Press release: BrightSpace 1st Stakeholders' Retreat, 19-20 June 2024

https://brightspace-project.eu Funded by the European Union. Horizon Europe Grant Agreement No 101060075. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. PRESS RELEASE The project entitled the BrightSpace funded under Horizon Europe to design a roadmap for effective and sustainable strategies for assessing and addressing the challenges of EU agriculture to navigate within a Safe and Just Operating Space had its 1st Stakeholders’ Retreat between 19 and 20 June 2024 in Leuven, Belgium. Increasing the contribution of EU agriculture to climate change action The increasingly worrysome events of recent years with regard to climate change highlight the fact that the future of humanity fundamentally depends on how we can manage the earth's resources and our environment in a way that their use does not cause an irreversibly unfavourable situation. The European Green Deal, aims, among others, to increase the contribution of EU agriculture to climate change action, improve the management of natural resources, ensure a fair economic return for farmers, and reinforce the protection of biodiversity. EU agriculture and food practices are currently not on the right track to meet the Green Deal ambitions and objectives. It is therefore important to have tools that help create harmony between environmental constraints and economic goals. The aim of the BrightSpace project is to create simulation models in the field of agriculture and the food industry, in order to help policy making to manage a balance between the economy and the environment. BrightSpace brings together 15 research institutions from eight EU countries and the UK, and builds on established modelling tools that are used to predict the impacts of climate, agricultural, and forestry policies, at the local, national, and regional levels. The basic idea of the project is to produce scenarios based on public policies, institutional and social reforms, as well as possible technological development, which actually represent the development paradigms of humanity, using complex modeling tools examining the agri-food sector. To evaluate these scenarios easy-to-understand indicators for economic performance (e.g. income, agricultural production, food prices...), social performance (diet, agricultural employment...) and environmental impacts (agricultural and forestry land use, greenhouse gases, soil erosion...) are used. Designing effective and sustainable strategies for assessing and addressing the challenges of EU agriculture to navigate within a safe and just operating space 1st Stakeholders’ Retreat, 19 -20 June 2024 20 June 2024 Funded by the European Union. Horizon Europe Grant Agreement No 101060075. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. The simulation models used in the project provide an opportunity to examine the economic and environmental impacts together. By combining these models, it will be possible to examine the agri-food industry system along the entire supply chain, at different levels of sectoral and geographical resolution, in different time dimensions, mainly in the medium and long term. A harmonized data framework and modelling toolbox are developed for medium-term and forwardlooking projections of possible Safe and Just Operating Space futures by 2050 and beyond. The support for effective and sustainable actions will include the identification of critical pathways for technological, institutional, and consumer-oriented options for EU policies in the areas of agriculture, climate change, trade, and energy. First Stakeholders’ Retreat in Leuven On 19-20 June 2024, the Thünen Institute organized the 1st Stakeholders’ Retreat of the BrightSpace project in Leuven, Belgium. 25 participants came together to discuss how the developed framework of the Safe and Just Operating Space for agriculture can be used to evaluate current and future developments. Stakeholders representing the interests of farmers, industry, citizens, EU authorities and project partners came together to discuss how the developed Safe and Just Operating Space (SJOS) framework for agriculture can be used to assess future developments. Further information BrightSpace Project coordination: Wageningen Economic Research, The Hague, NL Contact: [email protected] | Website: www.brightspace-project.eu Twitter: @BrightSpaceEU | linkedin.com/company/brightspace-eu-project/ BrightSpace Zenodo Community: zenodo.org/communities/brightspace-eu-project/ PRESS RELEASE https://brightspace-project.eu Project partners presented the set of indicators used to define the SJOS for agriculture and the current status of these indicators. Furthermore, modelling results were used to give an insight into what the future might look like. The results were intensively discussed, and the discussion continued with questions about what the alternative futures might look like and where the thresholds for specific indicators should be set to define the thresholds that should be respected if EU agriculture is to navigate towards a safe and just future. The co-created knowledge will be used in further project steps. New results will be presented and used for further discussions during the 2nd Retreat, which is planned for autumn 2025.