NRW systems approach

This pilot project for Natural Resources Wales (NRW) aimed to show how the systems approach, methods and tools, can be used in national scale environmental policy and management.  This drew inspiration from the Well Being of Future Generations Act and related legislation, where Wales is a leader in sustainability policy and practice.

The project was also an example of NRW systems-based policy, as in the SoNaRR report (Natural Resources Wales / SoNaRR2020: Transforming Wales [naturalresources.wales])

The synergistic approach and Pathways Toolkit was used as the main means of stakeholder dialogue and systems mapping, with a focus on the ‘collective environmental intelligence’ . Broadly this is the capacity for communication, learning, co-creation and co-production, between a wider stakeholder community, with deeper layers of value, and further horizons of change. The project had 2 main parts:  The recommendations for a 3-stage road-map aimed to ‘do more with less’, by looking beyond the ‘problem-fix’ towards whole systems of social-economic-environmental interactions.

The project was conducted in 2 parallel parts:

1. Food systems demonstration project, in the county of Gwent (south-east Wales)
2. Policy implications for national policy and practice, for NRW and related bodies.

A synthesis report on each is available here:      

NRW Evidence Report – systems approach (Part I) – Food Futures demonstration

NRW Evidence Report – systems approach (Part II) – Policy Implications