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