Healthy landscapes and ecosystems are the basis of our life and economy. However, a quarter of the world’s land mass is seriously degraded from centuries of human activity. Degradation of land is related to major themes like climate change, food and water security, and biodiversity decline. These are directly connected to well-being, security, poverty and migration. Restoring and conserving landscapes is thus one of the most important tasks of our time. Yet, there is still a big gap between economy and ecology. Europe needs a practical approach for restoring landscapes based on sustainable business cases. There is a need for trust and connection between all stakeholders investing in landscape restoration. A shared understanding or language is needed and an approach that creates engagement, controls complexity and keeps partners inspired to harvest the results of their investment. Such an approach is currently not available in Europe. The main goal of the European Network for the Advancement of Business and Landscape Education (ENABLE) is to establish a European education platform to create awareness about the functioning of ecosystems and the benefits of sustainable landscape management that involves renowned academic partners, private business, public sectors and NGOs in developing innovative and high quality education. This education can bridge the gap and help tackle global challenges as defined in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (eg. SDG 15.3 on Land Degradation Neutrality) and the in the EU 6th Environment Action Programme (Decision No 1600/2002/EC), and the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020.The ENABLE objectives are:1. To create an inter- and transdisciplinary educational framework with innovative e-learning components that will help bridge the gap between economy and ecology, accelerate the much-needed change and help establish a “landscape management & restoration industry”2. To teach and train business students to become generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work towards an inclusive and sustainable global economy3. To initiate and facilitate dialogue and debate among educators, students, business, government, consumers, media, civil society organisations and other interested groups and stakeholders on critical issues related to global social responsibility and sustainability in general and in particular to prevention of landscape degradation and restoration.This will result in:- A business school curriculum that, after the project duration, will be offered through the Academy for Business and Landscapes and through the curricula of business schools and universities- Students, the future business leaders and business developers, who have the vision, attitude, hard and soft skills, knowledge and experience needed to engage in multi-stakeholder landscape partnerships that aim for 4 returns - A greater awareness of this pressing issue amongst students, academics, corporates, policy makers and practitioners.We anticipate to reach about 100.000 people in our project. Participants will primarily be:1. Business & management students (pre- and post-experience), and professionals from corporate organisations involved in land or natural resource management 2. EU policy- and decision makers.ENABLE will start by developing two (on-line) courses for management students and professionals (business leaders, executives and practitioners from NGOs and governments). In addition, the partners will develop 5 cases to be used in management education, and an innovation and learning platform (Community of Practice) on 4 returns landscape management and business. To realise this, we will combine our expertise on the 4 returns approach (Return of Social, Natural, Financial Capital, Return of Inspiration) with Soil & Integrated Land Management, Wicked Problems, Partnership Management, and with our experience in writing and teaching cases, developing MOOCs, establishing a Community of Practice and organising large-scale high-impact events to develop and disseminate the projects’ results. This partnership wants to steer the future direction of sustainable business models and of higher education in order to build synergies between economy and ecology, theory and practice, global and local approaches, business and environment. The implications of this approach will address the local, regional, national, European and global scales. Climate change, land degradation and desertification are closely related to peace, poverty and migration (refugees). Participating in ENABLE will enable future leaders from businesses, governmental and civil-society organisations to become trailblazers, thought leaders and implementers. It will stimulate business schools across Europe to think about innovating their curricula and to use the formats developed in the project.
Healthy landscapes and ecosystems are the basis of our life and economy. However, a quarter of the world’s land mass is seriously degraded from centuries of human activity. Degradation of land is related to major themes like climate change, food and water security, and biodiversity decline. These are directly connected to well-being, security, poverty and migration. Restoring and conserving landscapes is thus one of the most important tasks of our time. Yet, there is still a big gap between economy and ecology. Europe needs a practical approach for restoring landscapes based on sustainable business cases. There is a need for trust and connection between all stakeholders investing in landscape restoration. A shared understanding or language is needed and an approach that creates engagement, controls complexity and keeps partners inspired to harvest the results of their investment. Such an approach is currently not available in Europe. The main goal of the European Network for the Advancement of Business and Landscape Education (ENABLE) has been to establish a European education platform to create awareness about the functioning of ecosystems and the benefits of sustainable landscape management that involves renowned academic partners, private business, public sectors and NGOs in developing innovative and high quality education. This education can bridge the gap and help tackle global challenges as defined in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (eg. SDG 15.3 on Land Degradation Neutrality) and the in the EU 6th Environment Action Programme (Decision No 1600/2002/EC), and the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020. The ENABLE objectives are: 1. To create an inter- and transdisciplinary educational framework with innovative e-learning components that will help bridge the gap between economy and ecology, accelerate the much-needed change and help establish a “landscape management & restoration industry” 2. To teach and train business students to become generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work towards an inclusive and sustainable global economy 3. To initiate and facilitate dialogue and debate among educators, students, business, government, consumers, media, civil society organisations and other interested groups and stakeholders on critical issues related to global social responsibility and sustainability in general and in particular to prevention of landscape degradation and restoration. The ENABLE consortium wants to steer the future direction of sustainable business models and of higher education in order to build synergies between economy and ecology, theory and practice, global and local approaches, business and environment and consisted of members of the following organisations from academia and practice: Erasmus University Rotterdam - Rotterdam school of Management Commonland Spanish National Research Council - Centro de Edafologia y biologia aplicada del segura United Nations University - Land Restoration Training Programme, hosted by Landbunadarhaskoli Islands Estoril Global Conferences Universidade Nova de Lisboa - Nova School of Business & Economics The consortium developed 2 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): 1. A Business Approach to Sustainable Landscape Restoration (https://www.coursera.org/learn/landscape-restoration-sustainable-development) 2. Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Landscape Restoration (https://www.coursera.org/learn/bmi-sustainable-landscape-restoration) 5 teaching cases: 1. The Alvelal project in Spain - an example of a successful restoration initiative of collaboratively developing integrated sustainable business cases for rainfed almonds. 2. The Arento Group in Spain - Towards a Sustainable Future. This case examines how an agricultural business tries to make the transition towards higher levels of sustainability. 3. From Bare to Birch - Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration in Iceland. The case examines how to transition from barren desertified land to a resilient and healthy woodland that can provide ecosystem services to the people in the area and beyond. 4. Reborn from Ashes - The Alvares Project. The North and Centre of Portugal encompass many productive forest areas that are particularly prone to fires. In the middle of this burnt region, the parish of Alvares stands as a representative case of the entire territory: consecutive decades of rural exodus dramatically changed the economic structure in which its population used to subsist. 5. Sustainable Finance for Landscape Restoration in Spain focuses on mobilising finance for the farmers who take part in the cooperative (Alvelal) and for the trading company (Almendrehesa). This case was turned into an online, ‘rich’ case. A knowledge exchange platform - https://4returns.earth This platform is an online space for a growing community of people involved in large scale landscape restoration based on the holistic 4 returns approach.