Workshop on Enabling Transitions to Net Zero in Land Use – What Works?

The Enabling Transitions to Net Zero in Land Use Topic Advisory Group hosted an online exploratory workshop on 24th June 2024: Enabling transitions to net zero in land use – what works? Stakeholders and Hub partners (27 in total) participated representing a range of land use sectors and disciplines: forestry, environment, livestock, arable, paludiculture, farmland nature, farm advice, rural business consultancy, farmers, land owners, economics, climate science, behavioural science and knowledge exchange.

The overall aim of the workshop was to establish how the research community can support transitions to net zero in land use. The objectives were:

•  To agree a framework of key enabling conditions
•  To harvest success stories and identify common factors
•  To identify gaps in the evidence and priorities for research

We know from extensive research that social, economic, political and technical factors interact at different scales to create enabling conditions for transition in land use. The participants agreed that an analytical framework should encompass all these dimensions ensuring that a systems approach is taken.

Given the urgency of the net zero situation we need to build on this knowledge and incorporate insights from on the ground success stories. This was the focus of the meeting and participants working in interactive groups shared experiences of interventions (social and technical) that had or had not worked. These revealed a range of enabling and constraining factors and processes operating at multiple scales and intensities, bringing about quick wins through to long term transformative changes.

There was consensus that a portfolio approach often works best and that a combination of enabling factors is needed including: effective incentives, economic support, market mechanisms, political will and clarity, harmonisation of tools, providing credible knowledge, access to knowledge and expertise, building capacity across the knowledge system, fostering collaboration and social movements.

This was the first workshop in this TAG and was exploratory in nature. The aim now is to continue to build on and lean from existing research and on the ground experiences and to identify gaps in the evidence and priorities for research.