General process description (part 1)

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Del curso dictado por Erasmus University Rotterdam

A Business Approach to Sustainable Landscape Restoration

14 calificaciones

Erasmus University Rotterdam

A Business Approach to Sustainable Landscape Restoration

14 calificaciones

Integrated landscape management and large-scale landscape restoration should be in every company’s business strategy because in order to reach the Sustainable Development Goal on Land Degradation Neutrality (SDG Number 15.3) scaling up and acceleration of business-driven landscape restoration is urgently needed. This requires business professionals with a vision, the right knowledge and skills. This MOOC aims to train the next generation of business professionals and developers to acknowledge business’ interdependency with healthy landscapes and understand the value of ecosystem resources. “Historically, we have found countless ways to justify our continued exploitation of the environment: discovery, tradition, Manifest Destiny, even Chinese hoax. But we’re all out of excuses now. Each passing day swells the data on greenhouse gases and extreme weather, shrinking reservoirs and rising sea levels, and diminishing biodiversity. Our resources are finite, the window for change if not firmly shut, is certainly closing, and all life must adapt or be doomed.” Téa Obreht, The New Yorker, Dec. 19&26, 2016, p. 106. It is a frightening prospect indeed – that all life on Earth must either adapt or be doomed. This course is about landscape degradation – a global and wicked problem that is contributing to the dooming prospect of depletion of Earth’s finite resources. But this course is also about the solutions to this problem – business driven landscape restoration. So rather than leaving you powerless with the prospect Obreht puts fowards above, it is our hope that you learn how you can be part of the solution to making sure that Planet Earth still provides a safe and habitable home for future generations. We must act big and we must act now. With this course we want to pass on valuable knowledge and teach you useful skills that you can apply in your professional life that will enable you to tackle the issue of landscape degradation and restoration. The issue is urgent, so let’s dive right into it. This MOOC is developed by the ENABLE partnership, which is co-funded by the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Commission and involves a diverse, international group of organizations including Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Commonland, United Nations University Land Restoration Training Programme, the Spanish National Research Council and Estoril Global Conferences.

De la lección

Commonland projects: process, team-roles and skills involved

In this week, you will learn about a way of approaching landscape restoration projects involving business, termed the 4 returns approach. We will travel to the Commonland projects in South Africa, Spain, Australia, and The Netherlands to hear from farmers and business developers how degraded landscapes can be restored while simultaneously creating sustainable businesses that generate employment and income for local communities. Through these examples you will learn what kind of roles are involved and what skills are needed to initiate and carry out this kind of restoration projects. Moreover, you will learn what kind of stakeholders to involve in a landscape restoration partnership and which phases a 4 returns restoration project goes through. We hope that these vivid examples of real-life restoration projects serve as a jumping board for you to play your own role in such a project.

General process description (part 1)7:22

General process description (part 2)4:16

Conoce a los instructores

Simon W. Moolenaar
Dr. ir.
Commonland Foundation, Science & Education
Rob van Tulder
Prof. dr.
Department of Business-Society Management, Rotterdam School of Management
Johann Thorsson
Dr.
United Nations University Land Restoration Training Programme & Soil Conservation Service of Iceland
Nicola Favretto
Dr.
University of Leeds; United Nations University Land Restoration Training Programme
Ólafur Arnalds
Professor
United Nations University Land Restoration Training Programme & Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Agricultural University of Iceland
Asa L. Aradottir
Professor
United Nations University Land Restoration Training Programme & Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Agricultural University of Iceland
Steve Kennedy
Assistant Professor
Rotterdam School of Management

Hello again.

Welcome to this week on Commonland Projects,

where will discuss the processes, the team roles, and the skills involved.

In order to scale up landscape restoration,

we need to involve the private sector.

We do that by setting up new businesses and involving investors and

existing businesses in landscape restoration partnerships.

In that way,

we can spark landscape restoration that is driven by new business models,

sustainable business models that generate multiple values for multiple stakeholders.

To be able to do this, we need to inspire business professionals and involve

them in landscape restoration partnerships with stakeholders from diverse sectors.

In other words, we design and facilitate a multi-stakeholder partnership and

spark transformational leadership as part of the landscape approach.

Our goal is integrated landscape management, and landscape restoration.

The skills and

competencies involved to reach a goal relate to sustainability in a broad sense.

Think knowledge and know how regarding ecosystem management,

ecological restoration and nature based solutions.

Think business and management skills.

But think about social processes and competencies as well since co-creation and

partnerships are key in this respect.

And do not forget to think about your mental or spiritual attitude

that directly translates into how you view and exercise leadership.

It is really about defining purpose on a personal level and as an organization.

In this week, we will focus on the roles you can play in this field and

the skills that are needed to do so.

You will listen to some interviews with people involved in the Commonland Projects

in the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, and Australia.

How do they approach projects, and what kind of activities and

skills are involved?

After this series of videos,

you will be able to explain what roles professionals can play and

to discuss the different skills involved in landscape restoration projects.

In this video, I will start with the general process overview of a four returns

project that will help you to recognize the main aspects of a successful project.

In this way, you can eventually apply these in your context.

As explained earlier, we define return on investment by integrating the returns

of inspirational and social, natural, and financial capital

by working in three landscape zones during a specific time period.

This is what we call the 4 returns, 3 zones, and 20 years approach.

The common denominators for our four return projects are large scale,

long term, stakeholder based, business driven,

and potential for delivering impact on all 4 returns.

If we develop a new 4 returns project,

we basically follow five phases in the process.

Scout and initiate, co-design and co-develop,

implement, adapt and sustain, and scale and replicate.

Let's look at a first phase on scouting and initiating.

This phase starts with a situation analysis that forms the basis for

key strategic interventions.

You first need to understand the situation, the context, the landscape and

the needs and interests of the stakeholders involved before you can

generate new visions for future or design useful intervention strategies.

The situation analysis includes an inventory

of current drivers of degradation in the area.

And of restoration opportunities that involve business approaches to create,

deliver, and capture the four returns.

Basically, there needs to be a serious degradation problem,

with the potential for

successful restoration, with involvement of business and other stakeholders.

So a stakeholder analysis is part of the initial situation analysis as well.

To give you more insight in scouting and initiating phase for

restoration project, we ask Thekla Teunis,

director of the South African based four returns company called Grounded

to provide some more information about this phase in the South African process.

The situation and stakeholder analysis results in an inventory

of all relevant stakeholders and potential key partners like investors.

The next step is to involve the stakeholders in the process

of developing a new four returns project.

And if appropriate,

invite them to take part in the landscape restoration partnership later on.

So a lot of networking takes place in this phase.

Here you can see the kind of stakeholders involved in landscape restoration.

For example, they can be landowners and farmers, governments, businesses and

investors, NGOs, and experts from universities and business schools.

We have asked Danielle de Nie, project and business developer in the Dutch project

to share her insights on stakeholder management.

As you can conclude from this interview,

stakeholder management plays a very important role in the whole process.

And especially in the first phase of scouting and initiating, and

in the second phase of co-designing and co-developing which is the next phase.

This phase serves to formulate a common intent and a joint vision for

the future by mobilizing and engaging front runners and visionaries.

The phase of co-designing and co-developing is all about co-creation

by observing, reflecting, and adaptive planning together.

In this phase, it is necessary to build a strong local team

that is committed to collaborate and to realize concrete activities on the ground.

This team carries out more detailed landscape analysis and

may examine different future scenarios to assess the impacts of interventions and

strategies for change on the landscape.

Based on this assessment, the local team can design a common theory of change

that describes which innovations and

interventions best apply in the area to bring about transformative change.

As a result, an integrated intervention plan for landscape can be developed with

shared long term goals for both landscape restoration and business activities.

In our next video, we will take a closer look at the next phases of four

returns restoration project, implementation and adaptation.

Stay tuned.

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