ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

The module focuses on the current main environmental, economic and societal challenges and political and practical tools that can be used to contrast them by following an approach of environmental and social responsibility. Different types of actors (governments, public entities, NGOs, private companies, social movements and individuals) can adopt this approach by means of different instruments. In particular, insights will be provided on: i) the most relevant environmental, economic and societal concerns affecting rural areas and natural resources, included: climate change, deforestation, unsustainable and illegal logging, water scarcity and pollution, land grabbing, market globalization and their consequences, economic inequality and its environmental consequences, the (difficult) role of social dimensions in the innovation processes in rural development, and others; ii) basic concepts of multi-functionality of natural resources, Natural Capital, ecosystem services and their links with human well-being, and the potential conflicts deriving from different demands expressed by different stakeholders on fragile areas; iii) key concepts to understand issues of governance and good governance of natural resources, included an overview of instruments to analyse, assess and implement network governance in rural areas; iv) basic concepts, policies, programs and operational instruments for applying environmental and social responsibility in rural areas, included: environmental and forest certification, payments for ecosystem services, territorial marketing, rural development programs (with a special attention to the European RDP), social innovation and nature-based business, public-private partnerships in rural development, nature conservation according to political ecology theory, REDD+ projects (to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) and others.
Different spatial/institutional/administrative scales will be considered, from the global to the regional and local ones. Various case studies located in Europe and other countries will be used to present more in detail the general concepts.