TY - JOUR
T1 - The Bandwidth Problem in Telecoupled Systems Governance
T2 - Certifying Sustainable Winemaking in Australia and Chile
AU - Marola, Elena
AU - Schöpfner, Judith
AU - Gallemore, Caleb
AU - Jespersen, Kristjan
PY - 2020/5
Y1 - 2020/5
N2 - Telecoupled systems connect consumption and other choices in one part of the world with land-use and land-cover change in another. While such connections are increasingly well documented, research on governing telecoupled systems is in its infancy. Drawing on recent discussions in sociology, we argue that models for governing telecoupled systems must consider two types of information flows. Low-bandwidth flows allow for limited information transfer but can take place over greater distances. High-bandwidth flows, by contrast, allow for more complex knowledge transfer but tend to be geographically localized due to the costs of maintaining robust connections. Using a mixed-methods case study of national sustainability certification in the wine sector in Australia and Chile, we argue that Chile's counterintuitive success in diffusing its national sustainability certification relates to its geography, which facilitated high-bandwidth connections. We conclude that telecoupling governance measures, such as jurisdictional commodity certification, need to consider the unique requirements and costs of high-bandwidth connections in allocating institutional investments.
AB - Telecoupled systems connect consumption and other choices in one part of the world with land-use and land-cover change in another. While such connections are increasingly well documented, research on governing telecoupled systems is in its infancy. Drawing on recent discussions in sociology, we argue that models for governing telecoupled systems must consider two types of information flows. Low-bandwidth flows allow for limited information transfer but can take place over greater distances. High-bandwidth flows, by contrast, allow for more complex knowledge transfer but tend to be geographically localized due to the costs of maintaining robust connections. Using a mixed-methods case study of national sustainability certification in the wine sector in Australia and Chile, we argue that Chile's counterintuitive success in diffusing its national sustainability certification relates to its geography, which facilitated high-bandwidth connections. We conclude that telecoupling governance measures, such as jurisdictional commodity certification, need to consider the unique requirements and costs of high-bandwidth connections in allocating institutional investments.
KW - Telecoupling
KW - Sustainability
KW - Wine
KW - Diffusion
KW - Environmental certification
KW - Telecoupling
KW - Sustainability
KW - Wine
KW - Diffusion
KW - Environmental certification
UR - https://sfx-45cbs.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/45cbs?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/sfxit.com:azlist&sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.object_id=954925565687
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106592
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106592
M3 - Journal article
VL - 171
JO - Ecological Economics
JF - Ecological Economics
SN - 0921-8009
M1 - 106592
ER -