The CONSOLE project focuses on promoting the delivery of Agri-Environmental-Climate Public Goods (AECPGs) by agriculture and forestry through the development of improved contractual solutions.
The (difficulty in the) provision of public goods is related to major challenges such as trade-offs between environmental performance and farm profitability, the time lag between action and impact, and the potential mismatch between the scales of actions and effects. As a result, several AECPGs, such as water and air quality, control of soil erosion, carbon sequestration, animal and plant biodiversity and recreation are characterised by under-provision.
Agricultural policy in the EU has partially re-oriented its objective towards the provision of public goods in rural areas acknowledging today’s societal demands. However Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES), the actions aimed at the delivery of AECPGs are still considered unsatisfactory in terms of longevity, effectiveness and efficiency.
Improvements may come from a flexible mix of promising new instruments, such as new environmental-related tenure systems (e.g. environmental lease), results-based payments or collective approaches, as well as by better value chain strategies, but these have been so far poorly tested in practice in the EU.
The general objective of CONSOLE is to boost innovation in the lasting delivery of AECPGs by EU agriculture and forestry, by building a Community of Practice (CoP), by designing and testing effective and efficient cooperation models and by developing a contractual framework supporting implementation by multiple actors.
CONSOLE project is based on the mobilization of 25 institutions, covering a broad range of actors (farmers, organizations, researchers, public administration, consultant companies.