Outputs from previous events
UK Network of Environmental Economists: presentations available
The UKNEE held its 2009 conference in. A range of subjects were covered – just a few of them include:
- Marginal Abatement Cost Curves for UK Agriculture, Forestry, Land-use and Land-use Change Sector to 2022
- Counting the Cost of Climate Change in Developing Countries: Application to sub-Saharan African countries - report - briefing
- Saving Sumatra’s Species: Combining ecology & economics to maximise conservation efficiency within oil palm plantations
- Testing the Theoretical Consistency of Stated Preferences for Wildlife Conservation
You can download the papers here.
The future of rural land use: RELU event presentations available
The presentations from this very interesting event are now available to download here. Presentations covered a wide range of topics including:
- The potential impact of biomass production on biodiversity in the UK
- The land use implications of a move towards a more healthy diet in the UK
- The future for the uplands
- Governance of natural resources
Conference presentations: Climate change and consequences for the food sector in Europe
This conference was held on the 15 January in Sweden at the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. Presentations included:
- Increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, stabilisation levels and needw for emission cuts, Markku Rummukainen
- Greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector in Europe, case study UK, Tara Garnett
- Greenhouse gases from land-use changes – an important source of emission from the food sector, Martin Persson and Christel Cederberg
- Climate policy in the EU – implications for the food sector, Anders Wijkman
- Regional climate models and future climate in Europe, Marku Rummukainen
- Agriculture and food production in a future climate in Southern Europe, Ana Iglesias
- Agriculture and food production in a future climate in Northern Europe, Joergen E Olesen
The presentations listed above can be accessed as follows: Go to www.ksla.se then click on the Konferenser tab (on the left). Next (left again) click on Tidigare Konferenser. Then go to Tidigare Seminariar (right hand side) . Then click on the names of the presenters to open their ppts.
Earthscan Podcasts available
On the 30th of September, the publishing company Earthscan held a panel debate at the Royal Society of the Arts entitled Sustainability 2.0: Does sustainability need an update? The speakers were as follows:
Jonathan Sinclair Wilson, Managing Director, Earthscan Ltd
Caroline Lucas, Leader of the Green Party, UK
Bill Adams, Moran Professor, Cambridge University
Tim Lang, Professor, City University
Brenda Boardman, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford University
Nick Robins, Climate Change Centre of Excellence at HSBC
Paul Ekins, Professor, King's College London
You can hear podcasts of their talks here.
Seminar report: Can Britain Feed Itself: Should Britain Feed Itself?
You can download a report of a seminar held in October 2008 at the James Martin Institute here.
Speakers included Colin Tudge (biologist and author), Tim Lang (City University), Simon Fairlie (The Land is Ours), Patrick Holden (Soil Association) Hardin Tibbs (Said Business School, University of Oxford), Martin Large (Stroud Common Wealth Ltd), Julie Brown (Growing Communities), Nigel Lowthrop (Hill Holt Wood)
The seminar concluded that:
- A working group should be formed, from the participants of this seminar, to take forward government involvement in the change from the present food system.
- Pressure for research grants to promote Transition Agriculture and Transition Technology into main stream further educational establishments
Case studies of Transitional Technology be written up for presentation in government circles. - This report to be distributed to feed into the government process of identifying regulatory measures for a better long term sustainable stable food system
- The Government should do more to promote a renaissance of food culture world wide.
The Price of carbon: what should it be and why?
This report summarises the outcomes of a recent seminar organised by Friends of the Earth, which explored the pros and cons of a variety of approaches to treating carbon in policy and project appraisal. The report examines where we are now in approaches to carbon valuation for appraisal and discusses four key alternatives; the social cost of carbon, the marginal abatement cost, market price, and precaution and pragmatism. It is recommended that the fourth approach in particular has potential and should be explored further - around a combination of an escalating carbon tax and a presumption against high carbon projects or policies. A copy of Professor Paul Ekin’s presentation, given at the seminar, is included in the appendix.
Organic market trends and sustainability: presentations
The UK fresh produce sector recently held its annual re:fresh conference. One of the key presentations was by Andrew Fearne of The dunnhumby Academy of Consumer Research, Kent Business School. His presentation reveals the results of a major research project into trade and consumer perceptions of organic produce, asks how this affects perceptions of all other produce, and whether the industry should be relaying a new set of messages to its end customers. You can download both his presentation and the actual report of his research here: www.refreshconference.com . There are also interesting presentations from researchers on the following subjects:
- Food production in the 21 Century: What are we trying to achieve? (Rosemary Collier)
- How can genetics help deliver sustainability? (David Pink)
- How to obtain a more sustainable pre-harvest fruit chain? (Esther Bravin)
As well as other presentations.
Symposium presentations
The Agricultural Sustainability Institute at the University of California, Davis held a symposium last year on Critical Issues and Research Methods in Food Life Cycle Assessment. You can find the extended symposium summary as well as some of the invited speakers' presentations at the ASI’s website.
Food and climate presentations available
Greenpower Conferences recently ran a two day event focusing on the Carbon Reduction Commitment in the first day, and the food system and climate change on the second. There was also a pre-conference workshop focusing on carbon footprint issues.
You can download the presentations here:
CooLogistics presentations
This conference, held in the summer of 2008 looked at refrigerated transport by all modes (sea, ship, road and rail) and from a variety of angles – trends, environmental impacts, efficiencies, supply chain relationships etc. Some of the presentations (especially the one by MDS Transmodal) give some useful figures on volumes and trends. See here for more information.
Green logistics – presentations available
On the 23rd April 2008, the Green Logistics project (a collaboration among a number of universities including Leeds, Heriot-Watt and Westminster) ran a 'Green Logistics event. There were presentations from a range of academic and industry speakers and covered a range of subjects including: Carbon auditing the supply chain, Comparative environmental impact of online and conventional retailing’ Reverse logistics and Modal shift; carbon footprinting.
To download the presentations see here, or for more about the Green Logistics Project and its various work streams, see here.
Green supply chain conference - Presentations available
The Food and Drink Federation and the London Technology Network recently held an event entitled: Developing a Greener Supply Chain. There are presentations from Tate & Lyle, Cadbury, United Biscuits, University College London, WRAP and others, all of which can be downloaded here.
Food Security and Environmental Change: presentations available
On 2-4 April 2008 a 3 day international conference was held in Oxford to present and explore research on environmental change, food security and food systems. The project was organised by the Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) project - an international, interdisciplinary research project focussed on understanding the links between food security and global environmental change.
Presentations covered a vast range of subjects – food and GHG emissions, biofuels, water stress, crop adaptation, to food security and urbanisation, household adaptation to food stress. Presentations tended to be either country- or region specific.
Bob Watson (Chief Scientific Advisor to Defra and ex Chief Scientist at the World Bank) . His presentation and most of the plenary and parallel session presentations are now available here.
Living Rainforest seminar ppt downloads available
In March and April 2008 the charity The Living Rainforest held two events on sustainable food on the following themes: Green Feast: Exploring the Multiple Meanings of Sustainable Food and Greening the Greenhouse: Designing a Carbon-Neutral Future. Presentations from both these events can be found here.
Papers available – environmental economics
The UK Network of Environmental Econoimcs recently held its annual conference. The presentations given at the event are now available online at www.uknee.org.uk or more specifically here. Sessions focused on: Climate and carbon; Ecosystem services and biodiversity; Water; market based instruments; Economic valuation; and Life expectancy and satisfaction.
Content from past conferences (envecon 2004-2007) and UKNEE seminars can also be accessed via the website.
Leverhulme Climate Symposium 2008
On 10-13 March the University of Cambridge and the Royal Society held a Symposium, bringing together leading scientists from around the world to explore how knowledge gained from understanding past climate change may be applied to the modelling of the Earth's present and future climate and the likely sensitivity of climate to anthropogenic forcing.
Videos of the presentations, powerpoints of the presentations and of the posters are now all available on the Leverhulme website.
Sustainable consumption and production in Europe
In February 2008 the European Environment Agency, the Slovenian Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning and the UNEP/Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) jointly launched a report entitled: Time for action — towards sustainable consumption and production in Europe. The report presents summary outputs of a conference held in September 2007 which focused on priority areas of concern: food & drink, housing and mobility. It also (in its Annex 2) includes a briefing paper comparing national SCP strategies in selected EU countries.
For other European reports on SCP see here.
Biofuels assessment conference
If you have an interest in biofuels and land use you might want to see the outputs from this conference, held in June 2007 in Denmark. The presentations look very interesting: focusing mainly on biofuels and their implications for use change.
Europe - waste management and climate change – conference papers available
In late January 2008, the Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling and Sustainable Resource Management held a conference on waste management and climate change. The presentations are now available on their website here.
Arable Cropping in a Changing Climate
This conference was held in early 2008 by the Home Grown Cereals Authority. The presentations from that day cover the potential impacts climate change will have on UK agriculture, how growers can adapt and the opportunities that may be presented. You can download the presentations here.
Food policy seminar – IPPR event notes
In December 2007 the Institute for Public Policy Research held a seminar on food policy. The seminar was intended to provide in put to the IPPR’s ongoing research on food policy and considered the following questions:
- Do we need a more joined up food policy? If not why not – for example this would remove the risk of industry capturing regulators, but given the levels of European legislation and actions does this remain a valid argument?
- Should we at least recognise areas where policy can come together, moving from either or policy situations and disconnections? Could this work in practice?
- What is the role of public policy? What are the processes and outcomes it hopes to achieve? What is the relationship between the state, the market and the individual and what should they be?
- Can we balance social, environmental and economic concerns? Can we balance domestic and international practicalities and responsibilities?
Notes and presentations from the seminar can be read here. Scroll down to where you see "Click here for a summary of the seminar and discussion content".
Joint UK-Italian ‘Sustainability in the food chain’ workshop – presentations
On 29-30 November 2007, Defra and the Italian Embassy held a bilateral workshop on sustainability in the food chain with a view to promoting cooperation on the issue between the two countries. The presentations from the event are available for download here.
RESOLVE Seminar, December 2007
Tim Kasser, Associate Professor of Pyschology, Knox College, Illinois, US, gave a fascinating presentation on materialistic values and its relationship with personal wellbeing and other qualities. He argued that people living in contemporary Western societies, and increasingly the rest of the world, are frequently exposed to messages and institutions that encourage materialistic values. Advertisements, business practices, and governmental policies often suggest that a meaningful, happy life is best obtained through the pursuit of financial wealth and consumption.
You can listen to this presentation and to the questions that followed by going to the Events section of the Resource Efficiency Knowledge Transfer Network website. You need to register to join, but it’s free.
In late 2007, the ESRC Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) Programme held an extremely interesting conference focusing on the sustainability of all aspects of the food chain. The presentations from the day will be available on the website in due course and I’ll circulate details when they are. In the meantime, RELU has posted up an independent report to the programme, compiled by Tom MacMillan of the Food Ethics Council, available here.
In July 2007 the Soil Association held a summit on air freight which brought together a range of organic businesses, development organisations and environmental groups to discuss the challenges that air freight poses and to consider the best ways forward. After a series of presentations, participants broke up into smaller workshops to focus on finding solutions and consensus.
The general view to emerge was that a general ban on air freighted organic products would NOT be appropriate, because of the effect on producers in developing countries. Wthin this general consensus there were several different perspectives:
- The SA should find a compromise that reconciles the environmental damage from air freight with the benefits from international development
- The SA should look at carbon more generally; a focus on air freight is too specific
- The air freight issue is something for other organisations to address.
You can download the presentations and summary notes of the day here.
The European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production 11th Annual Conference, 2007.
Some of the papers presented focus on food. Papers and abstracts can be viewed here.
Freshfel Europe Annual Conference, 2007.
Freshfel Europe is a membership organisation for the European fresh produce industry. Its 2007 annual conference discussed, among other issues, the environment, transport and energy.
Many of the presentations are interesting but from a climate change perspective you might be interested in the following:
- Mikkel Hansen, Maersk Line – on sea transport
- Ad Klaassen, Dutch Produce Association – on energy use and options in Dutch greenhouses
- Frederic Rosseneu, Freshfel Europe – on food miles vs carbon footprints
- Russell Mildon, European Commission is interesting too as it has very detailed stats and gives an indication of the direction of EU policy.
All presentations can be downloaded here or follow the link from here (click on Istanbul June 2007)
Green Power: Climate change and the corporate sector Conference
This event addressed a wide range of issues from Carbon offsetting/emissions trading to the challenges to SMEs.
One of the three days was entirely devoted to food. It covered the issue of food miles and carbon labelling and highlights included a video link to delegates in New Zealand (a good example of an attempt to keep delegate-miles down) and a presentation from the manager of a zero-carbon winery.
All the presentations can be downloaded here. Additional interviews and a blog of the event can be viewed here.
Tesco/ECI Seminar outputs
On 3-4 May 2007, Tesco and the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford organised a two day seminar on the whats, hows and whys of carbon labelling. See the PDF for the notes that came out of the event.
Subsequently, Tesco and the UK Energy Research Centre held a 'symposium' on carbon labelling. This presented the thinking on carbon labelling which had been developed at the above event.
The following documents are now available:
- A presentation by Brenda Boardman given at the 18th May symposium, summarising the thinking developed at the expert round table event.
- The expert round table report itself
- A pre-event (ie. pre 3/4 May) briefing document outlining some of the questions for consideration
Living in a low carbon world: the policy implications of rationing
This report summarises the discussion and outcomes of a one day seminar which explored the implications of carbon rationing for key sectors of society and the economy.
The seminar brought together politicians, civil servants, academics, business experts and NGOs from across the UK and the debate covered issues such as healthcare, housing, opportunities for new types of business activity and employment, and the future of transport and air travel.
Note that the concept of carbon rationing is envisaged, initially at least, to cover only domestic energy use and travel. It does not include food simply because at present a system of ascribing carbon value to the food we consume has not yet been developed. However, in future it would be desirable to include food and other areas of personal spending into the scheme.
Additional briefing papers produced as part of the event are available here.
Agricultural Economics Society conference: Bioenergy - Green Gold?
Presentations from this conference which took place in January 2007 can be viewed online here. The presentations cover aspects such Government policy, the global economics of biofuels, farmer perspectives, biofuels and carbon life cycle analysis and other environmental aspects