Cities: the core of climate change mitigation

The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework represents a significant advance in specifying the ecological constraints on human development. However, to enable decision-makers in business and public policy to respect these constraints in strategic planning, the PB framework needs to be developed to generate practical tools. With this objective in mind, we analyse the recent literature and highlight three major scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the PB approach in decision-making: first, identification of thresholds or boundaries with associated metrics for different geographical scales; second, the need to frame approaches to allocate fair shares in the ‘safe operating space’ bounded by the PBs across the value chain and; third, the need for international bodies to co-ordinate the implementation of the measures needed to respect the Planetary Boundaries. For the first two of these challenges, we consider how they might be addressed for four PBs: climate change, freshwater use, biosphere integrity and chemical pollution and other novel entities. Four key opportunities are identified: (1) development of a common system of metrics that can be applied consistently at and across different scales; (2) setting ‘distance from boundary’ measures that can be applied at different scales; (3) development of global, preferably open-source, databases and models; and (4) advancing understanding of the interactions between the different PBs. Addressing the scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the planetary boundaries needs be complemented with progress in addressing the equity and ethical issues in allocating the safe operating space between companies and sectors.

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The challenges of applying planetary boundaries as a basis for strategic decision-making in companies with global supply chains

Towards integrating the ecosystem services cascade framework within the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) cause-effect methodology.

Assessing nutritional, health, and environmental sustainability dimensions of agri-food production

The study of ecosystem services enables the understanding of the services that ecosystems provide at the landscape level by explaining the relationship between natural capital, ecosystem services, and human wellbeing. The limited number of studies summarizing important themes and approaches used in this area constrain the ability of scholars and practitioners to initiate or incorporate ecosystem services in their own domains of research. This paper develops a structured process that traces efforts in this domain of knowledge and proposes a systematic review of key themes and approaches that have developed over the last 40 years. Further, this study identifies emerging and dominant areas of interest in the field. Key themes represent underlying meanings or ideas widely used in the ecosystem services field and includes trending or rising topics. Approaches include tools, frameworks, perspectives and management strategies to analyze, assess, and quantify ecosystem services. Analyses showed that, among key themes, conservation of biodiversity and landscape planning had the most activity and interest. Among approaches, economic valuation showed the highest levels of activity, while conceptual framework was the most cited. This review paper contributes a guide to progress in ecosystem service research and provides a comprehensive understanding of its evolution and development.

Progress in ecosystem services research: A guide for scholars and practitioners

International corporations in an increasingly globalized economy exert a major influence on the planet's land use and resources through their product design and material sourcing decisions. Many companies use life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate their sustainability, yet commonly-used LCA methodologies lack the spatial resolution and predictive ecological information to reveal key impacts on climate, water and biodiversity. We present advances for LCA that integrate spatially explicit modelling of land change and ecosystem services in a Land-Use Change Improved (LUCI)-LCA. Comparing increased demand for bioplastics derived from two alternative feedstock-location scenarios for maize and sugarcane, we find that the LUCI-LCA approach yields results opposite to those of standard LCA for greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption, and of different magnitudes for soil erosion and biodiversity. This approach highlights the importance of including information about where and how land-use change and related impacts will occur in supply chain and innovation decisions.

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Life cycle assessment needs predictive spatial modelling for biodiversity and ecosystem services

Previous studies have confirmed the agricultural stage as an important contributor to total tea life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We therefore focus on the growing and processing of black ...

Giles Rigarlsford

Papers

Life cycle assessment needs predictive spatial modelling for biodiversity and ecosystem services

Potential management interventions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from tea cultivation