Lauren Cooper and Kylie Clay publish article in Sustainability on safeguarding against harm in Climate-Smart Forest Economies (CSFEs)
Print
EmailLauren Cooper and Kylie Clay publish article in Sustainability, “Safeguarding against Harm in a Climate-Smart Forest Economy: Definitions, Challenges, and Solutions.”
Safeguarding against Harm in a Climate-Smart Forest Economy: Definitions, Challenges, and Solutions
By Kylie Clay and Lauren Cooper
Sustainably managed forests and forest products have a well-documented potential to deliver significant climate change mitigation benefits via sequestration, storage, and substitution (the 3Ss) when they are sourced sustainably and substituted for traditional resource-intensive materials. In their most successful cases, forest value chain interventions that lead to CSFEs will link secondary and tertiary sectors for greater waste reduction, substitution, innovation, and overall cascading climate benefits. However, interventions that contribute to CSFEs, from small to large scale, will inevitably impact environments and communities, both directly and indirectly. This paper provides preliminary results of mixed methods research with an aim of identifying and building consensus on the definitions, challenges, and solutions relevant to the assessment, planning, and implementation of CSFE safeguards (Clay and Cooper, pg 1).
Figure 1. CSFE safeguard spectrum from harm to co-benefits.
To identify shared definitions, barriers, and solutions related to implementing social and environmental safeguards for a CSFE, the authors conducted interviews, surveys, workshops, and qualitative coding of existing safeguards guidelines. The article explores findings on six key assessment and implementation challenges for maintaining sustainable CSFEs and proposes a series of potential solutions to inform strategy, shape dialogue, and suggest initial steps toward overcoming challenges. These challenges include:
- Lack of clarity about actor responsibilities
- Data availability and reliability
- Navigating existing guidance
- Inefficient implementation
- Achieving inclusive engagement
- Varying actor motivations
“A climate-smart forest economy (CSFE) has high ambitions of bolstering the 3Ss and catalyzing broader systemic change to address the climate crisis, all while aligning with sustainable development goals and related agendas. However, failure to minimize negative externalities will have implications for equity, project longevity, and climate benefits.” (Clay and Cooper, pg 11).
The work is a result of a partnership with The Nature Conservancy and support by the Good Energies Foundation.
To read more, link to the open-access article here.
