PhD thesis: Methodology for designing and evaluating socio-technical alternatives

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Environmental context and socio-technical lock

The environmental pressures exerted by human activities on the environment are leading to profound changes in the latter. Their impact on human and non-human life is already being felt and is growing.
A number of studies, notably those by [Rockström2009] and [Steffen2015], attempt to quantify the planetary limits that must not be crossed if we are to remain in a sustainable space for human societies.
These limits include climate change, ocean acidification, declining biodiversity, altered biogeochemical cycles, various types of pollution, etc. These limits are global, but there are of course also local constraints that affect society in a given territory. For example, the availability of natural “resources” (fauna, flora, arable land, minerals, fossil fuels, etc.) and their sustainable rate of exploitation (which may be zero), the capacity to absorb environmental pollution, and so on. From an anthropocentric perspective, we sometimes speak of ecosystem services, which the natural environment provides to humans.

These ecosystem services are affected by global changes: for example, local biodiversity is affected by local factors, such as soil artificialisation, but also by global climate change.Faced with the need to reduce the environmental footprint of our societies, several strategies can be envisaged, which are non-exclusive. The spectrum ranges from individual action (more virtuous consumption) to government intervention and corporate responsibility/regulation. A recent report by Carbone 4 [Dugast2019] highlights the fact that individual action is essential, but far from sufficient, to achieve greenhouse gas emission 1 reduction targets. This is because “each individual is limited by the socio-technical system, i.e. the social and technological environment on which he or she depends”.

In other words, the equipment and infrastructures we inherit, the organization of work, and our modes of production and consumption form a complex system in which all the elements are closely interrelated.
It is with this in mind that the STEEP team has decided to focus its new research on the construction and evaluation of socio-technical alternatives (defined in the next section), building on its previous work in the field of environmental modelling and assessment.
The present thesis project lies at the heart of this new line of research.

Scientific background and project objectives

Research questions and problems

In the context of the environmental issues outlined in the previous paragraph, a number of questions arise. How can we get back below the planetary limits already crossed, and how can we avoid crossing new ones? What might happen at local and global level, depending on the trajectory actually followed? How could human society adapt to the consequences?

The central scientific question we propose to address in this thesis is: How can we design a methodology and associated tools (software or other) that enable stakeholders in a territory to think together about viable socio-technical organizations of the territory, according to local constraints and those imposed by global changes? Cette question se décline en plusieurs sous-questions :

  • How do you define viability? There are many possible definitions. A priori, we will adopt a rather material point of view, from the angle of the satisfaction of basic needs such as food, access to drinking water, housing and mobility (bearing in mind that other needs may be just as important: social ties, cultural activities, etc.). These needs have the advantage of being relatively well quantified and linked to the study of global change (for example, through the study of agricultural yields under the impact of climate change).
  • How can we formally represent the socio-technical organization of a territory? To a first approximation, we’re talking about a new arrangement of modes of production and consumption. At the very least, we plan to build on our previous work [Courtonne2015, Courtonne2016] modeling territorial economic sectors (which transformation chains between raw materials and end products, which “physical” flows between imports/extraction or local production and exports/consumption and local waste, including recycling). The challenge here will be to move from a single-sector analysis to an economy-wide analysis. The first avenue to be explored will be the use of use-resource tables in physical (non-monetary) units. These tables provide a clear picture of the flows that exist between different materials, products or services, and the sectors that produce, process or consume them. Input-output analysis [Lenzen2012] or absorbing Markov chain techniques [Duchin2013] can easily be applied to them to trace supply chains and calculate environmental footprints. The choice of the right modeling granularity and whether or not to spatialize flows are scientific questions in their own right, which can be addressed in the second half of the thesis.
  • How do we assess the viability of a socio-technical organization in the sense defined above? Very schematically, it boils down to assessing whether the model socio-technical organization is capable of meeting at least its basic needs.
  • How can global and local constraints be taken into account? This needs to be done at different levels. For example, the socio-technical organization modeled needs to take into account the degree of availability of resources on the territory or in neighboring territories, constraints linked to their sustainable exploitation, etc. It is therefore essential to carry out a balance sheet of these resources for the territory(ies) under consideration. Consequently, it is essential to draw up a balance sheet of these resources for the territory(ies) under consideration. The overall methodology developed will therefore include tools for representing such balances and, wherever possible, importing them from appropriate databases. A second aspect is linked to global constraints: it is crucial to incorporate, in the socio-technical modeling, assumptions on, for example, agricultural yields or irrigation water availability, for expected climate change trajectories. Here too, it will be necessary to integrate results or data from other scientific studies.

The above questions provide a framework for the methodology to be implemented. In terms of technical implementation, a number of mathematical and computer-related issues then arise. The modeling tool at the heart of the methodology is IO (for input/output) economic analysis [Leontief1970], which makes it possible to represent a socio-technical organization and couple it with constraints on resources (and also, on pollution and waste that can be “tolerated”).

The IO representation of a productive socio-technical organization [Aleskerov2011] must satisfy mathematical constraints, the Hawkins-Simon conditions [Hawkins1949] (constraints on the minors of an IO matrix). Designing a productive socio-technical organization is a complex exercise, and the presence of these mathematical constraints is both an additional complication and a help. Various scientific mathematical and methodological questions can be addressed. For example, given a non-productive IO matrix, how can we deduce a close matrix (in the sense of a distance between matrices) that is productive?

How can we guide the incremental construction of a productive IO matrix in the most efficient way for the user? How can this construction be made more flexible by taking into account intervals for the coefficients of the IO matrix rather than fixed entries? Etc.

Finally, the evaluation and comparison of different socio-technical organizations ultimately comes down to a multi-criteria decision-support problem. Questions may arise as to how to represent these evaluations and comparisons in a way that is relevant to stakeholders and the discussion and decision-making process. It is still too early to give concrete ideas for this, but these questions will undoubtedly arise in the course of the thesis.

Scientific works identified as related

For the time being, most modeling and forecasting approaches have focused on specific sectors, providing a good level of description. The shortcoming of these approaches is that they fail to take into account the interdependencies between all sectors of the economy. For example, based on the study of feedbacks between energy and raw materials, [Vidal2018] shows that some 2°C scenarios cannot actually achieve their objectives. Nexus studies” are taking this problem head-on, exploring the relationships between agriculture, water and energy (for example). These approaches are not standardized, and in fact use a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative analysis methodologies [Albrecht2018]. Part of the thesis literature review will logically be devoted to these approaches, to see how they might be complemented and integrated into the proposed framework.
Similarly, certain elements could be taken from the MuSIASEM (Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism) approach [Giampietro2009]. This is the case of the distinction between flows (entities that disappear during the study period) and funds (entities that are maintained during the study period), inherited from [Geogescu-Roegen1975], insofar as the notion of sustainability can be interpreted as the preservation of funds. The reading grid used in MuSIASEM is also close to our own: viability (in terms of the internal coherence of the system described), feasibility (in terms of environmental sustainability) and desirability (perceived performance of the socio-technical organization).

The methods and results of the European OPEN:EU project (One Planet Economy Network, oneplaneteconomynetwork.org), as well as the work that resulted from it, will also be analyzed in detail. They are based on the calculation of a family of environmental footprints via IO methods, and a scenario construction and evaluation tool (EUREAPA, [Roelich2014]) has been developed. In relation to this work, the challenge of the thesis is to work at geographical scales and at a finer sectoral level of detail (particularly for the biomass and energy sectors).
Finally, we have adopted a non-reductionist approach put forward by ecological economics, which implies considering the incommensurability of certain dimensions to be evaluated, which does not necessarily mean that they are unquantifiable, but that they are of different natures and cannot compensate for each other [Munda2004].

Schematic diagram of the thesis: proposal of a formalism to describe socio-technical organizations and then evaluate them according to criteria of satisfying people’s needs and respecting local and global environmental limits.

Proposed approach

Designing a methodology for describing and evaluating a socio-technical organization

Le travail envisagé ici est d’abord méthodologique. A terme nous souhaiterions disposer d’une vision multi-échelle du problème permettant d’analyser plusieurs niveaux encastrés : territoire, région, France, Europe voire Monde. L’ambition sera plus restreinte dans le cadre de la thèse et l’avancement se fera par itérations entre conception du modèle et test sur des jeux de données et scénarios existants.
Par exemple, au niveau national plusieurs scénarios de transition énergétique (scénario négaWatt, scénario Ademe) et du système agro-alimentaire (scénarios Afterres, [Billen2018]) ont été établis. Il s’agirait :

The work envisaged here is primarily methodological. Ultimately, we would like to have a multi-scale vision of the problem, enabling us to analyze several embedded levels: territory, region, France, Europe and even the world. The ambition will be more restricted within the framework of the thesis, and progress will be made by iterations between model design and testing on existing datasets and scenarios.
For example, at national level, several energy transition scenarios (négaWatt scenario, Ademe scenario) and agri-food system scenarios (Afterres scenarios, [Billen2018]) have been established. These include :

  • (i) transpose these scenarios into the chosen formalism (a priori, the physical resources tables),
  • (ii) move from sector-based scenarios to scenarios that take all economic sectors into account,
  • (iii)study formally, and then on an example, how the addition of exogenous constraints (available resources, pollution thresholds, trade with the rest of the world, etc.) results in a reduction in the space of possibilities,
  • (iv) evaluate the environmental performance of the socio-technical organization produced, according to a number of criteria.

The environmental assessment methods used in this work include environmental input-output analysis (EE-IO), material, substance and energy flow analysis (MEFA) and life cycle assessment (LCA). The former enables a mesoscopic analysis (description of interdependencies between sectors of the economy) and the rigorous tracing of flows from production to consumption (or vice versa) [Suh2009]; the latter provides a detailed view of certain key sectors (agricultural, forestry, energy, etc.) and/or biogeochemical cycles (nitrogen, phosphorus, etc.), focusing on the environmental impact of each. ) by validating material and energy balances [Brunner2016]; finally, the use of LCA/LCI (Life Cycle Inventory) databases is envisaged to complete certain missing information on technosphere and biosphere flows directly and indirectly associated with particular products.(ex : ecoinvent base).

In terms of software development, this thesis will draw directly on tools already developed by the host team (input/output modeling, material flow analysis). New modules will be developed (management of mathematical constraints, evaluation methods, visualization, links with databases, etc.), and part of this work will certainly be carried out by trainees.
The scientific approach will be based on a number of different activities. Firstly, research into the mathematical questions posed, the methodology for designing a socio-technical organization, and the definition of basic needs. This will be followed by an analysis of the literature on global change and local impacts, in order to identify relevant data for modeling a territory.

Design of a tool that can be mobilized by stakeholders

Once the model has been conceptualized, work is required to make it accessible to local stakeholders (decision-makers, members of associations, citizens, industry representatives, etc.). Two distinct phases can be distinguished, potentially using different tools: (i) assistance in the co-construction of socio-technical alternatives, (ii) assistance in the multi-criteria evaluation of these alternatives.
The approach will be presented to local players, through the numerous contacts made by the host team. Ideally, a modelling and evaluation exercise in collaboration with these stakeholders would be carried out, but it is too early to say whether this is realistic within the framework of this thesis.

Actions planned for the first and second years

Year 1 :
• Non-exhaustive bibliography: mathematics for economics, IPCC reports, sectoral foresight work, socio-technical systems approaches, metabolic modeling and environmental analysis methods.
•Use of existing tools within the host team (material flow analysis).
• Development of a first minimal but complete prototype for the design and evaluation of a socio-technical organization, based on a real or fictitious territory. This work includes the mathematical analysis issues outlined above.

Year 2 :
• Application to a real territory. This will include research into additional data (including resources available in the area) and results on the impact of potential climate change on the area (agricultural yields, water tables, etc.). The scale of the territory analyzed (community of communes, region, France) has not yet been defined.
• This implementation will bring to light new software and methodological development needs that will also have to be addressed.

Envisaged partnerships

This thesis is at the heart of the STEEP team’s research, and although the student will be the linchpin, he or she will benefit from a large number of interactions within the team and between the team and external partners. Contacts include

  • Ademe and CIRED have begun work on the construction of material flow matrices for integrated energy-materials forecasting.
  • The Négawatt and Solagro associations, which drew up the NégaWatt scenarios and Afterres 2050.
  • Stefan Giljum’s research group at the Institute for Ecological Economics in Vienna, which has long been working on physical resource use tables (most recently as part of the ERC Fineprint), and was also a partner in the OPEN:EU project mentioned above.

To sum up, the aim of this thesis is to develop a methodology for designing and evaluating socio-technical organizations, and to design the associated software tools. This is interdisciplinary work, combining mathematical and algorithmic issues with concepts and data from the environmental sciences, and even the humanities and social sciences. This is a complex subject, but the PhD student will fit in perfectly with the scientific program of the host team, will be supported from time to time by interns, and will be open to the work of other laboratories.

References

  • [Albrecht2018] Albrecht, T. R., Crootof, A., & Scott, C. A.The Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A systematic review of methods for nexus assessment. Environmental Research Letters, 13(4). 2018.
  • [Aleskerov2011] Fuad Aleskerov, Hasan Ersel, and Dmitri Piontkowski. Linear Algebra for Economists. Springer, 2011.
  • [Billen2018] Billen, G., Le Noë, J., & Garnier, J. Two contrasted future scenarios for the French agro-food system. Science of the Total Environment, 637, 695-705. 2018.
  • [Brunner2016] Brunner, P. H., & Rechberger, H. Handbook of material flow analysis: for environmental, resource, and waste engineers. CRC press. 2016.
  • [Courtonne2015] Courtonne, J-Y., Alapetite, J., Longaretti, P-Y., Dupré, D., Prados, E. Downscaling material flow analysis: the case of the cereal supply chain in France. Ecological Economics, 118, 2015.
  • [Courtonne2016] Courtonne, J-Y., Longaretti, P., Alapetite, J., Dupré, D. Environmental Pressures Embodied in the French Cereals Supply Chain. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 20, 2016.
  • [Duchin2013] Duchin, F., & Levine, S. H. Embodied resource flows in a global economy. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 17(1), 65-78. 2013.
  • [Dugast2019] Dugast, C., Soyeux, A. Faire sa part ? Pouvoir et responsabilité des individus, des entreprises et de l’état face à l’urgence climatique. Publication Carbone 4. 2019.
  • [http://www.carbone4.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Publication-Carbone-4-Faire-sa-part-pouvoir-responsabilite-climat.pdf]
  • [Georgescu-Roegen1975] Georgescu-Roegen, N. Energy and economic myths. Southern economic journal, 347-381. 1975.
  • [Giampietro2009] Giampietro, M., Mayumi, K., & Ramos-Martin, J. Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM): Theoretical concepts and basic rationale. Energy, 34(3), 313-322. 2009.
  • [Hawkins1949] David Hawkins and Herbert A. Simon. Note: some conditions of macroeconomic stability. Econometrica, 17:245–248, 1949.
  • [Lenzen2012] Lenzen, M., & Rueda-Cantuche, J. M. A note on the use of supply-use tables in impact analyses. SORT-Statistics and Operations Research Transactions, 36(2), 139-152. 2012.
  • [Leontief1970] Wassily Leontief, Environmental Repercussions and the Economic Structure: An Input-Output Approach, The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(3), 1970.
  • [Munda2004] Munda, G. Social multi-criteria evaluation: Methodological foundations and operational consequences. European journal of operational research, 158(3), 662-677. 2004.
  • [Rockström2009] Johan Rockström et al. Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity, Ecology and Society 14(2), 2009.
  • [Roelich2014] Roelich, K., Owen, A., Thompson, D., Dawkins, E., & West, C. Improving the policy application of footprint indicators to support Europe’s transition to a one planet economy: The development of the EUREAPA tool. Science of the Total Environment, 481, 662-667. 2014.
  • [Steffen2015] Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M., …& Folke, C. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347(6223). 2015.
  • [Suh2009] Suh, S. (Ed.). Handbook of input-output economics in industrial ecology (Vol. 23). Springer Science & Business Media. 2009.
  • [Vidal2018] Vidal, O. Matières premières et énergie: les enjeux de demain. ISTE Group. 2018.
  • [Albrecht2018] Albrecht, T. R., Crootof, A., & Scott, C. A.The Water-Energy-Food Nexus: A systematic review of methods for nexus assessment. Environmental Research Letters, 13(4). 2018.
  • [Aleskerov2011] Fuad Aleskerov, Hasan Ersel, and Dmitri Piontkowski. Linear Algebra for Economists. Springer, 2011.
  • [Billen2018] Billen, G., Le Noë, J., & Garnier, J. Two contrasted future scenarios for the French agro-food system. Science of the Total Environment, 637, 695-705. 2018.
  • [Brunner2016] Brunner, P. H., & Rechberger, H. Handbook of material flow analysis: for environmental, resource, and waste engineers. CRC press. 2016.
  • [Courtonne2015] Courtonne, J-Y., Alapetite, J., Longaretti, P-Y., Dupré, D., Prados, E. Downscaling material flow analysis: the case of the cereal supply chain in France. Ecological Economics, 118, 2015.
  • [Courtonne2016] Courtonne, J-Y., Longaretti, P., Alapetite, J., Dupré, D. Environmental Pressures Embodied in the French Cereals Supply Chain. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 20, 2016.
  • [Duchin2013] Duchin, F., & Levine, S. H. Embodied resource flows in a global economy. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 17(1), 65-78. 2013.
  • [Dugast2019] Dugast, C., Soyeux, A. Faire sa part ? Pouvoir et responsabilité des individus, des entreprises et de l’état face à l’urgence climatique. Publication Carbone 4. 2019.
  • [http://www.carbone4.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Publication-Carbone-4-Faire-sa-part-pouvoir-responsabilite-climat.pdf]
  • [Georgescu-Roegen1975] Georgescu-Roegen, N. Energy and economic myths. Southern economic journal, 347-381. 1975.
  • [Giampietro2009] Giampietro, M., Mayumi, K., & Ramos-Martin, J. Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSIASEM): Theoretical concepts and basic rationale. Energy, 34(3), 313-322. 2009.
  • [Hawkins1949] David Hawkins and Herbert A. Simon. Note: some conditions of macroeconomic stability. Econometrica, 17:245–248, 1949.
  • [Lenzen2012] Lenzen, M., & Rueda-Cantuche, J. M. A note on the use of supply-use tables in impact analyses. SORT-Statistics and Operations Research Transactions, 36(2), 139-152. 2012.
  • [Leontief1970] Wassily Leontief, Environmental Repercussions and the Economic Structure: An Input-Output Approach, The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(3), 1970.
  • [Munda2004] Munda, G. Social multi-criteria evaluation: Methodological foundations and operational consequences. European journal of operational research, 158(3), 662-677. 2004.
  • [Rockström2009] Johan Rockström et al. Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity, Ecology and Society 14(2), 2009.
  • [Roelich2014] Roelich, K., Owen, A., Thompson, D., Dawkins, E., & West, C. Improving the policy application of footprint indicators to support Europe’s transition to a one planet economy: The development of the EUREAPA tool. Science of the Total Environment, 481, 662-667. 2014.
  • [Steffen2015] Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M., …& Folke, C. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347(6223). 2015.
  • [Suh2009] Suh, S. (Ed.). Handbook of input-output economics in industrial ecology (Vol. 23). Springer Science & Business Media. 2009.
  • [Vidal2018] Vidal, O. Matières premières et énergie: les enjeux de demain. ISTE Group. 2018.