Toward spatial fit in the governance of global commodity flows

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Johanna Coenen
  • Gabi Sonderegger
  • Jens Newig
  • Patrick Meyfroidt
  • Edward R.T. Challies
  • Simon Bager
  • Louise M. Busck-Lumholt
  • Esteve Corbera
  • Cecilie Friis
  • Anna Frohn Pedersen
  • Perrine C.S.J. Laroche
  • Claudia Parra Paitan
  • Siyu Qin
  • Nicolas Roux
  • Julie Gwendolin Zaehringer
Global commodity flows between distally connected social-ecological systems pose important challenges to sustainability governance. These challenges are partly due to difficulties in designing and implementing governance institutions that fit or match the scale of the environmental and social problems generated in such telecoupled systems. We focus on the spatial dimension of governance fit in relation to global commodity flows and telecoupled systems. Specifically, we draw on examples from land use and global agricultural commodity governance to examine two overarching types of governance mismatches: boundary mismatches and resolution mismatches. We argue that one way to address mismatches is through governance rescaling and illustrate this approach with reference to examples of three broad types of governance approaches: trade agreements, due diligence laws, and landscape approaches to supply chain governance. No single governance approach is likely to address all mismatches, highlighting the need to align multiple governance approaches to govern telecoupled systems effectively.
Original languageEnglish
Article number24
JournalEcology and Society
Volume28
Issue number2
Number of pages18
ISSN1708-3087
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 07.06.2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We warmly thank all participants of the two synthesis workshops of the COUPLED project, led by Jonas Østergaard Nielsen and Kathrin Trommler in January and September 2021, for their useful comments and valuable feedback. Special thanks go to Floris Leijten, Pin Pravalprukskul, Finn Mempel, Tiago Reis, and Joel Persson for sharing their empirical reflections and instructive insights from their research. This work was funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) grant agreement 765408 from the European Commission: COUPLED ‘Operationalising Telecouplings for Solving Sustainability Challenges for Land Use’.

Funding Information:
E. Corbara acknowledges that this article contributes to the “María de Maeztu” Programme for Units of Excellence of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CEX2019-000940-M). C. F. acknowledges support through the Carlsberg Foundation Reintegration Fellowship grant CF19-0526. We acknowledge support by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Open Access Publication Fund of Leuphana University Lüneburg.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance.

    Research areas

  • Sustainability Governance - environmental governance, human-environment interactions, scale, spatial mismatch, supply chain, telecoupling

DOI