Project description
Innovative tools to inspire biodiversity-relevant transformative change
Extraction, production, trade, consumption activities and behaviour patterns are responsible for significant biodiversity loss on the planet. The EU-funded BIOTRAILS project will produce knowledge and develop tools to inspire and accelerate biodiversity-relevant transformative change in our society through participatory system dynamics modelling. The project will consider the complex interrelations between the indirect drivers of change in value chains of traded products and use environmentally extended multi-regional input-output analysis and life-cycle assessment methods to examine cocoa production in Peru, forest-based cultural products created by indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon, fisheries and aquaculture products in the Mediterranean basin, and gold mining in Ghana.
Objective
BIOTRAILS aims to generate knowledge and develop tools that will inspire and accelerate biodiversity-relevant transformative change in our society. BIOTRAILS will use Participatory Systems Dynamics Modelling to take into account the complex interrelations between the indirect drivers of change in four value chains of traded products (cocoa produced in Peru; forest-based cultural products created by indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon; fisheries and aquaculture products supplied by the Mediterranean basin and consumed within the Mediterranean countries; and gold mined in Ghana), and in an integrated manner alongside the climate and social justice agendas. Based on this knowledge and tools, BIOTRAILS will bring together stakeholders across different stages of product/material global value chains to collaboratively design pathways that can lead to a sustainable future, proposing interventions in policy, urban consumption patterns and corporate policies. BIOTRAILS will set up Learning and Action Alliances: groups of organisations and individuals with a common interest to address the multiple challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and people’s good quality of life, across different spatial and administrative scales and stages of global value chains. Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input–Output analysis and Life Cycle Assessment methods will be used to trace the environmental pressures arising from extraction / production, trade, and consumption activities, and behaviour patterns along global supply chains in the target sectors. The project will assess, besides the economic values, the biophysical, social and relational values emerging across different steps of value chain. Behavioural studies will be conducted based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, which considers psychological and behavioural patterns. Structural Equation Models will be used to identify the most significant factors that drive behavioural change.
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HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
00185 Roma
Italy