H2020 COUPLED Project: Operationalization of telecouplings to solve sustainability challenges related to land use

Finding ways to overcome threats to sustainable land use is difficult because of the complex processes behind globalization, which link distant places. Our world is increasingly interconnected, and people, ideas, and products travel faster, further, and more cheaply than ever before. Globalization has accelerated economic growth in many parts of the world, including Europe, boosting prosperity and improving people's quality of life. However, this wealth is not evenly distributed, and trade flows come at an environmental cost. Countries in the Global South tend to produce the raw materials for these products and disproportionately bear their environmental costs. In contrast, these products and services are primarily consumed in the Global North. A case in point is the clearing of rainforests in Indonesia for palm oil plantations.

A Complex Challenge With support from the Marie Skododowska-Curie Actions Programme (Opens in new window), the EU-funded project TOGETHER (Opens in new window) studies how raw materials flow around the world, their drivers, and ultimately where their impacts are felt. “This information is vital for developing sustainable and responsive policies, and for assessing their real-life consequences once implemented,” says project leader Kathrin Trommler. A useful concept when trying to unravel such complex systems is telecoupling (Opens in new window), according to Trommler. Using the concept of telecoupling, the EU can identify areas where carbon emissions and other environmental impacts occur. More importantly, it can measure the social and economic effects of these flows and how they alter the behavior of the many actors involved. "Telecoupling systematically describes what drives Earth system change and the consequences of this change. It traces the flows, interactions, and feedbacks between two or more locations where human activities impact the environment, often separated by great distances, with sometimes surprising results," Trommler explains. Finding the Connections The researchers conducted numerous case studies, including how foreign aid in South America has influenced soybean and cattle production and deforestation, and how coffee companies can promote sustainable land use through their supply chains.

The land use footprint of six US diets was also assessed. Project partners mapped maize and associated land use changes and environmental impacts in Thailand. The goal was to better understand current governance and production systems, and their relationship to European poultry production. In addition, extensive fieldwork was conducted in the small-scale gold mining sector in Tanzania, exploring the telecoupling between mining and land change in Africa. China's Belt and Road Initiative was also analyzed, and environmental governance challenges were identified. Sustainable Solutions The consortium is also training a new generation of practitioners and entrepreneurs, developing powerful analytical tools, and providing new insights. The results will help public and private organizations identify where and how they can intervene to make sustainable land use decisions, thereby avoiding unintended outcomes such as deforestation and pollution. In this way, COUPLED will provide a better understanding of the processes and actors that influence land use in an increasingly interconnected world. "Specifically, COUPLED will clarify where and how systematic land-use changes occur, how these changes affect societies and the environment, and how to identify governance tools to steer telecoupled systems toward desired paths," Trommler concludes.