Strategies for tropical forest protection and sustainable supply chains: challenges and opportunities for alignment with the UN sustainable development goals

Governance for sustainable development increasingly involves diverse stakeholder groups, with the promise of enhanced legitimacy and effectiveness in decision-making and implementation. The UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) emphasise the important role of multiple (non-state) actors, including businesses and non-governmental organisations, including in efforts to ensure the sustainability of supply chains, and to reduce tropical deforestation and forest degradation. This paper critically analyses sustainability strategies to examine how the UN SDG agendas related to ‘sustainable supply chains’ and ‘tropical forest protection’ are framed and enacted by two contrasting non-state actors: (1) Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV), an NGO in Brazil working to address deforestation, including by supporting farmers to produce commodities, and (2) Unilever, a global consumer goods manufacturer and major buyer of such commodities. By identifying areas of variability in the discursive techniques used by ICV and Unilever, we unearth particular power dynamics that can shape the processes and outcomes of sustainability strategies. This paper finds that the two organisations use diverse strategies at different levels of governance, both participate actively in multi-stakeholder forums to advance their organisations’ goals, but have divergent framings of ‘sustainability’. Despite being considered ‘non-state’ actors, the strategies of the two organisations examined both reflect, and influence, the structural effects of the state in the implementation of non-state organisations’ strategies, and progress towards the SDGs. Although there is alignment of certain strategies related to tropical forest protection, in some cases, there is a risk that more sustainable, alternative approaches to governing forests and supply chains may be excluded

Institutional Options and Operational Issues in Technology Assessment: Lessons from Experiences in the United States and Europe

Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2009This presentation was part of the session : Other PapersThis material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. ©2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.This paper illuminates widening variety of technology assessment (TA) activities by parliamentary organizations and other bodies in the United States and Europe. It also illustrates a range of institutional options for TA from the view of its key elements, and examines the operational issues. Based on extensive interviews with TA practitioners and other related actors, we identified the recent direction of TA activities and provide discussion materials for states and regions in which there is a growing concern about the institutionalization of TA functions

Influence of MgO underlayers on the structure and magnetic properties of FePt-C nanogranular films for heat-assisted magnetic recording media

In order to optimize the nanogranular structure of FePt-C for heat-assisted magnetic recording media, we investigated the influence of MgO underlayers on the growth of FePt grains in the FePt-C layer. The FePt-C layer was deposited by using the alternating sputtering method, by which FePt and FePt-C layers were alternately deposited. To understand the growth mechanism of the FePt-C layer on the MgO underlayers deposited under various conditions, detailed plan-view and cross sectional transmission electron microscopy observations were made for different film thicknesses. We found that columnar FePt grains grow only when the deposition conditions of the MgO underlayer are optimal. Direct TEM observation of the growth process of the FePt-C layer revealed that the number density of nuclei is sufficient in the initial stage of the film deposition; however, coarsening of the grains after grain impingement causes a substantial decrease in the number density of the FePt grains

Carbohydrate use and assimilation by litter and soil fungi assessed by carbon isotopes and BIOLOG® assays

Soil fungi are integral to decomposition in forests and other habitats, yet identifying probable functional roles of different taxa is problematic. Here, we compared carbohydrate assimilation patterns derived from stable isotope analyses on cultures with patterns of metabolic activity measured on Biolog® SF-P plates for 12 taxa of soil- and litter-inhabiting saprotrophic fungi isolated from Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) ecosystems. To determine the relative assimilation of carbon from malt extract versus sucrose by 13C stable isotope analyses, we cultured fungi with malt extract (consisting primarily of glucose and maltose) plus either C3- or C4-derived sucrose as carbon sources. Rhodotorula graminis and F. oxysporum assimilated the highest proportion of sucrose, a Mortierella isolate and an unidentified sterile isolate (FPC 341) assimilated the lowest proportion of sucrose, and remaining cultures assimilated similar and intermediate proportions of sucrose. On Biolog plates, low metabolic activity of Mortierella and FPC 341 on sucrose and R. graminis and F. oxysporum on maltose were qualitatively consistent with isotopic results. Assimilation of sucrose calculated isotopically was correlated with the ratio of sucrose: maltose activity calculated from Biolog assays (r2=0.45, P=0.0145, n=12). Metabolic activity on Biolog plates for six other common soil carbohydrates were also determined: glucose, fructose, galactose, cellobiose, lactose, and glycogen. Metabolic activity was greatest overall on maltose and glucose and lowest on fructose. Two of the isolates (Aspergillus flavus and F. oxysporum) had higher metabolic activity on the glucose-containing disaccharide cellobiose than on glucose, strongly suggesting preferential uptake of cellobiose compared to glucose and suggesting the potential ability to use cellulose. The high metabolic activity of these cultures on galactose, a primary constituent of hemicellulose, also suggested cellulolytic capabilities. Our results indicated that stable isotope studies and Biolog assays may provide complementary information to characterize metabolic potential of fungi in forest litter and soil