Faster progress towards sustainability could be achieved if academics and businesses worked together on research, says a new report.
A project led by the Cambridge Institute Sustainability Leadership (CISL) has drawn up a list of research questions that would help companies tackle their impacts and dependencies on food, energy, water and the environment, which it calls ‘nexus’ issues.
The questions were developed as part of the Nexus 2020 project, which was led by CISL and focused on bridging the gap between the business and academic worlds. It involved more than 250 stakeholders, including representatives from Asda, EDF Energy, HSBC and Nestlé, and academics from universities in Cambridge, Leeds and Exeter.
A report on the project states that, because academics tend to engage companies at the end of a research process, studies are often flawed. The absence of anyone who might use the results of the research during the design phase of a study limits the likelihood of it being useful to them, or even seen, after publication, it says.
Jake Reynolds, executive director of sustainable economy at CISL, said: ‘The most efficient way for academics to identify the research needs of companies is to talk with them; likewise the most effective way for companies to obtain useful insights from academics is to work with them as partners from the beginning of a research process to its conclusion – and potentially beyond into practice where new questions arise. This is surprisingly rare.’
CISL hopes that, if businesses are fully engaged in shaping research objectives and methods, the results could be spread globally through the reach and influence of companies. In return, academics would be able to conduct research in real business operations.
The project shortlisted 40 questions covering the most pressing areas for academics and businesses can act on.
Research priorities identified through the project come under five themes:
- Incentives for change – for example, how could business models be changed to incorporate nexus concerns about overconsumption and waste?
- Collaboration and stakeholder engagement – for example, what are the drivers and barriers that affect private sector decisions to invest in innovative solutions (including technologies) that can have cross-sectoral nexus benefits?
- Investing in sustainability – for example, how can financial institutions effectively internalise the nexus into their routine risk analysis and decision-making practices?
- Supply chains taking a landscape approach – for example, what geographic scales of decision-making and governance are best suited to address nexus issues?
- Making better policy – for example, what are the links and opportunities between public health costs and managing food, energy and water systems more sustainably?
CISL is looking for multidisciplinary panels of researchers and business practitioners to develop the research projects that can answer these questions. To find out more, contact [email protected].
