Ny rapport fra MultiTrust projektet -udvikling af metoder til vurdering af de økologiske fødevaresystemers kvaliteter

MultiTrust-projektet vil gøre det lettere at overskue, drøfte og vurdere de mange forskellige kvaliteter, som kendetegner det økologiske fødevaresystem. I en ny rapport præsenteres resultaterne af projektets første del, hvor opgaven er blevet belyst ud fra fem synsvinkler. Desuden behandles en række tværgående temaer, som det igangværende udviklingsarbejde skal håndtere

Tværfagligt lys på økologien

Tillid og troværdighed er afgørende for et alternativt fødevaresystem som det økologiske. Hvis ikke såvel producenter, politikere, forbrugere m.fl. forstår de mange hensyn til samfund, natur og miljø, som den økologiske driftsform bygger på, risikerer en enkelt dårlig sag i pressen at underminere opbakningen. Der er derfor brug for at udvikle metoder til helhedsvurderinger af økologiske fødevaresystemer, som er lettilgængelige og lette at benytte i forbindelse med overvejelser, kommunikation og beslutningstagning. Den opgave har en broget gruppe af forskere, konsulenter, producenter og kommunikationsfolk sat for at løse. Det sker i projektet MultiTrust – eller som det mere præcist hedder: Multikriteriel vurdering og kommunikation af økologiske fødevaresystemer

Think Piece: Change Agents and Collective Experience-Making as Part of Sustainable Transitions in the Face of Climate Change

While theories of transformative social learning, applied in environmental and sustainability education, tend to operate with relatively short-term learning horizons, this paper aims at exploring the potential of longer-term social learning. It begins by interpreting the 17-year-long process of transforming the island of Samsø to be solely dependent on renewable energy. The focus is on the key change agent and his way of drawing on, storying and creating collective experiences. This leads to reflection on the concepts of collectivity, experience and collective experience-making. Inspired by the works of German and Danish critical theorists, who may be unfamiliar to an international audience, emphasis is placed on linking people’s everyday sensuous–emotional experiences to collective spaces, enabling collective reflection, exemplary learning about the socio-cultural context they are part of, as well as social fantasy, concrete utopian projects and collective experience-making. Based on this perspective and the Danish context, it is briefly outlined how change agents can enable and facilitate collective learning about climate change, as well as the challenges they face

Interactive Walkable Floor Maps (IWFs)

The poster provides information on the design of Interactive Walkable Floor Maps (IWFs) and their use in education and governance within the REGREEN project

Three Perspectives on Motivation and Multi-Criteria Assessment of Organic Food Systems

The complexity of values related to organic food systems is normally difficult to ascertain, understand and act upon for both producers and consumers, as well as for other agents. In this paper we have suggested MCA as a method that may help in coping with this complexity. Furthermore, we have pointed to the importance of addressing the challenge of motivation when designing such an MCA tool. In doing so, we have applied three very different concepts of motivation – an economic, a psycho-social and a relational concept. While they represent fundamentally different perspectives, by incorporating all three within a multi-perspective approach, we have been able to explore ’a broader array of relevant aspects of motivation when designing a MCA tool to be used by consumers when dealing with organic food issues. From an economic perspective, motivation is closely related to the buying situation and consumers’ need to choose between products. This stresses the importance of gaining a quick overview and of support in assessing the options. From a psycho-social perspective, the key point is to design the tool in a way that makes it possible for the consumer to include his or her experiences and specific lifeworld strategies in the assessment process. This highlights the importance of an MCA tool which enables users to influence and change criteria and values in decision-making and reflexive processes. Finally, from a relational perspective, motivation is a matter of social interaction and the tool should therefore be designed so as to allow dialogue between the agents involved in the value chain of the organic food system. Applying the three perspectives on motivation to the issue has proven the value of a multi-perspective approach and provided input qualifying the development of a prototype MCA tool for agents participating in the organic food system

Theories on motivation and their implication for supporting communication, learning and decisionmaking in relation to organic food systems

Efforts to promote communication, learning, decision making and change of individual and/or collective practices in relation to sustainability issues require more or less explicit theories on agents and what motivate them to act. The aim of this paper is to open for an interdisciplinary discussion on how different approaches to motivation make sense or not when focusing on how to develop tools aiming at supporting communica¬tion, learning and decision-making related to organic food systems. We present four quite different approaches to motivation – an economic, an approach challenging conventional understandings of motivational change, a psychosocial, and a relational – and open for a discussion on how these approaches relate to each other and whether it is possible to apply and distinguish between different ways of using the concept of motivation when we cross disciplinary borders in order to cooperate on developing tools for multi-criteria assessment and communication

Håndtering af kompleks information. Belyst fra psykologiske, mikrosociologiske og pædagogiske synsvinkler med henblik på at identificere problemer og muligheder for kommunikation og læring i relation til multikriteriel vurdering

Vores særlige opgave i MultiTrust-projektet, og dermed det centrale spørgsmål for os i Task 2.3., har handlet om, hvordan den kompleksitet, som økologisk fødevarersystemer og andre problemstillinger vedrørende bæredygtig udvikling indebærer, kan reduceres, så det på en gang er rimeligt i forhold til problematikken og egnet til at fremme kommunikation, deltagelse og læring. Herunder har vi også interesseret os for muligheder og problemer ved at benytte visualisering i dette arbejde. I ansøgningens projektbeskrivelse var formålet med tasken formuleret således: Review of research on how individuals handle complex information and the implied problems and potentials in relation to reduce complexity by means of multicriteria assessment and communication as this has been done in e.g. risk assessment, eco-labelling and education for sustainability. Samtidig med at rapporten indgår som en integreret del af MultiTrust-projektet, håber vi, at dens sammentænkning og sammenskrivning af materiale om menneskers håndtering af problematikker karakteriseret ved kompleksitet og usikkerhed , vil kunne have en bredere interesse, også uden for MULITTRUST arbejdet

Opportunities and challenges for multicriteria assessment of food system sustainability

The focus of the Special Feature on “Multicriteria assessment of food system sustainability” is on the complex challenges of making and communicating overall assessments of food systems sustainability based on multiple and varied criteria. Four papers concern the choice and development of appropriate tools for making multicriteria sustainability assessments that handle built-in methodological conflicts and trade-offs between different assessment objectives. They underscore the value of linking diverse methods and tools, or nesting and stepping their deployment, to help build resilience and sustainability. They conclude that there is no one tool, one framework, or one indicator set that is appropriate for the different purposes and contexts of sustainability assessment. The process of creating the assessment framework also emerges as important: if the key stakeholders are not given a responsible and full role in the development of any assessment tool, it is less likely to be fit for their purpose and they are unlikely to take ownership or have confidence in it. Six other papers reflect on more fundamental considerations of how assessments are based in different scientific perspectives and on the role of values, motivation, and trust in relation to assessments in the development of more sustainable food systems. They recommend a radical break with the tradition of conducting multicriteria assessment from one hegemonic perspective to considering multiple perspectives. Collectively the contributions to this Special Feature identify three main challenges for improved multicriteria assessment of food system sustainability: (i) how to balance different types of knowledge to avoid that the most well-known, precise, or easiest to measure dimensions of sustainability gets the most weight; (ii) how to expose the values in assessment tools and choices to allow evaluation of how they relate to the ethical principles of sustainable food systems, to societal goals, and to the interests of different stakeholders; and (iii) how to enable communication in such a way that the assessments can effectively contribute to the development of more sustainable food systems by facilitating a mutual learning process between researchers and stakeholders. The wider question of how to get from assessment to transformation goes across all three challenges. We strongly recommend future research on the strengths, weaknesses, and complementarities of taking a values-based rather than a performance-based approach to promoting the resilience and sustainability of coupled ecological, economic, and social systems for ensuring food security and agroecosystem health in the coming millennium

Editorial: Understanding Collective Learning and Human Agency in Diverse Social, Cultural and Material Settings

The significance of environment and sustainability education research and practice, and its potential contribution to a sustainable future for humanity, is conveyed by the International Social Science Council (n.d.), which explains:People everywhere will need to learn how to create new forms of human activity and new social systems that are more sustainable and socially just. However, we have limited knowledge about the type of learning that creates such change, how such learning emerges, or how it can be scaled-up to create transformations at many levels.Here, the important shift is towards considering what social systems, forms of knowledge, learning processes and questions of justice are associated with perpetuating or halting the decline of Earth’s bio-geo-chemical systems. This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education contributes three research papers and a themed Think Piece collection to these international deliberations about the role of education in enabling transformations to sustainability. Collectively, the articles highlight how relationality and the formation of human agency in socio-cultural and material settings in past–present–future configurations underpin all environment-oriented learning processes. The three research papers constituting the first part of this volume offer glimpses into how current unsustainable socio-cultural and material configurations might be transformed to address social inequalities and damaged people–nature relations. The Think Piece collection, introduced by Lotz-Sisitka, Læssøe and Jørgensen later in this editorial, focuses on how learning can foster and contribute to the development of change agents and collective agency for climate-resilient development