A Conceptual Framework for Complex Systems at the Crossroads of Food, Environment, Health, and Innovation

Abstract

Climate-smart solutions and practices have the potential to contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of achieving zero hunger; ensuring healthy lives and promoting the wellbeing of humans, animals, and plants; reducing ocean overharvesting and overfishing; tackling climate change; driving economic growth; and promoting innovation. Achieving these goals will require searching for, defining, and adopting the most effective and suitable scientific approach for studying synergies between often-opposing socioeconomic and environmental priorities. Developing a critical conceptual framework as a reading key for the SDGs’ interactions (theory building) and exploring the possibilities of upscaling successful climate-smart practices, with the case study offered by the SECURE project (theory testing) are the two methods adopted to answer the research hypothesis on the validity and scope of conceptual frameworks for complex systems. The paper concludes with a call for further testing of tools, approaches, and methods to enable dynamic systems thinking to inform upscaling efforts, while recognizing the transdisciplinary nature and complexity of the study of low-trophic marine resources as a constituent of food production, and environmental and health protection systems.

Suggestions for a Systematic Regulatory Approach to Ocean Plastics

“…The research spans complex sustainability challenges, such as environmental protection, food safety and security, human health, and innovation [ 21 ]. Thus, the SECURE team has been developing pioneering research approaches across different systematic disciplines under conditions of scientific uncertainty [ 41 ], offering insights to complex problem solving including those related to ocean plastics.…”

“…The first leg of the project focuses on the need to develop a matrix that conceptually encompasses the objectives of the Agenda 2030 and its 17 SDGs from a regulatory perspective on the one hand, and allows the upscaling of climate-smart practices applied to the ocean—as it is the case of the SECURE, on the other hand ( Figure 1 ) [ 41 ]. The observed lack of a systematic mapping of the SDGs’ interactions and the dearth of climate-smart practices applied to the ocean spurred reflections on the need to create a critical conceptual framework as a reading key for the SDGs’ interactions and for upscaling successful climate-smart practices [ 41 ]. The application of a matrix based on systems thinking within a legal fabric opened the door to reflections about integrated regulatory approaches applied to the ocean.…”

“… Illustration of Step 1 of the Project SECURE [ 41 ], representing the need to tackle novel marine resources through a systematic approach of the Agenda 2030 (with a main focus on SDG 14, on Life Below Water). Illustration for SECURE by Camilla Neema Haule 2021.…”

Suggesting an Extensive Interpretation of the Concept of Novelty That Looks at the Bio-Cultural Dimension of Food

“…In an article published in Sustainability (2020), where the preliminary findings of the project SECURE have been published [11], Poto suggested that critical systems thinking helps to comprehend the Agenda 2030's goals systematically, enhancing the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and specifically contributing to the upscaling of ocean-smart practices [11]. A conceptual framework provides two advantages: it offers a reading key for the SDGs' interactions (theory-building) and a knowledge base for exploring the upscaling of climate-smart practices applied to the ocean, such as the case offered by SECURE (theory testing).…”

“…For these reasons, systems thinking is applied in a way that acknowledges the integrality of the system and includes the unheard voices [11] (p. 7), providing a new matrix for the concept of novelty. Such a matrix builds on biocultural features within a space-time diagram where global and local knowledge intersects past, present, and future.…”