Research practice, funding agencies and global science organizations suggest that research aimed at addressing sustainability challenges is most effective when ‘co-produced’ by academics and non-academics. Co-production promises to address the complex nature of contemporary sustainability challenges better than more traditional scientific approaches. But definitions of knowledge co-production are diverse and often contradictory. We propose a set of four general principles that underlie high-quality knowledge co-production for sustainability research. Using these principles, we offer practical guidance on how to engage in meaningful co-productive practices, and how to evaluate their quality and success.

Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research

The water–food–energy Nexus – Realising a new paradigm

Towards understanding the integrative approach of the water, energy and food nexus

Researchers, stakeholders and funding organizations have embraced co-production of knowledge to solve sustainability problems. Research focusing on the practice of co-production can help us understand what works in what contexts and how to avoid potentially undesirable outcomes.

To co-produce or not to co-produce

This paper presents a study of the evolution of the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus since its rise to prominence in policy and development discourses in 2011. The paper presents various interpretations of the concept as well as the novelty the WEF nexus. The challenge of integrating and optimising the components of this multi-centric nexus is examined, with four case studies being presented. Various criticisms levelled at the WEF nexus, such as the neglect of livelihoods and the environment in assessments, are noted, together with governance considerations associated with this framework. Finally, the potential of the WEF nexus to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is reviewed.

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The Development of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus as a Framework for Achieving Resource Security: A Review

Notions of ‘co‐production’ are growing in popularity in social science and humanities research on climate change, although there is some ambiguity about the meanings of the term and how it is being used. It is time to critically and reflexively take stock of this expanding area of scholarship. A comprehensive review of over 130 scientific publications first mapped the scholars using co‐production, relative to characteristics like their discipline, nationality, and research themes. Second, it looked at how this diversity of scientific perspectives has opened up a multiplicity of meanings of co‐production. While most discussions of co‐production stop at a basic distinction between descriptive and normative uses of the term, this review unpacked eight conceptual lenses on co‐production, each discernible by its particular emphases, academic traditions, logic, and criteria of success. There are two important implications of this work. On one hand, it urges self‐reflexive transparency when using co‐production concepts. The multiple meanings attached to co‐production add richness to the concept and open it up to different uses. However, it is important that scholars clearly communicate how they use the term and are mindful of what they ‘buy into’ by using the concept in certain ways. On the other hand, there are tensions between the different perspectives as well as opportunities for combining them into a compound concept of co‐production. In this way, co‐production is reconceptualized as a prism, where each aspect allows different but complimentary insights on the relationship between science, society, and nature. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e482. doi: 10.1002/wcc.482 This article is categorized under: Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice

Co‐production in climate change research: reviewing different perspectives

The water, energy and food-security nexus approach put forward by the Bonn2011 Conference highlights the need for an integrative approach towards issues of water, energy and food, and puts them under a general framework of security. While acknowledging the need for urgent solutions in terms of sustainability, the nexus approach, at the same time, makes a normative claim to tackle the needs of the poorest parts of the world population. A closer look at the underlying rationales and proposed policy instruments, however, suggests that the primary scope of the conference proceedings is not a normative one, but one that reframes the conflict between distributional justice and the needs of the world economy under the paradigm of security. Reading this slightly shifted perspective through a Foucauldian lens, we propose that security is now put forward as the key mechanism to foster a new 'green' economy, and that the needs of the poorest are, if anything at all, a secondary effect of the proposed nexus approach.

Securitising Sustainability? Questioning the 'Water, Energy and Food-Security Nexus'

Change from Below: Student Initiatives for Universities in Sustainable Development

From a certifier’s perspective (Naturland e.V.), this paper deals with the question of how to bring together the values of producers and consumers in globalized food markets. It is argued that growth and mainstreaming of organic food production cannot be achieved solely by ethically aware consumers signalling their more sustainable purchase decision to the market. In fact, the intrinsic motivation of producers is an indispensable requisite for such a development. It is then the organic movement’s and the certifier’s (such as Naturland e.V.) task to bring together the values of consumers and producers. This challenge is explored in the following by using the example of organic aquaculture. Based on one of the author’s experience in the field of aquaculture certification since the late 1990s, in about twenty countries and with most aquaculture animal species, the paper examines critical value-based aspects that are prominent from the perspective of sustainability. These are: use of problematic substances in aquaculture production, stocking density, origin of feedstuff, certification procedure, and small-scale farming versus large aquaculture companies. On this basis, the paper describes and analyses attempts to formulate respective organic certification standards. In order to bring about organic aquaculture, it is argued that consumers’ choices alone are not sufficient and that successful transformation to sustainable aquaculture also needs to take into account values and preferences of producers.

Certification Standards for Aquaculture Products: Bringing Together the Values of Producers and Consumers in Globalised Organic Food Markets

This paper explores potential contributions of narrative ethics to the re-theorization of the political in water governance, particularly seeking to rectify concerns regarding when water is excluded from cultural contexts and issues of power and dominance are ignored. Against this background, this paper argues for a re-theorization of the political in water governance, understood as the way in which diverse ideas about possible and desirable human-water relationships and just configurations for their institutionalization are negotiated in society. Theorization is conceived as the concretization of reality rather than its abstraction. Narrative ethics deals with the narrative structure of moral action and the significance of narrations for moral action. It occupies a middle ground and mediates between descriptive ethics that describe moral practices, and prescriptive ethics that substantiate binding norms. A distinguishing feature is its focus on people’s experiences and their praxis. Narrative water ethics is thus able to recognize the multitude of real and possible human-water relationships, to grasp people’s entanglement in their water stories, to examine moral issues in their cultural contexts, and, finally, to develop locally adapted notions of good water governance.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/11/4/631/pdf

Simon Meisch

Papers

Co‐production in climate change research: reviewing different perspectives

Securitising Sustainability? Questioning the 'Water, Energy and Food-Security Nexus'

Change from Below: Student Initiatives for Universities in Sustainable Development

Certification Standards for Aquaculture Products: Bringing Together the Values of Producers and Consumers in Globalised Organic Food Markets

I Want to Tell You a Story: How Narrative Water Ethics Contributes to Re-theorizing Water Politics