BIOTRAILS - Nexus framework for biodiversity-relevant transformative change

Successful climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation will require simultaneous and synergistic societal changes at all levels and in different sectors. Both, the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the first Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) argue, that a sustainable world cannot be achieved without transformative systemic change. 
To enable this, solutions must always be developed holistically in the climate-biodiversity-society nexus, taking into account not only the multiple indirect drivers through consumer behaviour, but also including the complex, global value chains of consumer goods.

The Horizon Europe project BIOTRAILS is developing tools to promote societal change in favour of biodiversity. Participatory System Dynamics Modelling - a useful and effective approach for incorporating stakeholder knowledge into the model-building process by involving them actively - is being used to explore the complex interconnections between the indirect drivers of such change in the value chains of four different products:

• Cocoa from Peru
• Handicrafts from the Brazilian Amazon region
• Fish products from the Mediterranean basin
• Gold from Ghana

adelphi is leading the identification of leverage points and the participatory development of alternative pathways towards more biodiversity in the four value chains together with the stakeholders. These “Transitional Pathways” will include policy actions at local and international levels, as well as interventions for consumer behaviour and businesses – specific to each supply chain.
A special feature of the project are the so-called Learning and Action Alliances – local alliances in and between the different supply chains, enabling stakeholders from all stages of the value chain to work closely together. The aim is to jointly design pathways to a sustainable future that take into account biodiversity, climate and social equity, and that can be transferred to other value chains at the end of the project.