Research Theme 5

Research Theme5 Assessing shared and social values to enable a just transition across and within sectors

Leads: Jasper Kenter (Ecologos), Tiziana Papa and Ian Dicky (Eftec)

Building on the values framework developed by Research Theme1, this Research Theme will undertake an integrated evaluation of MAS policy and management options within the context of a just transition across and within sectors operating in the North Sea. Conventional economic valuation focuses on efficient trade-offs between different benefits and costs. We will extend this not just by internalising environmental issues, but also by considering the wider instrumental, intrinsic, relational and shared values of marine ecosystems and their contributions to people, and by working with diverse stakeholders and the public to integrate different perspectives of fairness and justice. This is essential identify to evaluate the social legitimacy of different policy and management options and reduce conflict and potential policy backlashes. Justice will be considered in terms of distributive (who benefits and who pays the cost for different management scenarios), procedural (how are evaluations done and decisions made, how inclusive is the process), and epistemic (what and whose knowledge is considered). 

To deliver this, we will enage with key interests (e.g. fisheries, renewables, oil & gas, ports, shipping, conservation, governance, workers, local communities), developing a vision for the North Sea, the role of MAS, and conditions for sustainable and just pathways and outcomes.

We will undertake an economic valuation of MAS ….

We will also undertake a sociocultural valuation through questionnaires and ethnographic interviews with diverse stakeholders to deepen understanding of how MAS management affects different instrumental, intrinsic and relational values, to identify winners and losers, and inform potential socially and politically acceptable compensation solutions.

The visioning exercises, economic and sociocultural valuations, and modelling work within the wider project will feed into a two-day, state-of-the-art national citizen panel that will deliberate diverse values surrounding scenarios and trade-offs, acceptability and environmental justice. Options will be evaluated,

Including potential compensation mechanisms, with outcomes feeding into WP6 decision support tools. Scientists and stakeholders will participate as expert witnesses.