The Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere programme
Work continued to develop within the areas of biosphere finance, global health and biosphere stewardship
The Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere programme (GEDB) is a research programme at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is funded by the Erling-Persson Family Foundation with several affiliations to the Stockholm Resilience Centre and its researchers.
A mode for measuring impact of financial investments on the earth system, developed by Steve Lade, Beatrice Crona and several other colleagues at the SRC, constitutes a particularly noteworthy achievement.
This prototype is the first model of its kind to be able to capture earth-system processes beyond greenhouse gases, also including water- and land-use changes.
In addition, it can capture any interactions between these processes and has the capacity to account for the differential impact of land-use change, depending on where on the planet these changes are made, thus incorporating the notion of tipping points into the earth system.
The role of financial actors
Similarly, within the field of biosphere finance, novel analysis of the complex issue of crop residue burning was
also conducted.
This process has a significant negative impact in northern India, particularly in terms of human health and soil and water quality.
The practice is also at least partially responsible for the current destabilisation of the Indian summer monsoon and the Indian climate system as a whole.
By mapping value chains within the Punjab rice and wheat production systems, Andrea Downing was able to lead a collaborative effort with the Departments of Environmental Science at Stockholm University and the University of Groningen, to identify the investors providing capital in the Punjab agrifood sector.
The team identified two types of system changes required in order to bring about long-term sustainability in the rice and wheat systems, highlighting four ways in which public and private financial institutions could play a significant role in shifting practices.
As part of its biosphere finance research, the entire team of research assistants worked with executive director Beatrice Crona to deliver an extensive mapping of the different economic factors impacting SDGs. This will be included in an impact screening tool developed for the Swedish bank, SEB.
Meanwhile, global health and biosphere stewardship research explored the ways in which antimicrobial resistance (AMR) hampers the achievement of many SDGs, including good health and well-being and zero hunger.
Researchers also looked into how progress on those SDGs could subsequently help to contain AMR via clean water and sanitation, for example.
Finally, multiple GEDB researchers formed part of the core team that delivered the Blue Food Assessment, led by the SRC and Stanford.
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