Browsing by Author "Vervoort, J."

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Exploring the transformative potential of urban food
    (RMIT University, 2021-12-13) Hebinck, A.; Selomane, O.; Veen, E.; De Vrieze, A.; Hasnain, S.; Sellberg, M.; Sovová, L.; Thompson, K.; Vervoort, J.; Wood, A.
    Urban food is a key lever for transformative change towards sustainability. While research reporting on the urban food practices (UFPs) in support of sustainability is increasing, the link towards transformative potential is lacking. This is because research on urban food is often place-based and contextual. This limits the applicability of insights to large-scale sustainability transformations. This paper describes UFPs that aim to contribute to transformative change. We present signposts for potential change based on the types of intended transformative changes as described in the reviewed literature based on the processes and outcomes of the urban food policies and programmes. Secondly, we classify diverse UFPs to elevate them beyond their local, place-based contexts. We find that UFPs carry a lot of potential to facilitate sustainability transformations. Based on that analysis, we provide insights on how urban food research can further contribute to harnessing the transformative potential of UFPs for actionable purposes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Seeds of good anthropocenes : developing sustainability scenarios for Northern Europe
    (Springer Nature, 2019-07) Raudsepp-Hearne, C.; Peterson, G. D.; Bennett, E. M.; Biggs, R.; Norström, A. V.; Pereira, L.; Vervoort, J.; Iwaniec, D. M.; McPhearson, T.; Olsson, P.; Hichert, T.; Falardeau, M.; Aceituno, A. Jiménez
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Scenario development helps people think about a broad variety of possible futures; however, the global environmental change community has thus far developed few positive scenarios for the future of the planet and humanity. Those that have been developed tend to focus on the role of a few common, large-scale external drivers, such as technology or environmental policy, even though pathways of positive change are often driven by surprising or bottom-up initiatives that most scenarios assume are unchanging. We describe an approach, pioneered in Southern Africa and tested here in a new context in Northern Europe, to developing scenarios using existing bottom-up transformative initiatives to examine plausible transitions towards positive, sustainable futures. By starting from existing, but marginal initiatives, as well as current trends, we were able to identify system characteristics that may play a key role in sustainability transitions (e.g., gender issues, inequity, governance, behavioral change) that are currently under-explored in global environmental scenarios. We suggest that this approach could be applied in other places to experiment further with the methodology and its potential applications, and to explore what transitions to desirables futures might be like in different places.