Work package 7

P7 conducts societal communication and interaction of the consortium (PI Kangasoja). Attaining the scientific and societal objectives of the project requires effective and coordinated implementation of the interaction as a systemic whole. The societal interaction will support meaningful steps in policies and practices towards the main goal of developing a fair, functional and effective offsetting system for Finland. The interaction and engagement activities of this consortium will serve this logic, creating platforms where the challenges of biodiversity offsetting will be examined and solutions co-created with relevant stakeholders. The co-creation processes are not limited to governmental administration but build on collaborative processes including citizens and other local level actors to ensure the acceptability and understanding of offsetting as part of the means for a just transition. These engagement activities will include different modes of interaction, ranging from expert-led and informative actions to consultative actions eliciting feedback to emerging solutions from both expert and lay stakeholders. Further, we will implement high-impact collaborative actions, such as structured policy dialogues and facilitated rule-making processes and consensus building to establish socially and locally acceptable yet globally sustainable and ethical solutions for biodiversity offsetting. Furthermore, the science- policy interaction in this project supports capacity building of all interaction partners and provides them means and resources for creating best practices through applying and piloting scientifically
solid methods.

Interactions facilitated by WP 7 include: workshop series, citizen surveys and interviews of relevant policy actors in WP1, negotiated rulemaking and joint fact finding in WP2, identifying key target groups and communicating the results to support their application in national and local scale in WP3, co-design of biodiversity offset register with the Ministry of Environment in WP4, identifying the right metrics for biodiversity impact accounting in WP4&5, piloting of the accounting system and supporting its assessment and further development in collaboration with the University of Jyväskylä and Green Carbon Finland in WP5&6, collaboration with the city personnel and citizens in Living Labs to design and evaluate the pilot and developed protocol together with different stakeholders in WP6. Moreover, communication of research results and capacity building material among relevant key actors and general public, in collaboration with the communication personnel of the participating universities and living labs will take place in all WP’s.