SE2017: Marketplace session 2

Knowledge-based decision making for performance improvement in agri-food value chains

Professor Shaofeng Liu, University of Plymouth

Additional presenters: Huilan Chen, Lynne Butel, Phil Megicks, Carmen Lopez and Lucas Monzani

Agricultural sustainability has been recognised as a key global challenge in current academic research and in practice. 

Creating a lean supply chain to reduce waste (waste is defined by lean operations theory as any activities or resources that do not add value) can help address the sustainability issue in agriculture. 

This paper presents recent progress on a four-year-long project, RUCAPS (Enhancing and Implementing Knowledge-based ICT Solutions within High Risk and Uncertain Conditions for Agriculture Production Systems), which is funded by EU Horizon 2020 programme under Marie-Curie RISE scheme. 

The focus of the paper is on how advanced knowledge management technologies can help to improve decision making across different stages of agri-food supply chains (from farm to fork). 

A framework has been proposed for knowledge mobilisation across boundaries to investigate relationships between knowledge mobilisation and lean supply chain performance.

Strengthening Disaster Risk Adaptive Capacity through Risk Learning

Paul Ofei-Manu, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies

This paper argues that due to the prime emphasis on knowledge as “understanding disaster risk” by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) 2015–2030 and the uncertainty in climate change-induced disasters in future, knowledge (skills and values) acquisition through risk education/learning should be one of the essential adaptive capacity components for DRR response solutions or improvement from national to local/community levels. 

Earlier assessment of the official Japanese DRR reports showed a high DRR capacity (Ofei-Manu and Didham, in press).

A Free Trade Agreement with the EU – A radiant pillar of light for the environment or just a will o’ the wisp? 

Miss Catherine Bennett, University of Plymouth

As Brexit approaches and uncertainty remains concerning the protection of biodiversity and the environment, does entry into an early trade agreement with the EU provide some comfort for the future of the UK environment and biodiversity? 

Cecilia Malmstrom the current EU Trade Commissioner stressed in her speech on 24 January 2017 that the EU International trade policy is not just about trade but also about values. 

Indeed there is an increased focus on the environment and biodiversity as part of EU values in the current trade policy document ‘Trade for All’. Commissioner Malmstrom maintained that “trade is a force for good in the world…. ...a way to engage with other nations to foster change…. ...a way to support our values and standards, and spread them across the globe.”

The recently concluded CETA and a free trade agreement with Vietnam will be examined, demonstrating environmental chapters and clauses relating to biodiversity. 

Enforceability of these provisions are open to challenge, but it can be argued that their very existence creates some potential for retention of existing levels of protection and that the need for reciprocity of standards should bolster UK protections. 

However, consideration of claims that the EU has reduced standards and concerns that a seismic shift in the valuation of the environment and an alternative to GDP is needed to give meaningful support are also discussed in this presentation.

Dementia, Care and the Countryside: providing sustainable support for people living with dementia in rural communities

Dr Richard Yarwood and Dr Claire Kelly, University of Plymouth

Additional presenters: Ian Sherriff and Joanne Jones (FCN)

Dementia represents a growing challenge, especially in rural areas of the Global North that have proportionally older populations who, in turn, are more likely to succumb to the condition. 

For the individual citizen with dementia, there are questions as to whether he or she is able to access necessary care and services. Increasingly too, there is pressure for individuals and communities to provide support for those with dementia through various forms of active citizenship. 

More widely, attention needs to be given to the extent to which those with dementia can involve themselves meaningfully in daily life. 

This paper uses frameworks of citizenship to explore the impact of dementia on the ‘lifeworlds’ (Philo et al., 2003) of farmers. 

Citizenship is helpful because it not only draws attention to the ways that farmers interact with formal and informal networks of care but also the extent to which they are able to participate as full members in everyday society. 

These issues are examined in different rural spaces including the farmhouse, communities and through to wider legal-economic networks of business. 

In doing so, the work aims to shed new light into the lives of people living with dementia in rural places that to inform the development of sustainable rural communities (Innes et al., 2011). The paper draws upon a recent study of farmers, their families and care agencies in Devon, England.

Brexit: potential impacts on environmental law and policy

Mr Jason Lowther, University of Plymouth

Additional presenters: Jo Sellick

A principal driver for UK sustainability is the influence of European Union law and policy. 

Sustainability is a key component of the ultimate purposes of the European Union and is given specific legal force by the requirement that it should be a component of all of the EU's activities. 

In the environmental context, there have been significant improvements in water quality, particularly with respect to bathing waters; and the European networks for species and habitat conservation. 

Part of this success has been the uniformity in which law and policy in respect of these key sustainability indicators have been coordinated, promulgated and subject to oversight and enforcement by the EU's governance mechanisms.

Following the referendum in which the UK population voted to separate itself from the EU, the specific laws relating to nature conservation: the Birds and Habitats Directives; and the also the Bathing Water Directive, will ultimately no longer apply to govern UK policy and practice. 

Given that the marine environment and the biodiversity within it are often shared resources, this paper examines the potential impacts that a non-uniform, and constantly evolving policy landscape consequent upon the UK's separation will mean in terms of the environment and those who have a stake in the sustainable and effective management of those resources for the social good.

Nutrient management in artificial soils

Dr Mark Fitzsimons, University of Plymouth

Soil degradation is a critical and growing global problem. Increase in the world population has added to pressure on soil, and its natural capital faces continuing decline. 

Within the European Union (EU), the legislative framework on waste management is provided by the EU Waste Framework Directive. The Directive sets the following waste hierarchy to be applied as a priority order in member states: prevention, preparing for reuse, recycling, other recovery and disposal. 

As such, disposal to landfill is the least favoured option meaning that a large amount of biodegradable waste must be diverted from landfills to other organic waste management practices. 

Artificial soils offer a potential route for the recycling of waste materials and their associated capital, within the terrestrial environment, and potential mixtures of large volume mineral and organic green waste have been evaluated for high (horticulture/agriculture) and low (amenity/restoration) value markets.

 A case study will be presented which involved assessment of the efficacy of nutrient cycling within an artificial soil, deployed in South West of England since 2000. 

The soil hosts a range of plants in a variety of natural and artificial environments. The soil mix was freshly prepared and added to custom-made soil columns, the leachate of which was monitored and analysed over 12 months. 

Profiles of macro-nutrients and physico-chemical parameters were considered, along with dissolved and solid phase organic components in order to evaluate the soil’s efficacy in the storage and release of nutrients, while the effect of fertilisation was also taken into account.

The Making of Chrysalis

Chloe Uden, Encounters Arts

Chrysalis will be a new mobile arts, culture and learning space made in 2017 - 2018 by the hands and imagination of people who live or work in the Bio Region of South Devon. It will become an inspirational resource for Encounters, local community groups and organisations in South Devon and beyond.

We want to ensure that people of all ages and backgrounds from rural hamlets to larger villages and towns across this region have the opportunity to inform and be part of the design and build of this new mobile communal space that could serve and inspire them in the future.

Participants will be faced with creative challenges and decisions as old and new skills are brought together to consider the mobile units environmental impact in the areas of energy, water, food, materials, waste.

Through the making process, we will explore how we can reconnect to one another, to the living systems that support us and to investigate sustainable ways to live and flourish in a rapidly changing world. 

Chrysalis will provide an exemplar for a sustainable and co-created project that has a very real impact on increasing connections, skills and knowledge amongst people of all ages whilst celebrating diversity in all its variety of forms.

We are hoping that you can help us reach and connect with networks, groups and individuals who you think might want to get involved in The Making of Chrysalis or that you might be interested in supporting or linking to the project in some way.

New light through old windows – Ancient tsunami data in the 21st Century

Professor James Goff, PANGEA Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 

An entirely reasonable question to ask would be – who cares about old tsunamis? Indeed, geologists have not proven to be particularly brilliant at getting their data out there in a useful format for practitioners interested in such things as preparedness, education, public awareness or even for those researchers striving to understand “How big, how often and where from?”

For the past two years, we have been striving to come up with a useful database, one that can be local, regional, national and global. It is now at a national level – New Zealand now has a searchable Tsunami Database - but it is one that has been set up to be compatible with other national databases IF the data are accessible/collated, made available, and naturally – someone has the funding to support further development. 

In other words, a global database is easily within our reach and we have already accumulated data from numerous countries that can make this at least a regional database very quickly….IF ONLY we had funding! That old refrain again.

A simple question to ask from my perspective is what do these dates mean and why are they so important: AD1320-1470, AD1470-1510, 1868, 1960, and 3500-4500 years ago? 

I will try to show you why in order to give you just a hint of the value of the current database and why a global version would open up so many interesting doors to our understanding of tsunami hazard, risk, community education and awareness.

Chronic lung diseases in Uganda

Dr Rupert Jones, University of Plymouth Global Health Collaborative

Additional marketplace presenters: Jill Pooler, Sanne van Kampen

For the last five years, we have been working on chronic lung diseases in Uganda. In a prevalence survey in Masindi District, we discovered that one in eight adults were affected by COPD, particularly young non-smoking women and young tobacco smoking men. This was surprising as we normally see the problem in older people in the UK.

After our prevalence survey, we undertook two projects: (i) a rehabilitation program for people with bad lung disease which involved no drugs and used local resources such as physiotherapists. 

This was funded by the Medical Research Council and has had a profound impact on improving peoples’ lives. (ii) We were also asked by the local health workers to develop a prevention program for raising awareness that showing how to avoid getting lung disease. With a grant from the Mayo Clinic, we have produced in education program which is now standard across Uganda.

Currently, we are developing these ideas in projects in Uganda, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan and Crete with funding from the Horizon 2020.

One of the projects is about educating midwives and village health teams in Uganda about the hazards of biomass smoke to the health of the unborn baby and on young children. 

These groups may be particularly vulnerable to smoke and have high levels of exposure for around seven hours per day. 

We are now applying to do a project working with adolescents in Uganda to educate them about the risk of tobacco smoke and the biomass smoke from cooking fires.

Social justice in education taking the lead on sustainable development goals

Jane Acton, Nature Workshops

Education for vulnerable people has been the focus of the Partnership since its inception over ten years ago. With 26 partner agencies working in one of the most deprived areas of Europe, we are aiming to bring education for sustainable development into the spotlight not only for the 5000 adults and young people we reach every year but also 250+ staff working via our partners.

Our plan together over the next two years is to achieve the ISO 140001 Environmental Management Standard, setting baselines which can be revisited to measure progress over time and finding out how people make changes in their learning and working lives and why. Also if this impacts their activities at home.

The learning people get through our partners includes accredited and non accredited, soft skills and essential skills in forest schools, abseiling, creative skills and careers and budgeting advice and employability skills. 

All learners are encouraged to progress into FE and HE with qualified support.

Our learners include adults with mental health issues, young parents, victims of crime and ex-offenders, people recovering from substance misuse, in and leaving care, long-term unemployed and people lacking in basic skills for any reason.

Sustainable Consumption of Coastal Tourism: attitudes and intention of university students in Shanghai

Rong Huang, University of Plymouth

Additional presenters: Yuxiang Zheng (Shanghai Maritime University)

As sustainable development has emerged as a central problem for tourism, previous studies argue that searching to find “solutions” has led to the publication of numerous governments, industry, institutional and academic reports. 

Vermeir and Verbeke (2008) argue that sustainable consumption is based on a decision-making process that takes the consumer's social responsibility into account in addition to individual needs. 

Despite optimistic views generated by studies of tourist preferences, research indicates that the majority are reluctant to change their own behaviour in support of sustainability goals. 

Although marine and coastal tourism are gradually playing an important role in Chinese marine economy, very limited research is available to understand Chinese tourists’ consumption of marine and coastal tourism products.

Furthermore, an analysis of relevant literature sources, it is clear that there are many articles in relation to sustainable tourism but sustainable consumption is barely addressed (Buckley, 2012), hence a thorough understanding of the determinants of consumer decision-making towards sustainable coastal cultural tourism is necessary. 

This study, therefore, investigates sustainable consumption of coastal cultural tourism products among university students in Shanghai (China). 

The empirical research builds on a survey with a sample of 807 university students using a questionnaire survey on popular social media sites in China. 

Stepwise multiple regression models showed that 55.5% of the variance in intention to consume sustainable coastal cultural tourism products was explained by the combination of factors. 

The findings yield public policy and marketing recommendations for stimulating sustainable consumption of coastal cultural tourism products among young adults.

Sustainability and Games for Learning: Introducing the complexity of the cotton supply chain in a resource management game

Sami Zirak, Isaac Gillard and Ryan Wildish, University of Plymouth- BSc (Hons) Computing & Games Development

Students on the BSc (Hons) Computing & Games Development undergraduate programme developed a sustainability awareness game for Jane Grose (Lecturer at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry). 

The game focuses on ethical, environmental and monetary factors and was developed as part of our 'Live Client module' where clients are invited to present challenges to game developers and teams are formed to create solutions as a free 'proof of concept' service. 

The game is aimed at business students who might one day be professionals in the industry, the experience has been tailored to make them aware of ethical, environmental and monetary problems with a realistic approach to cause and effect. 

This will hopefully make them more aware of other factors that businesses are only just starting to look into and take consideration of; allowing the students to think more about sustainability and about the future rather than immediate profits. 

The game plays as a resource management game similar to the Democracy Series.

The game is still a work in progress and has only been in development for a short period of time. We have numerous new features planned that we are excited to design and implement, but we would value opinions on our current product during the Marketplace to help prioritise our approach. 

The session would consist of a demonstration to potential users and viewers that opens up into playing the game and/or a discussion about the aspects of the game and how they could be better adapted to focus on the business and sustainable aspects.