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Introduction: Menstrual health in humanitarian contexts is a neglected topic. Its taboo nature presents difficulties for participants in menstrual health projects in these particularly challenging settings. Namely, their experiences may be concealed or overlooked in projects that are typically outcome focused. Realist Evaluation is a useful method to unearth and explore the hidden mechanisms and their causes, which lead to positive or negative participant experiences. The authors have applied this approach to a robust humanitarian menstrual health project to explore how to centre the emotional wellbeing of participants at all stages: prior to, during, and post-participation. Study setting: The project studied was led by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies who piloted their adaptable manual for menstruator–friendly water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) facility design in humanitarian contexts. It was conducted by the Lebanese Red Cross in an informal tented settlement hosting Syrian refugees in Qaa, Lebanon. Methods: The authors collected interview and focus group data on the contextual factors and processes within the project from nine project staff and 16 settlement inhabitants. They used a realist process of theory development, testing, and consolidation to understand how and under what circumstances the project inputs affected participants' wellbeing. Results: The contextual factors and causal mechanisms promoting participant experience comprised individual (choices influencing and experience during participation), interpersonal (group dynamics and the role of non-menstruators), and organisational (expertise and knowledge, relationship to participants and cultural differences) factors. Implications: The research uses a case study from a renowned humanitarian organisation who provided a well-delivered project in a conducive environment to explore the mechanisms and contexts that can promote wider learning and refine understanding and programming in this under-researched and -theorised space. Specifically, it informs which contextual factors and project inputs must be present within a menstrual health project to ensure participant satisfaction whilst efficiently delivering well-designed menstruator-friendly WaSH facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmentally sustainable small-scale rice production mechanisation is a feasible intervention to help enhance yields and reduce food insecurity. Using machinery for rice production can help small farmers economically and promote sustainability through agroecological principles. The study analyses machinery ownership models and suggests stakeholder interactions for sustainable rice production. The study uses primary data from a field survey of 320 farmers within Asutsuare, a rice production hub in Southern Ghana, and secondary data from various sources. Four different ownership models have been proposed and evaluated. The cooperative-owned machinery (COM) model, with a sharing of the initial investment capital outlay for the machinery acquisition, and the individual ownership model, where the farmer owns and offers hiring services to other farmers (the FOHM-2B and FOHM-2T models) were the most economically viable models. The study also identifies necessary stakeholder engagement and pathways for affordable, sustainable, mechanised small-scale rice production. The models and interactions can promote machinery ownership and strengthen social connections in the community. This local knowledge base can help expand the use of machinery within the community. These models and interactions can be replicated easily in Sub-Saharan African farming communities with similar dynamics. This will improve mechanised farming throughout the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure is crucial to the functioning of society and the economy. Yet, to avoid precipitating environmental breakdown, it must undergo transformation. We argue that citizens who rely on infrastructure's services should have a say in how transformation is managed. However, the complex nature of infrastructure means that public dialogue is difficult and rarely done well. Infrastructure has several characteristics, which make elicitation of perceptions challenging: it is connective, relational, obdurate, collective and subject to fragmented governance. We held a series of deliberative workshops in a city in the UK, to examine how public perceptions of infrastructure are shaped by these characteristics. We found that using infrastructure's characteristics as a framework for deliberation built participants' capabilities to articulate perceptions of infrastructure. We argue that using these characteristics also placed more emphasis on the socio-materiality of infrastructure and can address the disconnect between scales of participation and scales of decision making. This offers an alternative way to debate the desirable attributes of infrastructure, which we argue is more productive and inclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change mitigation has two main characteristics that interact to make it an extremely demanding challenge of governance: the complexity of the socio-technical systems that must be transformed to avoid climate change and the presence of profound uncertainties. A number of tools and approaches exist, which aim to help manage these challenges and support long-term decision making. However, most tools and approaches assume that there is one decision maker with clearly defined objectives. The interaction between decision makers with differing perspectives and agency is an additional uncertainty that is rarely addressed, despite the wide recognition that action is required at multiple scales and by multiple actors. This article draws inspiration from dynamic adaptive policy pathways to build on current decision support methods, extending analysis to include the perspectives and agency of multiple actors through a case study of the UK construction sector. The findings demonstrate the importance of considering alignment between perspectives, agency and potential actions when developing plans; the need for mobilizing and advocacy actions to build momentum for radical change; and the crucial influence of interaction between actors. The decision support approach presented could improve decision making by reflecting the diversity and interaction of actors; identifying short-term actions that connect to long-term goals and keeping future options open. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing international emissions reduction policies are not sufficient to meet the internationally agreed objective of limiting average global temperature rise to ‘well below’ two degrees, resulting in an emissions gap. Materials - such as aluminium, cement, paper, plastics and steel - act as a carrier of industrial energy that allows, through trade, the transfer of embodied emissions between sectors and countries. However, the use of materials has been overshadowed by policies focusing on energy efficiency improvements and deployment of a low carbon energy supply. This article argues that policies based on material and product demand can support domestic climate change mitigation and reduce the emissions gap, yet there is little obvious integration between climate and material efficiency policies. The article investigates current ‘emissions flows’ through the EU economy and how much of these are captured and excluded from existing EU climate policies. We analyse the potential increase in emissions coverage that would be achieved by extending EU directives that currently target the energy use of products (cars, buildings and appliances) in operation, to include the emissions required to produce the goods (i.e. embodied emissions). The analysis shows that a greater integration of material efficiency strategies within climate change mitigation policy could significantly increase the emissions coverage of existing product policies. Key policy insights Consumption is a key driver of emissions and demand reduction is an important policy option in reducing emissions, at least in the short-term, to reduce the risks of a longer-term reliance on technology breakthroughs and while the EU carbon price remains low. Emissions embodied in material-intensive manufactured products consumed in the EU represent the equivalent of over 40% of EU production emissions, offering significant scope for emissions reductions along product supply chains. Consumption measures that target the use of materials and products offer complementary mitigation options to low carbon energy supply technologies alongside costs savings. Existing EU policies addressing the energy efficiency of products can be used to scale up material efficiency measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Municipalities in the UK are increasingly engaging in local management of one or more parts of the energy system. The municipal energy companies set up to manage this engagement have the potential to contribute to a low-carbon transition through acceleration of low-carbon energy technology roll-out and demand management. However, municipal energy companies face many constraints that limit their growth in number and scale and restrict their potential to contribute to climate change mitigation. This paper aims to develop a better understanding of why and how municipal energy companies form to help to identify how policy and regulation could better support their proliferation and their contribution to climate change mitigation. We conducted a longitudinal analysis (from 2013 to 2017) of five UK cities’ attempts to develop new institutional arrangements to engage in the national energy system and contribute to climate change mitigation. We found that the fundamental purpose of municipal energy companies was different to those of the private sector; using energy to deliver essential services and place-specific outcomes, rather than aiming to deliver energy at least cost. The scope of engagement was dependent on a city’s unique characteristics and factors driving decisions. We found that there was no blueprint for a municipal energy company, rather the final form was shaped by a city’s unique characteristics and decision drivers and emerged from a process of experimentation and learning. This ‘pathway’ towards a municipal energy company is also heavily influenced by the changing policy context, meaning that studying the evolution of municipal energy companies over time is very important. Specific changes in UK policy have significantly reduced the potential of municipal energy companies to contribute to carbon emissions reduction. We propose a framework of characteristics, decision drivers and pathways to better understand the evolution of municipal energy companies and to support the identification of policy and regulation that could enable their proliferation. We illustrate the application of this framework to maximise the contribution of municipal energy companies to climate change mitigation in cities. We identified a need for policy to recognise and enable different institutional drivers (including climate change) and institutional forms and encourage experimentation. Furthermore, new approaches to accounting and valuation are needed that capture social and environmental outcomes and outcomes that occur in the long-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Environmentally extended multi-regional input–output (EE-MRIO) models provide us with a wealth of data relating to consumption-based environmental impacts at a national level. The results can identify the categories of consumption and sectors of production that contribute most to environmental impact allowing policy makers to prioritise intervention into particular areas. However, these data are not readily accessible to policy makers and civil society, making it difficult to extract and communicate the important messages it contains. The web-based tool — EUREAPA — was created as a usable, task-oriented interface to improve access to environmental and economic data held within a complex EE-MRIO model and make it more relevant to policy makers and civil society. The project team of scientists and IT specialists used an iterative, agile and participatory approach to engage potential end-users in the specification and testing of the tool. The engagement process identified two principal functions that were essential for the EUREAPA tool: viewing data and creating scenarios. The viewing data function allows users to analyse the wealth of data held within the model and present results from a range of perspectives. This helps to understand the causes of environmental pressure and identify priorities for policy intervention. The scenario function helps to communicate how changes in consumption and production might affect the future environmental impact of citizens of the EU, and facilitates long-term planning. Through this dialogue process the project has been able to ensure EUREAPA is relevant, user-friendly and fit-for-purpose. It is intended that EUREAPA will be adopted by policy makers and civil society as an important policy planning and assessment aid in the complex field of sustainable consumption and production. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Introducing new technologies into infrastructure (wind turbines, electric vehicles, low-carbon materials and so on) often demands materials that are 'critical'; their supply is likely to be disrupted owing to limited reserves, geopolitical instability, environmental issues and/or increasing demand. Non-critical materials may become critical if introduced into infrastructure, owing to its gigatonne scale. This potentially poses significant risk to the development of low-carbon infrastructure. Analysis of this risk has previously overlooked the relationship between the 'local properties' that determine the selection of a technology and the overall vulnerability of the system, a global property. Treating materials or components as elements having fixed properties overlooks optima within the local-global variable space that could be exploited to minimise vulnerability while maximising performance. In this study, a framework for such analysis is presented along with a preliminary measure of relative materials criticality by way of a case study (a wind turbine generator). Although introduction of critical materials (in this case, rare earth metals) enhances technical performance by up to an order of magnitude, the associated increase in criticality may be two or three orders of magnitude. Analysis at the materials and component levels produces different results; design decisions should be based on analysis at several levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meat consumption behaviours contribute significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions. Interventions to enable meat consumption reductions need to consider the psychological barriers preventing behavioural changes. Our aims were twofold; (1) to explore the psychological barriers to reducing meat consumption and how they can be overcome through a Rapid Evidence Review; and (2) to explore the usefulness of integrating the Kollmuss and Agyeman (K&A) model of pro-environmental behaviour and psychological distance, which provides the analytical framework. This review utilised three databases, focussing on empirical studies since 2010, which returned 277 results with seven eligible studies. We found that habit is the most significant psychological barrier to change, however, values and attitudes could act as moderating variables. We found gaps in the behavioural mechanism, indicating the presence of direct and indirect psychological barriers. We identified several actionable policy recommendations, such as utilising co-benefits, the importance of values in messaging, and targeting repeated behaviours. We found that study outcomes did not always translate into policy recommendations, and they were limited by existing policy paradigms. Psychological distance provides additional explanatory power, when combined with the K&A model, therefore, integrating psychological distance across pro-environmental behavioural research and policy could improve the effectiveness of interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global GHG emissions continue to rise, with nearly a quarter of it due to trade that is not currently captured within global climate policy. In the context of current trade patterns and limited global cooperation on climate change, the feasibility of consumption-based emissions accounting to contribute to a more comprehensive (national) policy framework in the UK is investigated. Consumption-based emissions results for the UK from a range of models are presented, their technical robustness is assessed, and their potential application in national climate policy is examined using examples of policies designed to reduce carbon leakage and to address high levels of consumption. It is shown that there is a need to include consumption-based emissions as a complementary indicator to the current approach of measuring territorial emissions. Methods are shown to be robust enough to measure progress on climate change and develop and inform mitigation policy. Finally, some suggestions are made for future policy-oriented research in the area of consumption-based accounting that will facilitate its application to policy. Policy relevance Emissions embodied in trade are rapidly increasing and there is thus a growing gap between production emissions and the emissions associated with consumption. This is a growing concern due to the absence of a global cap and significant variation in country-level mitigation ambitions. Robust measurements of consumption-based emissions are possible and provide new insights into policy options. This includes trade-related policy (e.g. border carbon adjustments) and domestic policies (e.g. resource efficiency strategies). As climate policy targets deepen, there is a need for a broad range of policy options in addition to production and technological solutions. Consumption-based emissions are complementary to production-based emissions inventories, which are still the most accurate estimate for aggregated emissions at the global level. However, without consumption-based approaches, territorial emissions alone will not provide a complete picture of progress in regional and national emissions reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the relationships between the moral philosophical foundations and strategic goals of two conceptions of energy justice: the "triumvirate conception" and the "principled approach". We explore the extent to which the goals of these approaches align with their core aims and strategies. Having initially been developed to capture and reflect the values of activist-led environmental justice movements, we find that the triumvirate approach's adoption of a trivalent conception of justice currently lies in tension with its overarching top-down approach. We note that the principled approach does not face the same tensions as the triumvirate conception of energy justice, but would benefit from illustrating the consequences of framing the same energy dilemma with conflicting moral theories. Aiming to ameliorate these limitations and further develop conceptions of energy justice, we outline a case study of hydro power in Hirakud, India and propose a framework which illustrates how using differing theories of justice to conceptualise the same energy dilemmas can result in substantially different normative framings and guidance. We illustrate how this framework, combined with a pluralistic appeal to moral theory, can enable both approaches to draw on a wider range of moral theory to assess energy dilemmas. This in turn provides a broader socio-political backdrop in which to view energy dilemmas. We outline how this backdrop contributes to the creation of a space in which the grievances of those who suffer in relation to energy systems can be heard and better understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]