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The U.K. food system exhibits strong unsustainability indicators across multiple dimensions, both in terms of food and nutritional insecurity and in terms of adverse climate change, biodiversity, and physical resource impacts. These indices of an unsustainable and inequitable social metabolism are the result of capitalist agriculture and society in general and, more specifically, of neoliberal and austerity policies adopted with vigour since the global financial crisis. The causal, capitalistic, and, latterly, more neoliberal bases of the U.K. food system are delineated in the first section of the paper. These bases are then detailed in terms of their impacts in exacerbating climate change, biodiversity (and resource) decline and loss, and food and nutritional insecurity. The political narratives and policy frameworks available to dissemble, mitigate, or, more rarely, to address (resolve) these impacts are then delineated. It is argued that the only policy framework available that strongly integrates food security (social equity) with ecological sustainability is political agroecology and an accompanying degrowth strategy. The final section of the paper details what political agroecology and degrowth might entail for the U.K. food system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Background: Veterinarians occupy a unique position at the animal–human–environment interface and could play a crucial role in mitigating climate change and other environmental impacts of human activities. Objectives: The objective of this study was to survey the opinions of equine veterinary teams in the UK regarding the importance of sustainability issues, and current practices employed to promote sustainability. Study design: Online survey. Methods: The survey was distributed through various email veterinary listservs and social media sites, and was open to equine veterinary surgeons, veterinary nurses, veterinary students and practice administrators/managers. Results: A total of 374 responses were received. Seventy‐seven per cent of respondents considered sustainability issues to be extremely important or very important, but only 13% felt knowledgeable/well‐informed about practical ways of promoting sustainability in equine veterinary practice. Fifty‐six per cent of respondents stated that their organisations/practices had not introduced sustainability protocols. Over 50% of respondents considered that their organisations were dealing well with the issues of antimicrobial stewardship, anthelmintic stewardship and drug disposal, but less than 25% considered that their organisations were dealing well with fossil fuels, travel, disposable materials, responsible paper sourcing, water saving and communicating sustainability issues. Main limitations: Potential selection bias and response bias. Conclusions: Sustainability issues are considered important by the majority of equine veterinary practice teams in the UK, but there is a widespread lack of knowledge about practical ways of promoting sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the potential role of the construction industry in addressing the global challenge of climate change, stakeholders are beginning to develop the environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework. Prior to this, several assessment frameworks such as the building research establishment environmental assessment methods (BREEAM), LEED, and Green Star Certification amongst others have evolved to evaluate a development against an array of sustainability indicators. Through document analysis, this paper explores the extent sustainability assessment frameworks can help UK construction companies demonstrate their commitment to ESG targets. Findings show that although the BREEAM assessment framework captured environmental and social aspects to some extent, there appears to be much desired in its consideration for governance issues. Subsequent versions of the assessment frameworks should attempt to include some of these credits that are not currently included in the framework to guarantee stakeholders that the uptake of the framework in the decision‐making process would help to deliver ESG targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By considering the theoretical association between corporate transparency, information asymmetry and firm risk, this paper investigates the relationship between corporate carbon disclosure and firm risk in the UK context. Using a sample of FTSE350 firms with Carbon Disclosure Project based year-observations from 2007 to 2015, we find that enhanced voluntary carbon disclosure reduces a firm's total, systematic, and idiosyncratic risks. We also find that this negative association is driven mainly by carbon-intensive industries. Additional tests show that carbon disclosure was not a significant determinant of a firm's risk until after the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. Our findings are of interest to stakeholders, including business managers and investors as they have considerable interest in assessing firms' survival and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a quantitative study of prioritisation of biodiversity amongst small‐ to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) leaders. Existing research indicates that value orientation impacts propensity for pro‐environmental behaviours. However, as biodiversity loss remains inadequately addressed, this study employs the value‐belief‐norm framework to explore how leaders with strong biospheric and altruistic (collectively termed 'bigger‐than‐self') value orientations perceive their responsibility for biodiversity loss in comparison with climate change and, using an adaptation of the Global Reporting Initiative standards, how biodiversity is prioritised against other areas of environmental sustainability in their businesses. Surveying 61 SME leaders, primarily in the South‐West UK, it was found that biodiversity is often considered of low priority compared with factors such as energy, waste, materials and emissions. Analysis also indicates that these leaders feel less responsibility for biodiversity than for climate change demonstrating that, even where bigger‐than‐self values dominate, there is a need for higher prioritisation of biodiversity amongst SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maximising resource‐use efficiency, productivity and environmental sustainability are all fundamental requirements to raise global food production by ~70 per cent in order to feed a world population of ~9.7 billion people by 2050. Perhaps the most vital resource within our capacity to achieve this goal is our soil. Broadly, the fundamental question concerns whether or not satisfying this production demand will accelerate soil degradation, climate change, and the loss of soil carbon stocks. This paper builds upon the outputs of the UK Charity 'Food & Farming Futures' (chaired by Lord Curry of Kirkharle) virtual workshop held on 23 March 2021, entitled 'Capturing the Potential of Soil'. The event focussed on the link between soil health, primarily soil organic carbon (SOC), and agricultural productivity. Supported with commentaries by Professor Pete Smith (University of Aberdeen and Science Director of the Scottish Climate Change Centre of Expertise) and Professor Steve McGrath (Head of Sustainable Agricultural Sciences at Rothamsted Research), specific focus will be given to the research challenges within the UK's ability to improve soil health and functionality, the implementation priorities that must be held in order to improve soil management by 2050 and what the potential co‐benefits could be. These co‐benefits were scattered across environmental, economic, social and political issues, yet they may be summarised into six primary co‐benefits: developing natural capital, climate change mitigation, carbon trading, improvements in crop yield, animal performance and human health (nutrition). Additionally, the main barriers to improved soil management practices are centred on knowledge exchange‐regarding agri‐environmental techniques—whilst the most impactful solutions rely on soil monitoring, reporting and verification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both the physical and transition-related impacts of climate change pose substantial macroeconomic risks. Yet, markets still lack credible estimates of how climate change will affect debt sustainability, sovereign creditworthiness and the public finances of major economies. We present a taxonomy for tracing the physical and transition impacts of climate change through to impacts on sovereign risk. We then apply the taxonomy to the UK's potential transition to net zero. Meeting internationally agreed climate targets will require an unprecedented structural transformation of the global economy over the next two or three decades. The changing landscape of risks warrants new risk management and hedging strategies to contain climate risk and minimise the impact of asset stranding and asset devaluation. Yet, conditional on action being taken early, the opportunities from managing a net zero transition would substantially outweigh the costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The moral and justice dimensions of climate change are uncomfortable and commonly avoided in the conversations of day-to-day UK life. This 'silence' impedes the genesis of a public discourse to drive justice-oriented social and political change. Two social realms identified as silence-breaking are social movements and personal relationships, yet the potential of this intersection has yet to be explored. This article applies Goffman's theories of interaction to a qualitative study of UK-based climate activists to show how silence around climate justice is often a means to avoid relationship conflict, and the ways in which this is negotiated within everyday interactions. Activist participants faced conversational resistance through normative avoidance of climate-related death talk, and from negative environmental activist stereotyping. In efforts to protect relationships while promoting their climate politics, participants backgrounded their activist identity, slowly 'chipped away' at climate obstruction through social and sustainable practices, and prioritised humour. Breaking silences required taking relationship risks through radical environmentalist 'killjoy-talk': a deliberate, politicised transgression of polite conversation norms. The article reflects on the normativities and loci of power discursively obstructing a moral engagement, and the potential for activists' practical and discursive strategies to work against these to normalise politicised climate talk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change with adverse impacts on the environment, economy, and society requires marketing to change current attitudes and behaviors towards sustainable production and consumption, and thus climate change is interrelated to marketing. However, no body of literature has comprehensively investigated the connections and relationships between climate change and marketing. This study examined such connections and relationships from a bibliometric approach using Web of Science and Scopus databases from 1992 to 2022. The search strategy utilized topic and title/abstract/keyword search. The search query retrieved 1723 documents. VOSviewer and Biblioshiny were utilized to analyze data on authors, keywords, institutions, countries, sources, citations, and co-citations. The findings showed an upward trend in the annual number of publications with the top three most productive countries being the USA, the UK, and Australia and the most productive institutions in the USA, New Zealand, and the UK. The top three author keywords were climate change, sustainability, and marketing. The Sustainability journal ranked first in terms of productivity while Energy Policy in terms of citations. International collaborations were mostly between developed countries also known as Global North Countries, and collaborations between these countries and developing and developed countries should be encouraged. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of documents increased, and research themes altered. Research on energy, innovation, insect farming, and carbon management is a top priority. The results proved that most studies were conducted outside the field of marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of fruits and vegetables is expected to increase in the United Kingdom (UK) as a response to increasing consumers' demand, coupled with impacts of Brexit on the imports from the European Union (EU). Retailers and consumers are more aware of the environmental impact and provenance of food and are demanding to their suppliers to implement sustainable agricultural practices. Seven horticultural farmers and farm managers across the UK were interviewed to investigate the implementation of sustainable practices, and the motivations and enablers for adoption, as well as perceptions on sustainability and climate change. Factors influencing adoption mainly were efficiency and cost reduction, regulations, and market demand, even though, environmental, and social consciousness also played a role in adoption. There was little evidence that participation in knowledge networks or the perception of climate change and impacts, and of carbon footprint assessments influenced the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, but this finding deserves further investigation. Farmers' awareness of the importance of soil was clear and governments should encourage farmers' involvement in the monitoring of soil health, as a mean of engaging them in the wider discussion about the implementation of sustainable land management, including climate change adaptation and mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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