CONtract SOLutions for Effective and lasting delivery of agri-environmental-climate public goods by EU agriculture and forestry (CONSOLE)

This is a European Commission Horizon 2020 project funded under the topic ‘Contracts for effective and lasting delivery of agri-environmental public goods’ (RUR-03-2018-2) and is led by the University of Bologna involving a consortium of 24 partner institutions in 13 countries.

The CONSOLE project aims to boost innovation in the lasting delivery of agri-environmental-climate public goods (AECPGs) by EU agriculture and forestry. To achieve this, CONSOLE will build a Community of Practice (CoP) to cocreate an empirically validated contractual framework, design and test effective and efficient contract models and support their implementation by multiple actors. The CONSOLE framework will allow improved design and facilitate implementation of innovative contract solutions for the provision of AECPGs under various conditions across the EU. It will include a comprehensive analysis of at least 52 case studies of existing experiences encompassing land tenure arrangements, result-based approaches, collective implementation and value chain-based remuneration, supported by surveys and modelling. Contract solutions will be developed in collaboration with the CoP. The CONSOLE framework will be tested in real decision-making contexts and will develop into a supporting tool for actors in the field, enabling the delivery and sustainability of AECPGs. Insights will improve policy design towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular through environmental policies and the post-2020 CAP.

The Leeds team is led by Professor Joseph Holden and involves colleagues from the Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme (iCASP), and the School of Biology. Professor Cardwell’s role is to check compatibility of the proposed solutions with current legal framework and identify potential changes in the legal framework needed to make solutions developed in the project more widely spread. The work will be active at the key steps of the project: designing WP2 surveys, feeding back of WP2, WP3 and WP4 into the design of new instruments and framework, and will support the identification of practicable solutions and implications for policy/instrument design.