Grounding global environmental assessments through bottom-up futures based on local practices and perspectives

Jeanne Nel,Amy Weinfurter,Odirilwe Selomane,Joost Vervoort,Angel Hsu,Christopher Trisos,Nadia Sitas,Ghassem R. Asrar,Rohan Bhargava,Jason Jabbour,James Ward,Laur Hesse Fisher,Mandy van den Ende,Laura Pereira

doi:10.1007/s11625-021-01013-x

Abstract

Future scenarios and pathways of potential development trajectories are powerful tools to assist with decision-making to address many sustainability challenges. Such scenarios play a major role in global environmental assessments (GEAs). Currently, however, scenarios in GEAs are mostly developed at the global level by experts and researchers, and locally imagined, bottom-up scenarios do not play a role in such assessments. In this paper, we argue that addressing future sustainability challenges for achieving more equitable development in GEAs requires a more explicit role for bottom-up inspired futures. To this end, this paper employs an innovative global assessment framework for exploring alternative futures that are grounded in local realities and existing practical actions, and that can be appropriately scaled to the required decision-making level. This framework was applied in the context of the UN’s Global Environment Outlook 6, a major example of a GEA. We developed novel methods for synthesizing insights from a wide range of local practices and perspectives into global futures. We collected information from crowdsourcing platforms, outcomes of participatory workshops in different regions of the world, and an assessment of reported regional outlooks. We analysed these according to a framework also used by an integrated assessment model in the same GEA. We conclude that bottom-up approaches to identify and assess transformative solutions that envision future pathways towards greater sustainability significantly strengthen current GEA scenario-development approaches. They provide decision makers with required actionable information based on tangible synergistic solutions that have been tested on the ground. This work has revealed that there are significant opportunities for the integration of bottom-up knowledge and insights into GEAs, to make such assessments more salient and valuable to decision makers.

Highlights

The rapid pace and scale of societal and environmental changes in the anthropocene necessitate important changes in how integrated scientific assessments are carried out to account for such changes from local to regional and global levels
A substantial portion of solutions did not fit neatly into the four pre-defined categories of measures that had been used in the GEO-6 integrated assessment models (IAMs) analysis, and so a fifth cluster of measure categories (“Additional regional and bottom-up interventions”) was created based on the solutions found in the bottom-up analysis
Sharing economy: innovations related to the peer-to-peer sharing of goods and services, primarily through information and communications technology (ICT) platforms

Summary

Introduction

The rapid pace and scale of societal and environmental changes in the anthropocene necessitate important changes in how integrated scientific assessments are carried out to account for such changes from local to regional and global levels. Extended author information available on the last page of the article of knowledge towards understanding transformations and interventions needed to mitigate and manage environmental risks (Kowarsch et al 2017; Jabbour and Flachsland 2017; Castree et al 2020). This shift in intention and direction is especially relevant in the context of global agendas that require going beyond the current solution space, such consideration is warranted for local and regional levels.

Results

Discussion

Conclusion