CLEVER is a global project implemented by 12 participant organizations across 8 countries. It investigates the impact of international trade in agricultural and forest products on biodiversity, focusing on animal feed, energy crops, tropical timber, and aquaculture.
CLEVER identifies new leverage points for sustainable transformation towards circular bio-economies informed by a novel holistic approach to quantifying biodiversity and other impacts of trade in major raw and processed non-food biomass value chains. CLEVER focuses on key internationally traded bio-based commodities for predominantly non-food uses, namely soy, forest products, and fishmeal/oil, which have been associated with major biodiversity losses. Regional foci lie on EU trade with South America and Central Africa, where some of the world’s largest high conservation value areas are threatened by current and expected future biomass production and extraction.
The final goal is to improve understanding of how biomass trade is linked to biodiversity impacts and co-benefits in exporting and importing countries, how supply and demand-side governance can transform biomass value chains towards improved biodiversity impacts, and develop solutions for more sustainable production and consumption, influencing decision-making, in collaboration with stakeholders from politics, the private sector, and civil society.
With several members long engaged in the science-policy interface, the consortium will leverage CLEVER knowledge and tools to strengthen IPBES and IPCC and enhance science-industry cooperation for sustainable bioeconomic transformation.
Representing ecological footprints and policy-trade-biodiversity linkages in global modeling (WP6)
IIASA leads multiple tasks in WP6 aimed at advancing the spatial representation of non-food biomass practices and improving the representation of production patterns in GLOBIOM modelling. This involves – among other things – mapping and characterizing management practices for selected sectors and biomass exporting regions by using biophysical models, sustainability assessment of land use options and management, and quantifying the impacts of natural and human-caused disturbances.
Scenario-based assessment of policy impacts and SDG interrelationships (WP7)
IIASA as the lead partner in Work Package 7 (WP7) is assessing the impacts of global non-food biomass trade on biodiversity and other ecosystem services. The aim is to design and quantify forward-looking scenarios to explore future developments in biomass trade and its related environmental and social impacts. GLOBIOM, a global partial equilibrium market model, is the cornerstone of this initiative. Within the project CLEVER, GLOBIOM is enriched with the representation of supply chains for the targeted sectors, improved trade behaviors, biodiversity, and other SDG-dimension indicators.
Each scenario evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of selected alternative policies and governance options in protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services. Additionally, it analyzes the co-benefits and trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and other SDG dimensions, particularly climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Main objectives:
- Introducing a consistent ex-ante modeling framework for biodiversity impact scenario analysis
- Providing insights into potential future impacts of non-food biomass trade dynamics on biodiversity and other ecosystem services
- Examining the effectiveness and efficiency of selected alternative policies and governance options in steering these outcomes
- Analyzing related co-benefits and trade-offs among biodiversity conservation and other SDG dimensions, particularly climate change mitigation and adaptation, in each scenario.
Partners:
© EU
This project received funding from the European Research Executive Agency under HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions, grant agreement No. 101060765
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
This work was funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number 10038491].