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The 'Berry Tours' art project brought together artists, activists and scholars from the fields of art education, political science and environmental sociology to engage in discussions about berry-picking and the conflict between the berry industry and the rights of foreign berry pickers in Finland. The project was a practical part of art-based action research that aimed to promote the involvement of artists in environmental politics and science communication. Art-based research methods were used to examine berry-picking culture, communicate the reasons for the conflict through installations and spread awareness of the issue. The exhibition received visibility, and artists actively participated in political events and discussions. The findings shed light on activist art and the integration of art into science centres. Challenges related to different practices in naming the author, the heterogeneity of the target group and expectations regarding entertainment and interaction were faced when art was shown in the science centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human impact on nature has now reached a level at which the well-being of future human society is at risk. Therefore, transformative change in society is needed. Environmental assessments contribute to shaping environmental policy, potentially leveraging transformative change. Red Lists are a key information source on the state of biodiversity. Our aim was to study the Red List authors' perceptions of how Red Lists contribute to leveraging sustainability changes. We interviewed 15 of the authors of the forest and peatland sections of the Finnish Red List of Ecosystems 2018. We used the framework of sustainability leverage points to locate sustainability changes that Red Lists have leveraged in the social part of the Finnish social-ecological system. Our results show how the assessors perceived the influence of the Red Lists at most of the leverage points, including the deepest ones, and how these influences simultaneously co-exist in several leverage points. The most prominent sustainability changes were linked with legislation and information flows, whereas current paradigms, system goals and legislation appeared to prevent Red Lists from leveraging sustainability changes in Finland. We conclude that the production and dissemination processes of Red List knowledge can make an important contribution to sustainability changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews and responds to policy frameworks across three sectors with the intention of efficiently reconciling national and EU climate-policy targets. The rationale behind national policies stems both from national policy ambitions and sector-specific commitments, but these may prove incompatible with broader EU policies such as the EU emissions trading system (EU ETS). Consequently, disparities between national and EU policies must, in turn, be adjusted accordingly, sector by sector. We show that reconciling differing policies does not necessarily rule out market-based instruments but that the efficient implementation of national targets can, in fact, build on and expand them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In security and foreign policy discourse, environmental issues have been discussed increasingly as security threats that require immediate action. Yet, as the traditional security sector does not provide straightforward means to deal with climate change and other environmental issues, this has prompted concerns over undue securitisation and ill-placed extreme measures. We argue that an effective policy to address foreseeable environmental security threats can only be developed and maintained by ensuring that it remains resolutely within the domain of civil society. In this article, we consider the case of Finland, where the policy concept of comprehensive security has been presented as the official guideline for security and preparedness activities in different sectors. Comprehensive security aims to safeguard the vital functions of society through cooperation between authorities, business operators, organisations, and citizens. We analyse the opportunities and challenges of Finland's comprehensive security policy in addressing environmental changes through a three-level framework of local, geopolitical and structural security impacts. Our empirical evidence is based on a set of expert interviews (n = 40) that represent a wide range of fields relevant to unconventional security issues. We find that the Finnish comprehensive security model provides an example of a wide and inclusive perspective to security which would allow for taking into account environmental security concerns. However, due to major challenges in the implementation of the model, it does not fully incorporate the long-term, cross-sectoral, and cascading aspects of environmental threats. This weakens Finland's preparedness against climate change which currently poses some of the most urgent environmental security problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geopolitical risks and environmental policy have become increasingly important in the European Union (EU), which is committed to tackling climate change and protecting the environment. However, geopolitical risks can undermine its environmental policy objectives. Thus, the study evaluates the relationship between geopolitical risks and environmental policy in nineteen EU countries from 1994 to 2020 through panel bootstrap Granger causality. The results show that geopolitical risks significantly influence environmental policy in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Romania. On the other hand, the findings reveal that environmental policy causes geopolitical risks only in Latvia, while there is no relationship in the remaining countries. Therefore, policymakers must develop resilience to geopolitical risks, promote renewable energy, strengthen environmental regulations, and address social and economic implications to reduce environmental policy vulnerability to geopolitical risks., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Environmental protection policy is a widely discussed issue in scientific works. However, special attention should be also paid to the effectiveness of expenditures on environmental protection, and this is the main goal of this paper. The countries of the European Union were selected for this analysis due to the fact that, in recent years, this region has become an informal world leader with respect to the implementation of policy measures in the field of environmental protection. For that reason, the data envelopment analysis methodology was used, which allows the calculation of input-output efficiency for the years 2005–2015. The analysis shows that, among the 30 analyzed countries, the most effective in environmental protection actions is Finland. The hypothesis that higher environmental protection expenditures does not result in better environmental results has been confirmed. Our analysis confirmed the problem of the deteriorating efficiency of environmental expenditures across the selected European Union Member States, caused by increases in spending. This research may contribute to the discussion on environmental protection policy design and its assessment, as well as environmental policy results measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]