INSIDE THIS ISSUE

SCHOOL OF EARTH AND

ENVIRONMENT IS IN THE UK TOP 5

FOR RESEARCH

SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH

INSTITUTE CELEBRATES 10 YEARS

SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND

ENVIRONMENTAL DIMENSIONS OF

LAND DEGRADATION IN

BOTSWANA’S KALAHARI

LEEDS CITY COUNCIL KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER PARTNERSHIP

ESEE 2015

30 JUNE - 3 JULY 2015.

FIRST IEMA ACCREDITED

GRADUATES FROM SRI

PHD REPORTS

INTRODUCING THE SRI NEWSLETTER Welcome from the new SRI Co-Directors.

This newsletter is designed to highlight our work, successes, new staff and events.

The Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) conducts internationally recognised, academically excellent and problem-oriented interdisciplinary research and teaching on environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability.

SRI Newsletter Issue 1 January 2015

Sustainability Research Institute SCHOOL OF EARTH AND ENVIRONMENT

www.see.leeds.ac.uk/sri Twitter@SRILeeds

To subscribe please email: earmvdg@leeds.ac.uk.

Ogden Water, West Yorkshire

Photo: SRI Research in Malawi

“The School will be examining the REF results fully in the weeks ahead and is already developing and implementing strategies leading towards even greater success in the future."

The results clearly show that our efforts over the past six years to increase the quality of our research, as well as the impact that it has on society, have paid off. Some of our headline achievements during the REF period are listed below.

We will continue to build on these achievements and lessons learned, as we position ourselves for REF 2020 and aim for even greater success.

The quality of our research environment has also been rated within the top 2 in the UK, reflecting our culture of supporting both new and experienced researchers as well as major investment’s in infrastructure and facilities, including £23.5M on a state-of-the-art building for earth and environmental research.

Our research is relevant to many global environmental challenges and includes work on the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, predicting volcanic eruptions, the carbon footprint of modern lifestyles, and the potential health impacts of geohazards such as volcanoes’ eruptions.

Our case studies, 96% of which were rated as internationally excellent or world-leading, show how world-class research carried out across the School is having real-life impact, benefitting the economy and society as well as the environment.

Head of School, Professor Robert Mortimer said: "The outstanding result from REF2014 confirms what we have perceived for some time, the School of Earth and Environment is really on the move. It is wonderful to see our rapidly growing contribution to world class research reflected by our newly earned overall top 5 position in the UK and top 2 positions in both our research power and the quality of our research environment.

Photo: Ecological field work,

School of Earth and Environment is in the UK top 5

for research

The results of the national Research Excellence Framework exercise have now been published and we are delighted to announce that the School of Earth and Environment has been ranked 5th out of 44 departments in the UK for overall research quality in earth systems and environmental sciences. The Research Excellence Framework is a national assessment of the quality of research in UK Higher Education Institutions, undertaken every six years.

Photo: Flood defences are part of one of SRI’s research projects

This result represents a major improvement compared to our position of 12th in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, and demonstrates our status as a world-leader in research across a broad spectrum of earth and environmental sciences.

The exercise has clearly demonstrated both the power and quality of the School’s research. We have been rated as one of the UK’s top 2 centres for research power based on overall quality and 90% of our research has reached world leading and internationally excellent standards .

Sustainability Research Institute

celebrates 10 years

The Sustainability Research Institute in celebrated 10 years since its establishment at a Gala Dinner held on Friday 12th September 2014. The event was held in the University’s Refectory and was opened by Professor David Hogg (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation), by expressing how impressed and proud he was to be involved in celebrating such a significant occasion (photo above right).

Photos: SRI 10 year Gala Dinner

Outgoing SRI Director, Prof Lindsay Stringer talked about the incredible journey SRI has taken over the last 10 years from an idea to one of the key research centres in the field.

There was also an inspiring talk from Professor Tim O’Riordan (see photo below) from the University of East Anglia.

His advice to SRI was to:

“Keep bringing in outside practitioners.

Engage in a changing Britain and encourage entrepreneurship.

Get students out of campus and allow them, in this way, to explore their own ideas.”

The new Co-Directors of SRI, Prof William Young and Dr James Van Alstine outlined their priorities for SRI going forward:

“Developing a research and impact strategy towards the next REF.

Implementing a sustainable staffing strategy.

Expanding the profile of the Institute through external communications and partnerships.

Reinforcing SRI’s transparent and collegiate working environment.”

Staff, PhD’s and external VIP guests joined in raising a glass to the exceptional research that has taken place over the past ten years within SRI and look forward to celebrating many more years of research excellence.

This research project was funded by the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative during 2013-2014. It was led by Lindsay Stringer, working with Andy Dougill, Nicola Favretto, Lawrence Akanyang and Martin Dallimer from Leeds, Mark Reed (Birmingham City University) and co-investigators from the University of Botswana (Jeremy Perkins, Julius Atlhopheng and Kutlwano Mulale). It extends environmental work in the Kalahari that Leeds has been leading on over the last 16 years.

Photo: Maize store, Botswana

Land degradation undermines ecosystem service provision, limiting economic returns from land. Our case study in southern Botswana’s Kgalagadi District was one of just three commissioned globally by the ELD Initiative. We first identified the main rangeland ecosystem service benefits (food, fuel, construction material, groundwater, genetic diversity, climate regulation, recreation and spiritual inspiration).

Next, we assessed the costs and trade-offs associated with ecosystem service delivery under four of the most important rangeland land uses: i) communal grazing, ii) private cattle ranching, iii) game ranching iv) Wildlife Management Areas. We then used Multi-Criteria Decision

Analysis to rank the four land use options according to their abilities to deliver different categories of ecosystem services. Information gained through the study provides useful new insights for policymakers into the ways in which different land uses (and policy incentives driving them) can degrade or help to more sustainably manage the rangelands.

Findings suggest that communal grazing areas continue to deliver the widest range of monetary and non-monetary values (more than private cattle ranches, game farms and protected conservation areas), according to the relative importance of each ecosystem service to society. However, current economic incentives and policy initiatives supporting the livestock sector, linked to fencing and borehole drilling, create perverse incentives, over-emphasising commercial food production, leading to the degradation of other ecosystem services.

We identified the need for policy reforms to support livelihood diversification through the provision of a wider range of

ecosystem services (including medicinal plants and C storage), as well as a need for further research to explore new and potential market opportunities for veld products and carbon trading to support livelihoods.

Project outputs can be downloaded from: http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/sri/eld/.

Photo: Cattle farmer, Botswana

Socio-economic and environmental dimensions of land

degradation in Botswana’s Kalahari

Leeds City Council Knowledge Transfer

Partnership

SRI is a research institute that tackles real world problems, so knowledge exchange between industry and academia is a vital part of the work of the Businesses and Organisations for Sustainable Societies’ (BOSS) research group. As part of the University's “impact acceleration” scheme funded by EPSRC, BOSS is hosting a 12-month knowledge exchange secondment from Leeds City Council. From September 2014, Dr Tom Knowland, the Leeds City Council's Sustainable Energy and Climate Change manager, is spending half his time based in SRI and the other half with the Council. The focus of the secondment is "managing the transition to low carbon living and the low carbon economy".

Photo: Low Carbon Leeds Meeting at City Museum

The first key area of work was to explore all the many ways in which BOSS’ research network across the University could match the challenges facing Leeds City Council.

“It wasn’t just meetings and drinking vast amounts of coffee,” laughs Tom. “There were dozens of conversations but they really helped us understand the detail of the many, many ways in which SRI could help the Council to tackle its big challenges.”

Photo: Energy from waste Plant

This phase of work has already identified in the order of 11 main themes or areas of expertise that match onto the needs of the City of Leeds with the possibility of more to follow. These include: progressing district heating in the city by understanding the institutional barriers to the creation of shared infrastructure space and how can these be overcome; developing options for ownership and governance of local energy assets; developing a systems integration model for a sustainable city; and looking to develop smart city and community solutions to sustainability issues. Beyond these areas of joint interest, Leeds City Council is keen to develop closer working relationships with the university so as to make itself an attractive place for conducting research to take place and to progress the Living Lab concept in the city.

Photo: Fabric First Approach

The secondment host in SRI, Dr Alice Owen, said, “We’re really pleased that this project is showing how BOSS, and SRI, work across so many areas. Our partnerships with Leeds University Business School, the Leeds Social Science Institute and the engineering faculty are how we make sure that we work

in a truly interdisciplinary way, because that’s what progress towards sustainability requires!”

Photo: Greenhouse Leeds

Following the mapping of key needs, Tom is shaping the ideas into new projects and exploring the funding and partnerships needed for these projects. This will inform briefings and policy discussions for university and council staff early in 2015. Projects under way explore the impact of biomass energy on urban air quality, climate change resilience, domestic housing retrofit for energy efficiency, and social enterprise opportunities. An area that seems to hold huge potential is bringing some structure and evidence to how to achieve lasting behavioural change at a broad scale across the city.

One of the big benefits of having the BOSS research group as the host for this project is that we can identify how to take learning beyond Leeds in ways that will be helpful for other local authorities. The sustainability challenges, and the policy challenges, that Leeds faces are not unique and we are confident that one of the outputs from the secondment will be practical approaches that other local authorities can use to transform the lives and the economies of other cities. We also hope to show what the benefits can be from a city council and a university working together so closely on sustainability.

SRI goes to Iceland

Over 400 people from around the world attended the recent International Society for Ecological Economics Conference (ISEE 2014) http://isee2014.yourhost.is/, held at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, Iceland, from 12-15 August 2014. Eight from the Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) made the trip, the largest attendance of any UK Institute, and one of the largest overall, which shows how far SRI has come in 10 years.

The overall title of the conference was Wellbeing and Equity Within Planetary Boundaries.

. SRI presented papers relating to the three ISEE 2014 sub-themes:

Planetary boundaries and resource constraints

Equity and economic development dynamics

A great transition ahead?

Photo: Dan O’Neill presents key-note speech on De-growth Economics to Conference

Photo: Reykjavik, Iceland

The conference was opened with traditional Icelandic music, followed by an inspiring talk from Johan Rockström on how human activity is already exceeding key planetary boundaries.

This was followed by our very own Dan O’Neill, who gave a well-received key-note speech on De-growth Economics. At a later plenary session, Dan also introduced the short film ‘Enough is Enough’ (http://steadystate.org/discover/enough-is-enough/) which is based on his book of the same name.

Other keynote speakers included Peter Victor, Jorgen Randers and Polly Higgins. Polly’s talk in particular was inspiring. She spoke of how just one person can effect big changes. She outlined her efforts to introduce a binding global law on ‘Ecocide’, which would make an international crime the act of causing extensive damage to or destruction of ecosystems. Her website is at www.eradicatingecocide.com.

In general, as Ecological Economics is a multidisciplinary research area, it was really motivating to find the conference plenty of different approaches, all of them with the same objective: to achieve wellbeing and equity of human within planetary

boundaries. This is especially noticeable given the fact that the ISEE gathered researchers from all-over the world, with their respectively contextual point of view. Beyond all the scientific evidence about the problem and the possible solutions - which actually have been there for several years - there was a strong encouragement to join forces and implement the urgent actions needed to overcome the biggest crisis that humanity has faced (in the words of some researchers). There is so much work to do but fortunately, from the conference it became evident that there is hope, there is knowledge, there is will…we just need to keep working hard and adding efforts.

The conference also proved very useful from a networking viewpoint, which is vital in interdisciplinary research for constructing collaborations. Whilst there, we were also able to learn future lessons for the University of Leeds who are host of the European equivalent, ESEE 2015 in 30 June – 3 July 2015:

http://www.esee2015.org/.

William: I am a Professor of Sustainability and Business and my research measures and changes the behaviours of

consumers and businesses on environmental sustainability. I currently have a KTP with Asda on developing interventions to change the behaviours of their customers on food waste and using green products.

I am a Co-I on the ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre which is analysing company data on consumer behaviours including on sustainability and mobility issues. On the teaching side, I am Leader for the Discovery Theme on ‘Creating Sustainable Futures’ that has around 110 modules for students to study from across the campus.

How did you come to SRI and to be Co-

Director?

James: I arrived in 2008 from the London School of Economics to run the MSc Sustainability (Environmental Politics and Policy) and help build bridges between those on the earth sciences and sustainability sides of the School, given my research focuses on the environment and development issues related to oil, gas and mining operations. I was Deputy Director from 2012, working with Lindsay Stringer, so moving to Co-Director is a natural transition that provides continuity.

William: I joined the then School of Environment 3 years before SRI was born to lead the creation of new teaching programmes around environment and business. After being promoted last year I wanted to help shape the University and I was luck enough to get this exciting position to do help do that.

Photo: William Young

What do you hope to

achieve for SRI?

James: Implementation of a long-term vision, which includes sustainable staffing and research strategies, and of course high quality, motivated students that want to go out into the world to make a difference.

William: To enable the great team we have in SRI to develop fantastic science and students that have a positive impact on our society.

What’s your top tip for how to

make the world sustainable?

James: To me it all comes back to being a responsible consumer, i.e. doing your homework before making purchasing decisions, and supporting micro-enterprises that innovate with new ideas on sustainable consumption and production.

William: Give extra life to things through repair or finding alternative uses before throwing all that resource and innovation into the bin.

Meet the Co-Directors - William Young and James

Van Alstine

Tell us about yourself

and research

James: I am Lecturer in Environmental Policy and my research focuses on institutional change for sustainable development within the field of natural resource governance and politics. I lead a three-year (2012-2015) donor-funded project with local partners that explores opportunities for community-driven accountability in Uganda’s oil-bearing regions.

I seek to bridge the academic-practitioner divide by pursuing action-oriented research that aims to maximise policy and pro-poor development impacts.

On the teaching side, I programme lead the MSc Sustainability (Environmental Politics and Policy) and manage/teach two core modules on the MSc Sustainability programmes and one for second year BSc Sustainability and Environmental Management students.

Photo: James Van Alstine

ESEE 2015

The 11th International

Conference of the European

Society for Ecological

Economics (ESEE), which

will be hosted by the

University of Leeds, UK, on

30 June - 3 July 2015.

ESEE is a non-profit, member-governed, organisation dedicated to advancing understanding of the relationships among ecological, social and economic systems for the mutual well-being of nature and people.

This conference takes place as this century's key challenges for human society become ever clearer and more entrenched: increasing levels of resource use and environmental impacts; threats to food, water and energy security; unequal distribution of economic and physical wealth; power imbalances and conflicts; new waves of political and economic migration; and the lack of international will to address the

reality of planetary threats such as climate change and global biodiversity loss.

ESEE 2015 explores solutions for the transformation to a sustainable society, building on the distinctive contribution of ecological economics, by shining a spotlight on the interdependency of economic activity and natural systems, and identifying options that prioritise human wellbeing within planetary boundaries. The conference will contribute to the dissemination of knowledge on these issues, through oral and poster presentations, keynote lectures

from prominent scholars, and lively formal and informal discussions. It also aims to foster future research collaborations between academics and stakeholders, and provide training and learning opportunities for younger researchers through an associated summer school which will feed into the main conference.

Under the banner of Transformations, the themes of the conference include: post-growth economics; natural resources, ecosystem services and environmental quality; development, consumption and well-being; power, politics, institutions and the reality of achieving change; new business models and understandings of human behaviour; and theory, methods and practice of ecological economics.

We invite you to join us in Leeds to address these crucial and pressing challenges.

On behalf of the local organising committee,

Dr Tim Foxon, Reader in Sustainability and Innovation, University of Leeds.

Publication Success for MSc

Sustainability Students

In 2014, two students on the MSc Sustainability Programmes worked

with Dr. Ralf Barkemeyer and Dr. Lindsay Stringer in the Sustainability

Research Institute to research mining companies’ approaches to

sustainable land management. Their research fed into a paper

published in the journal Environmental Science and Policy and a report

for the United Nations Global Mechanism, in addition to successful

dissertations and budding careers in the Sustainability sector.

MSc Sustainability: Environment and Development graduate James

Hollins had this to say about his experience: “During my MSc I was

fortunate enough to be given the most fantastic opportunity to research

cutting edge science. The project was in collaboration with the United

Nations Global Mechanism, the funding arm of the United Nations

Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), looking at how mining

companies are addressing sustainable land management (SLM).

This research experience proved invaluable and knowing this project

would contribute to a UN Report was so exciting. The work eventually

culminated in a journal paper, published in January 2015 in

Environmental Science and Policy.”

The paper referred to in this article: Corporate reporting on solutions to

wicked problems: Sustainable land management in the mining sector

(Barkemeyer et al., 2015) is available here: http://

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901114002494

First IEMA accredited

graduates from SRI

Our 2014 MSc Sustainability graduates include the first SRI students to gain degrees with the sought after "associate certificate" status from the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA).

Two of SRI's taught degree programmes - the BSc Sustainability and Environmental Management and the MSc Sustainability and Consultancy - have been accredited by IEMA. IEMA is the leading professional association for environmental professionals, and IEMA membership provides a pathway to Chartered Environmentalist status.

SRI graduates from these programmes are eligible for Associate Membership of IEMA without the usual examination process, giving them a fast track into professional status and professional networks.

SRI degrees accredited by the Institute of Environmental Management and

Assessment.

Continuing to deliver applied

sustainability research and learning at

Masters level

On Monday 1st December, SRI welcomed MSc Sustainability and

Consultancy project hosts, students, supervisors and alumni to our

annual networking event. Around 25 representatives from public,

private and third sector organisations, many of whom were alumni of

the programme themselves, joined our current students and project

supervisors for lively discussions about projects and trends in

sustainability consulting.

The networking event is an opportunity to celebrate our successes and

for the programme team to say thank you to project hosts who support

and mentor consultancy students during their projects. From May to

July, our MSc Sustainability and Consultancy students carry out

consultancy projects in place of traditional research dissertations, so

project hosts are vital in helping our students develop valuable

consulting and professional skills.

For more information about the MSc Sustainability and Consultancy

programme and the Consultancy projects, please contact Dr Alice

Owen, a.m.owen@leeds.ac.uk.

Amsterdam Fieldtrip

Sustainability Research Institute staff and students on:

•BA Environment and Business

•BSc Sustainability and Environmental Management attended the Amsterdam fieldtrip over the summer in 2014.

The aims of the level 2 field trip were for the students to gain practical experience in planning and conducting a research project related to a real-life sustainability problem., as well to to develop skills in:

team working,

decision making,

communication,

problem solving,

self management etc.

Photo: The students carried out research on water management, visiting the city’ s source of drinking water.

Photo (below): How Amsterdam turns waste into energy.

Photo (below): The students researched transport in the city.

Photos (before and below): Students present the results of their research.

Photos (above and below): Students celebrate successful trip!

demonstrated how important the visibility of the United Kingdom’s engagement in the Arctic was. It was a clear answer to the Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson’s earlier question of “Where is Britain?”, and was certainly eye-catching.

Despite talks covering everything from British Arctic history to investment opportunities, a recurring theme throughout the delegation presentations was the world-class contribution that the UK is able to make to Arctic research. In the plenary session Jane Francis spoke of the significance of Arctic science, drawing attention to large regions in the High North where no data is available, and how international collaboration outside of politics is needed to correct this deficit. William and I took the opportunity to discuss our own research topics developed within the Sustainability Research Institute.

William’s talk drew from the geographical literature on scale in human-environment interactions, exploring the role of 'scale' and 'complexity' in Arctic offshore development as a means to better understand the dynamics of this contemporary issue. After returning just a week before the conference from a month of fieldwork in Greenland, I was able to discuss some early thoughts on the difficulties of engaging Greenlandic communities with a presentation on the complicated role of science, trust and the extractive industries in a developing Greenland.

Report from SRI PhD student Samuel Wright from the second Arctic Circle conference in Reykjavik

October 31st saw the start of the second Arctic Circle conference at the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavik. Attended by 1400 delegates, the annual event seeks to increase participation in Arctic dialogue and “strengthen the international focus on the future of the Arctic”. As part of this internationalisation, countries are invited to bring formal delegations to present their own involvement and interests in the Arctic region.

After a low key presence in 2013, a formal British delegation attended this year which included political, legal, business and academic representatives. Three members of this delegation were from the University of Leeds: myself, William Davies, and Jane Francis, Visiting Professor of Palaeoclimatology (and Director of the British Antarctic Survey).

As the conference coincided with the run-up to Remembrance Sunday, the number of British attendees (estimated at around 60) was immediately noticeable through glimpses of poppies in the crowd. Two heavily Great Britain branded sessions further

Credit: Rosemary Fisher (MP James Gray’s private secretary)

Although the delegation was primarily there to demonstrate Britain’s contributions, one of the greatest personal benefits was the opportunity to meet other researchers who work on Arctic issues. There are not enough events for social and natural science postgraduates to meet one another, and so this one was greatly received.

What will be interesting to see is what happens next. After flying the flag (and quite a large one at that), will the UK be happy to return to a more sedate presence in future years, or will this be the start of a more active engagement with the Arctic region?

Samuel is a social scientist with a scientific background; he specialises in interdisciplinary work, combining the fields of risk perception and natural resource governance. He has particular interests in the Arctic, and is currently developing a research project to assess how perceptions of risks and benefits influence the governance of Greenland's extractive industries.

SRI PhD student Arturo Andersen Chinbuah reports on his visit to Renkei Summer

School, Japan

Arturo Andersen Chinbuah was funded by the university to attend the Renkei Summer School in Japan where he had the opportunity to meet with scientists, engineers and politicians, visit Toyota and Matsushima, a tsunami stricken area.

Photo: Arturo and other summer school students

He reports back:

During the Renkei summer school in Sendai Japan we received numerous lectures from a diverse group of speakers, composed by scientists, engineers and politicians, plus visits to different local facilities: a residue burning plant, Toyota factory and to Matsushima, a tsunami stricken area. All intended to teach us and to widen our perspective on different technologies and measures used to provide renewable energy to society and increase renewable energy use in local energy systems, especially

in Sendai, all while being followed

by a camera crew that accompanied us to create a video of the summer school that will be released in November.

Photos: Matsushima, a tsunami stricken area

Working together with an intercultural and interdisciplinary group of students from English and Japanese universities really encourages international partnership in research, that at times can seem difficult to achieve due to different culture or work ethics, but when faced with the duty of working together you discover how easy it is to work with diverse group of people that share your research interest.

My experience has been highly positive, personally and academically, not only have I learned from lecturers and fellow PhDs new ways of approaching my research area, but also learned how social interests play

an important role in how the Tohoku region energy system planning is done. I am extremely grateful to have been able to participate in the Renkei program in Sendai.

Photos: Okumatsushima “Kizuna” Solar park

Photo: Arturo being interviewed for video of the summer school

Sustainability Research Institute

School of Earth and Environment

Institute Co-Directors, Prof. William Young and Dr. James Van Alstine

Earth and Environment Building

Leeds LS2 9JT

www.see.leeds.ac.uk/research/isri

Twitter@SRILeeds

University of Leeds

Leeds, United Kingdom

LS2 9JT

www.leeds.ac.uk