Browsing by Subject "Sustainability"

Previous research has shown that beef have higher environmental impacts of land use (LU) and global warming potential (GWP) than the legumes, though the production type of beef makes a difference in its environmental impacts. Beef as a protein source produced within High Nature Value (HNV) farming systems has not yet been compared to other protein sources in terms of nutritional and environmental impact. HNV farmland is defined as farmland areas in Europe “where agriculture is a major land use and where that agriculture supports or is associated with, either a high species and habitat diversity or the presence of species of European conservation concern or both” (Andersen et al. 2003). Though beef has higher environmental impacts, it can provide an important nutrient source, especially if the bioavailability (BA) of protein is taken into account. It is known that legumes have lower BA for protein than beef, which means that the beef protein and some nutrients are made more available for the human body. It remains unknown to what degree this could affect the required mass of foods consumed to meet nutrition requirements, which could in turn effect the environmental impacts of food consumption. The aim is to assess if HNV beef and plant-based protein-rich alternatives differ in environmental impacts when BA of proteins is considered. The objectives are i) to compare HNV beef in relation to its nutritional content and environmental impact to three alternative protein sources (red kidney beans, chickpeas, and fava beans) and ii) to assess the difference in environmental impacts when BA of these protein sources is and is not considered. The results showed that taking into account protein BA affects the available nutritional value of the protein and the environmental impacts of HNV beef and the other protein sources. The impacts of GWP and LU are highest for HNV and conventional beef even when the impacts were corrected for BA. This means that the inclusion of beef produced on HNV farmland in a sustainable diet is more environmentally impactful than protein intake from legumes when considering the chosen environmental categories. Future studies should include environmental impacts such as water use, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and also different socio-cultural metrics in order to justly assess HNV farming system and HNV products.

Knowledge co-production has become increasingly popular and even ‘buzzed’ notion in sustainability sciences. It is being applied in various contexts and for myriad of purposes under different, even partially contradicting rationales, yet it is often expected to contribute better to the sustainable transformation of society than normal science. One of the uniting elements in different understandings and applications of ‘knowledge co-production’ is the involvement of the extra-scientific actors in the research process. This implies changes in the conventional roles and relationship between science and society, that raise new questions about the autonomy and accountability of science. This master’s thesis studies knowledge co-production in higher education context and, more specifically, in the case of the HELSUS Co-Creation lab 2019-2020, and critically explores the notion of co-production in sustainability sciences. The dynamics, relationship, and roles between the scientific and extra-scientific actors within the Co-Creation lab are the specific interest in this qualitative case study that is primarily based on 12 semi-structured interviews of the lab participants analyzed by qualitative content analysis. The study shows how the dynamics between the master’s level students and the partners from the private and public sectors had features that resembled to some extent commissioned research type of roles, task coordination and interdependencies, however, it also contained significant characteristics that distinguished it from pure commission type of dynamics, as the autonomy of the student was greater, the control of the partner over the knowledge production process was lesser and the accountability of the students to the partners was more indirect and softer. The similarities between the application of knowledge co-production in the HELSUS Co-Creation lab and the co-production by the logic of accountability are highlighted and critical questions concerning instrumental forms of co-production, logic of accountability, usefulness of knowledge and scientific autonomy are discussed. More critically reflective approaches towards co-production are called for.