Case studies: Biodiversity

This report, prepared under Work Package 3 (WP3) of the VISIONARY project, contributes to the overarching aim of identifying policy levers that can support transitions towards sustainable farming and food systems in Europe. WP3 investigates how behavioural approaches and experimental methods can help design effective agri-environmental policy interventions to address three key transition challenges: climate neutrality, halting biodiversity loss, and improving water quality. In this context, our study focuses on the potential of a labelling framework for dark green agri-environmental climate measures (AECM) as one possible policy lever to incentivise farmer participation and thereby strengthen the biodiversity transition.

This report (Deliverable 2.2) builds on the initial conceptual and analytical framework of the VISIONARY project and aims to map out how the case studies selected in VISIONARY complement each other to address key objectives for the project. The report aims to briefly outline the theoretical foundations of our work and outline the approach taken in the case studies.

Find all key facts about VISIONARY at one glance.

This Analytical Framework will steer the empirical research of the VISIONARY project, with regards to policy interventions, to novel value chain initiatives and business models, and to leverage points in the agri-food systems. The Analytical Framework adopts a novel approach combining two substantially different approaches: quantitative, experimental and behavioural economics on the one hand, and qualitative, comprehensive systems thinking approaches on the other.

This Initial Conceptual Framework assembles VISIONARY’s theoretical and conceptual foundations, explaining the systemic character of the food system and its transitions towards sustainability, the role of food actors’ behavioural factors in conditioning such transition and the interaction between research and policy-making to accelerate. This initial framework sets the foundations for the ‘Empirically grounded Conceptual Framework’ to be released in the summer of 2025. After a preliminary review of the approaches revolving around food system transition towards sustainability and its behavioural dimension (in particular of farmers and consumers), the document focuses on two main domains: ‘behavioural food policies’ and ‘sustainable business models’. Finally, the document deepens into the transdisciplinary approach of the project, based upon the concept and implementation of Science-Policy Interfaces.