WP2: What aspirations, values, visions and capacity underpin the transition to a just net zero future?

This WP seeks to understand just transitions from the perspectives of the farming communities and other farm-food sector representatives, through participatory fieldwork led by teams of social scientists in our focal landscapes.

This work will use in-depth interviews and focus groups to address questions such as:

• What land management measures can help transition to net zero and help achieve other targets?

• What do farming communities consider a just net zero future?

• What values and attitudes underpin those perceptions of a just transition?

• How do power dynamics interplay with those values and attitudes?

• What adaptive capacity does the system have to get there?

The research process with participants will lead to shared values-based visions for an aspirational net zero future for these landscapes. These bottom-up participatory visions will be compared with top-down scenarios delivered by WP1 modelling efforts, in deliberative scenario planning processes (WP3), which will then feed into transformational just pathways work (WP4).

We will employ a range of social sciences methods, including in-depth interviews and focus groups, and we will engage with the arts, from illustration and photography to poetry. All our work is co-designed with our local landscape partners and implemented by our engagement officers. This allows the work to be fully tailored to local characteristics and needs and be embedded in the landscape realities, aiming to maximizing the local impact of the project, as well as contributing to informing policies at the national level.