Water-energy-food nexus approach at the core of businesses-How businesses in the bioenergy sector in Brazil are responding to integrated challenges?

Author(s)

Lazaro, Lira Luz Benites ^[1] ; Giatti, Leandro Luiz ^[1] ; de Oliveira, Jose Antonio Puppim ^{[2, 3]}

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Dept Environm Hlth, Sch Publ Hlth, Ave Dr Arnaldo 715, BR-03178200 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[2] FGV Fundacao Getulio Vargas FGV EAESP & FGV EBAPE, Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[3] Fudan Univ, Inst Global Publ Pol IGPP, Shanghai - Peoples R China

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION; v. 303, JUN 20 2021.
• Web of Science Citations: 0

Abstract

The management of water-energy-food nexus lies at the heart of the nexus approach, addressing the trade-offs and externalities across these three components while focusing on system efficiency instead of isolated sectoral productivity. This latter approach posits that there is no possible isolated efficiency and that decision-making based on classic management theories needs to change. This study examines whether the nexus approach is embedded into business sustainable initiatives, and suggests ways to improve the judicious use of water, soil/land, energy, and healthy food production. We use the latent Dirichlet allocation method to analyze the sustainability reports of Brazil \& rsquo;s largest bioenergy companies and documents from the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association from 2007 to 2020 in order to un-derstand the response of these companies to nexus integration challenges. Despite efforts by bioenergy firms to minimize the impacts of their production processes, our results show that the nexus thinking is overlooked in many aspects, such as food security, water scarcity and working conditions. Furthermore, policies and decisions that appear to incentivize sustainability in one sector, such as energy, may lead to unintended oversights in others. Management could be improved by implementing nexus thinking that considers integrated governance between the different sectors involved in the production of bioenergy. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 17/50425-9 - Understanding innovative initiatives for governing food, water and energy nexus in cities
• Grantee: José Antonio Puppim de Oliveira
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• FAPESP's process: 15/03804-9 - Environmental governance of macrometropolis paulista in face of climate variability
• Grantee: Pedro Roberto Jacobi
• Support Opportunities: Research Program on Global Climate Change - Thematic Grants
• FAPESP's process: 17/17796-3 - Conflicts and power relations: the water-energy-food nexus in the production of ethanol in the State of São Paulo
• Grantee: Lira Luz Benites Lazaro
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral