role of citizen to the political, practical, and scientific domains. Environmental citizenship provides a useful tool to conceptualize the relation between citizenship and the environment. However, there exists considerable variation in the ways environmental citizenship is understood regarding both the aspect of citizenship and the relationship to the environment. In this article, we review the literature on environmental citizenship and investigate the evolution of the concept. The article is based on a literature search with an emphasis on geographical research. The concept of…

Ecological modernisation and discourses on rural non-wood bioenergy production in Finland from 1980 to 2005

Abstract Rural bioenergy production is currently a much debated question worldwide. It is closely connected to questions of environmental protection and rural development in both developing and industrial world. In Finland, rural bioenergy production has traditionally meant the production of wood fuels for heating purposes. The utilisation of forest biomasses is undiminished even today, and other biomasses are scarcely used for energy production. The purpose of this article is to discuss the possibility of widening the bioenergy production palette to include biomasses other than forest-based woody ones. This matter is approached from an environmental aspect using the concept of ecological m…

”Juhannuksena sää saattaa olla lämmin” : Mitä sanomalehtien sääkirjoitukset kertovat suomalaisten suhteesta säähän ja ilmastoon?

Ilmasto konkretisoituu ihmisten arkeen sään kautta; ilmaston merkitys välittyy sään kokemisessa ja säälle annetuissa paikallisissa merkityksissä. Näin sään ja sille annettujen kulttuuristen merkitysten tutkiminen tuo arvokkaan lisän ilmastonmuutoksen arkisten seurausten hahmottamisessa ja voi auttaa ymmärtämään erilaisia ilmastonmuutosnäkemyksiä ja näistä juontuvia ilmastopolitiikan konflikteja. Tämän vuoksi kiinnostus arkisten sääkokemusten tutkimukseen on kasvanut viime vuosina. Artikkeli tarjoaa katsauksen tähän kansainvälisesti kehittyvään kulttuurisen ilmastotutkimuksen kenttään, sekä tarkastelee empiirisesti sään kulttuurisia merkityksiä Suomessa sanomalehtiaineiston avulla. Empiirine…

Osallistaminen ilmastopolitiikassa

Wood energy production, sustainable farming livelihood and multifunctionality in Finland

Abstract Climate change and the projected depletion of fossil energy resources pose multiple global challenges. Innovative technologies offer interesting possibilities to achieve more sustainable outcomes in the energy production sector. Local, decentralized alternatives have the potential to sustain livelihoods in rural areas. One example of such a venture has emerged around heating businesses in rural Finland, and is referred to as heat entrepreneurship. Heat entrepreneurship entails a system where a local forest owner, usually a farmer, provides heat to a small community or local building, such as a school. Heat is produced using local forest resources that would otherwise be unutilized.…

Intra-Acting Food Citizenship in Community-Supported Agriculture in Finland

Citizens are called upon to become active participants in creating a more sustainable food system. As food citizens, people participate in defining and constructing their food systems according to their needs and values. In food policies, the concept of food citizenship is often left undefined or with reference only to individual activities. In the food citizenship literature, the role of nonhuman agency in constituting food citizenship needs more examination. Here we investigate food citizenship activities in a citizen-led community-supported agriculture group and explore the role of materiality in constituting food citizenship. We ask (1) what is the role of material-discursive arrangemen…

Anaerobic digestion of grass silage in batch leach bed processes for methane production.

Abstract Anaerobic digestion of grass silage in batch leach bed reactors, with and without a second stage upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor, was evaluated. Sixty six percent of the methane potential in grass was obtained within the 55 days solids retention time in the leach bed–UASB process without pH adjustment, whereas in the one-stage leach bed process 20% of the methane potential in grass was extracted. In two-stage operation, adjustment of the pH of influent to the leach bed reactor to 6 with HCl led to inhibition of both hydrolysis/acidogenesis and methanogenesis. In the leach bed–UASB process 39% of the carbohydrates and 58% of the acid soluble lignin were solubilised wi…

Revisiting agricultural modernisation: Interconnected farming practices driving rural development at the farm level

Abstract Rural development related to agriculture can roughly be divided into two trajectories: 1) agri-industrial development or modernisation, and 2) multifunctional or even post-productivist rural development. The role of these trajectories varies in different rural settings, with different emphases on agricultural production and its conduct. At the farm level, the trajectories evolve from existing farming practices and their connections, which enable or disable different kinds of development. However, the connections through which changes in agricultural production practices contribute to different rural development trajectories deserve further scrutiny. This is addressed with the help …

Shared socioeconomic pathways for climate change research in Finland: co-developing extended SSP narratives for agriculture

AbstractShared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), developed at global scale, comprise narrative descriptions and quantifications of future world developments that are intended for climate change scenario analysis. However, their extension to national and regional scales can be challenging. Here, we present SSP narratives co-developed with stakeholders for the agriculture and food sector in Finland. These are derived from intensive discussions at a workshop attended by approximately 39 participants offering a range of sectoral perspectives. Using general background descriptions of the SSPs for Europe, facilitated discussions were held in parallel for each of four SSPs reflecting very different c…

Käsitteitä ympäristön ja yhteiskunnan suhteesta

Environment and society. Concepts and challenges / Magnus Boström & Debra J. Davidson (toim.). Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

”Juhannuksena sää saattaa olla lämmin”

Weather is the medium through which we connect with climate in our everyday activities. It creates our understanding of the climate and its meanings in particular places. Hence, there is a rising interest in studying the everyday weather experiences as a means to understand the ways climate and climate change affect our daily lives, and to explain different perceptions on climate change and conflicts over climate policies. Building on studies related to cultural understanding of climate change, this paper examines the contexts and ways weather is narrated in newspaper media in Finland. The analysis is based on weather related news reports on the year of strange weather, 2018, published in t…

Kunnat hidastamaan luontokatoa : suosituksia luontohaittojen välttämiseksi, lieventämiseksi ja kompensoimiseksi kuntien maankäytössä

Peer reviewed

Responsibilities for just transition to low-carbon societies : a role-based framework

Low-carbon transitions in industrialised societies will have significant social, economic and environmental impacts, raising concerns of justice. Calls for urgent transitions evoke a question about the roles of different actors in advancing transitions and ensuring they are just. While the responsibilities for emission mitigation have been long discussed, responsibilities for making a just transition have not. The question about responsibilities is particularly pressing because of the diverse constellation of actors involved in climate action, including diverse forms of non-state actors from city-level and business alliances to grassroots activists. We examine the responsibilities of state …

Ilmastotoimien sosiaalinen hyväksyttävyys

Bioenergy Production and Social Sustainability on Finnish Farms

Problems related to energy production have become a significant social issue, also regarding rural areas. There is an apparent need to establish a model for sustainable energy production that would encompass economic, environmental and social sustainability (Elliott 2000). One important solution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, as well as addressing the depletion of fossil fuel resources, lies in the renewable natural resources that exist in rural areas. However, sustainable and reasonable utilization of these resources is not simple and requires specific analysis of different production models (Mol 2007). Simultaneously, one must consider how these rural resources can be utilized and …

Cultivating cultural sustainability in farming practices

The aim of this chapter is to explore agricultural practices and their sustainability, in order to analyse the essence and dynamics of culture in relation to sustainable development. We ask, what should sustain in culture and what does culturally sustainable development entail? We identified three core qualities of sustainability in farming: fertility, diversity and continuity. They are bound together and shaped by rationalization related to the feasible functioning of the farming system and appreciation judging the desirability and quality of the practices. We discuss the ways the model explaining the sustainability of agricultural practices can be used to inform the essence of culture in …

Reilua ruokaa tänään ja huomenna : suosituksia kestävän ruokajärjestelmän luomiseksi

Sustainability and Meanings of Farm-Based Bioenergy Production in Rural Finland

Experiments in sustainable rural livelihood in Finland

This paper addresses rural development and farm level action in Finland by posing the following main questions: What is the pioneering potential of small-scale entrepreneurship in enhancing rural sustainability? What are the specialisations feasible for such entrepreneurship in the present societal circumstances? What kind of local networking does it take to sustain on-farm activity for rural sustainability? We present empirical evidence from Central Finland about the ways in which both local food entrepreneurship and farm-based renewable energy production add to the rural livelihood and particularly to its social dimension. It is concluded that there is a potential overall impact on sustai…

Planetary well-being

Tensions between the well-being of present humans, future humans, and nonhuman nature manifest in social protests and political and academic debates over the future of Earth. The increasing consumption of natural resources no longer increases, let alone equalizes, human well-being, but has led to the current ecological crisis and harms both human and nonhuman well-being. While the crisis has been acknowledged, the existing conceptual frameworks are in some respects ill-equipped to address the crisis in a way that would link the resolving of the crisis with the pivotal aim of promoting equal well-being. The shortcomings of the existing concepts in this respect relate to anthropocentric norma…

Planetary well-being

Tensions between the well-being of present humans, future humans, and nonhuman nature manifest in social protests and political and academic debates over the future of Earth. The increasing consumption of natural resources no longer increases, let alone equalises, human well-being, but has led to the current ecological crisis and harms both human and nonhuman well-being. While the crisis has been acknowledged, the existing conceptual frameworks are in some respects ill-equipped to address the crisis in a way that would link the resolving of the crisis with the pivotal aim of promoting equal well-being. The shortcomings of the existing concepts in this respect relate to anthropocentric norma…

Policy mixes for more vital legume value chains: Evaluation across competing policy frames

Legumes receive increasing attention in sustainability transition research as they can contribute to more sustainable food systems. Previous research has established the need for policies relating to both production and consumption to tackle the marginalisation of legumes in European cropping systems and diets. In this paper, we apply the policy mix framework to food system transition and develop it further into an interpretive policy mix framework to evaluate policy mixes for more vital legume value chains. The interpretive policy mix framework facilitates a better understanding of competing policy frames in designing more consistent, coherent, and comprehensive policy mixes for transition…

Pelkkä ekologinen kompensaatio ei takaa ekologisesti kestävää maankäyttöä

Uudistuvan luonnonsuojelulain (HE 76/2022) myötä ekologinen kompensaatio on noussut Suomessa ajankohtaiseksi aiheeksi. Ekologinen kompensaatio on kiistelty aihe niin Suomessa kuin kansainvälisesti. Jonne Hytönen ja Anna-Kaisa Tupala (2022) nostivat Alue ja ympäristö -lehden numerossa 1/2022 julkaistussa kirjoituksessaan ansiokkaasti esiin ekologisen kompensaation riskejä ja mahdollisuuksia ekologisesti kestävän maankäytön suunnittelun näkökulmasta. Yksinkertaistaen heidän mukaansa kompensaatio palvelee ”reformistista”, sallivaa suunnittelua, joka voi mahdollistaa ympäristöä heikentäville hankkeille ohituskaistan tai lupa-automaatin. Vaihtoehtoisesti, tiukat reunaehdot huomioiden, kompensaat…

Laboratory investigations on co-digestion of energy crops and crop residues with cow manure for methane production: Effect of crop to manure ratio

Abstract Anaerobic co-digestion of grass silage, sugar beet tops and oat straw with cow manure was evaluated in semi-continuously fed laboratory continuously stirred tank reactors (CSTRs). Co-digestion of manure and crops was shown to be feasible with feedstock volatile solids (VS) containing up to 40% of crops. The highest specific methane yields of 268, 229 and 213 l CH4 kg−1 VSadded in co-digestion of cow manure with grass, sugar beet tops and straw, respectively, were obtained with 30% of crop in the feedstock, corresponding to 85–105% of the methane potential in the substrates as determined by batch assays. Including 30% of crop in the feedstock increased methane production per digeste…

Participation for just governance of food-system transition

Sustainability transitions governance needs to be inclusive and participatory and the question of justice is crucial for making effective and acceptable changes possible. But how do we ensure adequate participation in governance processes and enable reconciliation between competing goals in relation to sustainability transitions? Transition management highlights the need for participatory and reflexive governance processes to enable sustainability transitions. However, due to participant selection and limitations in chosen approaches, deliberative and participatory forums may have difficulties ensuring justice and legitimacy. A systemic and practice-oriented perspective on deliberation poin…

Bioenergy technology evaluation and potential in Costa Rica

Action-oriented knowledge for sustainable management of organic soils in Finnish agriculture

Agriculture is a contributing force to climate change due to unsustainable changes in land use with the usage of peatlands for food production in Finland. The use of organic soils in food production is a complex and politically driven issue, thus multistakeholder and participatory approaches to policy development, implementation and evaluation are essential. This study is integrating qualitative and quantitative methods in an iterative process to produce action-oriented knowledge for supporting actions to sustainably manage peatlands and reduce the enormous greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural peatlands. This study has engaged inter-disciplinary researchers and transdisciplinary actor…

Finnish dairy farmers’ perceptions of justice in the transition to carbon-neutral farming

Highlights • Finnish dairy farmers' perceptions of issues with carbon neutrality were examined. • Concerns include farming profitability, farmer blaming, and use of peatlands. • Public policy guidance is needed for carbon-neutral, sustainable agriculture. Environmental and political debate concerning the role of agriculture in sustainability has long been on the agenda. However, owing to climate change, an analysis of the transition to a low-carbon society must also be considered from the perspective of justice. Dairy farming, in particular, faces pressure in this context, when contemplating changing consumer behaviors and reduction in the carbon footprint of dairy products. Accordingly, ma…

Kohti reilua ruokajärjestelmää : ruokajärjestelmän toimijoiden näkemyksiä ilmastopolitiikan keinojen oikeudenmukaisuudesta