Master's Degree Thesis

A Decision Support Tool to Assess and Prioritise Project Drawdown Solutions at the Local Level

Laura López Cuadros Elshan Rustamov Wietse Slob Daniela Stange

Blekinge Institute of Technology Karlskrona, Sweden 2020

Examiner: Henrik Ny Ph.D. Primary advisor: Giles Thomson Ph.D. Secondary advisor: Pierre Johnson M.Sc.
A Decision Support Tool to Assess and Prioritise Project Drawdown Solutions at the Local Level

Laura López Cuadros Elshan Rustamov Wietse Slob Daniela Stange

Blekinge Institute of Technology Karlskrona, Sweden 2020

Thesis submitted for completion of Master of Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden.

ABSTRACT

This thesis analyses how public decision-makers can rapidly and sustainably decarbonise their regions, considering the challenge that promoting timely decarbonisation represents. The research was divided into three phases and developed using desk studies and interviews with Project Drawdown (PD) experts, Swedish public officials and researchers. In phase one, PD solutions showed a shortcoming in sustainable operationalisation of global decarbonisation solutions. It was found that they alone could not account for sustainability, and that there is dependency on the context of application and on decision-making processes. In phase two, it was found that sustainability could be embedded in decision-making for decarbonisation through decision support. In the Blekinge example case, several challenges were found, for which sustainable decision support was needed. To respond to this challenge, a Decision Support tool (DST) was created, based on multi-criteria decision analysis. This three-step generic tool provides a relevance assessment to prove the suitability of decarbonisation solutions in the given context, a sustainability assessment to address sustainability challenges, and a prioritisation step for strategic decision-making. The tool was validated to be useful by Swedish policymakers and by international experts. This DST has the potential to support policy-making around the world to decarbonise regions rapidly and sustainably.

Key Words:

Sustainability, Project Drawdown, Decarbonisation solutions, Decision-making, Decision Support Tool, Multi-criteria decision analysis.

II
Statement of Contribution

This thesis has been written by four team members, ‘the gang’. But most of all, we are friends that came together from day one believing in the refreshing and optimistic approach that Project Drawdown brings to the table. Our diversity and the fact that we come from different life and work experiences, allowed for a balanced team dynamic. Quality, expertise, innovative, inspiring, structure, balance, positivity and purpose-orientation is what characterises us. We reflected on the task and the process, allowed for time to cultivate personal relations and cared about each other in every step of the way. The element that has proven to be most vital in our process is trust. All our efforts have been co-creative and all of us contributed, directly or indirectly, to every part of the work, while building on our individual strengths and interests.

Laura (innovative and inspiring) has a high pace, generates lots of new ideas and connects well with people. She has a critical and reflective mind that pushes the group to give purpose to every task and has very strong facilitation and harvesting skills. She is a wonderful writer and does not hesitate to dig into qualitative research books to find more information and provide more background to our methods. Laura has been a key driver in our abstract, results and in the external communication with our interviewees.

Elshan (qualitative and experienced) has the unique capacity to look at the bigger picture and summarise complex theories and processes in just a few sentences or in a visual way. He has brought in his experience without interrupting the growth and development of the rest of the thesis members and has contributed significantly in the development of the DST and throughout the entire validation process.

Wietse (joyful and creative) makes the group think outside the box while adding an extra layer of confidence. He has innate facilitation skills and has played a critical role helping to improve the quality of our work by looking at the issues discussed from a completely different angle. He has been a key pillar in the presentation of this thesis and discussing our results with his tenacious and comprehensive approach.

Daniela (structured and balanced) has very strong analytical skills and is very good at picking up different parts and purposefully assembling them into a single output. With her accuracy and structural approach, she has contributed greatly to the group, taking care of understanding and reflecting in our methodology and process making sure that what we do is logical and structured to one common approach. She was constantly updating the document and worrying about the format and citations.

Laura López Cuadros Elshan Rustamov Wietse Slob Daniela Stange

III
Acknowledgements

To our families, partners and friends who have supported us throughout our studies and the five intense months of writing this master thesis - thank you for having our back!

To our MSLS family - staff and classmates - for being able to learn from you, go through this journey together, form friendships for life and step it up with sustainability. Cheers to the year of 2020!

To our main advisor Giles for many interesting discussions, helpful feedback and unconditional support. And to Pierre, for methodological support and unconditional support in answering all our questions.

To the Strategic Sustainable Development department - especially Lisa, Bekki, Henrik and Jayne - for connecting us with your network and sharing your valuable knowledge with us.

To the Slob family for taking care of us in COVID-19 times while we did our interviews with PD in the Netherlands and for sending us back with reinforcements. And to Marcus and his family who kindly offered us their cabin and hosted us on the Swedish countryside during our ‘quarantine’.

To Project Drawdown (PD) for providing a comprehensive approach for carbon drawdown, especially to the Drawdown Europe Research Association for bringing drawdown to Europe. The work by PD formed the main inspiration for this thesis. Also, for your inspirational statements: “We are shifting the global conversation about climate change from ‘doom and gloom’ defeatism to one of possibility, opportunity, actions, and empowerment’’. To Paul Hawken, co-founder of PD, for taking an optimistic view to the problem, reframing it as 'game on, not game over '. To Roy Straver, Director of Drawdown Europe Research Association and MSLS friend, for sharing your inspirational approach to life: “I think the meaning of wisdom is understanding the interdependencies of life of all systems”. To Freek van der Pluijm, another MSLS friend, for going the extra mile to meet us in Utrecht and sharing his inspiring work with a focus on human development.

To all other interviewees from Project Drawdown, Region Blekinge, Lännstyrelsen Blekinge, and Karlskrona kommun for sharing their knowledge and experience with us.

To Sofía, Marc and Phil for reading this thesis and providing useful comments.

To the gang: Although we stayed apart from each other in this tough period of COVID-19, our support of each other has been crucial. We have been highly understanding in the different mental and physical places we were in. Laura, Wietse and Daniela were required to do a forest quarantine while Elshan had to spend three weeks of quarantine in a hotel room and had to manage the fact that the last weeks of thesis coincided with Ramadan. There were many events that shaped the way we interacted with each other positively, but our attitude, support and spirit made this work joyful, learningful and ultimately unforgettable.

IV
Executive Summary

Humanity is facing several substantial problems that endanger future life on earth. Some of these problems are also known as 'planetary boundaries' (PBs) (e.g. climate change, biodiversity). Exceeding any one of nine PBs risks destabilising the integrity of the planetary systems, therefore all PBs must be respected to remain within the 'safe operating space' for humanity (Steffen et al. 2015). The PB for climate change is being exceeded by exponentially rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by society’s contemporary dominant system of production and consumption which is based on linear resource extraction, rather short product life cycles and dependency on fossil fuels. As rising emissions approach unprecedented thresholds and dangerous tipping points, our current socio-ecological systems are at risk of collapse (Robèrt et al. 2019).

The systematic growth of GHGs, such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, amongst others, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is the main cause of global warming. And even though there are several approaches and initiatives that present solutions to undertake large- scale interventions in the Earth’s climate systems (IPCC 2018), there is an increased understanding through scientific findings that mitigating climate change may not be enough to achieve the 1.5°C goal set in the international agreement addressing climate change ‘The Paris Agreement’ (UNFCCC n.d.). This implies that humanity might need to aim beyond mitigation and strive towards a regenerative state.

Eighty-two (82) impactful decarbonisation solutions1 have been proposed by the non-profit research organisation Project Drawdown (PD). PD is a collaborative effort of over 200 researchers, policymakers, businesses, thought leaders and organisations who propose to achieve ‘drawdown’ by 2050 through the application of their solutions. Drawdown is the moment in time where GHG levels start declining to the concentration of pre-industrial times (Jacobs 2020). PD sees an opportunity for the public sector, since “policy shifts can advance solutions, while stopping sources of the problem” (Wilkinson 2020), thus constituting an important leverage point for successful decarbonisation. Thereby, PD wants to enable a transformation towards a regenerative society with cascading benefits on human well-being and their relationship with nature (Drawdown Europe n.d.). Local public organisations are increasingly seeing the need to shift towards sustainable pathways as mandated by international agreements, like the Paris agreement. Especially, since public organisations carry the mandate and therefore responsibility to secure the wellbeing of civil society.

The purpose of this thesis is to address some of the societal and scientific gaps regarding decision-making in the face of rapid sustainable carbon drawdown. Specifically, the need for a strategic sustainability lens in public policymaking and the need for meaningful information and effective public processes are addressed at the local level to build awareness, capacity and agency on climate change, and support decision-making and planning.

By assessing PD solutions using a strategic sustainability lens and a multi-criteria decision analysis approach (MCDA)2, our aim was to assess whether PD solutions ensure sustainability

1 Find PD solutions in Appendix A and under https://www.drawdown.org/solutions.
2
A MCDA helps in the assessment of possible climate solutions by considering multiple criteria for decision making (Accorsi, Apostolakis, and Zio 1999).

V
as defined by the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD)3, to seek how policymakers can be supported to apply PD solutions at a local level and to assess the usefulness of a Decision Support Tool (DST) crafted for local decision-makers. In order to localise and validate the practicality of the tool, the province of Blekinge, Sweden, was chosen as an example case.

Methodology

The main focus of this research lays on assessing PD solutions using the FSSD and including decision-making elements to operationalise PD solutions for local level applications.

Research focus

A thematic analysis was used to support an interactive approach between the research questions, the conceptual framework and the data collected. The data collection methods used were literature reviews, document analyses (on PD and Blekinge context) and eleven semi-structured interviews with three clusters (PD experts, Blekinge officials and researchers). The results were validated through two workshops and an online semi-structured survey. A three-phased process was designed to answer the main research question and the three sub-questions:

How can PD solutions be operationalised to achieve sustainable and rapid carbon drawdown in local level applications?

RQ1. To what extent are Project Drawdown solutions sustainable (according to the FSSD) when considering them for a local level application? RQ2. How can sustainability (according to the FSSD) be embedded in public decision- making for rapid carbon drawdown? RQ3. To what extent can a decision support tool with Project Drawdown solutions be useful for rapid carbon drawdown?

3 The FSSD is a scientific peer-reviewed concept helping to advance strategically towards sustainability. It has proven to aid organisations in thoroughly understanding and putting themselves in context of the global sustainability challenge and encompasses the following elements used: action plan, backcasting and a principled definition of sustainability (Broman and Robèrt 2017).

VI

Three phases of the research process design

Results and Discussions

Phase 1: Understanding sustainability in PD and the local applicability of the solutions

PD solutions are potentially sustainable, considering that they are based on global data sets and that PD does not use a principled definition of sustainability since it uses the concept of regeneration, for which no clear principles or boundary conditions are specified. Therefore, it is important to include a strategic sustainability lens throughout the entire process. This was done through a Sustainability Principle (SP)4 assessment of the 82 PD solutions for the Blekinge example case. It was found that the solutions were not all aligned with the SPs, which could consequently generate unintended consequences. Also, while the solutions were generally found to be aligned with ecological SPs, the assessment of PD solutions for social sustainability was more challenging. That is because the solutions depend on the context of application (e.g. economic and human factors, material usage, the extent of application and national advances). Furthermore, the extent of sustainability not only depends on the context of application, but also on the decision-making process. Considering that there is a need for rapid and accurate decision support for decarbonisation goals, a participatory design, a backcasting strategy5 and an increased level of sustainability education, are elements that can enhance the inclusion of sustainability at the local level.

Phase 2: Embedding sustainability for decarbonisation decision-making

It is not enough to merely embed sustainability in decision-making, the success of decision making in complex topics, such as climate related ones, is dependent on the integration of sustainability in three key elements: people, process and tools. Some challenges and needs stem from a lack of sustainability understanding, a lack of cross-department cooperation and slow decision-making. Therefore, transdisciplinary and multisectoral collaborations are necessary in assessing and prioritising decarbonisation solutions for local level applications. A DST based on science can provide rapid, effective and sustainable decision-making.

4 There are eight social and ecological SPs which make up the principle-based definition of sustainability of the FSSD (see Appendix B).
5 Backcasting is a strategy different from ‘forecasting’ where one envisions oneself acting in a desirable future where the principles for success have been met, and then plans what one must do to move towards that point (Broman and Robèrt 2017).

VII
Phase 3: Designing a Decision Support Tool and validating its usefulness

The main challenge to shift from global to local with regards to sustainable decarbonisation is the need for timely action through efficient decision-making. For this purpose, a DST was crafted using a MCDA approach that allows for prioritisation of relevant and sustainable solutions for a local level application.

In the previous steps of the research, needs, characteristics and implementation considerations of a DST were identified. Consequently, the results obtained in phase 1 and 2 allowed us to combine these elements into a three-step DST that includes a relevance assessment, to prove the suitability of solutions in the given context; a sustainability assessment, to hold accountability and minimise unintended consequences; and prioritisation criteria, that allow to recognise the overall goal of the local context.

The objective of the DST is to support individuals and organisations in their decision-making process, to reduce carbon emissions in a sustainable manner by providing a useful procedure and key learnings, and to assess and prioritise PD solutions in accordance with the local context. Finally, the prioritised solutions can be fed into a respective action plan6. The audience of the DST are decision-makers in local administrations and other experts and decision-makers that work in the area of decarbonisation. The main characteristics of the DST include (i) embedding sustainability in decarbonisation activities, (ii) bringing global PD solutions to a local level application, (iii) acknowledge and encompass three crucial elements of a MCDA - people, processes and tools, (iv) being self-explanatory and accessible and (v) entailing flexibility for adjustments and usage in many contexts. It is also worth mentioning that a DST would serve as a salient tool for fostering communication thereby having a potential to inspire. The key reason for this is that the application of the DST and the implementation of solutions requires a participatory approach in which multidisciplinary stakeholders need to be engaged. The DST is composed of three steps, as illustrated in the figure below.

Summary of the Decision Support Tool

6 An action plan is a concrete strategic plan with goals and an implementation program (entailing actions with deadlines and responsibilities) in order to move towards the goal / vision (Robèrt et. al 2019).

VIII
The list of prioritised solutions is considered in the preparation of an action plan for various time periods (short, middle and long term), depending on the status of factors, such as finance, staffing, cooperation, and awareness required for its implementation. One of the limitations of the DST is that assessments are context-dependent and expected benefits may vary significantly depending on the application. Moreover, continuous education / awareness, communication and involvement of various stakeholders is needed to achieve the desired outcomes and impacts. Taking into consideration these facts, we acknowledge and highlight the flexible nature of the DST for aligning its implementation with the goals and strategies of the specific organisation.

Besides the preparation of a tool, we provide recommendations for PD and public organisations who consider using the DST. Considerations for PD entail (i) an integration of strategic sustainability in the formulation of solutions and preparation of the respective models, (ii) an inclusion of a short methodology in the next revision of PD solutions for local level applications and (iii) a provision of concrete recommendations for the implementation of the most impactful solutions. Moreover, recommendations for decision-makers include (i) defining the goal prior to applying the DST, (ii) identifying key stakeholders, (iii) conducting a rigid baseline assessment and (iv) assuring clear and efficient communication throughout the decision-making process in order to ensure meaningful participation in the process.

Conclusion

In the face of climate change, local governments increasingly see the need for shifting towards sustainable pathways, thus becoming an important leverage for successful decarbonisation. This study aimed to contribute to the strategic assessment and prioritisation of PD solutions at a local level by answering how PD solutions could be operationalised to achieve sustainable and rapid carbon drawdown in local level applications.

As PD solutions provided the necessary foundation to embed sustainability in local applications, we conclude that the extent of the sustainability impact is not only related to the solutions, but also to how they are applied, which brings several considerations for local applications. In order to address this, it is fundamental to understand the challenges and needs of decision-making processes for climate related issues and the complexity entailed in them. Finally, when validating the tool, a reduction of information and the need for overall guidance were found to be critical factors to strategically assess and embed sustainability. An implication of this study is that information has an impact when it can be turned into usable knowledge, bringing forth benefits, like the ability to inspire people, helping them feel confident in their ideas for change, in convincing other stakeholders and in supporting them to understand the overall picture of interlinked solutions and impacts.

We believe this research addresses the identified societal and scientific gaps and can support local public organisations to strategically move towards the systemic goal of a low-carbon and sustainable society. As a consequence of this, local knowledge can be unleashed, the wish for collaborations can be fuelled and the aim of reaching decarbonisation goals can be uplifted.

IX
Glossary

Action Plan: An action plan is a concrete strategic plan with goals and an implementation program (entailing actions with deadlines and responsibilities) in order to move towards the goal / vision.

Backcasting: Backcasting is a strategy different from ‘forecasting’ where one envisions oneself acting in a desirable future where the principles for success have been met, and then plans what one must do to move towards that point.

Blekinge officials: Blekinge officials that were contacted and interviewed. Also referred to as the Blekinge cluster.

Blekinge: Province of Sweden. The term here refers to the geographic location, not to be confused with the organisation Region Blekinge (see definition below).

Carbon sink: Natural or artificial reservoir that absorbs and stores the atmosphere’s carbon with physical and biological mechanisms.

Climate change adaptation: Adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.

Climate change mitigation: Anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases.

Climate change: Change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.

Drawdown: Moment in time in the future where greenhouse gas levels stop rising and start declining to the concentration of pre-industrial times.

Global warming: increase in combined surface air and sea surface temperatures averaged over the globe and over a 30-year period.

Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD): The FSSD is a scientific peer- reviewed concept helping to advance strategically towards sustainability. It has proven to aid organisations in thoroughly understanding and putting themselves in context of the global sustainability challenge and encompasses the following elements used: action plan, backcasting and a principled definition of sustainability.

Karlskrona kommun: Municipality of Karlskrona, also the largest municipality of Blekinge.

Länsstyrelsen: The County Administrative Board, is a national authority that has an administrative ‘arm’ in the region. It measures, follows up and coordinates national tasks in the region.

X
PD experts: Project Drawdown experts that were contacted and interviewed. Also referred to as the PD cluster.

Project Drawdown: Nonprofit organisation that seeks to help the world reach “Drawdown”.

Region Blekinge: Governmental body that takes coordinated responsibility in the county between the different municipalities.

Researchers: Researchers investigating the implementation of similar sustainability decision- making processes at local levels that were contacted and interviewed. Also referred to as the research cluster.

XI
List of Abbreviations

°C : degree Celsius

BTH : Blekinge Tekniska Högskola

CO2 : Carbon dioxide

CO2e : Carbon dioxide equivalent

DST : Decision Support Tool

FSSD : Framework for Sustainable Development

GHGs : Greenhouse Gases

IPCC : Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

MCDA : Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

PD : Project Drawdown ppm : parts per million

SPs : Sustainability Principles

UNFCCC : United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

XII
Table of Contents

Abstract ...... II Statement of Contribution ...... III Acknowledgements ...... IV Executive Summary ...... V Glossary ...... X List of Abbreviations ...... XII Table of Contents ...... XIII List of Figures ...... XV 1. Introduction ...... 1 1.1 The Sustainability Challenge and Climate Change ...... 1 1.1.1 Approaches to Address Global Warming ...... 1 1.2 Project Drawdown: A Different Approach to Global Warming ...... 3 1.2.1 Project Drawdown: A System of Models ...... 4 1.2.2 Project Drawdown and its Connection to the Bigger System ...... 5 1.3 From Global to Local ...... 6 2. Purpose ...... 8 2.1 Conceptual Framework ...... 8 2.2 Research Questions ...... 10 2.3 Scope ...... 11 2.4 Limitations ...... 12 3. Methodology ...... 13 3.1 Philosophical Stance ...... 13 3.2 Research Approach ...... 13 3.3 Research Design ...... 15 3.3.1 Phase 1: Understanding sustainability in PD and the Local Applicability of the Solutions ...... 15 3.3.2 Phase 2: Embedding Sustainability for Decarbonisation Decision-making ...... 17 3.3.3 Phase 3: Designing a Decision Support Tool and Validating its Usefulness ...... 17 3.4 Data Analysis and Interpretation ...... 18 3.5 Ethical Considerations ...... 19 3.6 Introduction to Results and Discussion ...... 19 4. Phase 1: Understanding Sustainability in PD and the Local Applicability of the Solutions ...... 21

XIII
4.1 Results ...... 21 4.1.1 Interviews on Sustainability and Local Application ...... 21 4.1.2 Literature Review on Relevance Criteria ...... 23 4.1.3 Document Review on Blekinge Context ...... 24 4.1.4 Relevance and Sustainability Assessment ...... 24 4.2 Discussion...... 26 5. Phase 2: Embedding Sustainability for Decarbonisation Decision-making ...... 29 5.1 Results ...... 29 5.1.1 Interviews on Sustainability and Decision-making in Blekinge Public Organisations ...... 29 5.2 Discussion...... 32 6. Phase 3: Designing a Decision Support Tool and Validating its Usefulness ...... 36 6.1 Results ...... 36 6.1.1 Literature Review on Climate Decision-making and Prioritisation Criteria ...... 36 6.1.2 Interviews on Decision Support Tool ...... 37 6.1.3 Workshops ...... 38 6.1.4 The Decision Support Tool ...... 38 6.1.5 External Validation ...... 41 6.2 Discussion...... 41 7. Conclusion ...... 45 References ...... 48 Appendixes ...... 53 Appendix A. PD Solutions ...... 53 Appendix B. The Eight Sustainability Principles ...... 54 Appendix C. Literature Review ...... 55 Appendix D. Document Review...... 56 Appendix E. Interviews ...... 58 Appendix F. Workshop ...... 60 Appendix G. Online Survey ...... 62 Appendix H. Coding Process ...... 63 Appendix H. Decision Support Tool ...... 66 Appendix J. Results for Example Case: Blekinge ...... 71

XIV
List of Figures

Figure 1.1. Project Drawdown and the interaction with the bigger system ...... 6 Figure 2.1. The funnel metaphor ...... 9 Figure 2.2. Research focus...... 10 Figure 3.1. Research approach (adopted from Maxwell 2009)...... 14 Figure 3.2. Research design phases ...... 18 Figure 6.1. Decision Support Tool ...... 40

XV

“The how really matters, as the same practice or technology can have very different outcomes depending on implementation. It takes intention and care to move solutions forward in ways that heal rather than deepen systemic injustices.”

Wilkinson 2020

XVI
1. Introduction

1.1 The Sustainability Challenge and Climate Change

Humanity is facing several substantial problems that endanger future life on earth. Some of these problems are also known as 'planetary boundaries' (PBs) (e.g. climate change, biodiversity). Exceeding any of the nine PBs risks destabilising the integrity of the planetary systems. Therefore, all PBs must be respected to remain within the 'safe operating space' for humanity (Steffen et al. 2015). The PB for climate change is being exceeded by exponentially rising GHG emissions caused by society’s contemporary dominant system of production and consumption based on linear resource extraction, rather short product life cycles and dependency on fossil fuels. As rising emissions approach unprecedented thresholds and dangerous tipping points, our current socio-ecological systems are at risk of collapse (Robèrt et al. 2019). The systematic societal errors that drive the unsustainable character of socio- ecological systems and the major barriers of addressing these errors combined, are also referred to as the sustainability challenge (Broman and Robèrt 2017).

A predominant sustainability challenge is the systematic increase of GHGs, such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, amongst others, caused by the burning of fossil fuels. This has led to an increase in the “combined surface air and sea surface temperatures averaged over the globe” as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (thereafter IPCC) (2018) defines global warming. Nowadays, concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is currently surpassing by more than 60 ppm the 350 ppm stated as the planetary boundary level for the atmospheric CO2 concentration (Rockström et al. 2009, ESRL 2020). Climate change, which is a symptom of the underlying problem of global warming, involves rising temperatures and its implications for the environment and society, such as water pollution, increasing droughts, desertification and deforestation, and loss of biodiversity (Wollersheim 2017).

1.1.1 Approaches to Address Global Warming

The IPCC, the United Nations’ body that provides regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, is a good starting point to understand how climate change is being addressed. The IPCC’s main purpose is to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options (IPCC n.d.). According to the IPCC Report ‘Global Warming of 1.5 °C’, “climate change impacts and responses are closely linked to sustainable development, which balances social well-being, economic prosperity and environmental protection” (IPCC 2018). In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) entered into force as a co-ordinated attempt to mitigate climate change, holding the main goal of “preventing ‘dangerous’ human interference with the climate system” (UNFCCC n.d.). The program has been running for almost 30 years but it was only through the Paris Agreement in 2015 that for the first time all nations came together in the common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and took binding commitments to limit the increase of the average global temperature to 1.5 to 2 °C above pre industrial levels (UNFCCC n.d.). Therefore, central governments play an important role in policy-making towards reductions in GHG emissions. Acceptance and implementation of climate actions must include local

1
governments and non-state actors, as the role and control of local authorities may vary depending on national conditions (Gustavsson, Elander, and Lundmark 2009).

There exist several approaches and initiatives presenting solutions to undertake large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate systems (IPCC 2018, Ramanathan et al. 2019). Also, there is a wide body of climate science research, such as the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)7, the Stockholm Resilience Centre8, and various global climate models and solution pathways. In 2015, a multidisciplinary group of over 50 experts of the University of California came together to discuss a comprehensive approach to reverse global warming. The report ‘Bending the curve’ comprises ten main solutions that are categorised under six different clusters to reverse the trajectory of human-induced global warming by reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 (Ramanathan et al. 2019). A carbon roadmap developed by Rockström et al. (2017), driven by the notion of halving emissions every decade to catalyse disruptive innovation, presents the ‘carbon law’, based on Moore’s law, a concept that in combination with scalable carbon removal and improved land-use, could potentially limit global warming to well below 2 °C. Furthermore, Falk and Gaffney (2019) designed the ‘2019 Exponential Climate Action Roadmap Initiative’9 which includes 36 economically viable solutions and strategies to scale transformation to halve global GHG emissions by 2030. Another example is the Deep Decarbonisation Pathways Project (DDPP)10, which presents a new global knowledge base for decarbonisation and has a high focus on the energy sector. The project aims to limit global warming to 2 °C by taking a solutions-oriented approach, focusing on sector-by-sector pathways and providing a long-term framework for decision-makers. In the IPCC report ‘Global warming of 1.5 °C’ four illustrative model pathways were developed based on a global system model. Here, the mission pathways and system transitions are consistent with 1.5 °C of global warming. Although it was an ambitious attempt to report on the climate challenge and its solutions, numerous scientists stated that the report was not strong enough and that it did not capture the full extent of the threat by excluding, for example, tipping points and thereby did not take a whole systems approach (Ward 2018).

Mitigation and Adaptation

In order to distinguish these approaches and make sense of them, it is good to classify them into two groups, climate mitigation and climate adaptation. The IPCC defines mitigation as an “anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases” (IPCC 2000, 379), and adaptation as the “adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities” (IPCC 2000, 365). In other terms, mitigation is the reduction of what is causing the problem, whereas adaptation is adapting to problems as they occur and making them less damaging to peoples’ lives.

Reversing Global Warming

The increased understanding gained through scientific findings is that mitigating climate change may not be enough to achieve the goal set in the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC n.d.). Thus, humanity might need to aim beyond mitigation and towards a regenerative state. Estimations of historical emissions vary, but according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
7 https://www.wcrp-climate.org/ 8 https://www.stockholmresilience.org/ 9 https://exponentialroadmap.org/ 10 http://deepdecarbonisation.org/

2
humanity has emitted 1,578 gigatons of CO2 from fossil fuels since 1751, and half of those emissions (820 gigatons) were emitted since 1989 (Boden, Marland and Andres 2010). Therefore, even if we completely stopped emitting GHGs today, climate change would not be solved (Rockström et al. 2017; 2009). As a society with a highly dominant industrial character, we have a legacy of carbon that has to be drawn down in order to reverse global warming (Rockström et al. 2016).

In order to move towards reversing climate change, different alternatives to remove GHGs from the atmosphere exist (Foley 2019). A key leverage point in capturing carbon is related to carbon sinks. A carbon sink is a “natural or artificial reservoir that absorbs and stores the atmosphere’s carbon with physical and biological mechanisms” (Ocean & Climate Platform n.d.). This means that the Earth’s natural cycles, when in balance, hold the capacity to balance the natural cycles of carbon. Natural sinks, such as lands (forests and grasslands) and oceans, can remove around half of the CO2 emitted per year (Foley 2019). Lal (2004) has found that carbon sequestration holds the potential to offset 0.4 to 1.2 gigatons of carbon per year, which is 5 to 15% of the global fossil fuel emissions. In the book ‘Atmosphere of Hope’, Tim Flannery describes a set of solutions that capitalises on the Earth’s own carbon-capture possibilities to address the climate crisis. Since the natural alternatives, such as land and ocean are deteriorating (Rockström et al. 2016), less efficient carbon sinks are emerging, such as geoengineering methods. These technologies seem promising and have the potential to accelerate action to reverse global warming, even though potential implications and acceptable risks still need to be developed (Wang and Stewart 2018).

Next to all these initiatives, the non-profit research organisation Project Drawdown (thereafter PD) proposed their decarbonisation solutions to be researched in conjunction with sustainability in this thesis. In the following, it shall be outlined how this organisation’s approach is different and how their systems perspective provides the groundwork for this study, building upon decarbonisation approaches in a local context to address the overall sustainability of the planet.

1.2 Project Drawdown: A Different Approach to Global Warming

The concept ‘drawdown’ has several meanings in different contexts. In PD it is identified as “the moment in time in the future where greenhouse gas levels stop rising and start declining to the concentration of pre-industrial times” (Jacobs 2020). PD assesses, maps, models, and describes the potential of the most substantive solutions to achieve drawdown by 2050 (Drawdown Europe n.d.).

PD, also known as the Drawdown Global Research collaborative, is constituted by the collaborative effort of over 200 researchers, policymakers, businesses, thought leaders and organisations who developed a model to enable action and implementation throughout the world. Their common mission is to enable a transformation towards a regenerative society that has cascading benefits to human well-being in their relationship with nature, while training the next generation of global citizens and thought leaders (Drawdown Europe n.d.).

In 2017, the first PD book was published which was meant to serve as an inspiration and an engaging attempt to learn about solutions that have the potential to reverse global warming. ‘Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming’ was the best-selling climate book in history (Jacobs 2020). Beyond serving as an inspiration, PD

3
recognised that the solutions needed to be picked up and implemented in growing numbers in order to have the effect intended. Their effect is proven: “The assessments of potential technologies and practices in which the solutions are based upon, are executed using scientifically valid criteria to show that the scientific claim around the carbon sequestration is valid. Also, [in order to be assessed] the solutions need to be financially valid, which means that there is a business case over time” (Interview with Chad Frischmann, March 30, 2020). Currently, the organisation is working on Drawdown 2.0, which focuses on partnerships and tools, resources and more connections to society (Jacobs 2020). PD is also creating a ‘Knowledge System for Solutions’, a platform that “is designed to be a repository of our data knowledge and models, but also to be a portal for different sustainability institutions to create their own sets of solutions at different scales” (Interview with Chad Frischmann, March 30, 2020). As stated before, recognising the gaps from identification of a solution to its implementation and providing ways to bridge this gap is essential to achieve a future that is aligned with the 1.5 or 2 °C scenario. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to provide recommendations for policymakers so they can operationalise the solutions at the local level and thereby spot potential needs, risks and key learnings for public organisations.

1.2.1 Project Drawdown: A System of Models

According to Chad Frischman, research director and vice president of PD, most of the models that address global warming solutions are not comprehensive (Frischmann 2020). “Current global models often lack tools and data for policy-making” (Interview with Roy Straver, January 31, 2020) and few global models have a bottom-up solution-oriented approach that adopts a decision-makers perspective (Frischmann 2019). According to Amanda Ravenhill, former executive director of PD, the current reductionist worldview leads humanity to lose connection to a systems understanding (Ravenhill 2019). An indirect effect related to a solution or action can lead to either unintended consequences or cascading benefits. With these characteristics in mind, PD has built a model that incorporates the intrinsic values of nature and by doing so creates the way towards a systems-based understanding of socio-ecological systems (Ravenhill 2019). Thereby, PD tries to evaluate human activity in a way that is useful and meaningful to decision-makers and addresses not only a societal gap but also a scientific gap in sustainability science. Most scientists are caught in reductionist thinking. To create a global understanding of the problems and the solutions related to global warming, it is not enough to just study the parts or processes of systems in isolation (Hjorth and Bagheri 2006). Socio- ecological systems contain several systems properties like bounded rationality, limited certainty, limited predictability, indeterminate causality and evolutionary change (Hjorth and Bagheri 2006). To address these properties and avoid unintended consequences, a paradigm shift from mechanistic thinking to systems thinking is needed.

Taking this holistic approach, PD created a system of models with integrated and interrelated sectors. This approach poses several advantages. First, it decreases the risk of double counting - or when GHG emission reduction or removal is used multiple times which implies an overestimation of mitigation results (Climate Focus 2016). Another benefit of taking a systems approach is that the land allocation for each solution is taken into consideration. Land allocation consists of two processes: 1) the technical potential is based on the suitability of the soils, climate and quality of the land, and 2) a priority model for each class of land is used to allocate the land for each solution (PD 2020).

4
PD argues that each of the solutions they provide address at least one of the following drawdown mechanisms: 1) ‘Replace’ fossil fuel emitting practices with clean renewable alternatives, 2) ‘Reduce’ demand for consumption through technological efficiencies and behavioural change, and 3) ‘Restore’ our natural carbon cycle by converting carbon dioxide into soil and biomass (Frischmann 2020).

1.2.2 Project Drawdown and its Connection to the Bigger System

In order to understand the benefit of PD methods and their usefulness in different contexts, it is necessary to acknowledge the interconnectedness of the ecological and the social systems. The ecological system is a complex adaptive system that secures assimilation capacity, purification capacity, food production capacity, climate regulation capacity, biological diversity and more. The resilience of the social system is essential to let humanity thrive and encompasses the ability for common meaning making, capacity for learning and capacity for self-organisation, among others (Robèrt et al. 2019). Many organisations that operate in the social system do not respect ecological boundaries, creating a separation of the social and ecological system. Current social structures tend to ignore their relationship to ecological boundaries, and often fail to consider when these boundaries are being crossed resulting in ecological degradation despite warnings from scientists. Thus, organisations, like PD, play an essential role in including and addressing actors from different social subsystems and making social and ecological system boundaries understandable and approachable. By identifying the most viable global climate solutions and sharing these findings, PD spreads awareness on risks of boundary violations, and most importantly allows organisations and individuals to address violations in impactful and opportune ways (Drawdown Europe n.d.).

PD, as an organisation, relates to the different ecological and social (sub)systems. It is part of the social system, which is nested within the ecological one since it is dependent on the natural services it provides. What is interesting about PD, is that its existence is tightly linked to the most important current ecological problems. The solutions proposed, address system problems related to limited natural resources or unsustainable energy sources.

The application of climate actions in different regions, nations and contexts requires different approaches. Climate challenges are complex, interrelated and need transboundary solutions. Without international cooperation, an identification of context specific implementation would be difficult. The IPCC emphasises that “international cooperation is a critical enabler for developing countries and vulnerable regions” (IPCC 2018). While PD is an international organisation operating in multiple countries, it aims at enforcing local application of drawdown solutions in different contexts. PD bridges several social subsystems: civil society, academia, private organisations and public organisations. It also provides accessible and understandable knowledge and inspiration, including awareness and knowledge dissemination, as ways to implement the solutions and engage in collaborative actions.

In Figure 1.1. it is mapped how PD relates to these areas and subsystems.

5

Figure 1.1. Project Drawdown and the interaction with the bigger system

1.3 From Global to Local

The idea of addressing transboundary challenges at a local level is not new. Already in the Brundtland Report the idea of addressing transboundary environmental issues at a local level was raised (Fuhr, Hickmann, and Kern 2018a). Also, the Paris Agreement stressed the important role of local governments in the global response to address global warming (Fuhr, Hickmann, and Kern 2018). For the past 32 years, the IPCC has been providing intergovernmental advice to support transboundary action, and it has stated that expeditious transitions can happen when national governments cooperate with local and regional decision makers (IPCC 2018).

In the face of major challenges, such as the climate change, problems are too big and interdependent for nation-states (Barber 2013). In the book ‘Mayors rule the world’, Benjamin Barber argues that cities are more fitted at tackling transnational problems than nation-states. Examples of qualities that cities share with each other on a global level are civic trust, pragmatism, indifference to borders and sovereignty, creativity, innovation and cooperation (Barber 2013). In addition, municipalities possess financial, constitutional, legal, political and professional resources (Bäck 2005), posing a suitable environment for climate actions. Local governments are determined to be vital actors in the multi-level climate governance system, but local action for climate mitigation must be linked with higher-level governance initiatives (Fuhr, Hickmann, and Kern 2018). Two key reasons appear when addressing local or regional administrations for climate change policies. Firstly, they are arenas for the application of accepted climate related activities or solutions. Secondly, they play an important role as organisations within a multi-level governance framework (Gustavsson, Elander, and Lundmark 2009). Local governments, academia and other public institutions are increasingly seeing the need to shift towards sustainable pathways. Public organisations carry the mandate and therefore responsibility to secure the wellbeing of the civil society and additionally create the

6
rules of the game. It is not to be forgotten that this includes global challenges like COVID-19, in which the usefulness of effective local policies gains new meaning for global resilience (Wells et al. 2020, CAT 2020). Therefore, policies are considered an important leverage point for successful decarbonisation. PD solutions offer guidance and they require private or public organisations and individuals to implement them (Messerli et al. 2019).

As identified earlier, PD tries to evaluate human activity in a way that is useful and meaningful to decision-makers (Frischmann 2019). Apart from the need to address climate change on a local level, there is an urgent need for meaningful information and effective public processes (Sheppard et al. 2011). For the 1.5 °C target to be achieved, the local climate policies need to be scaled up massively (Fuhr, Hickmann, and Kern 2018a). “Next to intention and care, access to knowledge and actionable information and practices is crucial” (Interview with Roy Straver, March 15, 2020).

Thus, this study focuses on providing knowledge and supporting policymakers in making rapid, accurate and sustainable decisions on decarbonisation solutions for their contexts. This undertaking is important because “solutions do not scale themselves” (Interview with Roy Straver, March 15, 2020) and “what may be politically unrealistic at present is physically and economically realistic, according to our analysis. There is a path forward for the world.” (Wilkinson 2020). Policies are enablers, “policy shifts can advance solutions, while stopping sources of the problem” (Wilkinson 2020). Thereby policies pose a leverage point for changes in the dominant system of production and consumption and in the transformation of the economic sector and the civil society sector. In the following section further research aims and approaches will be outlined.

7
2. Purpose

The main purpose of this study was to explore how PD solutions are translatable to achieve sustainable carbon drawdown on a local level. Therefore, we aimed 1) to assess whether PD solutions consider sustainability according to the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (thereafter FSSD, 2) to seek how policymakers can be supported to apply PD solutions at a local level and 3) to prove the usefulness of a carefully crafted Decision Support Tool (thereafter DST) for decision-makers around the globe. The research purpose addresses societal and scientific gaps of decision making and local application of climate solutions for carbon drawdown.

Firstly, decision-makers are often unaware of all the existing solutions and tools that are available (Frischmann 2020). The main barrier on the path towards drawdown is that policymakers, decision makers and communities are not aware that the solutions to drawdown already exist and that there is a need to know the global solutions in local and regionalised contexts (Frischmann 2020). According to Sheppard et al. (2011), there is a need for meaningful information and effective public process at the local level to build awareness, capacity and agency on climate change, and to support planning and decision-making. As discussed in Section 1.3, local governments are crucial actors in the multi-level climate governance system (Fuhr, Hickmann, and Kern 2018) and there is a need for cities and municipalities to take the lead in climate change mitigation (Göpfert, Wamsler, and Lang 2019). Thus, providing decision support by taking PD solutions to the local authority level could address this need.

Secondly, decision makers are in need of a strategic sustainability lens that provides a holistic viewpoint to address climate challenges. Especially in public policy-making, where credibility is essential, it is crucial that sustainability and decarbonisation are seen from a systems perspective so that externalities generated by approaching these challenges can be anticipated and dealt with. To create a global understanding of the problems and the solutions related to global warming, it is not enough to just study the parts or processes of systems in isolation (Hjorth and Bagheri 2006). Socio-ecological systems contain several systems properties like bounded rationality, limited certainty, limited predictability, indeterminate causality and evolutionary change (Hjorth and Bagheri 2006). To address these properties and avoid unintended consequences, a paradigm shift from mechanistic thinking to systems thinking is needed. Since PD took this approach further and created a system of models in which all sectors are integrated, addressing the need for meaningful information and effective public processes at the local level by finding out how global solutions PD could be operationalised, could add value (interview with Roy Straver, January 31, 2020).

2.1 Conceptual Framework

In order to assess the proposed solutions in terms of sustainability, the FSSD was used. It includes eight Sustainability Principles (thereafter SPs) that were developed by scientists and practitioners to provide guidance and a structure to assess sustainable development (Broman and Robèrt 2017). The main underlying reason for using the FSSD is because it provides a unifying and operational definition of sustainability, and a systematic approach to planning and acting for the fulfilment of humanity’s dealing with the sustainability challenge. Furthermore, the framework is based on systems science for sustainability and is novel in uniting these

8
disciplines. The creation of the FSSD began in Sweden in the early 1990s and has been refined over 25 years (Holmberg et al. 1999; Robèrt 2000; Missimer, Robèrt, and Broman 2017).

The FSSD includes several key features necessary to strategically provide and choose between a range of designs of future sustainable societies. It also allows for each sector to identify their respective challenges, opportunities and prioritised early steps in relation to the SPs, compare notes and then find avenues for collaboration as opposed to silo-mentality and compartmentalisation.

The ‘funnel metaphor’ is used to describe the sustainability challenge of our current times, showing how humanity’s operation capacities and the possibility of fulfilling human needs are being drastically reduced. The metaphor highlights that the decline in resources and increasing urgency of the problem is of systemic character, becoming worse day by day and in need of multisector collaborative solutions. The funnel serves to illustrate what humanity should aim for: a cylinder with stable walls (boundary conditions). It also highlights the benefits of proactivity in tackling sustainability. For example, an early investment towards the opening of the funnel allows to capture innovation opportunities and explore new markets, while further down the funnel there are less competitive advantages (Broman and Robèrt 2017).

In addition to the theoretical description of the funnel as identified within the FSSD, this thesis highlights a concept of interpretation as for the end stage of the funnel: regeneration. Moving out of the funnel, identified as a point of departure and referred to as a ‘regenerative’ state, it is highly related to the positive narrative of PD and is therefore also included in the conceptual framework.

Figure 2.1. The funnel metaphor

A ‘principled definition of sustainability’ has been developed in the FSSD and is continuously refined to come as close as possible to compliance with the criteria ‘necessary’, ‘sufficient’, ‘general’, ‘concrete’, and ‘non-overlapping’. This definition of sustainability sets the basic conditions that are necessary to fulfil for the ecological and social systems not to systematically degrade. They constitute the boundary conditions within which society can continue to function and evolve, outside of which it cannot. For a detailed explanation on the SPs please refer to Appendix B. While it cannot be excluded that there could be other sustainability definitions that identify other principles that closely fulfil the above criteria (necessary, sufficient, general, concrete and non-overlapping) and would lead to different system implication, the sustainability principles of the FSSD are, to our knowledge, the only ones that have been aimed at fulfilling these criteria

9
and thus designed for the purpose of being useful for backcasting planning and redesign for sustainability, which is necessary in planning decarbonisation solutions for the future.

In order to develop a DST, several decision-making frameworks and decision- making tools were analysed. Usually, environmental decisions are complex and involve many stakeholders with different interests and priorities. In addition, environmental decisions, especially sustainability related ones require a multidisciplinary approach (Accorsi, Apostolakis, and Zio 1999). Success of environmental decision making in a complex situation is highly dependent on well integration of three key elements in the study: people, process and tools (Accorsi, Apostolakis, and Zio 1999). For the purpose of this research, a multi-criteria decision analysis (thereafter MCDA) was considered. A MCDA helps the assessment of possible solutions by using pre-established criteria. Unlike other (such as life-cycle assessment, cost-benefit analysis) alternatives, a MCDA does not require inputs to be translated to quantitative values. A MCDA is appropriate for climate planning and action (Puig and Aparcana 2016). The reasons of the usage of a MCDA for the climate related actions are: 1) it covers various perspectives (socio- economic, ecological, institutional, ethical, etc.), 2) it can consider issues such as equity, environmental damage, risks and uncertainty, and 3) it is not limited to the study areas, but flexible enough for application in other domains (Puig and Aparcana 2016). As the MCDA plays a supportive role in the decision-making process, it is important to mention that the results may not always be enough for making decisions (Puig and Aparcana 2016).

This research focuses on assessing and integrating the decarbonisation solutions proposed by PD using the FSSD and including decision-making elements in order to operationalise them for local level applications.

Figure 2.2. Research focus.

2.2 Research Questions

Main Research Question

How can PD solutions be operationalised to achieve sustainable and rapid carbon drawdown in local level applications?

10
Sub-questions

RQ1. To what extent are Project Drawdown solutions sustainable (according to the FSSD) when considering them for a local level application? RQ2. How can sustainability (according to the FSSD) be embedded in public decision- making for rapid carbon drawdown? RQ3. To what extent can a decision support tool with Project Drawdown solutions be useful for rapid carbon drawdown?

2.3 Scope

The primary scope is to develop a tool that will support local authorities in their decision- making processes considering which PD solutions are most relevant and sustainable in their context. In this regard, the solutions will be context dependent. For that reason, we aimed to develop a DST that was useful in scaling down global PD solutions to the local level, but also sufficiently flexible to be adapted in different contexts.

During the time this study was conducted, the most recent updated solutions were used, taking as a reference point the information on the PD website11, as other publications (e.g. the PD book) mainly formed inspiration. It is good to mention that we have not analysed the PD collaborations and partnerships, the communication of PD solutions nor further actions to be developed by PD occurring during the development of this thesis, and that the actual application of solutions was also out of the scope of this study.

This thesis research is based upon the Swedish context. Sweden is a highly developed nation with transparent and robust democratic governing institutions. It has an integrative central-local governance system, especially in environmental politics by amalgamation of strong national interest and commitments with powerful and capable local administrations. In relation to climate initiatives, in June 2019, the Swedish government made its carbon neutral actions publicly available and disseminated ‘Panorama’, “a collaboration tool that visualises and accelerates Sweden’s climate transition (SCPC n.d.), becoming “the first country in the world to make its actions towards a carbon neutral future publicly available” (ClimateView 2019). Here, Blekinge was chosen as an example case. This is one of the twenty-five provinces in Sweden and comprises five municipalities: Olofström, Sölvesborg, Karlshamn, Ronneby and Karlskrona. Region Blekinge is the governmental body that takes coordinated responsibility in the county between the different municipalities. Its mission is to promote sustainable development throughout the region with core responsibilities of health care, public health, regional growth, infrastructure, public transport, culture and education (Region Blekinge 2020). Another key actor is Länsstyrelsen, the county administrative board of Blekinge, which is a national authority that has an administrative ‘arm’ in the region. It measures, follows up and coordinates national tasks in the region. (Länsstyrelsen Blekinge n.d.). Finally, a more focused approach on Karlskrona kommun was taken, as it is the largest municipality of the region.

The primary audiences for this work are researchers, who work on sustainability and reversing global warming; municipality and city administrations, who might use this study to guide the selection of relevant solutions to tackle global warming challenges for a local level application;

11 https://drawdown.org/solutions

11
financial institutions, that finance climate mitigation projects and might need guidance to assess the relevance of projects aiming to mitigate or/and adapt to global warming; and PD itself, as it can use further recommendations when adapting their methodology and solutions in order to meet strategic sustainability needs.

2.4 Limitations

Several limitations and concerns were observed in this study. Firstly, since the applicability and implications of PD solutions were analysed in Blekinge, Sweden, we acknowledge that the applicability of solutions may depend on socio-political and economic systems in different countries, therefore the assessment is context dependent. Especially, since one of the research aims was to create a tool for generic application, it is highly noteworthy to take this into account. Second, we are aware that participants of our research, who may be part of an organisation, express their personal opinions based on their extensive knowledge and experience, and these viewpoints may not be aligned or overlapping with their organisation’s official position. Third, during the development of this research the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded. This meant that most of the interviews and workshops could not be conducted in person and that, depending on the interviewee, availability differed considerably compared to standard times. Lastly, we are aware that we depended on cooperation with the PD team to access the relevant data, and that clear boundaries were needed to be established to ensure the objectivity of the results.

12
3. Methodology

3.1 Philosophical Stance

In our research, we aimed to abstain as far as possible from unconscious philosophical stances that might influence our research approach. Therefore, we reflected upon our philosophical stances while also questioning one anothers’, so we could state the limitations of our research due to the philosophical stance taken and make our assumptions more explicit (Eriksson and Kovalainen 2008). When doing research, it is important to be conscious about one’s ontological view, epistemological view, research perspective and paradigm because most assumptions are based upon these, and the way one sees the world and sees the creation of knowledge influences the entire research (Savin-Baden and Howell Major 2013).

Because there is not one but four researchers that form part of this work, the research perspective chosen for this research is an intersubjective one, which is based on the stance that research is mutual and co-arises from the engagement of interdependent individuals and the mutual agreement of a small group of people about what is real. This is closely interlinked with our worldview (paradigm) which can be described by the notion of Pragmatism, that states that reality exists for individuals, but knowledge is contextually contingent - it may be discovered by examining the usefulness of theory in practice. Social constructionism also describes our worldview well, since it states that reality and knowledge are socially constructed, and knowledge can be gained by examining how individuals co-create knowledge. It emerges through dialogue and negotiation, so dialogue between researchers and participants is crucial. Researchers aim to capture participants’ perspectives, but the researchers’ interpretations of these views need to be understood and verified by those involved in the research (Savin-Baden and Howell Major 2013). The pragmatist / social constructionist worldview held, explains our approach to gaining knowledge through co-creation and of selecting an appropriate research method for that. Since answering the research questions is typically a priority for pragmatists, the data collection and analysis methods were chosen by what was most likely to provide insights into the question without loyalty to a specific research approach (Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003; Corbin et al. 2005).

3.2 Research Approach

This research was developed taking into consideration different methods and evaluating them based on their effectiveness to extract theory from practice and then applying it back to the process, as the methodology needed to support an interactive approach between the research questions, the conceptual framework and the data collected. Thus, a qualitative interactive approach to research design was used to answer the research questions using an iterative and interactive balance between the five key dimensions (Maxwell 2009). The research was flexible enough to admit re-adjustments, depending on the insights obtained during the entire process. Flexibility and the iterative character of Maxwell's approach was useful and needed for our thesis. Since at the beginning of the research, we knew that our findings would affect our research questions, goal, methods, concepts and validity. Indeed, despite the identification of phases for the research, we revisited these elements throughout the process. One of the key reasons for this was that the objective of operationalising global PD

13
solutions at the local level required bringing “engagement of people” and “knowledge on process” into the research, which was carried out continuously. Figure 3.1 shows the key elements based on our research and their interconnections.

Figure 3.1. Research Approach (adopted from Maxwell 2009).

Regarding the data collection methods used to gather information for the research, as recognisable in the previous figure, several options were considered.

Literature Review

A comprehensive literature review was conducted to have a better understanding of decarbonisation strategies and initiatives, as well as their local application, a review on relevance criteria was also completed, as well as a thorough review of several decision-making processes and frameworks in order to find information to develop the DST. For a list of keywords used to find relevant literature please refer to Appendix C.

Official Documents

Publicly available documents on PD were reviewed to collect appropriate information for better understanding of the solutions, the PD methodology and technical information that could be of use. Also, several documents about Blekinge and Sweden were revised to establish a baseline of the local context that was used in different phases of the research. For more information on the documents consulted please refer to Appendix D.

Interviews

Semi-structured interviews were conducted and grouped in three different clusters. The first group are PD experts (also referred to as the PD cluster), the second includes Blekinge officials

14
that work in Region Blekinge12, Länsstyrelsen (thereafter Länsstyrelsen since no other provinces are part of the study) and Karlskrona kommun (also referred to as the Blekinge cluster), and a third group composed of researchers investigating the implementation of similar sustainability decision-making processes at local levels (also referred to as the research cluster). This method was used since interviews provide value due to their semi-flexibility characteristic to align depth and coverage of pre-defined questions according to the responses. Face-to-face and online interviews were conducted. For more information on interviews and interviewees please refer to Appendix E.

Workshop

Two online workshops were conducted that included the participation of Länsstyrelsen and Karlskrona kommun in order to get relevant insights on the DST, as well as to reveal participants’ perceptions on the applicability of the tool. For more information on the workshop please refer to Appendix F.

Questionnaire based survey

A semi-structured questionnaire was sent out to check the usefulness of the DST. For this, we gathered opinions from external sources who have implemented or supported the implementation of climate related projects in various parts of the world. For more information on the survey please refer to Appendix G.

3.3 Research Design

Qualitative research methods were used to analyse the applicability of PD solutions in the local context in a sustainable manner. The key output of this research is a DST for the above- mentioned purpose. Blekinge was selected as an example case in order to provide a local context with the purpose of strengthening the contextual analysis with a limited scope and variables. Despite the example case, encompassing unique characteristics, the current research includes generic recommendations on how it can be realigned and tested in different environments. The overall research process is composed of three phases.

3.3.1 Phase 1: Understanding sustainability in PD and the Local Applicability of the Solutions

The main purpose of this phase is to answer the first research question, “To what extent are PD solutions sustainable when considering them for a local level application?”. In order to do this, we needed to understand the PD methodology and how sustainability is embedded in it. For this, we conducted a comprehensive document review on PD as an organisation, the background of its methodology, and how the solutions were developed and technically analysed. Also, interviews with four PD experts and researchers were held, as they expressed their interest in the conduction of this study and for the PD methodology and

12 Since Region Blekinge did not take part in the entire thesis process, the interviewee’s statements were only used as additional information to contextualise public organisations in Blekinge.

15
solutions to be connected to sustainability according to the FSSD. The direct contact was helpful to have direct access to the data.

To tackle the local applicability approach, we wanted to get a notion of how Blekinge officials see the region in regard to sustainability and the current state of their local context. For this, five interviews with different officials were conducted.

A relevance and a sustainability assessment were conducted, which are also the outcome of Phase 1 that feeds into the DST as the first and second step.

Relevance Assessment

Considering that PD solutions have been developed globally, their relevance and applicability for local conditions needed to first be examined in order to assess their applicability in the local context. The main goal of this process was to identify and eliminate solutions that are difficult or impossible to apply locally.

This step was conducted in order to check if the criteria mentioned served as a good first filter to narrow down PD solutions, to further assess only those that are relevant for the context. The assessment was started by asking the question “Is this solution relevant for the local context?” and in order to answer two approaches were considered: 1) reviewing the PD methodology to see if the solutions were applicable in the chosen geographical region, or 2) by conducting a document review considering the general local context, that included official statistics and climate policies. This question admits three different predetermined answers: x No = the solution is not relevant to the local context. x Maybe = further information is needed to determine relevance (e.g. technical expertise, etc.). x Yes = the solution is relevant, and it will go into the next phase.

Sustainability Assessment

Here an assessment based on the eight SPs was conducted to see how PD solutions align with sustainability when taking into consideration its application in the particular context. This was done by using specific documents of Blekinge - or in case local information was not available, of Sweden - to gain insight about the application in the chosen local context. For more information on the documents consulted please refer to Appendix D.

Each solution was screened against each SP and a numerical value was given to it depending on the degree of alignment: 0 = misalignment; 1 = neutral; 2 = indirect alignment; 3 = direct alignment. With this, each solution had a final score that was considered only when reviewing which solutions are generally more aligned with the SPs. It is important to keep in mind that the final number is not intended to rank the solutions, but rather to filter those who do not have any misalignments (no 0 in the assessment for any SP) and those who are better aligned, indicating that there are important aspects to consider for a sustainable application of PD solutions in general.

16
3.3.2 Phase 2: Embedding Sustainability for Decarbonisation Decision-making

The purpose of this phase is to answer research question two, “How can sustainability (according to FSSD) be included in prioritising PD solutions to inform policy-making?”. Here, it was important to understand how sustainability is perceived in the local context, how it is included in decision-making processes and what aspects should be taken into consideration when addressing local application.

This phase commenced with the interviews with PD experts in order to get their input on different experiences they had when involved in local applications (more information in Appendix D). Also, the interviews with Blekinge officials feed into this phase, since their answers allowed us to understand how decision-making works in Blekinge and insights into internal processes could be gained. Lastly, more information was gathered by interviewing the research cluster. These three clusters are the main source of specific local data, therefore continuous interaction with them was maintained, since they provided reliable and relevant information when taking into consideration local processes and local application.

3.3.3 Phase 3: Designing a Decision Support Tool and Validating its Usefulness

The final phase looks at answering research question 3, “To what extent can a decision support tool with PD solutions provide a useful tool for rapid sustainable carbon drawdown?”. This was done by checking how the relevance and sustainability assessments fitted into the DST, understanding other elements that needed to be included in order to develop a tool that is useful, relevant, accessible and meaningful. The outcome of this last phase includes the design of a DST which can help local governments make decisions regarding the application of PD solutions in their local contexts.

Here, a literature review about decision-making, interviewing PD experts, Blekinge officials and researchers (more information in Appendix C), and conducting a workshop with the Blekinge cluster served as a basis for the creation of a tool that will support decision-making regarding sustainable decarbonisation.

The workshop, crafted to check the usefulness of the DST, was designed in three sections. First, some time was allocated for the introduction of the topic and the explanation of the tool. The second part consisted of a set of guided exercises for the relevance assessment, the sustainability assessment and the final prioritisation. Finally, the third section was of a more reflective nature, so participants could provide general feedback and further recommendations. For more information about the workshop please refer to Appendix F.

This phase also encompasses a validation and usefulness check of the DST in two directions: 1) an internal validation, that includes validating the criteria, decision making pattern, local conformability, unintended consequences, challenges and opportunities, and assumptions by regional policymakers and field experts, and 2) an external check, with the intention to corroborate the usefulness of the DST in other parts of the world, considering that many organisations have embedded sustainability in their vision and have climate related activities within their portfolios. For this we have contacted international experts with vast experience in the fields of environment, social development and sustainability that have worked in senior or main

17
positions for multilateral development organisations, such as the World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Asian Development Bank, Food and Agriculture Organisation of UN. They were handed an information sheet that contains an explanation of the DST, its steps and how it was applied for the Blekinge Example Case, and then asked questions related to the relevance and sustainability assessment, prioritisation of the solutions and further recommendations. To see the full list of questions in the survey please refer to Appendix G.

A summary of the research phases can be seen in Figure 3.2.

Figure 3.2. Research design phases

3.4 Data Analysis and Interpretation

The data analysis of the information obtained in the interviews was conducted considering a thematic analysis approach. As stated by (Braun and Clarke 2006), this type of analysis allows researchers to identify, analyse and report any patterns in the data. It allows the researchers to make sense of the complete set of data and relies on their intuition and sensing (Maxwell 2009). Bryman (2012) mentions the Framework Analysis and describes it as a “matrix-based method” that consists of discovering emerging themes and recurrent categories and presenting them in a chart. The election of this approach has been done due to its flexibility and adaptability to researches that have “specific questions, a limited time frame, and a pre-designed sample” (Srivastava and Thomson 2009).

For the data collected in the interviews the five-step approach proposed by Srivastava and Thomson (2009) is considered. 1. Familiarisation with the data and noticing main topics, 2. Identifying the thematic framework with some of the topics identified in the previous step, 3. Indexing data to each theme by referencing the information,

18
4. Charting the data identified into themes and categories, 5. Mapping the data. The outcome of this method provides a diagram that will guide the interpretation of the information (Srivastava and Thomson 2009).

Since semi-structured interviews were conducted, it is important to take into consideration that the questions and answers varied from interviewee to interviewee, therefore the analysis was not done by comparing specific questions but relevant themes. In order to strengthen the selected approach and to have consistent results, discussions were held after every step. The thematic framework was agreed upon after making sense of the transcripts and then the themes were analysed and jointly formed. For more information on the coding process please refer to Appendix H.

3.5 Ethical Considerations

The qualitative research employed in this study does not contain experiments, however, ethical considerations are taken into account because it involves interviewing people. The purpose is to protect these people from any kind of potential harmful effects of the research process (Savin- Baden and Howell Major 2013).

Risks and benefits were made very clear to participants of the interviews, workshop and survey. Also, prior information about the research and each stage was provided to the participants beforehand and they were asked to agree on a consent form formulated specially for each part, which contained clear statements on the purpose of the research, the expected duration, procedures and future use of the collected data. Furthermore, it was explained to the participants that they have a right to stay anonymous, decline the participation and have the right to withdraw from the research at a later stage. Limits of confidentiality, such as where the information will be stored and for how long it will be available, were also shared.

Considering the duration and nature of the research project, it can be argued that reviewing and putting in place ethical considerations established by an ethical review board can be completed by the researchers in accordance with their supervisors and bringing in an external party would constitute a disproportionate effort.

3.6 Introduction to Results and Discussion

As described in section 3.3 this thesis was divided into three consequent phases, each using different data collection methods. Through these methods, different types of results were brought forward, which led into the discussions of every phase before moving on to the next one.
In order to present the following chapters in an understandable and coherent way, as each phase builds into the other, the results of every phase are followed by the discussion according to their respective research question.

19
x Chapter 4. Phase 1: Understanding Sustainability in PD and the Local Applicability of the Solutions Literature review and document review on PD and Blekinge, semi-structured qualitative interviews with PD experts and Blekinge officials.

x Chapter 5. Phase 2: Embedding Sustainability for Decarbonisation Decision- making Semi-structured qualitative interviews with PD experts, Blekinge officials and researchers. x Chapter 6. Phase 3: Designing a DST and Validating its Usefulness Literature review on decision-making models, semi-structured qualitative interviews with PD experts, Blekinge officials and researchers. In addition, results were generated by executing a workshop and an online validation.

When referring to the interviews, the codes of the themes, as defined in the coding process, provide the input for the different results sections. We refrain from specifying all code origins and interlinkages so that the reader can concentrate on the narrative of answering the research questions. The underlying structure can be found in the methodology and the coding process in Appendix H. We refer to the 11 respondents as Rx, of which R1-4 are from PD, R5-9 from Blekinge, and R10&11 from the research cluster (see respondents table in Appendix E).

20
4. Phase 1: Understanding Sustainability in PD and the Local Applicability of the Solutions

In phase 1, results from the interviews, the literature and document reviews and the relevance and sustainability assessments will be presented and then discussed. Overall, the focus of this phase was to gain an understanding of the role of sustainability in PD and PD solutions and get insights into how the solutions could be locally applied in a sustainable manner.

4.1 Results

In the following section, results from the PD, Blekinge and Researcher interviews (R1-11) regarding PD solutions, their relation to sustainability, and further considerations on the local application of the solutions will be presented. This is followed by results from literature and document reviews and relevance and sustainability assessments.

4.1.1 Interviews on Sustainability and Local Application

Project Drawdown: Methodology and Purpose

Interviews with several PD experts brought forth more in-depth results on the solutions’ methodological background and the current state of the models and allowed for a more profound understanding of PD’s core purpose. PD created a system of solution models, which includes all the relevant data in order to calculate CO2e reduction and the costs of implementation and operation. The solution system integrates multiple sectors (such as energy, transport and land- use) which allows for allocation of resources, avoids double-counting and ensures connection between solutions (Wilkinson 2020). The integration models form a second layer in the PD methodology and are a major characteristic of PD’s system of solutions (R2). Integration and interconnectedness of different sectors allow for complexity to be considered (R3). In the interviews, the models were described as bottom-up, solution-oriented, and designed from an agency perspective, also referred to as a decision-making perspective (R1-4). The new models, which are currently being translated to a different coding language (Python), allow for an automation of scenario creations in which data can be altered quickly so that the links between solutions from different contexts are more evident (R3). In March 2020, an updated version of the solutions was published that included updated data, more research, a different communication style, and more focus on natural sinks and accelerators (R3, Wilkinson 2020). Accelerators are enablers for scaling up solutions, they include for example ‘changing policy’ or ‘shifting capital’ and are seen as a “great addition” since they help raise awareness of key principles for the implementation of PD solutions (R4). However, PD is also aware of its limits: “All models are wrong. The map is not the territory. Few models are useful, and few models are meaningful in a sense that they can provide some context to action.” (R3).

PD's main endeavour is to conduct research on climate solutions and at the same time communicate this research in an effective way (R1-4). Communication of decarbonisation solutions was an overall recurring theme in the data. The effect of PD communication conveys the message of “being part of the solution”, which was stated to be “very powerful” (R4). The models were also described as “a vehicle for people to start believing in something that has

21
potential, rather than something that holds us back. PD, as a scientific endeavour, is a way of starting to tell a different story” (R4). It was also found that one of PD’s main objectives is to create a regenerative society. The interviewees highlighted that PD was started because they sensed a need for a framework that both addressed climate change and other aspects of human development (R3): “Thinking of institutional transformation, changing of hierarchies, shifting systems to one that benefits humanity and the planet while at the same time solving this really existential crisis at hand” (R3). In this regard, decarbonisation was seen as a means to an end (R1) and PD was referred to as a “carrier” to move towards a regenerative society (R4). Regenerative was overall described as ‘a bundle of solutions’ that aimed towards a sustainable future (R2). Regenerative was also exemplified by the notion of shifting away from an exploitative and extractive way of doing business towards a system of restorative nature (R1). However, R4 also stated the problem with regenerative which is that it implies that there is more of something, but it is not clear of what and where to put the boundaries (R4). Regenerative, commented on by another interviewee, was described as thinking ahead of sustainability and moving towards directions that make more sense overall (R2).

Sustainability in PD

PD as an organisation does not have a clearly identified definition of sustainability (R1). The concept of sustainability was described as a dynamic state, whereas regenerative was linked to a transcending, upper spiral. When looking at the methodology, it was found that there is an effort to bridge the gaps in and between different sectors. This is an important element that characterises PD's unique feature: the ability of comparing the same metrics (CO2e reduced) for totally different variables (R1). When asked for the inclusion of social sustainability elements in the methodology, it was clarified that this was not the main focus (R1). PD seems to highlight financial and carbon-related aspects as they drive in more attention and they are measurements that make sense at a global level (R1). Though not of main focus, PD represents a system of solutions that assist to solve the climate crisis, recognising issues like social justice and equity and human and planetary wellbeing through a systems perspective (R1). When asked about the relation of sustainability in the application of the solutions, R1 replied: “I don't think it's something that [Project] Drawdown at the global level should be answering, this doesn’t really make sense.” Interestingly, in interviews with all clusters, the concept of sustainable decarbonisation was brought up. According to PD interviewees, the lens of climate change allows for many other topics related to sustainability to be addressed (R3).

Considerations for Local Application

When asked about potential externalities of rapid decarbonisation, the respondents from both Blekinge public organisations, Länsstyrelsen and Karlskrona kommun, also stressed the importance of sustainable decarbonisation. “I think that we have to do something about emissions and at the same time we have to invent new ways of living, of looking at life. And that could generate very positive things” (R6). On the other hand, it was stressed that unsustainable decarbonisation could lead to negative externalities. An example was that in the transition for electric car transport, high prices of electric cars could pose a financial barrier for many people (R7). R7 also made a reference to social sustainability: “We're not really discussing what happens if we don't decarbonise and pay attention to the social part. If you don’t look at the alternative, in five or ten years it will probably be very damaged” (R9). When asked about the most negative impacts of decarbonisation when considering a broader sustainability perspective, R9 referred to the areas of trust and social wellbeing. Also, in the research cluster, it was confirmed that unsustainable decarbonisation could pose serious

22
unintended consequences (R10). Furthermore, in absence of a method to apply both ecological and social sustainability at the same time, there would be a strong focus on either one or the other, which could also lead to unintended consequences (R10). This was confirmed by R11 by stating that when applying systems thinking, moving towards a more sustainable future is not linked to a single issue. Hereby, an overarching finding was that, as stressed in the interviews with PD, policymakers do not always understand the system as a whole and they do not understand the solutions that are available (R1).

Feasibility (e.g. financial) and desirability were two key aspects R4 said to take into account, when asked how to take the solutions to a local authority level. According to a Karlskrona kommun official, it is hard to apply decarbonisation solutions because there are a lot of different interests and there is always a financial struggle (R8). R2 from PD said that there was a missing policy gap, mainly also related to the question, who will fund the new business models for developing such solutions. However, the question is not always about money, according to R8. It is also highly related to seeing the long-term effects of the solutions (R8). A reference was made to the importance of ‘backcasting’, which is a concept of the FSSD in which, different from ‘forecasting’, one envisions oneself acting in a desirable future where the principles for success have been met, and then plans what one must do to move towards that point. This was seen as potentially helpful, especially when facing a reduction of GHGs over a certain period of time (R4). When touching upon other considerations related to local application, it was found that the more you get to the local level, the more difficult it becomes to acquire detailed information to feed into the solution models (R2). When looking at less known solutions or more regional specific solutions, there is less information available (R2). In parallel, taking the global models and solutions and bringing them to the local setting is still something that needs to be developed, potentially in the form of a tool (R2). The notion of a tool and its usefulness was confirmed by R10, stating that it would provide clarity for decision-makers. Overall, it was confirmed that taking the solutions from the global to the local level was an overarching opportunity.

As noted in subsection 3.3.1, in order to assess if PD solutions are sustainable when considering them for local level application, there is a need to check if the solutions are relevant for the context.

4.1.2 Literature Review on Relevance Criteria

To define relevance criteria, an early-stage desk study was conducted to find examples of approaches that incorporate compliance criteria and guiding relevance questions for climate policies. Achinas et al. (2019), for instance, conducted a PESTLE analysis to provide criteria for the Biofuels Energy Industry in Europe. Another example is the UN Habitat ‘Guiding Principles for City Climate Action Planning’ report. Here, it was emphasised that climate action is an extremely relevant criterium which is linked to delivering local benefits and supporting local priorities. They propose policymakers to use criteria based on solutions to barriers encountered, in order to make their climate action comprehensive, relevant and actionable. The importance of cross-sectoral approaches engaging stakeholders from academia, as well as representatives of private, non-governmental and community organisations in designing and implementing climate actions was also highlighted (Tuts et al. 2015). Furthermore, following the European framework for action, the European Union Member States prepared adaptation strategies in its initial phases for the consequences of climate change (BMNT 2017). The Austrian strategy for adaptation to climate change, which was prepared as

23
part of this process, used a series of criteria and questions to find out relevant actions and then prioritise them based on the pre-formulated criteria. In this example, the relevance questions were formulated around the potential of the proposed solution in order to reduce negative consequences, improve resilience and make use of advantages. However, it was highlighted that “these criteria can have different meanings depending on the objective and the context” (BMNT 2017). These examples - considering contextual opportunities and ways to approach and include challenges - fed into the relevance criteria.

To assist the relevance assessment and enhance background knowledge to inform the evaluation of PD solutions for Blekinge, a document review was conducted.

4.1.3 Document Review on Blekinge Context

The information gathered included, but was not limited to, national and regional priorities, political agendas, strategic planning documents, norms and standards, statistical data, guidelines and instructions of the national government and the Blekinge administration. The list of the documents reviewed (including an elaborative example) is attached in Appendix D.

As a next step, a first relevance assessment with PD solutions for the Blekinge context was made. Results found include just using the question “Is this action relevant for the local context?” is too broad and further factors need to be taken into consideration. This will be elaborated next, followed by outcomes of the sustainability assessment.

4.1.4 Relevance and Sustainability Assessment

The relevance literature review showed that there are no widely accepted methods or criteria to check relevance. However, we found that the information collected through the literature and document review could be combined and elements of the PESTLE analysis could be included. Based upon this, the following seven questions were crafted (see Appendix J): 1. Has PD formulated this solution in a way that it can also be implemented in a specific context? 2. Does the local climate and landscape allow for the implementation of this solution? 3. Is the solution aligned with the prioritised sectors or strategic development plans at a local level? 4. Does the current legislation allow for an easy implementation of this solution? 5. Is the political situation (considering political climate and/or political will) suitable for the implementation of this solution? 6. Is the socio-economic situation at a national and local level, including infrastructure, appropriate for this solution? 7. Are the technological factors suitable for the implementation of this solution?

We estimated that questions 1, 2, and 3 required a ‘yes’ to be relevant for the respective context. For questions 4, 5, 6, and 7 a ‘maybe’ was seen as acceptable, since these factors might change depending on the development of the context over time. If all questions scored a ‘yes’, the solution was scored ‘relevant’. In the initial relevance assessment (on the question ‘is this solution relevant?’) with the 82 PD solutions, 51 were found relevant for Blekinge, 18 were

24
found to be potentially relevant. The remaining 13 solutions were irrelevant for the Blekinge context.

In order to assess the sustainability of the relevant PD solutions, we proposed a systematic sustainability assessment that consisted of the eight SPs (see Appendix J). This assessment was done for Blekinge, giving three different scores to each solution in regard to every SP: 0 for misalignment, 1 for neutral, 2 for indirect alignment, 3 for direct alignment. Misaligned solutions were sorted out and 45 solutions remained with scores from 10 to 23 when adding up the scores of all SPs (max. score 24). Rather than labelling the solutions as sustainable for achieving a certain score, the following findings indicated that there were important aspects to consider for a sustainable application of PD solutions in general.

For the sustainability assessment, two types of results were found in relation to sustainability: 1) General findings: There are solutions that due to the level of maturity of the technology require a higher level of investment and could affect or delay the implementation of the solution. When considering the applicability, some solutions, such as low-flow fixtures or building retrofitting, are quite broad and depend on the different components that can be taken into account, like materials to be used or the extent of the application. Second, there are human factors to consider because some of the solutions require higher public awareness or behavioural change to be able to be implemented successfully. Third, the timeframe of the implementation is also important because there is for example a period of time where workforce might be needed but this does not guarantee stable jobs in the long term. A fourth important factor to take into consideration is the accountability of the impacts while the solution is being implemented, if the solution cannot be maintained or has fulfilled its lifecycle. Another noteworthy result is that some solutions are not directly applicable in a regional or local level but require national guidelines, since these solutions affect an entire industry such as aviation, ocean shipping, trucks, trains and public transport. It is also important to acknowledge that collateral benefits are not scarce, since the PD solutions constitute a system of solutions and many solutions can be designed and employed in a way that different needs are addressed, like affordable energy, nutritious food, good jobs, etc. while working towards carbon drawdown. 2) Blekinge example case findings: Concerning the local application in Blekinge, there are some considerations to take into account. It is important to review local regulations on employment, education and impartiality (SPs 6,7,8) in the places that the solutions are going to be applied in or in the countries of suppliers involved in the application of solutions. Because the solutions are climate related, official data sources must be used to align the proposed solutions with the political agenda and governmental strategy. It is important to consider if the solution is already applied and if the proper infrastructure for indirect activities is already in place in order to support the application of the solution (e.g. end of life treatment). Some solutions might have indirect environmental implications, especially when thinking about land use and how it should be distributed when considering local needs. Finally, certain solutions might need incentives in order to speed up the implementation, so alignments or misalignments could happen depending on how those incentives are applied (such as new regulations, taxes, government grants, etc.).

In our main research question, we aimed to find out how PD solutions are translatable to sustainably achieve carbon drawdown in Blekinge. To address the concept of sustainable decarbonisation, RQ1 served to find out to what extent the PD solutions are sustainable when taking into consideration a local level application. These findings will now be discussed.

25
4.2 Discussion

PD solutions are potentially sustainable and further unintended consequences in relation to sustainability depend on the local application context. The extent of the sustainability impact is not only related to local application, but also depends on the decision-making process, stressing the importance to include a strategic sustainability lens throughout the entire process. Furthermore, a participatory design, backcasting and increasing the level of understanding within the organisation with regards to sustainability are elements that could enhance the scope of sustainability impact of the solutions.

To find out the extent to which the solutions are sustainable at a local level, the origin and characteristics of the solutions needed to be understood. PD solutions account for CO2e reduction, thus considering ecological sustainability aspects by the mechanisms of replacing, reducing and/or restoring, as introduced in section 1.2 (Frischmann 2020). The notion of solution-sector-integration in PD adds a layer of quality and validity to its methodology, since a systems perspective is taken, and unintended consequences are considered and removed. Thus, this increases their potential for sustainable decarbonisation and makes PD solutions a proper basis to address global warming (subsection 1.2.1). From a more critical stance, the integration models have been continuously revised over the years (R2), thus one could raise the question if they are sufficiently developed in terms of sustainability. Apart from this, the existing models and solutions are mainly based on global data sets, hence it is to be considered if the integration aspect and underlying systems thinking of the models also enhance sustainable local application, since they provide no guidance in operationalising the data yet. The other overarching critical element raised on the solution models in general, was that all models are wrong and arguably the most a model can provide is meaningful context to action (R3). Thus, it is important to be aware of the limitations of PD solutions and other decarbonisation models, especially questioning the extent to which they can actually represent local realities.

Since the models were based on global data sets, potential discrepancies exist when considering the PD solutions for local application. Sustainability assessments require contextual input, which is why PD identified that their role was not assessing sustainability in the application of solutions (R1). Taking these considerations together, the question to what extent a solution is sustainable, goes beyond the understanding of the solution models. This is merely a starting point. Although sustainability as such did not have a predefined definition within the organisation, it is worth highlighting that two PD interviewees were familiar with the principled definition of sustainability of the FSSD. This might have allowed them to view the solutions through a sustainability lens. These interviewees referred to sustainability as a stable or dynamic state that allows clear boundaries not to be exceeded (R3,4). Even though more attention is given to the concept of regeneration in PD – since enabling a transformation towards a regenerative society is argued to have cascading benefits to human well-being in their relationship with nature (Drawdown Europe n.d.) – the problem with the concept of regeneration in PD is that no clear boundaries are provided. Central themes of regenerative principles in the literature are restoration of social and natural environments, nesting systems and adaptability with nature, and changing needs (Gibbons et al. 2018, Lyle 1994). Since there are overlapping elements in PD’s aim to stimulate human development and the social SPs of the FSSD, PD’s aims could be operationalised through the FSSD and its sustainability definition. Undertaking this for regeneration would go beyond this thesis’ scope. For the given scope, we see no problem in sustainability and regeneration coexisting in endeavours for rapid

26
decarbonisation. Since the concept of regeneration lacks clear boundary conditions, it is highly useful to use the integral principled definition of sustainability of the FSSD to provide a strategic roadmap towards thriving and decarbonised societies. Which is ultimately a challenge, not only for PD, but for many local public administrations around the world. As for example, Fuhr, Hickmann, and Kern (2018) stress the important role of local governments in the global response to address global warming.

The communication of PD regarding carbon drawdown as means to a regenerative society is essential to inspire, mobilise and communicate decarbonisation efforts. Climate change is used as a lens to aggregate different topics like social justice, institutional transformation, a change of hierarchies, etc. (R3). PD builds upon the notion of scientifically valid and credible models to the climate crisis by underlining the narrative: “The models are just a vehicle for people to start believing in something that has potential, rather than something that holds us back” (R4).

Context Matters: Lessons from the SP Assessment of PD Solutions in Blekinge

A contextual analysis was required to assess the sustainability of PD solutions. Without knowing in what way, where and by whom the solutions are applied, one cannot state if a solution is sustainable when considering it for local application. The sustainability assessment brought forth useful findings that illustrated why a more profound and workable understanding of sustainability is required when locally applying PD solutions. While the PD solutions were generally found to be aligned with ecological SPs, the assessment of PD solutions from a social sustainability perspective proved to be more challenging. This was partly because social matters are subject to substantive review and analysis, since they are dependent on many changing ‘soft’ factors. Also, the assessment of social factors proved to be more subjective since measuring social progress remains a challenge. Furthermore, the context- dependency of the solutions plays out more drastically in the social SPs. It is, however, good to mention that the SP assessment was designed as a systemic assessment but was done in an explorative manner. Overall, the assessment requires more data to quantitatively execute the sustainability assessment in a local context. Since a quantitative SP assessment was not the main focus of the research, the answer to the first research question was of qualitative character. For the ‘consideration’ of the solutions in an explorative manner, relevant insights for the process of sustainable carbon drawdown in Blekinge were brought forth. For example, the PD solution ‘refrigerant management’13 was found to be less important for Blekinge, since local policies in place assure good refrigerant management. However, up to date advances need to be checked in order to continuously classify the relevance of the solution.

There are several considerations that could affect the extent to which the solutions are sustainable when locally applied, for example, taking a participatory approach. A recurring problem stated by interviewees was the hesitance of people to address individual change of behaviour for climate change. Arguably, this shows a lack of understanding in how citizens can be involved in decision-making for climate solutions. Responses from PD facilitators and our research on MCDA tools suggest that if citizens are engaged in the solution-process, they can bring in diverse ideas and, by suggesting them, they can get engaged and ultimately gain ownership over the collaboratively chosen solutions. We consider this to be a promising approach for Blekinge that should be further investigated.

13 Refrigerant management was identified as the PD solution with the most CO2e reduction on a global scale. Because 90 percent of refrigerant emissions happen at end of life, effective disposal of those currently in circulation is essential (https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/refrigerant-management).

27
Secondly, the level of understanding within an organisation regarding sustainability could also pose unintended consequences. Therefore, addressing sustainability in organisations might enhance sustainable application. For example, social sustainability being forgotten can be addressed through an SP assessment. Thirdly, we suggest the concept of backcasting to be potentially useful for transforming major long-term goals, such as limiting global warming, into concrete solutions and actions for local authorities. Since financial support was found to determine the success and impact of a solution, being responsible for how long a solution can be implemented, success highly depends on the ability to see the long-term effect of a certain solution (R8). And this is arguably directly linked to the notion of the “short-termism” of politics, which hinders effective long-term decision- making for decarbonisation (R9). Through backcasting, current conditions and limitations of ‘forecasting’ can be avoided, and long-term and complex goals can be strategically embedded into the political agenda.

Overall, the results of phase 1 confirmed both the societal and scientific relevance of this research in addressing the need to bring decarbonisation solutions to the local level while ensuring sustainability. It also led to asking how sustainability could be embedded in decision- making processes for decarbonisation (RQ2).

28
5. Phase 2: Embedding Sustainability for Decarbonisation Decision-making

In phase 2, where and how sustainability can be embedded in local decision-making processes was addressed. The following results come solely from interviews.

5.1 Results

In order to assess how sustainability could be embedded in decarbonisation decision-making, the state of sustainability in the public organisations that form part of this study, Länsstyrelsen and Karlskrona kommun, was explored. Interviews on their current understanding of sustainability, sustainability goals, responsibilities, etc., as well as on the decision-making process form the results of phase 2.

5.1.1 Interviews on Sustainability and Decision-making in Blekinge Public Organisations

Sustainability in Länsstyrelsen and Karlskrona Kommun

Interviewees from Länsstyrelsen stated that sustainability forms part of Länsstyrelsen’s policies and that the vision of a sustainable Blekinge was important throughout the organisation (R6, 7). For Karlskrona kommun, the Sustainability Manager (R8) and Head of the Department for Development and Operational Support (R9) stated that sustainability was a common part of the municipality and that out of eleven overarching goals, one was climate change mitigation. An example for a sustainability guideline of Länsstyrelsen is the yearly climate and energy strategy that is crafted in line with the Swedish government's environmental goals (R6, 7). There are measurements to achieve these goals through yearly results reports (R6). To date, it is the Swedish government’s goal to drastically reduce GHG emissions based on the climate policy framework14. This is followed in Länsstyrelsen’s climate and energy strategy by the adoption of the carbon budget target15 (R6). However, it remains unclear on how exactly this target is planned to be reached and how progress will be measured. Both respondents from Karlskrona kommun confirmed that they also follow the carbon budget goal but there were no strategies for executing it yet. R10 from the research cluster, who has previously worked with Karlskrona kommun, stated that nearly all municipalities in Sweden declared to be committed to sustainability but that there was a difference in the understanding of what is required to actually move towards sustainability strategically.

Challenges in Sustainability

Several challenges were identified concerning sustainability in Länsstyrelsen and Karlskrona kommun. A first challenge related to sustainability was cross-department collaboration. R11 confirmed that enabling structures for sustainability need to be created and that the culture of


In 2017 Sweden adopted a new climate policy framework. The framework consists of a climate act, climate targets and a climate policy council. Sweden's long-term target is to have zero net GHG emissions by 2045 at the latest (SEPA n.d.) 15 Refer to ‘Koldioxidbudget 2020–2040 Blekinge Län’ (Anderson et al. 2018b)

29
the organisation could inhibit sustainability work. In her experience it was a constant battle between the silos and trying to get people to work (R11). She highlighted that creating partnerships and empowering people was very important, as well as ongoing education and training (R11). Second, there is a need to lobby for sustainability. R6 and R7 stated that they confronted individual change obstacles and highlighted an example when it comes to mobility: “Other people think that the train is slow, it’s useless, it’s never on time” (R6). R6 stated that people have individual mental barriers which kept them from making essential changes related to sustainability; she saw organisations also having these barriers. Third, trade-offs to ecological factors were seen as challenges. R6 referred to the trade-off between the development of the region by maintaining business for the airport in Kallinge which is crucial for Blekinge to attract companies that will establish businesses. A fourth challenge is the lack of education on sustainability. Both interviewees from Länsstyrelsen stated that not every department saw sustainability as a focus subject. R7 also stated a need to focus the yearly training for the entire organisation on sustainability. R1 from the research cluster confirmed that when it comes to bringing sustainability into the decision-making process, a big part of the work is the educational process. Fifth, the concept of sustainability at Karlskrona kommun was divided into a social part, including schools and health; and an ecological part, including water cleaning, factory control, waste treatment. These were not sufficiently integrated (R8). Lastly, the need for a clear and efficient prioritisation of climate solutions remained a challenge. The interviewees from Länsstyrelsen stated the need to list the most efficient actions that accelerate decarbonisation since the decarbonisation target as set out in the carbon budget is highly ambitious (R6, 7). A good prioritisation process was considered to be crucial, in order to half emissions every four years and take into account sustainability at the same time (R6-9).

In the next section, the process of decision-making in these organisations is highlighted in order to assess where sustainability needs to be and could be implemented.

Decision-making Process in Länsstyrelsen and Karlskrona Kommun

R7 stated that Lännstyrelsen’s influence according to the rule of law is quite extended - they can technically check what companies in the area do and for instance ask them to switch to renewable energy. Still, this power has hardly been used in Blekinge local authorities so far (R7). At Länsstyrelsen, it is considered as a strength to hand out the responsibility to the organisations and discuss matters with them, providing recommendations and insights, as well as incentives, but not deciding for them (R7). R8 stated that Karlskrona kommun also has considerable influence, especially in the entire area of city planning, infrastructure and mobility in Karlskrona. It was stated that at Länsstyrelsen there is cross-department cooperation when making climate policies (R7). The national government funding for Länsstyrelsen is tied to a task they give to the region. However, there is a range of freedom to make smaller decisions as long as results are delivered, and overall governmental goals are supported (R6). R8 from Karlskrona kommun explained that in the beginning of a decision-making process they normally benchmark with other municipalities and regions to understand what others are doing. After that, they try to collaborate if there is something that makes sense to be done together. R9 stated that they work together in joint workshops when there are large decisions to make. However, decarbonisation goals were not particularly embedded across departments and predominantly treated in the higher departments (R9). R9 specified that this does not mean that they do not work on it, but rather that in his eyes, there is a lack of clarity for the departments of how much needs to be done and by whom. Because it is up to the departments themselves to choose how much and how they work towards it, monitoring is hard (R9). R6 and R7 stated on multiple occasions that

30
the typical decision-making process is very slow. This becomes a problem when trying to reduce emissions by 50% in four years, as this requires a much quicker process. R7 found there to be quite some unused knowledge on improvements concerning city infrastructure or transportation. R8 from Karlskrona kommun confirmed that she found their decision-making structure for decarbonisation subject to improvement and stated that it is something they are working on. R9 highlighted the difficulty of not having a rule in place to make the carbon reduction mandatory. There is nothing steering towards what needs to happen every four years (R9). This was stated to be a problem in the decision process by several respondents. Overall, it was found to always be important to work across the departments and to get everybody involved (R7). Especially for decarbonisation goals, a considerable need seemed to be there to work on this task across departments, as well as monitor it for every department.

Additionally, politics was identified as a factor that considerably influences the decision- making process. Relevant results shall be outlined in the following.

Political Considerations for Decision-making

R6 highlighted that all the municipalities in Blekinge have different sets of politicians and the leading politicians are not always from the same parties. Thus, they have different views on climate change. The sustainability department of Karlskrona has a direct and strong connection with the politicians, but other departments as well (R8). These connections are powerful because the large decisions are made by the central politicians (R8). However, decision-making in the governmental context is usually a very transparent process (R11). R11 stressed transparent decision-making to be of great importance because decisions make up so much of what happens. R9 explained that change is easier and faster made when you can make a decision for yourself. Political decision-making means that everyone or enough people have to agree and if you want to make a change, it takes a long time (R9). This was confirmed by one of the researchers who stated that challenges within a governmental context are the politics of things and the slowness of things (R11). When politicians are able to give their opinion, like in the above stated decision-making process, they usually have to check if their parties agree or disagree. Ideas that contribute to the “business as usual case” are rather easy to get through, according to R9. What he saw as a challenge for big changes is that politicians are afraid of suggesting behavioural changes, since they are often not well received (R9). Some parties take risks with climate- benefitting suggestions, but most of them prefer it to remain as it is. In general, all parties agree that climate change is something they need to work on (R9). But R9 stated that not all people understand how big the change needing to be made actually is. Some parties have a limited understanding of this and want to do things that are easy to understand and do not affect people (R9).

Stakeholders

The Climate & Energy Strategists of Länsstyrelsen stated that they work through a collaboration platform called the Climate Council (Klimatsanwerke). It consists of different representatives of organisations of the region (R6). They meet regularly to discuss climate issues; activities they are working on and challenges they have. They try to help each other in solving challenges and problems and use the strength of their collaboration to “make change happen” (R6). Through this platform they can act on strengthening individual weaknesses by addressing missing inputs (R6). For example, they solved the problem of having more gas stations for biogas cars by bringing it into their discussions, which resulted in many organisations in

31
Blekinge ordering biogas cars. This in turn led to investors investing in gas stations in Blekinge (R6). R7 of the Climate & Energy Strategy department of Länsstyrelsen stated that their climate and energy strategy will probably be done together with BTH to account for its sustainability. Also, R9 from Karlskrona kommun suggested to include experts that can make an impact in the creation of a tool. He elaborated that Länsstyrelsen and BTH would both be good parties to include in the DST because they both have expert knowledge on different aspects. R11 from the research cluster also suggested that stakeholder engagement either through public participation or community engagement was important if a decision involving the community was made. She stressed that the more engaged the community is in that decision-making process, the better and that it is essential if you are trying to make change, to involve people in the decisions that could potentially affect them.

Overall, the results of phase 2 showed different levels of sustainability in the two organisations. The needs that clearly stood out were integrating social and ecological sustainability, working towards sustainability across departments with clearly defined goals and ways to track progress towards these, improving the sustainability education in the organisations and inspirational and science-based findings to communicate to stakeholders. Embedding sustainability in decarbonisation decision-making is linked to the above-named needs. The manner in which these needs are addressed will be elaborated in the following discussion.

5.2 Discussion

As was identified in section 2.1, the success of decision-making in complexity and uncertainty is highly dependent on the proper integration of three key elements: people, process and tools (Accorsi, Apostolakis, and Zio 1999). For successful decision-making regarding sustainable rapid decarbonisation, sustainability should also be integrated in aspects related to the people and process elements. While in phase 1, we found that a systematic SP assessment was a way to start integrating sustainability in decision-making for decarbonisation, it is not enough to leave the inclusion of sustainability an assessment, since it only provides the understanding that for a given context, there are a range of possibilities and potential solutions. Also, sustainable impact is dependent on the climate decision-making process. There were several challenges in Länsstyrelsen and in Karlskrona kommun regarding sustainability and decision-making, like a lack of a clear and comprehensive understanding of sustainability, a disconnect between the carbon budget target and the understanding and measurement of sustainability, a lack of cross-department collaboration and the slowness of decision-making. These challenges bring forth the need for transdisciplinary collaboration and the need to assess and / or address the sustainability understanding in an organisation. These posed the need for decision-support, potentially in the form of a tool, that included strategic sustainability and a local level participatory prioritisation process for PD solutions.

Sustainability in Organisations

A potential lack of a clear and comprehensive understanding of sustainability was found within Länsstyrelsen and Karlskrona kommun. In both organisations, sustainability was seen as an integral part of the activities. However, we argue that an overarching challenge is the disconnect between the hard metrics of the carbon budget goal and a profound understanding and measurement of sustainability in the organisations. In the light of the carbon budget, if the target of halving emissions every four years is not reached, this might imply a lack of understanding

32
within the government of the scale and urgency of the challenge. While there are clear guidelines and responsibilities regarding sustainability and decarbonisation at Länsstyrelsen, it remains unclear how to exactly reach the carbon budget target of halving emissions every four years and how to account for progress made. In Karlskrona kommun, seeing sustainability as a part of the entire municipality’s work was considered with care, since commitment to sustainability does not ensure a mutual understanding of what is required to move towards sustainability strategically. Another challenge that was identified is the lack of cross-department cooperation. Hereby, the need of transdisciplinary collaboration was seen as important to ensure the integration of approaches and to minimise the risk of unintended consequences. Another need that is related to this challenge, brought forward by the previous one, is the need to address the level of education concerning sustainability both in Länsstyrelsen and in Karlskrona kommun and potentially also a need to introduce more sustainability knowledge. Both in interviews with Länsstyrelsen and Karlskrona kommun, the suggestion was brought up to analyse whether the SPs were commonly known within the organisation and if not, to integrate the definition of sustainability in the organisation through training. We discovered that the need to work towards sustainability, which is aligned with a high sense of urgency, also needs to be tackled on the individual basis. The PD solutions might represent mostly large-scale structural solutions (except for a few behaviour-related solutions, e.g. plant- based diets), but when identifying challenges in sustainability, individual mental barriers were recognised which prevented people from essential change within an organisation. Here, policy might provide a strong lever. Mainly due to the size of workforce and land holdings of governmental bodies, there is a big leverage in legislation, regulation and approvals from a governmental power perspective to bring structural change, not only on societal level but also on the individual level within public organisations. Especially in decisions around economical versus ecological factors, a need was detected to work towards being able to integrate and combine social and ecological sustainability. These challenges were bound by the need for a clear and efficient prioritisation process of decarbonisation solutions. Regarding the carbon budget target, the need to include sustainability in the prioritisation process to accelerate decarbonisation was again confirmed.

Decision-making in Blekinge: Who wins, the rabbit or the turtle?

To address and potentially transform the challenges mentioned above, the organisations required more than a basic understanding of sustainability. Especially related to the speed of decision-making, we discovered that due to the slow character of Swedish public decision- making processes for decarbonisation processes, there is a need for some kind of decision support that enables timely and clear prioritising and ensures a more systemic understanding of sustainability. At Länsstyrelsen, major decisions are made by the Swedish national government. However, Lännstyrelsen is fairly free to reach the targets in a more flexible way and complementary targets could be added. In Karlskrona kommun, a benchmark is done with other municipalities when faced with big decisions, such as the carbon budget target. This benchmark can indicate which topics overlap in different municipalities and thereby provide the basis for further collaborations. Decarbonisation goals are not given enough attention across departments and there are no clear goals nor measurements for the different departments in order to make them be part of this task. When aiming to include sustainability in prioritising solutions, we argue that it is crucial to include as much interlinkages and diversity as possible to create a more resilient and legitimate process.

33
While Länsstyrelsen, according to the rule of law, has the legitimate power to delegate responsibility to private organisations in the region, it has been a preferred option to operate in a way that informs and encourages rather than pressures or demands. High quality information, recommendations and incentives are provided and communicated with the private sector, as well as the municipalities. In this way, Lännstyrelsen claims to allow for ownership of GHG reduction goals. While this approach seemed to work fairly well in Sweden so far, it would be useful to see how to take it to the next level in order to reach the carbon budget target. This could be, for example, by providing science-based and engaging decarbonisation solutions whose impacts are known (R7) or by not only suggesting but demanding a shift to renewable energy from organisations and municipalities in the region. In Karlskrona kommun, the decision-making structure for decarbonisation was identified to be insufficient and the major difficulty to improve it was lacking regulation that makes carbon reduction mandatory. What was clearly indicated in both organisations was that neither the speed nor the competence is present to make drastic 16% carbon-cuts per year.

Political Considerations for Decision-making

Decision-making in local authorities is subject to influences from (political) forces. An example for this is Karlskrona kommun, where the decision-making process seems to work smoothly for ‘business-as-usual-matters’. However, according to R9, decisions in line with mitigating climate change oftentimes do not proceed because not all politicians agree to support it. For this, the notion of science-based communication was identified as an important role. Overall, maintaining the high transparency of decision-making in public organisations was regarded to be of great importance and that enough people are involved and agree in making changes. However, it can be concluded that political decision-making takes time. Especially when faced with a need for rapid change, political decision-making ‘slowness’ could be an obstacle for rapid carbon drawdown in Blekinge requiring support.

Apart from political aspects in decision-making, it is important to understand what stakeholders are involved and what role stakeholder participation could play.

Stakeholders

Participatory or multi-stakeholder approaches were suggested to enable the inclusion of different interests of stakeholders better, as well as to enable working out how to serve these different interests by highlighting the need to work together in order to fulfil this common goal that cannot be accomplished by any party alone. The Climate Council, which amongst other stakeholders contains representatives of all municipalities of Blekinge, Länsstyrelsen and Region Blekinge, was identified as a suitable entity to conduct processes in which actions for decarbonisation could be chosen together, allocated and advances monitored. From what we can tell, this platform seems to provide a gateway to reach and involve all the important stakeholders and has proven to help combat weaknesses and foster collaboration in the past already.

Including Sustainability in the Decision-making Processes through a DST

On the process level, there were some challenges that bring forward needs in relation to sustainable decarbonisation prioritisation. First of all, the slowness of decision-making, which is also related to the political aspect of decision-making, unravels an overarching area of improvement. Since the climate challenge is a task that brings with it great challenges, halving

34
emissions every four years will presumably remain an issue. We argue that these characteristics of decision-making processes bring forward the need for clear, effective and meaningful information on sustainable decarbonisation. If the science and the communication of that science is clear, decisions will be seen as more legitimate (see section 1.2). Another clear need that was identified was the need for cross-department collaboration and inclusion of different kinds of external stakeholders. As it was identified, the lack of collaboration between departments is fuelled by a lack of clarity and a need for a clear vision. We argue that the concept of sustainable decarbonisation might find its strategic place in the vision of the organisation, if carefully crafted in a clear, engaging and understandable manner. Similarly, on the people level, a clear vision could in combination with education provide a deeper and more integrative understanding of sustainability. On this note, we argue that backcasting might provide a useful approach to be integrated in the design and execution of such a vision. Still, just applying an FSSD mindset would not be enough for a public officer to strategically move towards sustainability. This poses a demand for ongoing decision support.

Based on all the previously identified challenges and needs, we concluded that a way to offer decision support would include not only addressing sustainable decarbonisation but also addressing the related needs as identified above. For Blekinge, we assume that the Climate Council contains preferable characteristics to be the point of entry for the prioritisation process in adopting PD solutions on an overarching level. We argue that the need for decision support in the light of timely, effective and sustainable decision-making might take the form of a tool that ensures the inclusion of social and ecological sustainability and supports a participatory prioritisation process of PD solutions in a local context.

35
6. Phase 3: Designing a Decision Support Tool and Validating its Usefulness

Phase 3 includes the building blocks of a DST to address previously identified decision support needs, as well as a discussion on its usefulness for sustainable rapid carbon drawdown in local level applications.

6.1 Results

In the following, the results of decision-making literature analysis and its inclusion in the development of a DST are presented. Furthermore, interviews results that served to identify Blekinge’s future vision and decision-making processes are presented, together with contributions from workshop participants and external experts.

6.1.1 Literature Review on Climate Decision-making and Prioritisation Criteria

Climate decision-making is complex and involves multiple assumptions. Due to complexity, and the fact that not all stakeholders are always involved in decision-making processes, there is a “black-box nature” that policymakers need to trust (Doukas and Nikas 2020). This complexity might be addressed by using different tools that support climate decision making.

In this literature review, several decision-making models were analysed. Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) was a decision-making analysis model that stood out for supporting decision- making by considering several criteria prior to reaching a final decision (Doukas and Nikas 2020).Some of the criteria that Doukas and Nikas (2020) have encountered in their analysis are: economic (e.g. costs and incentives), energy related (e.g. efficiency and consumption), environmental and climate related (e.g. CO2 emissions), regulatory (e.g. legal framework), social (e.g. creation of jobs), and technological (e.g. reliability), amongst others. As discussed earlier, Kiker et al. (2005) argue for a MCDA where the elements “people, process and tools” are integrated in the overall decision-making process. Different stakeholder groups intervene in the processes using different tools, adapting the structure and thereby modifying the MCDA to the local context (Kiker et al. 2005). Puig and Aparcana (2016) also used MCDA to “balance multiple objectives”, especially in scenarios with complex systems and high uncertainties. They stress that these methods can be accompanied by other methods that provide a quantitative approach (e.g. a cost-benefit analysis). Overall, some strengths of MCDAs are the transparency of decision-making processes, that qualitative information can be embedded, and results can be easily communicated. However, it remains hard to define weights for each criteria and also stakeholder inclusion, which is vital in MCDA, is not necessarily assured (Puig and Aparcana 2016).

36
6.1.2 Interviews on Decision Support Tool

Future Vision

PD’s vision is to constantly work to achieve a low carbon and regenerative society. Blekinge’s goal is to lower their environmental and climate impacts. The carbon budget as brought forth by (Anderson et al. 2018b) is part of the climate and energy strategy of Blekinge and entails the goal to cut GHG emissions in half every four years. Participating organisations that are in the Blekinge Council are all committed to this goal. Karlskrona kommun aims to lower both their environmental and climate impact in every department and work unit in the organisation (R8). In the interviews, the importance of collaboration between organisations was highlighted. Collaboration supports engagement between different organisations’ strategies and plans (R6). Also, respondents in the research cluster emphasised the importance of future collaboration (R10,11) and collaboration platforms were identified as desired elements to connect people, networks, municipalities and other organisations in reaching the carbon budget target R10).

Ingredients for a DST

An interviewee from the PD cluster with experience in facilitation and regional application of PD solutions stated that people might easily be overwhelmed by large quantities of information (R4). There is a need to cut down the amount of information and simplify the message that is shared with policymakers to identify what can be done in their respective range of agency (R2). Policymakers' understanding of the system as a whole may be limited, but they can create regulatory and financial mechanisms which comprise different kinds of policy tools that can affect behaviour of businesses and consumers (R1). An interviewee from the academic cluster also highlighted the important role policymakers play in the acceleration of the implementation of climate solutions (R10). Other PD experts also underlined the importance of stakeholder engagement (R2,3). In order “to achieve impact, stakeholders with influence need to be included, processes need to be co-designed; and people need to speak the same language” (R4).

In all clusters, it was highlighted that a DST should be tailored to the respective context and should be easy to use: “meet[ing] people where they are with what they need” (R4). PD experts mentioned that the tool should be useful in different settings, “include[ing] the intelligence of the non-academic world that is not being acknowledged by [PD] models and systems” (R3), it should consider the “science supports policy” approach (R2), and it should “make these [PD] solutions accessible and meaningful for policymakers, which will allow them to enact regulations or policies from a holistic point of view” (R1). Furthermore, the tool should inspire action; direct learning from actions taken should directly feed into the tool (R3). Also, it should allow people to take ownership (R1) as this will promote constructive discussions and make people more aware of collective challenges (R2).

For the Blekinge cluster, the importance of a DST depends on its potential usefulness. In Blekinge, R5 argued that tools support simplifying systems, which enables a more holistic understanding. Also, R7 pointed out that Länsstyrelsen needed to “deploy some kind of logic(al) structure to reach [the goals]. You have to be able to stand up for these decisions and be able to tell people why they are so important and what impact they will have”. On the other hand, when working with politicians, it is important for them to know “what kind of effect could be experienced when a certain action was implemented […] so they actually know what they are deciding, and also what they are prioritising” (R8). In terms of prioritisation, R7 stressed the importance of knowing what is most important to do in order to do things fast.

37
Also, R6 and R8 highlighted the need for clear responsibilities in their organisations and across organisations to reduce GHG emissions, as well as the need for support on prioritisation (R6,8).

Also, it was considered important to have an indication of the results and the speed of the results of certain actions. This was identified to often be a missing element in current tools (R7). Multiple respondents stated that as many people as possible should be involved in creating this tool (R6, 8, 11). In the PD cluster, it was stated that if governments aim to implement something, it is easier if there has already been some discussion and support from other stakeholders (R2). On top of that, it was stated that the different perspectives people throughout an organisation could offer need to be included into the tool to ensure its usability and effectiveness (R11).

6.1.3 Workshops

We structured the workshop with Blekinge officials into three parts: 1) the relevance and sustainability assessments steps, 2) the prioritisation step, and 3) further recommendations for the DST.

1) Regarding the relevance and sustainability assessment, it was found necessary to acquire vast knowledge about applicable regulations and up-to-date knowledge on initiatives already in place. Overall, the relevance step was well received, enabling removal of solutions that are irrelevant for the local context. It was stated that the SPs provided a good overview at first glance, they were useful and easy to follow, but guidance on applying the SPs would be highly beneficial.

2) In the prioritisation part of the workshop, the global GHG saving equivalents of the solutions were not a major decision factor for the participants, especially since the numbers presented did not seem to reflect the local reality. The participants argued that the CO2e reduction of, for example, refrigeration management could not be as high as indicated because this is fairly well managed in Blekinge through regulations in place. Another factor to take into consideration was confirmed to be the legislative situation, considering who has the agency to implement the solutions. For the prioritisation part it was identified to be necessary to distinguish which actions needed national guidelines and could be implemented with a different governmental position. Also, it was important to understand what the regional need is in order to choose solutions that not only help decarbonise but also account towards that goal.

3) General recommendations pointed out that a practical and easy-to-use approach is needed to craft a useful DST. Furthermore, it was stated to be important to keep in mind that people need to be able to test the tool. Also, how the tool is presented to the final user makes a difference. It is important that people who are not sustainability experts are able to use it, so it needs to include some kind of training regarding the SPs, in addition to general guidance on how to navigate each step. Final reflections were that PD solutions have the potential to be eye-openers and are a source of inspiration for future action.

6.1.4 The Decision Support Tool

It is important to remember that the DST was not only developed based on the results of the literature review and workshop, but that the (interview) results of the first two phases also contributed. The aim of the DST is to deliver assistance to individuals and organisations to

38
reduce carbon emissions by providing a useful procedure and key learnings to prioritise PD solutions in their specific local context, taking into consideration their level of agency and decision-making frame. A MCDA approach was used to create a design that enables the inclusion of all of the above-mentioned elements. The relevance and sustainability assessments were identified to be useful as step 1 and step 2 of the DST, which left the need for prioritisation of the solutions to be developed as a third step of the tool. For this, the key elements that were identified in the interviews and workshops were improved based on the literature review, in particular considering two documents that were explicit on this topic. The ‘Climate Action Prioritisation Tool’ (IHS, n.d.), developed by the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, including a list of criteria for assessing and prioritising local climate actions. And the adaptation support tool advised by the European Climate Adaptation Platform16, which is a web-based tool for adaptation options that, amongst other topics, contains a few assessment steps and criteria, in which prioritisation is also highlighted on the basis of a multi-criteria analysis.

As a result, by compiling and analysing the data gathered during the research process, we found that a three-step assessment tool is needed in order to bring global PD solutions to a local level. Step 1, relevance assessment, is required to eliminate irrelevant solutions for the local context. Step 2, sustainability assessment, provides a useful strategic sustainability lens for identifying intended and unintended effects on the implementation of the solutions. Step 3, prioritisation, includes a vast range of criteria to evaluate the solutions.

A visual summary of the tool can be seen on Figure 6.1, whilst a comprehensive description of the tool with clarifications for each step is presented in Appendix I.

16 https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/

39

Figure 6.1. Decision Support Tool

40
In addition, the content and usefulness of the DST was externally validated by six experts.

6.1.5 External Validation

These validating experts, who have extensive experience in managing environmental and/or social aspects of development projects, as well as supporting decision makers in this regard, used to work or are currently working for international organisations such as the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (UN FAO), and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). It is important to state that the opinions expressed in their answers are their own and have no relation to the organisations above-mentioned. The experts were requested to express their opinions on the content of the tool that comprises three steps relevance, sustainability, prioritisation and its property to avoid unintended consequences. Regarding the first, all of the respondents replied that the relevance criteria provided in the tool are either useful (5 respondents) or very useful (1 respondent). With regards to sustainability, two of the respondents answered that the sustainability assessment process illustrated in the tool allows to identify all sustainability gaps, while the other four people answered that it allows to identify some of them. In relation to the final step, all experts stated that there are multiple aspects to be considered during prioritisation, such as: acceptance by stakeholders, political aspects, financial considerations, expected impact, etc. Finally, it is worth mentioning that four respondents think that potential negative implications of rapid de- carbonisation are partly removed through this tool, while one person anticipates full avoidance of negative implications and one person refrained from answering.

To conclude the results; noteworthy results were PD's purpose beyond decarbonisation, seeing the opportunity of building upon their need in applying the solutions with consideration for systemic interconnections, externalities and the overall aim of moving towards a thriving society. Followed by the important finding that it is not enough or even possible to ensure sustainability on a global scale, putting the focus on how the solutions are applied and if the resources used for application are sustainable. All these noteworthy findings for applying the solutions were put into the DST, for example assessments of regional regulations, infrastructure in place, etc. (into relevance assessment) and sustainability considerations on material and people employed (into sustainability assessment). Needs brought forth by local decision-makers were considered in both the sustainability assessment and the prioritisation part of the tool, since the biggest challenge of the public organisations is not only understanding sustainability but also ensuring a good prioritisation process that embeds sustainability to work towards their ambitious goal of drastically reducing GHGs. In sum, the tool was found to be useful or even very useful. In the next part, the findings will feed into an answer to RQ3.

6.2 Discussion

Since we identified that decision-support in the form of a tool could be useful, it was highly relevant to explore to what extent a DST with PD solutions could provide a useful tool for rapid sustainable carbon drawdown. We found that the main challenge is the requirement of timely and efficient decision-making processes. There is complexity and uncertainty in climate decision-making, which can be addressed in the form of a DST that embeds strategic sustainability and brings PD solutions to the local level. Such a tool should not only capture

41
carbon-reduction solutions but also embed time, impact and communication. The tool should be self-explanatory, accessible, adaptable, tailored to the context and intuitive to use. Furthermore, it should support legitimate climate decision-making and inspire decision-makers and citizens for action.

We found that both PD’s aim to work towards a regenerative society, as well as the Swedish carbon budget target coincided with the need for a DST in public decision-making for sustainable carbon drawdown. Also, the literature review results illustrate that in general climate decision-making is characterised by uncertainty and complexity and can be addressed by different climate decision support tools, which validates the importance of our tool. We found that a DST might address the need for meaningful information and a strategic sustainability lens. Länsstyrelsen as well as Karlskrona kommun, both part of the Blekinge Climate Council, are preparing an action plan to align with the target of halving GHG emissions every four years, as set out in the carbon budget (Anderson et al. 2018a). Thus, there is a direct need for a DST which can assess PD solutions and reveal sustainability impacts. Furthermore, it was also identified that a tool could provide relevant decision-support to enable the application of solutions at the local level and thereby facilitate the shift from global to local. This was underlined by R1 and R2 and aligns with the idea of addressing transboundary issues at the local level identified in section 1.3. On top of that, we also argue that science should support policy on the local level and that contextualising PD solutions to the local level is aligned with that.

To understand more deeply the extent to which a tool might be useful, a DST was developed and validated based on above stated considerations (see Figure 6.1). Furthermore, the DST should support legitimate decarbonisation decisions, it should be handed to decision-makers with agency and power to implement the solutions (R11) and it should be used in collaboration with the entire organisation to include the present knowledge and improve decarbonisation approaches of all departments, as well as improve collaboration by splitting tasks between departments towards the goal and monitoring achievements (R8, 9).

DST Workshop

The DST workshop provided an important steppingstone in the creation of the tool, and at the same time validated the necessity and value of already existing elements (the relevance and sustainability assessments). Overall, the workshop was extremely helpful for a contextual application of the tool and for providing tangible knowledge to participants. The content of the tool was regarded as useful and understandable. A ‘crash-course’ in the SPs was enough to do the SP assessment exercises with our guidance, considering that all participants had previously heard of or worked with the SPs. However, training on the SPs is required in order to correctly apply them, especially when determining misalignments that might not be obvious at first sight (R6, 8). The value of the DST with PD solutions was confirmed by the participants who found the PD solutions to be eye-opening and perceived them as a source of inspiration. Overall, the discussions on single solutions showed that it is crucial to understand the local context and needs before prioritising solutions (step 3 of DST).

A number of considerations that arose with the tool have been identified. Firstly, the DST requires a rigid baseline assessment including side studies to identify the current situation (e.g. what has been done, what is on the local (public) agenda). A comprehensive baseline study is important to make better decisions which suit the existing situation and the vision but requires

42
the necessary investment (e.g. time, money, etc.). Secondly, it was re-confirmed that a comprehensive participatory approach is crucial in the implementation of such a DST. The involvement of a wide range of stakeholders can draw the attention of policymakers which favours the prioritisation and financing of solutions.

Decision Support Tool

We discovered that the tool needs to be used in a way that not only approaches climate policy from a technical level, but also includes the people and process elements.

In sum, the results illustrate that a DST with the previously mentioned characteristics might be useful in assessing, prioritising and selecting relevant, sustainable and applicable PD solutions for sustainable carbon drawdown in a local context. Particularly worth mentioning is that overall, a participatory approach is needed when applying the tool. The key strength of the tool is that it provides a comprehensive set of climate solutions, comprehensive assessment criteria for sustainability and effective prioritisation of climate solutions. In this way, the tool supports the overarching goal of sustainable carbon drawdown in line with the global challenge and the national and local strategies. However, while underlining the usefulness of the tool, we also acknowledge that by no means this tool accounts for the ‘best’ or most ‘sustainable’ solutions. As identified earlier, ‘all models are wrong’ and ‘the map is not the territory’. In other words, applying an automated approach will not be enough to ensure sustainable and rapid decision making for carbon drawdown. Being aware of this limitation was a strength throughout the creation of the DST, therefore making sure to include stakeholders with local knowledge in the creation and roll-out of the tool to ensure its usefulness for action in the local context. Public decision-making for sustainable decarbonisation is subject to several challenges and is influenced by multiple forces. The impact and implications of the DST will therefore depend on how, by whom and in what context it is applied.

The Art and Power of Communication

Another consideration that cannot remain undiscussed is the power of communication in the local application of PD solutions. Even though this was not expected to be an important point, it turns out that the power of communication in relation to education was identified as something that could ‘shift worldviews’. In the 2020 publication of PD, the communication style conveys the message of ‘being part of the solution’, which was stated to be ‘very powerful’ and implies that ownership can be gained through inspirational communication and discussions. We consider this to potentially be a leverage point for successful implementations to be researched further in relation to the usage of the tool.

External Validation

The unanimous results of the external validation show that the relevance questions meet the need of eliminating irrelevant solutions in the first step. Furthermore, additional recommendations were provided to improve the tool. It was suggested to include aspects such as “capacity and support of the society”, “stakeholder acceptance”, “impacts on economy and employment”, “international treaties that are ratified by the government” in the relevance assessment. We acknowledge the value of these suggestions, but also see that the above- mentioned aspects require detailed studies and since the relevance step mainly serves as an initial elimination stage, detailed analysis is not necessary. Therefore, these considerations could be better included in the prioritisation criteria.

43
Regarding the sustainability assessment, although more than half of the respondents said that it allows to identify some sustainability gaps, no special recommendations were provided on what exact points are not covered by the 8 SPs. Moreover, we argue that the respondents’ additional suggestions, which are “awareness and mental / cultural features of the society” and “analysis of meta data on target populations”, are to be considered in the prioritisation stage, as they are not directly related to SPs formulated under the FSSD. Furthermore, one of the respondents recommended taking into account “disproportionate impacts on people and opportunity for them to participate in implementation of solutions”. We have carefully analysed the recommendation and found it useful. Obviously, this idea has two heads. The first issue is related to negative consequences on society, the second one is regarding public participation. In our opinion, the former is already taken into account within the SP assessment, but the latter, we argue, should be included in a future Blekinge carbon drawdown action plan when the relevant actors and their contributions are discussed. For the prioritisation step, our view coincides with the external experts’ opinion. Thus, “acceptance by stakeholders”, “political”, “financial” and “expected impacts” were rated as highly influencing aspects that need to be taken into account for proper prioritisation. Also, here the educational role of this process cannot remain undiscussed and we argue that there is an educational role that could influence the above-mentioned aspects. Furthermore, the respondents see some potential negative consequences of implementing PD solutions in the local context. Possible disproportionate impact on certain social groups was spotlighted by one of the experts, such as investing in 'greener' industries having negative socio- economic impacts related to land, resources, etc. Moreover, negative impacts of some solutions on individual industries was also mentioned which should require mitigation measures during implementation. Overall, we reflect that these are vital concerns which need to be addressed in the planning of specific actions for the selected PD solutions.

In sum, the DST provides support to sustainably reduce carbon emissions by providing a useful procedure and key learnings to prioritise PD solutions in their specific local context, taking into consideration their level of agency and decision-making frame. However, successful implementation of the DST will depend on how the tool is used.

44
7. Conclusion

Local governments increasingly see the need of shifting towards sustainable pathways to achieve the 1.5°C target decided upon in the Paris agreement. Thus, they are becoming an important leverage point for successful decarbonisation. This study aimed to contribute to the strategic assessment and prioritisation of Project Drawdown solutions at a local level by answering how PD solutions could be operationalised to sustainably achieve rapid carbon drawdown in local level applications. While answering that question, several key themes and findings emerged.

PD solutions provide the necessary foundation to embed sustainability in local applications, since they are based on a systems perspective, making the solutions accountable for multiple ecological and social aspects, and acknowledging overall interdependencies. This helps to reduce unintended consequences in social or ecological domains while applying them. However, the concept of a regenerative society, as identified in the goal of PD, lacks boundary conditions for sustainability to strategically work towards sustainable carbon drawdown. Through a sustainability assessment, we concluded that the extent of the sustainability impact is not only related to the solutions, but also to how they are applied which brings several considerations for local applications.

In order to address the application of the solutions at a local level, it is fundamental to understand the challenges and needs in decision-making processes for climate related issues and the complexity this entails. Starting with the need for integration of social and ecological sustainability factors, the need to work across departments, the need of having clearly defined goals, the need of increasing the level of sustainability education and training, and the need of having inspirational and science-based findings to communicate to different stakeholders. All these needs were bound by the overarching need to prioritise decarbonisation solutions, which enable decision-makers to make well-informed and timely decisions for sustainable rapid carbon drawdown. Thus, to address the overall decarbonisation challenge, an efficient prioritisation process that embeds sustainability was required. A possibility for a tool emerged that not only embeds the understanding of strategic sustainability, but also supports the goal of working towards rapid carbon drawdown.

We combined all these elements into a three-step DST that includes a relevance assessment, to assess the suitability of solutions in the given context; a sustainability assessment, to minimise unintended consequences; and prioritisation criteria, that recognises the overall goal of the local context. While it was not possible to fully test the potential of the DST because of the limited timeframe of this thesis, the tool was rolled-out in an online workshop and validated through an online semi-structured survey. The main conclusions were that the reduction of information and overall guidance provided by the tool were critical factors to strategically assess and embed sustainability, while being able to propose an action plan to be enacted upon by all relevant stakeholders.

An implication of this study is that information has an impact when it can be turned into usable knowledge, bringing forth benefits, like the ability to inspire people, supporting them to feel confident in their ideas for change, in convincing other stakeholders and in helping them understand the overall picture of interlinked solutions and impacts.

45
In order to address shortcomings found throughout our research, we formulated recommendations for PD and public organisations that might use the DST.

Recommendations for PD

The extent to which the solutions are sustainable when operationalised at the local level, is linked to several considerations related to PD as an organisation now and in the future. Firstly, an SP based assessment could be integrated when solution models are developed or being revised. Second, a future version of PD solutions can include a short methodology on the application of the solution in the local context. On top of that, we recommend looking into how different organisations and regions could support each other and promote synergies between solutions to ensure a systems approach for rapid carbon drawdown. Furthermore, providing concrete recommendations on local implementation of the most impactful solutions (including data, actors, communication mechanism, tools, factors to be considered to avoid negative consequences, etc.) could enhance sustainable implementation.

Recommendations for public organisation using the DST

As the DST provides support to reduce carbon emissions through a useful procedure and key guidelines to prioritise PD solutions in a specific context, a successful implementation will highly depend on how the tool is used. Prior to using the DST, it is important to include a backcasting approach and thereby define the goal (e.g. carbon budget target) while making sure it is known throughout the entire organisation (e.g. by including it in the vision) in order to guarantee a certain level of alignment. Furthermore, there is a need to identify key stakeholders, taking into consideration their level of agency and interest scale. For the actual use of the tool, it is important to involve a multisectoral and transdisciplinary group that can provide a complete understanding of the local context and create a rigid baseline assessment in order to determine the most relevant solutions. These are the ones best suited for the region and for which there are competences available to fulfil the goal. Lastly, it is also important to assure a clear and effective communication style throughout the decision-making process that will convey a message which allows people to take ownership and generate a greater level of engagement.

Further research

Next steps can be taken with regard to further developing the DST. Even though its applicability and usefulness were validated, the prioritisation criteria were not presented in detail and it would be recommended to prove if the twelve criteria questions are sufficient and adaptable to different local contexts. Another consideration is that an action plan was never fully developed, so a recommended next step is to apply the tool and generate an action plan to see the interaction between different PD solutions. On the other hand, there are two elements to be further explored that can add more value to the tool: stakeholders and communication. A key element of the decision-making process is people. Considering that participation is needed but not guaranteed, it would be interesting to see how the use of the tool can promote collaboration and stakeholder engagement. With regard to communication, it is important to understand how the tool could become a platform for sustainability education in decision-making processes and how it could inspire and empower others to take action. Finally, we cannot be oblivious to the current circumstances of COVID-19. As stated in section 1.3, the usefulness of effective local policies gains new meaning for global resilience (Wells et

46
al. 2020, CAT 2020). It is now that local policies could have momentum and effect, another phenomenon to be researched further.

We believe that our research addresses the identified societal and scientific gaps and can support public organisations to strategically move towards the systemic goal of a low-carbon and sustainable society. As a consequence of this, local knowledge can be unleashed, the wish for collaborations can be fuelled and the aim of reaching decarbonisation goals can be uplifted.

47
References

Accorsi, Roberto, George Apostolakis, and Enrico Zio. 1999. “Prioritizing Stakeholder Concerns in Environmental Risk Management”. Journal of Risk Research 2. no. 1: 11– 29. https://doi.org/10.1080/136698799376961. Achinas, Spyridon, Johan Horjus, Vasileios Achinas, and Gerrit Jan Willem Euverink. 2019. “A PESTLE Analysis of Biofuels Energy Industry in Europe”. Sustainability 11 (21): 5981. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11215981. Anderson, Kevin, Jesse Schrage, Isak Stoddard, Aaron Tuckey, and Martin Wetterstedt. 2018a. “A Guide for a Fair Implementation of the Paris Agreement within Swedish Municipalities and Regional Governments”: 50. Part II of the Carbon Budget Reports Submitted to Swedish Local Governing Bodies in the 2018 Project" Koldioxidbudgetar 2020-2040". Anderson, Kevin, Jesse Schrage, Isak Stoddard, Aaron Tuckey, and Martin Wetterstedt. 2018b. “Koldioxidbudget 2020–2040 Blekinge Län”. Sverige: Uppsala Universitet. Bäck, Henry. 2005. “Sweden: Party-Ruled Welfare Municipalities in Change”. ResearchGate. 2005. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237794191_Sweden_Party- ruled_Welfare_Municipalities_in_Change. Barber, Benjamin R. 2013. If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities. New Haven: Yale University Press. Boden, Tom A., Gregg Marland, and Robert J. Andres. 2010. “Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions”. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA. https://doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2010. Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology”. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (January): 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa. Broman, Göran Ingvar, and Karl-Henrik Robèrt. 2017. ‘A Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development’. Journal of Cleaner Production, Systematic Leadership towards Sustainability, 140 (January): 17–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.10.121. Bryman, Alan. 2012. Social Research Methods. 4th ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. CAT. 2020. “A Government Roadmap for Addressing the Climate and Post COVID-19 Economic Crises | Climate Action Tracker”. 2020. https://climateactiontracker.org/publications/addressing-the-climate-and-post-covid- 19-economic-crises/. Climate Focus. 2016. “Double Counting in the Paris Agreement”. Climate Focus. 2016. ClimateView. 2019. “Swedish Panorama Released”. Swedish Panorama Released. 12 June 2019. https://www.climateview.global/news/swedish-panorama-released. Somekh, Bridget, and Cathy Lewin, eds. 2005. “Research Methods in the Social Sciences”. Sage. Doukas, Haris, and Alexandros Nikas. 2020. “Decision Support Models in Climate Policy”. European Journal of Operational Research 280 (1): 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2019.01.017. Drawdown Europe. n.d. “Drawdown Europe”. Project Drawdown. Accessed 28 February 2020.

48
https://www.drawdowneurope.org/. Eriksson, Päivi, and Anne Kovalainen. 2008. Qualitative Methods in Business Research. 1 Oliver”s Yard, 55 City Road, London England EC1Y 1SP United Kingdom: SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9780857028044. ESA. n.d. “Connection between Health of Wetlands and Humans in Focus”. Accessed 26 May 2020. https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Space_for_our_climate/Conne ction_between_health_of_wetlands_and_humans_in_focus. ESRL. 2020. “Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2”. Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. 5 February 2020. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/index.html. Falk, Johan, and Owen Gaffney. 2019. “Exponential Roadmap 1.5”. Future Earth. https://exponentialroadmap.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/09/ExponentialRoadmap_1.5_20190919_Single-Pages.pdf. Foley, Jonathan. 2019. Welcome, Opening Keynote, and Overview of Conference. Research to Action. The Science of Drawdown. https://drawdown.psu.edu/event/welcome-opening- keynote-and-overview-conference. Frischmann, Chad. 2019. “Video Recordings of Livestreaming - Drawdown at Penn State Conference”. 2019. https://drawdown.psu.edu/event/introduction-systems-integration. Frischmann, Chad. 2020. “Chad Frischmann”. Communities for Future Online Summit (blog). 2020. https://summit2020.ecovillage.org/slp/chad-frischmann. Fuhr, Harald, Thomas Hickmann, and Kristine Kern. 2018a. “The Role of Cities in Multi-Level Climate Governance: Local Climate Policies and the 1.5 °C Target”. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 30 (February): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.10.006. Fuhr, Harald, Thomas Hickmann, and Kristine Kern. 2018b. “The Role of Cities in Multi- Level Climate Governance: Local Climate Policies and the 1.5°C Target”. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 1.5°C Climate change and urban areas, 30 (February): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.10.006. Gibbons, Leah V., Scott A. Cloutier, Paul J. Coseo, and Ahmed Barakat. 2018. “Regenerative development as an integrative paradigm and methodology for landscape sustainability.” Sustainability 10, no.6: 1910. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10061910. Göpfert, Christian, Christine Wamsler, and Werner Lang. 2019. “A Framework for the Joint Institutionalization of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in City Administrations”. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 24, no. 1: 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-018-9789-9. Gustavsson, Eva, Ingemar Elander, and Mats Lundmark. 2009. “Multilevel Governance, Networking Cities, and the Geography of Climate-Change Mitigation: Two Swedish Examples”. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 27, no. 1: 59–74. https://doi.org/10.1068/c07109j. Hawken, Paul. 2017. „Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.“ Presented by the Hurst Lecture Series in collaboration with Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, July 16, 2019. Audio, 1:19:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcDA_-SZWSs&t=233. Hjorth, Peder, and Ali Bagheri. 2006. “Navigating towards Sustainable Development: A System Dynamics Approach”. Futures 38, no. 1: 74-92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2005.04.005.

49
Holmberg, John, Ulrika Lundqvist, Karl-Henrik Robèrt, and Mathis Wackernagel. 1999. “The Ecological Footprint from a Systems Perspective of Sustainability”. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 6, no. 1: 17–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.1999.9728469. IHS. n.d. “CLImate ACTions Prioritization (CLIMACT Prio) – Capacity Building and Decision Support Tool Manual v.3”. http://capacitybuildingunhabitat.org/wp- content/uploads/workshops/2007-urban-management-tools-for-climate-change-umtcc- 2017/3rd%20week/Day%2011%20- %2026%20June/Priotization%20of%20mitigation%20actions/CLIMACTPRIO- Mitigation-Manual.pdf. IPCC. n.d. “IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”. n.d. https://www.ipcc.ch/. IPCC. 2000. Methodological and Technological Issues in Technology Transfer. Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/methodological-and-technological-issues- in-technology-transfer/. IPCC. 2018. Global Warming of 1.5°C. http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/. Jacobs, Jason. 2020. “Episode 68: Jonathan Foley, Executive Director at Project Drawdown”. My Climate Journey. 2 January 2020. https://www.myclimatejourney.co/episodes/jonathan-foley. Kiker, Gregory A., Todd S. Bridges, Arun Varghese, Thomas P. Seager, and Igor Linkov. 2005. “Application of Multicriteria Decision Analysis in Environmental Decision Making”. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management 1, no. 2: 95–108. https://doi.org/10.1897/IEAM_2004a-015.1. Kronberger-Kießwetter, Barbara, Maria Balas, and Andrea Prutsch. 2017. “The Austrian Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change”. https://www.bmlrt.gv.at/dam/jcr:03a7103a-019a-45d3-a3f3- 0ecfbe84daf8/NAS2.0_CT_Translation_final_v14_BMNT%20NEU.pdf. Lyle, John Tillman. 1994. Regenerative design for sustainable development. John Wiley & Sons Australia. Lal, Rattan. 2004. “Soil Carbon Sequestration Impacts on Global Climate Change and Food Security”. Science 304 (5677): 1623–27. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1097396. Länsstyrelsen Blekinge. n.d. “Om Länsstyrelsen i Blekinge län”. Accessed April 21, 2020. https://www.lansstyrelsen.se/blekinge/om-oss/om-lansstyrelsen-i-blekinge-lan.html. Maxwell, Joseph. 2009. “Designing a Qualitative Study”. In The SAGE Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods, by Leonard Bickman and Debra Rog, 214–53. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks California 91320 United States: SAGE Publications, Inc. Messerli, Peter, Endah Murniningtyas, Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue, Ernest G. Foli, Eava Furman, Amanda Glassman, Gonzalo Hernández Licona et al. 2019. “Global Sustainable Development Report 2019: The Future Is Now - Science for Achieving Sustainable Development”. Missimer, Merlina, Karl-Henrik Robèrt, and Göran Broman. 2017. “A Strategic Approach to Social Sustainability – Part 1: Exploring the Social System”. Journal of Cleaner Production 140 (January): 32–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.03.170. Ocean & Climate Platform. n.d. “The Ocean, a Carbon Sink”. Accessed February 17, 2020. https://ocean-climate.org/?page_id=3896&lang=en. PD. 2020. “Managed Grazing”. February 12, 2020. https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/managed-grazing/technical-summary.

50
Puig, Daniel, and Sandra Roxana Aparcana Robles. 2016. “Decision-Support Tools for Climate Change Mitigation Planning”. UNEP. Ramanathan, Veerabhadran, Roger Aines, Max Auffhammer, Matt Barth, Jonathan Cole, Fonna Forman, Hahrie Han, et al. 2019. Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions. California: The Regents of the University of California. Ravenhill, Amanda. 2019. “Video Recordings of Livestreaming - Drawdown at Penn State Conference”. September 16, 2019. https://drawdown.psu.edu/event/introduction- systems-integration. Region Blekinge. 2020. “About Region Blekinge - Region Blekinge”. Accessed April 2, 2020. https://regionblekinge.se/om-region-blekinge.html. Robèrt, Karl-Henrik. 2000. “Tools and Concepts for Sustainable Development, How Do They Relate to a General Framework for Sustainable Development, and to Each Other?” Journal of Cleaner Production 8 (3): 243–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0959- 6526(00)00011-1. Robèrt, Karl-Henrik, Göran Broman, David Waldron, Henrik Ny, Sophie Hallstedt, David Cook, Lena Johansson, Jonas Oldmark, George Basile, Hördur Haraldsson, Jamie Macdonald, Brendan Moore, Tamara Connell, Merlina Missimer, Elaine Daly, and Pierre Johnson. 2019. Sustainability handbook. Studentlitteratur. Rockström, Johan, Owen Gaffney, Joeri Rogelj, Malte Meinshausen, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. 2017. “A Roadmap for Rapid Decarbonization”. Science 355 (6331): 1269–71. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah3443. Rockström, Johan, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Brian Hoskins, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Peter Schlosser, Guy Pierre Brasseur, Owen Gaffney, et al. 2016. “The World’s Biggest Gamble”. Earth”s Future 4 (10): 465–70. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF000392. Rockström, Johan, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, F. Stuart III Chapin, Eric Lambin, Timothy Lenton, et al. 2009. “Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity”. Ecology and Society 14 (2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-03180- 140232. Savin-Baden, Maggi, and Claire Howell Major. 2013. Qualitative Research. The Essential Guide to Theory and Practice. Oxon: Routledge. SCPC. n.d. “Panorama”. Accessed May 26, 2020. https://www.klimatpolitiskaradet.se/en/panorama/. SEPA. 2010. “Practical Guidelines on Strategic Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes”. Accessed may 21, 2020. https://www.naturvardsverket.se/Documents/publikationer/978-91-620-6383-2.pdf. SEPA. n.d. “Sweden”s Climate Act and Climate Policy Framework”. Accessed May 27, 2020. http://www.swedishepa.se/Environmental-objectives-and-cooperation/Swedish- environmental-work/Work-areas/Climate/Climate-Act-and-Climate-policy- framework-/. Sheppard, Stephen R. J., Alison Shaw, David Flanders, Sarah Burch, Arnim Wiek, Jeff Carmichael, John Robinson, and Stewart Cohen. 2011. “Future Visioning of Local Climate Change: A Framework for Community Engagement and Planning with Scenarios and Visualisation”. Futures, Special Issue: Community Engagement for Sustainable Urban Futures, 43. no.4: 400–412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2011.01.009. Silva, João Pedro. 2007. LIFE and Europe’s Wetlands: Restoring a Vital Ecosystem. LIFE

51
Focus Nature. Luxembourg: Off. for Official Publ. of the Europ. Communities. Silva, João Pedro, Leigh Phillips, Wendy Jones, Jon Eldridge, and Eamon O’Hara. 2007. "LIFE and Europe’s wetlands." Luxembourg: Off. for Official Publ. of the Europ. Communities. SME. 2003. “A Swedish Strategy for Sustainable Development”. Srivastava, Aashish, and S. Bruce Thomson. 2009. "Framework analysis: a qualitative methodology for applied policy research." SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 2760705. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. Steffen, Will, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Sarah E. Cornell, Ingo Fetzer, Elena M. Bennett, Reinette Biggs, et al. 2015. “Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet”. Science 347 (6223). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1259855. Tashakkori, Abbas, and Charles Teddlie. 2003. Handbook on Mixed Methods in the Behavioral and Social Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Tuts, Raf, Robert Kehew, Alexander Aylett, Michael Bodswell, Harriet Bolkeley, Juliette Daniels, Wee Kean Fong, and Cécile Martin-Phipps. 2015. “Guiding Principles for City Climate Action Planning”. UNFCCC. n.d. “What Is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change? | UNFCCC”. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the- convention/what-is-the-united-nations-framework-convention-on-climate-change. UNFCC. n.d. “The Paris Agreement”. Process and Meetings. Accessed February 6, 2020b. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement. Wang, James, and Iris T. Stewart. 2018. “Ethical Considerations for Deploying Geoengineering Solutions to Global Climate Change”. AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts 43. Accessed February 16, 2002. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018AGUFMGC43G1606W. Ward, Bob. 2018. “The IPCC Global Warming Report Spares Politicians the Worst Details | Bob Ward”. The Guardian, 8 October 2018, sec. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/08/world-leaders-climate- change-ipcc-report. Wells, Peter, Wessam Abouarghoub, Stephen Pettit, and Anthony Beresford. 2020. “A Sociotechnical Transitions Perspective for Assessing Future Sustainability Following the COVID-19 Pandemic”. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy. 10.1080/15487733.2020.1763117 Wilkinson, Dr. Katharine. 2020. “The Drawdown Review. Climate Solutions for a New Decade.” Wollersheim, Lawrence. 2017. Climageddon: The Global Warming Emergency and How to Survive It.

52
Appendixes

Appendix A. PD Solutions

Here, a list of the 82 PD solutions is presented. For more information visit: https://www.drawdown.org/solutions

1. Abandoned Farmland 29. Forest Protection 57. Peatland Protection and Restoration 30. Geothermal Power Rewetting 2. Alternative Cement 31. Grassland Protection 58. Perennial Biomass 3. Alternative 32. Green and Cool Production Refrigerants Roofs 59. Perennial Staple Crops 4. Bamboo Production 33. Grid Flexibility 60. Plant-Rich Diets 5. Bicycle Infrastructure 34. Health and Education 61. Public Transit 6. Biochar Production 35. High-Efficiency Heat 62. Recycled Paper 7. Biogas for Cooking Pumps 63. Recycling 8. Biomass Power 36. High-Performance 64. Reduced Food Waste 9. Bioplastics Glass 65. Refrigerant Management 10. Building Automation 37. High-Speed Rail 66. Regenerative Annual Systems 38. Hybrid Cars Cropping 11. Building Retrofitting 39. Improved Clean 67. Silvopasture 12. Carpooling Cookstoves 68. Small Hydropower 13. Coastal Wetland 40. Improved Rice 69. Smart Thermostats Protection Production 70. Solar Hot Water 14. Coastal Wetland 41. Indigenous Peoples’ 71. Sustainable Intensification Restoration Forest Tenure for Smallholders 15. Composting 42. Insulation 72. System of Rice 16. Concentrated Solar 43. Landfill Methane Intensification Power Capture 73. Telepresence 17. Conservation 44. LED Lighting 74. Temperate Forest Agriculture 45. Low-Flow Fixtures Restoration 18. Distributed Energy 46. Managed Grazing 75. Tree Intercropping Storage 47. Methane Digesters 76. Tree Plantations (on 19. Distributed Solar 48. Micro Wind Turbines Degraded Land) Photovoltaics 49. Microgrids 77. Tropical Forest 20. District Heating 50. Multistrata Restoration 21. Dynamic Glass Agroforestry 78. Utility-Scale Energy 22. Efficient Aviation 51. Net-Zero Buildings Storage 23. Efficient Ocean 52. Nuclear Power 79. Utility-Scale Solar Shipping 53. Nutrient Management Photovoltaics 24. Efficient Trucks 54. Ocean Power 80. Walkable Cities 25. Electric Bicycles 55. Offshore Wind 81. Waste-to-Energy 26. Electric Cars Turbines 82. Water Distribution 27. Electric Trains 56. Onshore Wind Efficiency 28. Farm Irrigation Turbines Efficiency

53
Appendix B. The Eight Sustainability Principles

In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing ...

1. concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust. This means limited extraction and safeguarding so that concentrations of lithospheric substances do not increase systematically in the atmosphere, the oceans, the soil or other parts of nature; e.g. fossil carbon and metals;

2. concentrations of substances produced by society. This means conscious molecular design, limited production and safeguarding so that concentrations of societally produced molecules and nuclides do not increase systematically in the atmosphere, the oceans, the soil or other parts of nature; e.g. NOx and CFCs;

3. degradation by physical means. This means that the area, thickness and quality of soils, the availability of freshwater, the biodiversity, and other aspects of biological productivity and resilience, are not systematically deteriorated by mismanagement, displacement or other forms of physical manipulation; e.g. over-harvesting of forests and over-fishing.

And people are not subject to structural obstacles to ...

4. health. This means that people are not exposed to social conditions that systematically undermine their possibilities to avoid injury and illness; physically, mentally or emotionally; e.g. dangerous working conditions or insufficient rest from work;

5. influence. This means that people are not systematically hindered from participating in shaping the social systems they are part of; e.g. by suppression of free speech or neglect of opinions;

6. competence. This means that people are not systematically hindered from learning and developing competence individually and together; e.g. by obstacles for education or insufficient possibilities for personal development;

7. impartiality. This means that people are not systematically exposed to partial treatment; e.g. by discrimination or unfair selection to job positions;

8. meaning-making. This means that people are not systematically hindered from creating individual meaning and co- creating common meaning; e.g. by suppression of cultural expression or obstacles to co-creation of purposeful conditions.

Source: Robèrt et al. 2019

54
Appendix C. Literature Review

In order to conduct the literature review for this research, the following keywords were used to find relevant publications on three main topics:

General information on global warming and decarbonisation solutions

“decarbonisation”, “climate action”, “sustainable decarbonisation”, “global warming solutions”, “climate change solutions”, “holistic sustainability”, “global sustainability climate change”, “project drawdown”, “project drawdown science”, “critics to project drawdown solutions”, “global warming policy”, “reversing global warming”.

Relevance criteria

“climate action planning”, “global warming strategies”, “relevance criteria global warming”, “relevance criteria sustainability” “PESTLE analysis”.

Decision-making framework, Multi-criteria decision analysis and prioritisation

“decision support tool”, “local application of climate actions”, decision making frameworks”, “decarbonisation strategy”, sustainability policy”, climate change policy”, “multi criteria decision making”, “multi criteria decision analysis”, “criteria for prioritisation of climate actions”, “prioritize mitigation and adaptation solutions”.

55
Appendix D. Document Review

Project Drawdown

The following documentation was consulted in order to gain insight on PD as an organisation and regarding the solutions.

x Project Drawdown website: https://drawdown.org/ x Drawdown Europe Research Association website: https://www.drawdowneurope.org/ x Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (Hawken 2017). x The Drawdown Review: Climate Solutions for a New Decade (Wilkinson 2020).

Blekinge context

In order to assess the context of Blekinge and conduct the relevance and sustainability assessments, the following documents were reviewed:

x ‘A Swedish Strategy for Sustainable Development’ published by the Swedish Ministry of the Environment in 2003 for the purpose of implementation of the UN 2030 agenda (SME 2003). x ‘Practical guidelines on strategic environmental assessment of plans and programmes’ published by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency in 2010, that might be useful during the preparation of an implementable decarbonisation action plan (SEPA 2010). x ‘Koldioxidbudget 2020–2040 Blekinge Län’ published by Ramböll and Uppsala University in 2018, that contains information on the carbon budget for Blekinge (Anderson et al. 2018b). x ‘A Guide for a Fair Implementation of the Paris Agreement within Swedish Municipalities and Regional Governments’, a report from the Climate Change Leadership node at Uppsala University (Anderson et al. 2018a).

Also, different information sources were accessed.

Website / link Owner/source What to find?

http://www.swedishepa.se/Envir Swedish Environmental Protection Official climate policy of onmental-objectives-and- Agency Sweden including targets cooperation/Swedish- environmental-work/Work- areas/Climate/Climate-Act-and- Climate-policy-framework-/

https://www.scb.se/en/ Statistics Sweden Official statistical data on multiple topics

https://www.statista.com/study/ Global business data platform Different data 26738/sweden-statista-dossier/

https://data.worldbank.org/count World Bank Climate related data and ry/sweden projections

56
Website / link Owner/source What to find?

https://www.smhi.se/en Swedish Meteorological and Weather and hydrology related Hydrological Institute info

https://regionblekinge.se/ Blekinge Region Administration Development plan and projects of Blekinge region

https://www.balticenergyareas.e Baltic Energy Areas – A Planning 69 actions to fulfil the targets u/images/Final_conference/03_ Perspective (EU funded) Climate_Energy- Revised Regional Climate and strategy_Blekinge_Sweden.pdf Energy Strategy for Blekinge

https://biosfarprogrammet.se/wp Blekinge Administrative Board Blekinge Biosphere reserve - content/uploads/2014/11/Nomin ation_Blekinge- _Archipelago.pdf

http://norden.diva- Nordic Council of Ministers Policy brief for preventing food portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1115 waste 667/FULLTEXT01.pdf

http://www.naturvardsverket.se/ Swedish Environmental Protection Food waste volumes in Sweden Documents/publikationer6400/9 Agency 78-91-620-8695-4.pdf

http://www.jordbruksverket.se/s Swedish Board of Agriculture Book of agricultural statistics wedishboardofagriculture/engel skasidor/statistics.4.68dc110a12 390c69dde8000500.html

57
Appendix E. Interviews

The following is a list of the respondents that participated during the development of this research.

Respondents Organisation Title

Chad Frischmann (R1) Project Drawdown Executive Director of PD

Anonymous (R2) Project Drawdown PD Senior Research Fellow

Roy Straver (R3) Project Drawdown Director of PD Europe

Anonymous (R4) Project Drawdown PD Application & Facilitation

Pia Lindahl (R5) Region Blekinge Head of Environment and Sustainability

Anonymous (R6) Länsstyrelsen Climate & Energy Strategy Blekinge

Anonymous (R7) Länsstyrelsen Climate & Energy Strategy Blekinge

Sanna Olsson (R8) Karlskrona Kommun Sustainability Manager

Olle Hilborn (R9) Karlskrona Kommun Head of Development and Operational Support Representative of the Green Party

Lisa Wälitalo (R10) BTH PhD Candidate Strategic Sustainability Department Former Sustainability Strategist at Karlskrona Kommun

Jayne Bryant (R11) BTH PhD Candidate Strategic Sustainability Department Former Head of Sustainability City of Canning, Perth, Australia

The interviews were developed taking in consideration the different clusters and were specially tailored for each group in order to extract relevant information about their areas of expertise. Even though the members of each cluster have varied positions and expertise, the questions for them in the main sections remain the same to make the data comparable, in exception of Project Drawdown, as the PD methodology section was specifically crafted according to the position of the interviewee.

Project Drawdown interviews: The purpose of this set of interviews was to gain a profound understanding of PD and its current updates, in order to comprehend how sustainability is embedded in the organisation and in the solutions. x Relation to Project Drawdown: Set of warm up questions to understand the link of the interviewee and the organisation to bring the particular context into the research. x Sustainability: Questions elaborated to gain understanding of PD long-term goal of transitioning to a regenerative society and how that compares to sustainability x PD methodology: These questions allow to expand the knowledge around the methodology, and their work on application and diffusion of the solutions x Local Application: The questions asked here allowed us to explore how the implementation of the solutions is envisioned from a researcher’s point of view and what gaps are perceived in local application considering the interviewees experiences.

58
x Future: Two questions were asked in order to position the interviewee’s organisation in the future and then see what are the gaps to achieve it.

Blekinge local authorities: The purpose of this set of interviews was to get to know the local context, gaining insight on the challenges and opportunities concerning decarbonisation of the region in a sustainable way in order to explore the potential of a decision support tool and understand what elements would be useful to include in it. x Relation to their organisation: Set of warm up questions to understand the link of the interviewee and the organisation to bring the particular context into the research. x Decision-making process: These questions were asked to understand the decision- making context in order to provide a tailored approach for local application of PD solutions in the development of this research. x Sustainability and the current state: Questions crafted to understand the current state of the organisation in relation to sustainability, the limitations, gaps and boundaries of the organisation and their level and area of influence. x Opportunities and challenges: Questions asked in order to see what opportunities and challenges are perceived when thinking about decarbonisation to bring elements into the tool to address them. x Future: Two questions were asked in order to position the interviewee’s organisation in the future and then see what are the gaps to achieve it.

Academics with experience in local decision-making processes: The purpose of these interviews was to create a more profound understanding of municipal bodies from an external perspective and bring insights on their decision-making process concerning decarbonisation from academic experts that have experience working with public bodies. x Relation to the former organisation: Set of warm up questions to understand the link of the interviewee and their former organisation to bring the particular context into the research. x Decision-making process: To better understand the decision-making process of municipal bodies from a third party’s perspective in order to provide a tailored approach for local application of Project Drawdown solutions. x Sustainability and current state: Questions crafted to understand the current state of the organisation in relation to sustainability, the limitations, gaps and boundaries of the organisation and their level and area of influence. x Opportunities and challenges: Questions asked in order to see what opportunities and challenges are perceived when thinking about decarbonisation to bring elements into the tool to address them. x Future: Two questions were asked in order to position the interviewee’s organisation in the future and then see what are the gaps to achieve it.

59
Appendix F. Workshop

This workshop was held to present and validate in a participatory scenario the first draft of the DST, to explore its applicability with potential final users and to gain further insights for the prioritisation step. It is important to mention that the participants were given in advance an informative document regarding the research and the tool for them to be prepared for the workshop. This was fundamental to be able to have more time to conduct the exercises and reduce the explanations.

Details: x Audience: 3 former interviewees x Duration: 01:30 hours x Format: online

Activity Explanation of activity Duration Administrative notes

Check-in In order to arrive and set the tone of the workshop 10 mins. Share screen from the an introduction round was held, followed by the beginning as an invitation question: What is something you came across to arrive. recently that gave you hope or inspiration? Present the check in Then a short explanation of the workshop was question in slides. given, going through the agenda and asking if they have questions.

Introduction Short slide presentation stating the purpose of our 15 mins. Constantly review the research, presenting PD and explaining the tool. language used to make it understandable. Leave some minutes in case any questions arise.

Relevance State the purpose of this step, introducing the 15 mins. 3 solutions were selected assessment relevance questions, present the results of the for the exercise, assessment connecting PD solutions to Blekinge. referencing the 3 different Relevance exercise. outcomes. 1 solution is assessed against all the questions.

Sustainability State the purpose of this step, introducing the 15 mins. The same solution assessment sustainability principles, present the results of the presented in the last assessment connecting PD solutions to Blekinge. exercise was used. Sustainability assessment guided example with space for clarifications.

Prioritisation Discuss criteria for prioritisation by using guiding 10 mins. Using a spreadsheet to step questions to kick-off the discussion in a modify outcomes participatory way. depending on participants' One sector of PD solutions is presented, and the responses. participants are asked to prioritize solutions and explain their reasonings.

60
Activity Explanation of activity Duration Administrative notes

Reflections Silent harvested reflection on: 10 mins. Share the screen with the x What do you take for yourself? harvesting document as x What do you take for your work? the participants complete x What further recommendations do you it individually. have?

Check-out DO a final wrap up with the insight from the 15 mins. Be conscious about time. reflection and share as a popcorn style. Thank the participants

61
Appendix G. Online Survey

1. To what extent are the relevance questions provided sufficient for choosing useful Project Drawdown decarbonisation solutions for a local application? Possible answers: very useful; useful; not very useful; no answer.

2. If you had the chance, what relevance questions would you add? Open text.

3. To what extent does the sustainability assessment allow to identify sustainability gaps in the PD solutions? Possible answers: it allows to identify all sustainability gaps; it allows to identify some sustainability gaps; it doesn't allow to identify sustainability gaps; no answer.

4. What other assessment / procedure would you suggest? Open text.

5. To what extent does the sustainability assessment allow to include sustainability aspects into the solutions? Possible answers: it allows for inclusion of sustainability aspects; it partly allows for inclusion of sustainability aspects; it doesn't allow for inclusion of sustainability aspects; no answer.

6. What other assessment / procedure would you suggest? Open text.

7. What aspects should be taken into account for a prioritisation of decarbonisation solutions (select all those apply)? Possible answers (multiple): Financial, Political, Expected Impact, Acceptance by Stakeholders, no answer, Other (please specify).

8. Do you have any further recommendations for the implementation of global decarbonisation solutions at a local level by using a DST? Open text.

9. Do you believe that this tool helps to remove potential negative implications of rapid decarbonisation (e.g. increasing social inequalities through single focus on greenhouse gas reduction)? Possible answers: Yes, I think potential negative implications are removed through this tool; Yes, I think potential negative implications are partly removed through this tool; No, I think there are potential negative implications that are not removed through this tool; no answer.

10. Which potential negative implications do you see and what would you suggest for their removal? Open text.

62
Appendix H. Coding Process

As it was explained in section 3.4 the coding process was done using the thematic analysis method taking into consideration a five-step approach.

This familiarisation step started by reading through the transcripts and making sense of the answers obtained in order to recognize main topics. In this step the sections in which the interviews were structured were tested to see if they served as themes.

When realizing that the interview sections (relation to the organisation, sustainability, PD methodology, local application, future, decision-making process, current stage, and opportunities and challenge) were mostly aligned with the second step, some adjustments were made for them to serve as a framework. Here six main themes were formed that served as inputs for the research sub-questions: Sustainability, Project Drawdown, Local Application, Decision- making process, Decision Support Tool, and Future. With this decided, the identification of the codes started. Here, each interview was read again, and an individual coding process was made by tagging every piece of relevant information with the main theme and also adding a one-word code that would capture the main concept expressed. Then, every code was presented and discussed to select the most relevant ones. This was done by prioritizing those who repeated the most and made most sense in grouping the information in a schematized way. Descriptions to each code were given to avoid confusion and overlapping. A third reading of the interviews was done in order to test the codes and use them in a very critical manner. Here it was questioned if all the codes were necessary, if some of them could be merged and if definitions needed to be clearer. As a result of this revision some codes were merged, and others eliminated. By the end of this process, we ended up with the 6 themes mentioned above and 31 codes.

Sustainability Codes CODES Code description regenerative Something that goes beyond (FSSD) sustainability shortcomings What their sustainability definition / state of sustainability does not fulfil (in comparison to the FSSD) sustainability in How sustainability is embedded in each organisation (PD, municipalities, etc organisations sustainable Implementation of decarbonisation activities in a sustainable way decarbonisation challenges challenges related to sustainability (what do they struggle with, where is sustainability not included / fulfilled).

Project Drawdown Codes CODES Code description methodology how is data gathered, prioritized, categorized, how were the 80 solutions chosen? purpose The support / action PD wants to provide impact What PD is able to achieve updates What is new in the methodology, what is PD focussing on now need What can PD not do, what does it need assistance for (from other organisations / research etc.) gaps in implementation Missing links between PD solutions and their implementation

63

Local Application Codes CODES Code description Lessons Learned Things PD did in their workshops that worked / they were inspired by. How to help & inspire people for local application (workshop format etc.) Role of Science What should science feed into local application? What can science do & provide Methodology the way they are doing things Stakeholder engagement Making the process participatory for local application Negative externalities Obstacles or concerns for implementation of some solutions Integration Consideration of a solution or a cluster of solutions together with other solutions of sectors Challenges Concerns for implementation Opportunities Chances for better implementation

Decision-making Process Codes CODES Code description politics Political aspects regarding decision-making: things around power (structures), interests that influence dm process How decision-making works (in for example the Karlskrona kommun) systems view how are decisions interlinked, being able to see what is interconnected to the decision you are making improvement what can be improved in decision-making processes and how? stakeholders What stakeholders are involved?

Decision Support Tool Codes CODES Code description Risk The risk of using a decision-support tool, risks of our tool to be considered Challenge What are general challenges with tools or what could be a challenge with this tool? Purpose What it should fulfil Agency Consider who is going to apply it & what agency they have Recommendations What is needed on top of the tool and around it in order for it to be useful and successful

Future Codes CODES Code description Personal vision What the interviewee sees as part of the future Organisational Vision Vision of the organisation (e.g. carbon budget of Karlskrona kommun)

Then, the third step - indexing the data - was done in a thoughtfully revised process. A different member revised the coding one last time making the necessary adjustments and providing comments when some discrepancies arose.

In order to chart the information, accordingly with step 4 of the methodology, a different group member revised the coding one final time, deciding on the differences that were stated in the

64
previous step and added all the quotes into a predefined spreadsheet to have all the information in the same place..

The final step, mapping the data, was done after making sense of all the data selected and using a mind map to visualize the interactions between research sub-questions, themes and codes.

65
Appendix H. Decision Support Tool

Objective Deliver assistance to individuals and organisations to reduce carbon emissions by providing a useful procedure and key learnings to prioritize PD solutions in their specific local context, taking into consideration their level of agency and decision-making frame.

Audience Primarily public decision-makers in local administrations, secondarily decision-makers in the area of carbon emission reduction.

Assumptions There is a need to translate (scientific) knowledge into policies and concrete decisions for policies relating to the reduction of carbon emissions. Application of carbon drawdown solutions, like PD solutions, require context-specific data and insight into decision-making.

Limitations The assessments are context dependent and the expected benefits may vary significantly depending on application. Moreover, continuous education and involvement is needed for better outcomes.

STEP 1 - Relevance Assessment

Definition: Assessment of each solution against the 7 relevance questions.

Purpose: To find out and eliminate those solutions which cannot be implemented in the specific context due to certain barriers.

Information needed: Gather context-specific data to identify if the solutions are relevant and applicable in the given context (building on qualitative assessment of solutions: comments)

Criteria: Make a first relevance assessment of the solutions for the given context, answering YES or NO to the following questions

Relevance Question Description / Consideration

1. Has PD formulated this solution in a way PD has formulated some solutions for some specific that can also be implemented in the specific situations, such as only for developing countries. Need to context? check PD solutions descriptions for more information on each solution.

2. Does the local climate and landscape allow Specific climate related statistics and assessments should be for the implementation of this solution? studied from the credible and reliable sources.

3. Is the solution aligned with the prioritized To check national and regional strategic documents, road sectors or strategic development plans at a maps to find out if the solution is in line with these policies. local level?

4. Does the current legislation allow for an If there is a legislative barrier we should not consider, easy implementation of this solution? because it takes years to have a law changed.

66
Relevance Question Description / Consideration

5. Is the political situation (considering To check the political agenda and position of the political climate and/or political will) suitable government regarding the specific solution or sector that this for the implementation of this solution? solution belongs.

6. Is the socio-economic situation at a national Two aspects should be considered under this question: (i) and local level, appropriate for this solution? social characteristics of a society; (ii) level of economic development that can suit application of the specific solution.

7. Are the technological factors suitable for the The users should consider the following aspects while implementation of this solution answering these questions: x technology incentives, x the level of innovation, automation, research and development (R&D) activity, x technological change, and x technological awareness.

Application / Limitation: Is highly dependent on availability of public information. The assessment should be the output of a collective input and should be done with a group of experts, preferably with different backgrounds.

STEP 2 - Sustainability Assessment

Definition: Assessment of all solutions based on 8 Sustainability Principles.

Sustainability Principle Description

1. concentrations of This means limited extraction and safeguarding so that concentrations of substances extracted lithospheric substances do not increase systematically in the atmosphere, the from the Earth's crust oceans, the soil or other parts of nature; e.g. fossil carbon and metals.

2. concentrations of This means conscious molecular design, limited production and safeguarding so substances produced by that concentrations of societally produced molecules and nuclides do not increase society systematically in the atmosphere, the oceans, the soil or other parts of nature; e.g. NOx and CFCs.

3. degradation by This means that the area, thickness and quality of soils, the availability of physical means freshwater, the biodiversity, and other aspects of biological productivity and resilience, are not systematically deteriorated by mismanagement, displacement or other forms of physical manipulation; e.g. over-harvesting of forests and over- fishing.

4. health This means that people are not exposed to social conditions that systematically undermine their possibilities to avoid injury and illness; physically, mentally or emotionally; e.g. dangerous working conditions or insufficient rest from work.

5. influence This means that people are not systematically hindered from participating in shaping the social systems they are part of; e.g. by suppression of free speech or neglect of opinions.

67
6. competence This means that people are not systematically hindered from learning and developing competence individually and together; e.g. by obstacles for education or insufficient possibilities for personal development.

7. impartiality This means that people are not systematically exposed to partial treatment; e.g. by discrimination or unfair selection to job positions.

8. meaning-making This means that people are not systematically hindered from creating individual meaning and co- creating common meaning; e.g. by suppression of cultural expression or obstacles to co-creation of purposeful conditions. Purpose: To identify how each solution might be aligned or misaligned with the specific SP (qualitative analysis). It aims to find out if any solution has a negative consequence on other aspects of sustainability.

Information needed: Potential environmental and social impacts of the related climate actions. Similar contexts and academia can be an information source.

Criteria: The following 8 SPs will be used as a reference point for the assessment:

Application / Limitation: Impact of certain actions from environmental and social point of views sometimes might be arguable. Moreover, while usually environmental impacts can be identified, social impacts are hard to determine. Furthermore, for some products or services we need to define the scope (boundaries) of our assessment. On the other hand, a long value chain would be needed to be considered. We recommend taking into consideration the upstream causes which leads to strategic planning.

STEP 3 - Prioritisation & Action Plan

Definition: This step provides useful criteria for selecting and prioritizing, as well as planning actions for sustainable PD solutions.

Purpose: The objective is to prioritize the PD solutions based on the multi-criteria decision analysis, with consideration of various sectors, aspects.

Information needed: Wide range of qualitative and quantitative from different sectors.

Criteria: The following criteria are recommended to be used for prioritisation.

Topic Criteria High Medium Law

Support Political support: Would Major political A limited political Low political support implementation of the support support solution? (C1)

Public acceptability: Majority of A limited majority Low support of Would local residents residents would of residents would residents accept this solution? (C2) accept this solution accept

68
Topic Criteria High Medium Law

Implementer Majority of A limited majority Low support of acceptability: Would other implementers would of implementers implementers stakeholders (other than accept this solution would accept this government) accept this solution option? (C3)

Feasibility Technical feasibility: Will Resources to Limited resources No available necessary designs, skills develop designs, to develop designs, resources to develop and competencies, skills and skills and designs, skills and maintenance support be competencies, and competencies, and competencies and available for this option? maintenance support maintenance maintenance support (C4) are available support

Ease of implementation: Municipality (or Municipality (or Municipality (or Can it be implemented at City) can implement City) can City) cannot the local government this option without implement this implement this option level, or does it depend external support option with some without external upon state/provincial or support support national support? (C5)

Economic viability: Could High economic Limited economic Low or nor economic this solution bring benefits are benefits are benefits economic benefits? (such expected on specific anticipated (usually as new employment, sectors or multi- single sector or social protection) (C6) sector level local level)

Financial viability: Is it a Financially realistic Limited funding Expensive and financially realistic with available opportunities at limited funding solution? Does the city funding at local local level opportunities at local have funding or potential level level access to funding to cover the costs? (C7)

Impact Urgency: Urgency with Existence of high Not so urgent, No urgency in criteria respect to already existing threat related to the however, might implementation threats (C8) solution reduce some anticipated threats

Mainstreaming potential: Yes, easily and fully Yes, partly but with Relatively limited Could it be integrated through many plans more time and potential, would with existing local and strategies through more require additional government planning and limited plans and activities policy development? (C9) strategies

Effectiveness: How well GHGs emissions GHGs emissions GHGs emissions will would this option work on will be reduced to a will be reduced to a be reduced to a reducing GHGs emissions large extent (in moderate extent (in limited extent (in (in relation to the other relation to the other relation to the other relation to the other actions)? (C10) actions) actions) actions)

Multi-sectoral and multio- Yes, significant Some crossover Little cross over with bjective: Would this crossover with other with other sectors other sectors and solution address sectors and and objectives limited impact on objectives in other objectives other objectives sectors? (C11)

Flexibility Flexibility for adjustments Fully flexible Might have minor Less or No flexibility or reversibility in case of flexible

69
Topic Criteria High Medium Law

diverging developments (C12)

Evaluate each solution against each of the criteria by providing a score using the following scale: “Very High”, “High”, “Medium”, “Low”, and “Very Low”. These phrases can be translated to numerical values as below, in order to convert them to coefficients: Very high = 1; High = 0.8; Medium = 0.6; Low = 0.4; Very low = 0.2.

Each of the selected solutions should be assessed based on the criteria mentioned above and the results should be described in the following table. It is worth mentioning that each of the criteria (C1-C12) has the same weights on the total score, regardless of the criteria clusters they belong to. Having said that, the table allows the users to compare scores of different solutions under each cluster, such as the impact score of the Solution 1 with the impact score of Solution 2.

PD Support and Feasibility Impact Flexibility Total solutions acceptability Score

C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12

Solution X

After having a prioritisation list, we recommend making an action plan based on the local requirements and decision-making characteristics. The following table can be used a template:

No Action /Solution Sector/type Time frame Description Risks Assumptions

1 Solution 1 A Short term

2 Solution 2 B Mid term

3 Solution 3 C Long term

x Application / Limitation: Lack of relevant data may affect quality of the output.

Finally, it should also be pointed out that implementation of some solutions might have negative impacts on individual industries, which requires pre-assessment of the solutions’ potential impacts and preparation of relevant mitigation plans.

70
Appendix J. Results for Example Case: Blekinge

Simultaneously with the research process on finding answers to the thesis questions, as well as development of the DST, we have applied them on the Blekinge region case. Results of these activities are described below:

Relevance Assessment

For our Blekinge case, we have tested our set of questions and considered the “yes” answer to all our questions. First step of the assessment was proven to be a good first filter considering that the solutions were narrowed from 82 to 52 that are relevant and moving into the next phase. Also, 17 solutions were listed as “may be relevant” which need more specific information to judge and 13 solutions were defined as irrelevant for the Blekinge region and discarded accordingly. Examples of “relevant” solutions: Biomass power, distributed energy storage, micro-wind turbines, utility scale energy storage, building retrofitting, green and cool roofs, high- performance glass, smart thermostats, biochar production, nutrient management, reduced food waste, bioplastics, refrigerant management, multistrata agroforestry, hybrid cars. Examples of “may be relevant” solutions: Landfill methane capture, alternative cement, managed grazing, perennial biomass production, efficient trucks, net-zero buildings, methane digesters. Examples of “irrelevant” solutions: Indigenous peoples’ forest tenure, microgrid, offshore wind turbines, bamboo production, tropical forest restoration, improved rice production.

Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that we recommend organizations to consider those solutions for long-term actions which have one “no” from either the question 4 (legal) or 7 (technological readiness). The objective here is that if a solution is relevant from all other perspectives and has an expected positive impact, then might be the legal barriers can be gradually eradicated until implementation of this solution, and similarly a technological readiness can be achieved for proper implementation if this solution is planned for mid or long term application.

Sustainability Assessment

For the sustainability assessment, the relevant solutions were assessed with the 8 SPs, according to the FSSD: Extraction of non-renewable resources (SP1), human-made substances spilled into nature (SP2), physically damaging the environment (SP3) and not undermining health (SP4), influence (SP5), competence (SP6), impartiality (SP7), or meaning-making (SP8). For example, coastal wetland restoration was a solution found to be relevant for Blekinge. This solution was not found to add to the violation of SP1, it recovers coastal wetlands ecosystems capacity as carbon sinks and thus adds positively to reducing SP2. This solution has a great potential to restore wetlands and improve biodiversity of which southwestern Sweden has lost 67% of in the last 50 years. Furthermore, well-managed wetlands provide humans with clean water, securing the provision of food and pharmaceutical products (SP4). It indirectly increases the potential to influence the nature and health system of the community (SP5) and contributes to education as it requires people to search for and be aware of wetlands and their impacts, as well as how to get benefits out of them (SP6), nothing specific was found for SP7. Lastly, it increases the choices of people to be helpful for their community and surrounding nature (SP8). (Citation)

71
As highlighted above, sustainability effects of the PD solutions are highly dependent on implementation, particularly implications on social sustainability aspects.

Prioritization

Prioritisation was tested on some selected solutions with participation of Blekinge experts. The key objective was to guide them and identify what kind of factors should be considered during prioritisation. The entire criteria included in the DST were not tested in Blekinge, as it was developed after the Workshops were conducted.

72

Master’s Programme in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability Telephone: +46 455-38 50 00 Blekinge Institute of Technology, Campus Gräsvik Fax: +46 455-38 55 07 SE-371 79 Karlskrona, Sweden E-mail: [email protected]