Sociology, Science and Sustainability: Developing Relationships in Scotland

This paper considers the application of the sociological imagination during the analysis of data collected during an ethnographic study of an environmental regulator, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). SEPA is tasked with implementing the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) in Scotland, which will radically alter the regulation of water use. Applying a sociological imagination allowed the researcher to advocate for a more interdisciplinary and equitable understanding of sustainable water use when feeding back initial research results at the end of the data collection period. The researchers introduced socialised definitions of the environment, which linked social justice and ecological concerns. These insights provided a challenge to the traditional bio-physical science focus of the organisational participants, for whom sustainability is a relatively new addition to their duties. The paper concludes by discussing the importance of developing these interdisciplinary relationships in the future.Sociological Imagination, Water Framework Directive, Sustainability Science, Consumer-Citizens

Policy Implications of a Behavioural Economics Analysis of Land Use Determinants in Rural Scotland

The paper analyses the land use behaviour of Scottish land managers and the factors influencing it in the current context of the EU rural land use policies. The analysis employs a frequently used behavioural economics method, namely structural equation modelling (SEM). Central to the empirical analysis in this paper is a cross-section database containing data collected in May to June 2009 through telephone interviews of 600 land managers in Scotland. The model tests and estimates the relationships between land use behaviour, i.e., behavioural intentions to change the size of business/holding, and several of its a priori determinants found significant in the scientific literature. The results indicate that a stronger propensity to change size of their businesses is exhibited by younger land managers who intend to pass their land on to family, with larger land size and stronger attitudes towards increasing it, with lower percentage of their income made up from Government support, who are less likely to have perceived changes in regulation and input/output prices as having an impact on their business, who discuss and plan changes in size of business with their banks/building societies, and frequently access sources of information to help with their strategic decisions.Land use, rural policies, Scotland, structural equation modelling, Land Economics/Use,

River basin management, development planning, and opportunities for debate around limits to growth

Some of the latest global paradigms in sustainable water governance revolve around ideas of promoting greater integration within policy implementation processes that impact on land and water. The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), seen by many as a ‘Sustainability Directive’, reflects this trend, and places particular emphasis on building linkages between water management and land use planning. This paper presents the results of a research project that examined this integrative vision in a real world setting – the emerging relationship between the WFD’s river basin management planning (RBMP) framework and the development planning (DP) system in Scotland. The project’s approach draws from interpretive policy analysis, and the results are based on analyses of key policy documents, as well as in-depth interviews, primarily with land use planning staff from local authorities, as well as other relevant public agencies such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). The results show how an overarching political objective of ‘increasing sustainable economic growth’ is significantly affecting stakeholders’ understandings of the RBMP-DP relationship, as well as their own roles and responsibilities within that relationship. This has created barriers to the deliberation and potential operationalisation of environmental limits to growth in the built environment, which may be skewing decision-making processes in a way that undermines the RBMP framework and its objectives of protecting and improving the water environment

“It’s on the ‘nice to have’ pile”: Potential principles to improve the implementation of socially inclusive Green Infrastructure

Green Infrastructure (GI) research tends to focus on the need for GI to enhance ecological processes, its potential to provide health and economic benefits, and on the barriers preventing its uptake. Yet there has been inadequate focus on the social aspects of GI. In the United Kingdom (UK) the need for GI is well established, such that policymakers and planners are now turning to the question of how GI should be implemented. Drawing on a mixed method research approach centring on practitioner experience, this paper identifies potential social principles that underpin GI and questions the extent to which these are being implemented in the UK. Results highlight the hitherto unexplored complexities of GI maintenance, the effects of austerity politics, and the role of local-level power dynamics on the implementation of GI. Findings have implications for international literature on GI as well as nature-based solutions more broadly

The role of metrics in the governance of the water-energy-food nexus within the European Commission

Abstract Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus in both academia and policy. This concept draws attention to the link between different environmental and societal domains, and potentially entails substantive shifts in governance processes. As a consequence, policy-makers and scientists have started to develop metrics to make these interactions and ‘trade-offs’ visible. However, it is unknown if current framings of the nexus and relevant quantified metrics either reinforce or challenge existing governance structures. This paper explores relationships between framings of the nexus, metrics and models of governance based on discussions with staff within the European Commission. Although narratives around the need for new metrics are situated in a conventional script about the use of evidence to change policy, our data indicate processes of co-production, by which the use (or non-use) of any new metrics is dependent on existing institutional practices; and will reflect dominant political orderings. In doing so we provide a critical analysis of the role of metrics in environmental governance, and direct attention to the discursive, institutional and political arrangements in which they are embedded and with which they are co-constitutive. Focusing on the cultural and institutional settings in which they are established and used, our study suggests that the question of metrics in the water-energy-food nexus needs to be explored as a problem of establishing a legitimate policy objective in the European Commission and EU policy-making more broadly.publishedVersio

Triggering change: Towards a conceptualisation of major change processes in farm decision-making

In this paper, we present a broad conceptualisation of major change in farm level trajectories. We argue that as a result of path dependency, major changes in farming practice primarily occur in response to 'trigger events', after which farm managers intensify their consideration of the options open to them, and may set a new course of action. In undertaking new actions, the farm system enters a period of instability, while new practices become established. Over time these new practices, if successfully achieving anticipated aims, lead to a further period of path dependency. Recognising and capitalising upon this pattern of events is important for the development of policies oriented towards incentivising major change in farming practices, and may explain why similar projects and/or policies influence some 'types' of farmers differently, and at different times. To illustrate our arguments, examples of this process are described in relation to empirical examples of major on-farm change processes, drawn from qualitative interviews with organic and conventional farmers in two English case study area

Triggering change: Towards a conceptualisation of major change processes in farm decision-making

In this paper, we present a broad conceptualisation of major change in farm level trajectories. We argue that as a result of path dependency, major changes in farming practice primarily occur in response to 'trigger events', after which farm managers intensify their consideration of the options open to them, and may set a new course of action. In undertaking new actions, the farm system enters a period of instability, while new practices become established. Over time these new practices, if successfully achieving anticipated aims, lead to a further period of path dependency. Recognising and capitalising upon this pattern of events is important for the development of policies oriented towards incentivising major change in farming practices, and may explain why similar projects and/or policies influence some 'types' of farmers differently, and at different times. To illustrate our arguments, examples of this process are described in relation to empirical examples of major on-farm change processes, drawn from qualitative interviews with organic and conventional farmers in two English case study area

Resource use and biophysical constraints of Scottish agriculture

Agriculture is a fundamental sector of economy and society that ensures food supply, classified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment among the so-called “provisioning ecosystem services”. Due to the increase of food demand worldwide, farmers are shifting more and more towards intensive agriculture. This trend is connected to the unsustainable consumption of natural resources, most often exceeding the carrying capacity of natural ecosystems. In this paper, the resource use and biophysical constraints of Scottish agriculture were investigated at regional and national levels by means of the Emergy Synthesis method. The study focused on two main agroecosystems: 1) the Cairngorms National Park (CNP) and 2) the national agricultural sector of Scotland as a whole. The evolution of the agricultural sector was explored over time (years 1991, 2001, 2007), accounting for local renewable and non-renewable resources as well as imported resources. Performance and sustainability indicators were then calculated with and without including human labor and economic services (money flows). In the year 2007, the Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR) of the Scottish agricultural sector was about 46% of the same indicator calculated for the CNP (2.65 versus 5.72, respectively). A higher Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR) was calculated for the national sector than for CNP (1.25 versus 1.02, respectively). The Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI) was 2.12 for the national sector and 5.60 for CNP. Such figures were calculated without including the emergy flows supporting labor and services. If the latter are also accounted for, the ESI of the national level and CNP drop by a factor 5.6 and 3.9, respectively. Such variations suggest that larger flows of non-renewable resources strongly affect the environmental performance, increasing the dependence on non-renewable resources supporting the larger economic system in which the agricultural sectors are embedded in