June 19th Abstracts

Day 2: June 19th      10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.   Parallel Sessions 1

1A: Science Center A154

• Rayna Moxley (Undergraduate Student Research Assistant, Oberlin College) - Session Chair

• John Edmund Petersen (Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences and Biology, Oberlin College)
  Co-developing Interactive Environmental and Community Dashboards for Visualizing Resource Flows, Behavior, and Community Resilience

ABSTRACT: Since the early 2000s, Oberlin College faculty, staff, and students have collaborated with the City of Oberlin, Great Lakes Science Center, MidTown Cleveland and others to co-develop interactive environmental and community dashboard technology as a communications platform. The overarching goal is to integrate real-time data visualizations of resource use and environmental conditions within the built environment with actionable, place-based information that engages, educates, motivates, and empowers resilient communities.
The interactive digital signage system includes seven content applications. “Building Dashboard” displays real-time energy and water use at building and district scales, while “Citywide Dashboard” uses a simplified city model animated with real-time data on resource flows and environmental conditions. “Community Voices” incorporates resident narratives to leverage social norms that support ecological social and economic dimensions of resilience. Additional applications include a crowd-sourced community calendar and jobs board, and community-specific story content contextualizing ecological data.
Twenty-three screens are currently installed in Oberlin and eight in Cleveland, including schools, storefronts, and community buildings. Controlled studies and field research suggest this approach positively influences awareness, attitudes, and behavior. The presentation situates these dashboards as communications tools for ecological economics, illustrating how co-produced information systems can support learning, decision-making, and governance in complex socio-ecological systems.

• Deborah Elizabeth Nazon Ph.D. (Urban Ecosystems Strategist; Founder & President EcoDiverCities, LLC) and James Spencer Jr. (Director of the Launchpad Center, Oklahoma State University; Inventor of the AGILE Ecosystems Methodology) Intergenerational Wealth Regeneration After Racialized Economic Collapse: An Ecological Economics Analysis of Tulsa Using AGILE Ecosystems Methodology

ABSTRACT: This paper proposes AGILE Ecosystems Methodology as a novel analytic and design framework for addressing entrenched social-ecological challenges associated with racialized economic injustice and urban wealth regeneration. Grounded in ecological economics, it reframes intergenerational wealth not as isolated accumulations of capital but as the emergent outcome of deeply functionally embedded economic, social, and cultural systems. Drawing on the case of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood District, the analysis examines how catastrophic racialized wealth destruction, historical trauma, and delayed societal acknowledgment have produced enduring structural effects that conventional economic paradigms fail to capture. By integrating these histories with contemporary regenerative economic practices—such as community-based capital stewardship, cooperative ownership, and embedded governance—the framework reveals how critical functions that support sustainable wealth circulation can be restored within urban communities. Through this lens, AGILE demonstrates concrete tools and solutions for navigating complex urban socio-ecological challenges, offering insights relevant to both ecological economists and intersectoral practitioners committed to just and resilient urban futures

• Thomas William Whittington (Doctoral Student, The Ohio State University)
  Residential Energy and Dates of Home Construction

ABSTRACT: Home energy usage is a major expenditure for American households and a large source of greenhouse gas emissions within the built environment. This paper examines the correlation between home age and energy usage. Controlling for common determinants of energy use, I estimate that later-built homes use and spend less on energy and emit less carbon dioxide than older homes. Effects are small when aggregated by fuel, but disaggregation shows that older homes use more gas and less electricity than newer homes. This suggests a broadening of home electrification that may allow new homes to benefit from a decarbonizing grid, while embedding long-lived energy choices in the housing stock. Further, a divergence in costs between natural gas and electricity will have heterogeneous welfare effects, with disproportionate costs for electrified homes, which are more likely to be owned by younger and less wealthy households. An extension of the paper uses matching techniques to argue that the relationship between home vintage and energy costs and emissions is causal; that is, it is the construction date that determines much of the energy efficiency of the home, through durable physical characteristics of the housing stock, not merely changes in occupants or locational composition.

1B: Science Center A155

• Matias Vaccarezza Sevilla (PhD student, University of Vermont)
  Exploring pathways for delinking: a system dynamics approach for structural decolonization
  Session Chair

ABSTRACT: Despite decades of development interventions, structural dependency between the Global South and Global North remains a defining feature of the global economy. Drawing on dependency theory, world-systems analysis, unequal exchange, and post-development scholarship, this paper examines why dependency persists and explores pathways for its rupture. I argue that modern development, as articulated through modernization and neoliberal paradigms, is structurally unattainable for peripheral economies because it relies on asymmetric transfers of labor, materials, energy, and ecological capacity from the periphery to the core. These transfers are sustained through interacting mechanisms of unequal exchange, ecological appropriation, and financial subordination, which together reproduce imperial patterns of accumulation while degrading socioecological systems in the Global South.
Building on this theoretical synthesis, the paper conceptualizes dependency as a dynamic system rather than a static condition. It introduces delinking as a necessary–though contested–strategy for reorienting production, trade, and finance toward social and ecological well-being. The analysis provides the conceptual foundation for a system dynamics approach, operationalized through a causal loop diagram that maps key feedbacks linking production structures, trade deficits, debt, ecological extraction, and development ideology. By integrating critical political economy with ecological economics and systems thinking, the paper contributes to debates on decolonization, post-extractivism, and transformative pathways beyond growth-dependent development models.

• Jaleel Shujath (Graduate Student, University of the District of Columbia)
  From Extraction to Transcendence: Integrating Indigenous Knowledge to Transform Urban Water Futures

ABSTRACT: This study investigates how Indigenous knowledge integration shapes the evolutionary transformation of urban water systems. Using the Water-Culture Evolution Framework (WCEF), it addresses the question: How does the degree of Indigenous and local knowledge integration influence a city's progression from extractive to transcendent water governance? Twenty-three cities across six continents were analyzed using ten socio-ecological parameters encompassing infrastructure, governance, and cultural integration. A mixed-method approach combined qualitative content analysis of policy frameworks with quantitative scoring, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and k-means clustering to validate five archetypes: Extractive, Sustainable, Regenerative, Restorative, and Transcendent. Findings reveal that Indigenous Integration Scores (IIS) explain over 90% of performance variance, with cultural and historical reconciliation emerging as stronger predictors of sustainability than technical infrastructure improvements. Case studies of Washington DC, Singapore, Philadelphia, Auckland, and La Paz illustrate the transition pathways and common barriers, including “false regeneration” where symbolic inclusion replaces substantive power-sharing. The study concludes that integrating Indigenous governance principles enhances resilience, equity, and ecological abundance, suggesting that sustainable water futures depend on epistemic pluralism and justice-oriented governance reforms. The WCEF thus offers a scalable diagnostic and planning tool for cities seeking to advance beyond efficiency toward restorative urban hydrosystems.

• Vinaya Kumar Hebsale Mallappa (Assistant Professor, Keladi Shivappa Nayaka University of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, India)
  Low-Carbon Agriculture and Carbon Credit Projects: Farmers Adoption, Trust, and Institutional Pathways in India

ABSTRACT: Agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions in India, particularly from livestock systems and paddy cultivation, necessitating the rapid adoption of low-carbon farming technologies (LCFTs) and carbon credit projects (CCPs). This study addresses two key research questions: (i) what is the level of farmers’ awareness and adoption of LCFTs, and (ii) which institutional actors are most trusted to promote participation in CCPs and sustainable technologies. A multistage sampling design was employed to survey 500 livestock- and rice-based farmers in southern India, with data collected using the KoBoCollect application. Social, economic, and institutional determinants were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, alongside a perception-matrix approach assessing trust in actors across eight functional dimensions. The results indicate high awareness of practices such as optimized ventilation, balanced feeding, and residue recycling; however, adoption remains limited for capital- and knowledge-intensive practices including feed additives, biogas-powered lighting, laser land leveling, and zero tillage. Education, farming experience, institutional access, information exchange, and proximity to markets and extension agencies significantly influenced adoption. State Departments, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, and progressive farmers emerged as the most trusted actors for CCP implementation, while financial transparency was identified as a critical gap. The study highlights that embedding carbon initiatives within trusted public extension systems, combined with targeted incentives and transparent payment mechanisms, can accelerate LCFT adoption and strengthen India’s voluntary carbon market.

1C: Science Center A 254 (DeGrowth Track)

• Matthew M Orsagh (Co-Founder, Arketa Institute for Post-Growth Finance)
  Towards growth-independent pensions: an Ecological Economics-informed approach to providing wellbeing in retirement
  Session Chair

ABSTRACT: Pension funds (PFs) represent one third of global capital and the retirement savings of billions of workers. They are also trapped in a system that requires continuous economic growth, which is destroying our Earth’s interrelated ecosystems.
Due to an overreliance on Neoclassical Economics, PFs do not adequately understand the risks that they currently face. They use models that suggest that even in +4°C to +7°C warming scenarios, economic growth can continue. This stands in stark contrast to the scientific consensus. It also leads to a systematic mispricing of risk and perpetuates artificially high returns. This undermines long-term PF viability due to huge potential losses.
PFs are pulled in two directions: the legal and fiduciary expectation to maximize returns on one side, and rising member demand for sustainable investments on the other. As awareness of pension fund unpreparedness spreads, this tension will only increase.
A pension system informed by Ecological Economics would look very different. We suggest using a multi-capital lens to frame the forms of value we need in retirement (housing, health, community support, functioning ecosystems, etc.) and focus on providing “wellbeing in retirement” rather than just “paychecks for pensioners.” 

• Justin Patrick Dempsey (PhD Candidate, University of Vermont)
  Beyond Prices: Deliberative Valuation as a Shared Foundation of Non-Monetary Valuation and Degrowth

ABSTRACT: Dominant approaches to environmental valuation and policy remain grounded in monetary metrics that prioritize efficiency, aggregation, and market compatibility. While these tools can inform decision-making, they often obscure plural values, reinforce growth-oriented logics, and depoliticize questions of collective purpose. In parallel, the degrowth literature has increasingly emphasized the need to move beyond economistic framings of well-being and sustainability, calling instead for democratic deliberation over social needs, limits, and priorities.
This presentation argues that non-monetary valuation and degrowth share a common normative and methodological commitment to deliberation. Drawing on work in ecological economics, social choice, and political ecology, the paper frames non-monetary valuation not merely as a technical alternative to pricing, but as a deliberative practice through which values are articulated, contested, and negotiated. Rather than asking “how much is this worth,” deliberative valuation asks “what matters, to whom, and why?,” a question that aligns closely with degrowth’s emphasis on collective self-limitation and democratic decision-making.

The presentation develops this argument in three steps. First, it critiques monetary valuation as a decision mechanism that privileges commensurability and expert authority. Second, it synthesizes non-monetary and deliberative valuation approaches (e.g., multi-criteria analysis, participatory appraisal, deliberative forums) as institutional spaces for value pluralism. Third, it situates these practices within degrowth’s broader political project, arguing that deliberative valuation can function as a governance infrastructure for post-growth societies by linking valuation, legitimacy, and social learning.
The contribution of the paper is conceptual rather than technical: it reframes non-monetary valuation as a political and democratic process, not simply a methodological fix. By making deliberation central, the presentation highlights how valuation can support degrowth transitions by enabling collective judgments about sufficiency, justice, and ecological limits without reverting to monetary proxies."

• Sam Hummel (Master's student, Duke University)
  Bank Money Creation: A Paradigm-Shifting Conversation Missing in Climate Advocacy

ABSTRACT: Ecological economists argue that when governments outsource money creation to commercial banks, this steers economic development into activities that are profitable for banks but harmful to biophysical systems and society. They raise a paradigm-shifting question: Why should governments allow for-profit banks to create money, given that they are using that privilege to undermine public wellbeing and policy objectives, such as Paris Agreement commitments? We interviewed 14 strategists from top global climate groups challenging fossil fuel lending by banks. Our goal: check if they'd woven this insight into their narrative, legal, political, or campaign strategies. All interviewees reported that their internal and coalition strategy conversations have not considered challenging the outsourcing of money creation privileges to commercial banks. We found that this “conversation gap” is rooted in an “understanding gap.” Most of the leaders were unaware that banks are legally privileged to create the money they lend. The climate movement leaders expressed interest in integrating this perspective into their strategy planning. We also interviewed heterodox economists, banking scholars, and monetary reform advocates to identify ways that they can work with climate organizations to close these knowledge and strategy gaps.

1D: Science Center A 255 (DeGrowth Track)

• Moderated Session

• Tristan Partridge (Executive Director of the new North American Center for Degrowth) and Josh Farley (Professor, University of Vermont) - Moderators
  Research for a Post-Growth Future: What Europe is Doing, What the US Must Do.

• Tentative list of presenters: Dan O’Neill, Dallas O’Dell, Aljoša Slameršak, and Tristan Partridge.

ABSTRACT: While the US government has been slashing public investments in science and aggressively attacking social justice and ecological sustainability initiatives, the European Research Council has been generously funding several research projects focused on achieving a post-growth future.  In this session, representatives of teams from two of these projects, MAPS (Models, Assessments and Policies for Sustainability) and REAL—A Post Growth Deal provide an overview of their research, goals and progress.  Tristan Partridge, Executive Director of the new North American Center for Degrowth, and Josh Farley will then moderate a discussion on what we can do in the US to promote post-growth research and a post growth future for the US.

Day 2: June 19th        1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.     Parallel Sessions 2

2A: Science Center A154

• Erik Edward Nordman (Director, Institute of Public Utilities and Associate Professor, Dept. of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University)
  An Ecological Economic Reading of Polanyi’s The Great Transformation

Session Chair

ABSTRACT: A key tenet of ecological economics is that society is bounded by the biosphere, and the economic system is bounded by society. Karl Polanyi’s classic book, The Great Transformation (1944), contains elements that explain why that core ecological economic principle is a challenge to neoclassical economics. Polanyi asserts that 19th century economists pursued a utopian vision of a self-regulating economy. In order for it to come to fruition in the form of a market society, labor, land, and money must be entirely subordinate to the economic system. Government’s role in a market society is to prevent intervention of the self-regulating economic system. The 19th century market society clashed with, and ultimately lost to, efforts to subordinate the self-regulating market to democratic society.

Ecological economics explicitly subordinates the market system to society and, ultimately, the biosphere. Polanyi concluded that accepting the boundaries imposed by society does not necessarily constrain freedom. Rather, it challenges us to remove injustices and create “a more abundant freedom for all.” Similarly, accepting the reality of a limited biosphere does not doom humanity to misery. It challenges us to look beyond society to the biosphere and remove ecological injustices so that humans and ecosystems may flourish.

• Birte Strunk (Assistant Professor of Economics, Bard College)   
  Feminist Ecological Economics: Book presentation

ABSTRACT: This session presents a forthcoming edited volume on Feminist Ecological Economics (FEE), edited by Corinna Dengler and Birte Strunk, accepted for open access publication in fall 2026 with Routledge. FEE is a strand of heterodox economic thought that emerged in the 1990s at the intersection of Feminist Economics and Ecological Economics, centering unpaid care work as well as the environment as foundational to any economy. Despite three special issues in peer-reviewed journals (1997, 2005, 2018), the field so far lacks a comprehensive overview. Our edited volume fills this gap by bringing together diverse perspectives from 25 contributors across 18 chapters, including founding voices of the field alongside emerging scholars from various geographical and disciplinary backgrounds. Organized in four parts, the book outlines FEE's roots and guiding principles, discusses how FEE renders visible what both mainstream and heterodox economics often overlook, and illustrates how FEE reframes core economic concepts such as work, development, and growth. In this conference presentation, we introduce both FEE as an actively developing field within Ecological Economics, as well as the book project more specifically. We will discuss a range of key themes emerging from the book and invite dialogue on the field's future directions.

• Debdutt Behura (Adjunct Professor, Institute of Professional Learning, Bhubaneswar, India)
  Invisible labor, visible yields: Gendered productivity and Ecological risk in maize intensification in Odisha, India

ABSTRACT: Hybrid maize cultivation in Nabarangpur district, Odisha, has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, driven by market incentives, policy programs such as India’s Ethanol Blending Programme (EBP), rising demand for maize-based ethanol and feed industry. This study investigates the interplay between market-driven production, input use, and ecological sustainability. We combine historical and contemporary analyses: (i) an ARMAX (1,0,2) time series model of maize production from 2000-2023 for examining the influence of rainfall and nutrient application on yield dynamics, and (ii) a cross-sectional log-log Cobb-Douglas production function using 2024-25 farm-level data (n = 59) estimates input elasticities and returns to scale.
Results show strong persistence in maize yields (AR ≈ 0.92) and high responsiveness to nitrogen and phosphorus application historically. Farm-level analysis identifies female labour, seed, and DAP fertilizer as key drivers, with female labour exhibiting the largest elasticity (≈0.51). Returns to scale are approximately constant (RTS ≈ 0.98), indicating proportional productivity across farm sizes.
These findings highlight ecological-economic trade-offs: intensive fertilizer use and monocropping have increased yields but threaten soil health, water quality, and biodiversity. Policy interventions should promote site-specific nutrient management, crop diversification, and risk mitigation, while recognizing the critical role of female labour in sustaining productivity. This research bridges ecological economics theory and applied practice, illustrating the interactions between markets, farm-level decisions, and ecological sustainability.

2B: Science Center A155

• John Polimeni (Associate Professor, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences)
  The Five Stages of Economic Development and the Environmental Kuznets Curve
  Session Chair

ABSTRACT: The economic policy for most countries is to achieve consistent economic growth and development. However, with economic growth comes environmental degradation. Depending upon where a country or region is on their economic development path will often dictate the level of environmental degradation that occurs. There are two main theories in economic development that explain both economic growth and the impact on the environment: Rostow’s Five Stages of Economic Growth and the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). This paper provides a unique perspective on economic development theory, linking two major theories, the Five Stages of Economic Growth and the EKC, for the first time. This paper outlines and explains both theories and explains how the two theories relate to each other by using real-world examples. These case studies will illustrate the connection between environmental degradation and the stages of economic development. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this connection relates to the future of economic development and environmental sustainability and public policy.

• Amitrajeet A. Batabyal (Distinguished Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology)
  Unitization of Tanneries and Water Pollution in the Ganges in Kanpur, India: The Salience of Fixed Costs

ABSTRACT: We study the merits of regulating water pollution in the Ganges river caused by tanneries in Kanpur, India, by unitizing or merging the polluting tanneries. We first describe the n≥2 polluting tanneries in Kanpur as a Cournot oligopoly in which all tanneries incur fixed and variable costs in producing leather. Second, we derive the Nash equilibrium output of leather and profits and discuss how many tanneries can survive in this equilibrium as a function of the fixed costs. Third, we permit m<n tanneries to merge and determine when this m-tannery merger is profitable to the unitized entity and to the non-unitized tanneries. Finally, we explain how the usefulness of unitization as a regulatory strategy depends on the magnitude of the tannery fixed costs and then comment on what our findings mean for improved water quality in the Ganges.

• Stef Kuypers (PhD candidate / Researcher & Board Member, VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) / Happonomy vzw, Belgium
  Why Redistributing Income Does Not Redistribute Wealth: A Monetary-Design Alternative, Calibrated to Belgium 

ABSTRACT: According to a report from the United Nations (UN 2020), 71% of the world population lives in a country where inequality has grown over the past decades. The World Bank Group (World Bank Group, 2023) has reported that our progress in battling poverty has stalled. High levels of inequality have devastating effects on society at large, and it seems very plausible that current measures to bring the level of inequality down are inadequate, and in many cases are failing to be effective.
This paper starts by giving an overview of the effects of high inequality on society, democracy and well-being of the different layers of the population, before exploring the most likely systemic causes of the persistence of this inequality.
It will be shown that current economic and political constructs are inadequate to address high levels of inequality, and that there is a need for a systemic approach that inherently reduces inequality. This paper proposes to tackle the problem through a monetary policy that inherently redistributes monetary wealth, and consistently pushes towards, but never reaches, full equality. This proposition is then applied to the Belgian economy in order to determine its feasibility in a real world situation. 

2C: Science Center A254 (DeGrowth Track)

• Seth Binder (Associate Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, St. Olaf College)
  A Sustainable Global Economy in the Very Long Run
  Session Chair

The nature and extent of limits to sustainable economic growth are highly contested. Acknowledging the urgency of pollution-related constraints, this paper focuses on long-run resource constraints and technological possibilities. We establish as factual premises that some resources are finite and essential and that technical resource use efficiencies are bounded. We develop a modified, Solow-type economic model that, linked to a non-economic model of human carrying capacity, effectively honors these premises. Through a combination of theoretical work and computational modeling, we demonstrate that: unbounded growth in product quality is necessary and sufficient to maintain indefinite, long-run growth in utility per capita; humanity is not doomed to ever-diminishing per capita utility, even in the absence of unbounded technological growth; without growth in population or technology, the economy will tend toward a steady state that approximates that predicted by more naive models, as long as carrying capacity constraints are not binding; and levels of per capita utility achievable at current levels of population and technical resource use efficiency can be sustained for an increasing population with corresponding increases in technology within the feasible range, even for populations orders magnitude larger than today’s. 

• Kendrick Hardaway (Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas)
  Integrating Re-spending in the STIRPAT Equation to Measure Rebound Effect

ABSTRACT: Efficient technologies are often promoted as a way to reduce costs and environmental impacts, yet savings are frequently re-spent on other goods and services that carry their own emissions. This phenomenon, known as the rebound effect, means realized environmental benefits are often smaller than expected. Existing rebound research largely uses historical data to retroactively calculate rebound effects. This study incorporates a stochastic global macroeconomic modeling approach with a deep uncertainty approach to provide forward-looking scenario analysis and policy suggestions.
Building on STIRPAT, we incorporate household re-spending into a system dynamics model that captures rebound effect outcomes of technology adoption throughout the US economy. As efficiency lowers costs, households redeploy savings to more consumption/usage, propagating rebound effects across economic sectors. To address deep uncertainty in re-spending patterns and policy effectiveness, we integrate this framework with Robust Decision Making to evaluate hundreds of re-spending and technology adoption scenarios.
Preliminary results suggest that efficiency improvements alone rarely deliver sufficient emissions reductions once re-spending is accounted for. In some cases, faster technological progress increases total emissions over the same timeframe. Interventions targeting affluence, such as limits on individual or aggregate wealth, appear necessary, lending support to economic paradigms beyond growth-oriented approaches.

• Tamar, Meshulam (Graduate student, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)
  Beyond Perfect Substitution: Heterogeneity and Rebound Effects in Car-Sharing

ABSTRACT: Technologies and social innovations such as carsharing are commonly promoted as pathways to lower environmental impacts through efficiency gains. Yet rebound effects, denoting how behavioral or economic responses can offset efficiency improvements, can erode these benefits. Most rebound studies assume perfect substitution, where a new service displaces a single incumbent product on a one-to-one basis. While analytically convenient, this overlooks real-world complexity and consumer heterogeneity.
Using survey data from nearly 4,500 Belgian carsharing users, we compare rebound estimates under perfect substitution with those based on reported shifts in transport modes. Under the perfect substitution assumption, we find a 56% rebound effect. When accounting for imperfect substitution, however, rebound effects vary widely across users. Median effects remain positive (20%-46%), but individual outcomes range from major net benefits to strong rebound (5th-95th percentile: 651% to 181%).
A cluster analysis further reveals distinct user groups with systematically different impacts, underscoring that substitution patterns vary not only in scale but also in direction. These findings suggest that carsharing’s environmental impact is highly user-dependent and cannot be captured by a single average estimate. Incorporating imperfect substitution into rebound analysis is therefore critical for both advancing theory and designing more targeted and effective policy interventions.

2D: Science Center A255

• James Randall Kahn (Emeritus John Hendon Professor of Economics, Washington and Lee University)
  COP is not enough: Brazilian deforestation and forest degradation will not diminish unless fundamental changes are made in the Brazilian economy
  Session Chair

ABSTRACT: Although deforestation slowed in the period between 2002 and 2012, it accelerated under more recent presidential administrations, peaking during the Bolsanaro period. The current rates are not as high as during this prior period, but deforestation has only slowed a marginal amount and forest degradation may have increased. REDD+ and other results of the COP process have not stopped the progression of the rainforest towards the tipping point at which collapse is inevitable.
This paper argues that the fundamental causes of deforestation are structural characteristics of the Brazilian economy, which encourage deforestation and forest degradation. Although this paper discusses a suite of factors, it can be argued that the primary cause is the combination of a commercial lending rate over 50% and a rural credit rate of about 10%, which together serve to encourage investment in extractive industries (including agriculture) and discourage more sustainable economic activities. Artificially high costs associated with the tax code, licensing and permitting, rent-seeking behavior and the domestic content rule magnify the problem. In addition, there is an important social justice issue as many of these factors favor the elite economic classes in the industrialized South of Brazil at the expense of the rural forested North.

• Matias Vaccarezza Sevilla (PhD student, University of Vermont)
  Reclaiming glocal: Toward a post-extractivist, sovereign Chile beyond green growth

ABSTRACT: Global trade has long enabled countries in the Global North to appropriate resources from the Global South, perpetuating a system of ecologically unequal exchange. In Latin America, this exploitation has been enforced through institutions like the IMF and World Bank, embedding structural dependence and extractivism. Today, the rise of "green growth," a last-ditch effort to sustain capitalism amid the current socioecological poly-crisis, has repackaged old extractivist models under a new banner, deepening socioecological damage in resource-rich countries like Chile. I critically examine Chile’s role as a supplier of green transition materials (copper, lithium, and green hydrogen), arguing that the green growth paradigm perpetuates colonial trade patterns. Using post-extractivist frameworks and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), I explore alternative economic visions centered on sovereignty and well-being. By outlining specific policy pathways and the challenges of such a transition, I aim to contribute to debates on decolonial transitions and post-capitalist futures in Latin America.

• Richard Paul Reeve (Independent Researcher, Brisbane, Australia)
  Why Knowing Is Not Enough: Dual-system cognition, behavioural economics, and the knowledge action gap in sustainability policy

ABSTRACT: Despite decades of increasingly robust scientific and economic evidence, implementation of best-practice sustainability policies remains inconsistent at best, even as the costs of delay escalate (Stern). This persistent failure is often attributed to weak political will or public ignorance, yet such explanations rely on an outdated information deficit model: the assumption that providing more or better information will naturally lead to rational action. Drawing on Kahneman’s dual-system theory and insights from behavioural economics, this paper argues that this model fundamentally misrepresents how individuals and societies process information, evaluate risk, and coordinate collective responses.
Public engagement is shaped by predictable cognitive biases–including availability, omission bias, and status quo bias–that inhibit responses to diffuse, long-term risks. These biases interact with media framing and political incentives to produce attribution errors, moral concern without agency, and behavioural paralysis. Sustainability is more accurately understood as a collective action problem involving public goods, free-riding, and institutional design (Ostrom).
By synthesising behavioural economics, public goods theory, and media framing research, this paper diagnoses why best-practice scientific and economic advice is routinely resisted. It concludes by outlining future research directions focused on institutional, communication, and policy designs that work with, rather than against, human nature.

Day 2: June 19th        3:15 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.       Parallel Sessions 3

3A: Science Center A154

• Moderated Session

• Chris Norman (Senior Director of Energy and Sustainability, Oberlin College) and Linda Arbogast (Sustainability Coordinator, City of Oberlin) - Moderators
  College-Community Collaboration on Financing and Implementing Carbon Neutrally: Lessons from Oberlin, OH.

• Michael Ahern (Senior Vice President of System Development at Ever-Green Energy, LLC) will also participate.

ABSTRACT: Oberlin College achieved carbon neutrality in 2025. The centerpiece of this achievement was the Sustainable Infrastructure Program (SIP) – a campus district energy system that was implemented through collaborative policy development, coordinated planning and construction between the college and the City of Oberlin, and an effective communication strategy between the public and private sector. The session will cover three main topics to illustrate the collaborative approach that the City and College foster.

First the Sustainable Infrastructure Program, what its immediate origins were, the implementation and optimization of the project and current performance comparison against design. The College use of climate bonds to fund the project and the pending IRA funding status will be reviewed. This will be led by Michael Ahern, Senior Vice President of System Development at Ever-Green Energy, LLC, and the chief engineering and planning partner for the College.

Second, a review of the rollout of city climate policy highlighting the updated 2026 Climate Action Plan, infrastructure investments and other incentives to support climate action which reinforce the College’s carbon neutrality and SIP. Discussion will include immediate lessons learned for future decarbonization, and funding mechanisms like the City Sustainable Reserve Fund, Bloomberg Climate City Funding, and the Oberlin College student Green Edge Fund. This portion will be led by Linda Arbogast, Sustainability Manager for the City of Oberlin.

Third section will cover the ongoing campus stewardship of SIP, the development of new programs to ensure carbon neutrality, priorities moving forward for an equitable and just climate transition. Operating structures like College Construction Improvement Plan, campus decarbonization strategy, 10-year renewable energy strategy and the updated Environmental Implementation Plan will be reviewed as policy development, capital investment and operational strategies. This will be led by Chris Norman, Sr. Director for Campus Energy and Sustainability at Oberlin College and Conservatory.

3B: Science Center A155

• Joshua C. Farley (Professor, University of Vermont)
  Taking Economics as a Life Science Seriously
  Session Chair

ABSTRACT: Farley and Ament are revising the textbook Ecological Economics to reflect advances in our field and changes to the planetary system.  We seek feedback on one significant change: a thorough grounding of economics in evolutionary theory.  We distinguish between biological and cultural evolution and their distinct inheritance mechanisms. A major evolutionary transition occurs when individual organisms become so interdependent they can only survive as a group. Multilevel Selection Theory further explains that selfish individuals outcompete altruistic individuals within a group, but groups dominated by altruistic individuals outcompete more internally selfish groups.  Natural selection can act on both the individual and group, but selfishness at one scale undermines collective welfare at the next.  These frameworks differentiate the domains of microeconomics (individual-level behavior), macroeconomics (societal cooperation), and ecological economics (humanity’s relationship with the rest of nature). The monetary system is an example of an evolutionary system of trust that allows for coordinated economic activity. As a social relation with physical impacts, the monetary system must be understood from an evolutionary perspective.  We conclude that the correct relationship between humanity and the rest of nature is the same as between a cell and the human body and explore the implications for EE.

• Mahadev G Bhat (Distinguished University Professor, Florida International University)
  Teaching Ecological Economics in the Digital Age: Integrating AI, Data Driven Learning, and Student Centered Pedagogy

ABSTRACT: The expansion of AI tools and digital learning is reshaping how students engage with ecological economics and sustainability education. Drawing on several years of teaching sustainability focused undergraduate and graduate courses at a large minority-serving institution, this presentation examines how AI adapted pedagogy and digital learning modules can strengthen immersive learning, critical thinking, and ecological-economic analysis. In online and hybrid settings, students increasingly prefer interactive, hands on digital exercises over traditional textbook readings and lecture based content. To address this shift, I implemented two complementary strategies.
First, students worked with real world digital datasets and local sustainability and resilience plans, applying ecological economics concepts–such as planetary boundaries, carbon footprint, and participatory decision-making–to interpret and critique policy documents. Second, students generated responses to sustainability prompts using both natural intelligence (NI) and artificial intelligence (AI), followed by peer based evaluations comparing NI  and AI generated work.
The results show that more than half of students found NI generated responses more meaningful and engaging than AI generated ones, while strongly preferring hands on digital assignments over conventional reading based tasks. These findings highlight opportunities in integrating AI into ecological economics pedagogy and underscore the need for digital learning strategies that preserve analytical depth and immersive learning while leveraging new technologies.

• Debdutt Behura  (Adjunct Professor, Institute of Professional Learning, India)
  Restoring Paddy Ecosystems and Livelihoods through Resilient SRI Practices: Performance, Gender, and Governance in Odisha, India

ABSTRACT: Rice production in Odisha faces persistent challenges due to low irrigation coverage, erratic rainfall, agro-ecological diversity and recurring biotic and abiotic stressors, factors that accelerate land degradation and threaten rural livelihoods. This study evaluates the adoption dynamics, determinants, and performance of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) using data from 522 farm households across 13 districts. Farmers were categorized as adopters, dropouts, and non-adopters. Despite declining participation, the area under SRI expanded, indicating perceived benefits. A composite sustainability index revealed that SRI adopters achieved higher net returns, improved soil fertility, and greater resource-use efficiency. Probit regression identified institutional and governance factors–NGO engagement, training, and incremental rice income–as key drivers of adoption, while land topography, irrigation constraints, and labour scarcity hindered uptake. Gender analysis showed that SRI reduces traditional female labour demand, particularly in weeding, but also presents opportunities for inclusive skill development among rural women.  SRI outperformed conventional methods in yield, profitability, and resource conservation, especially during drought. To scale SRI sustainably, integrated governance measures are essential: strengthening water infrastructure, promoting community-led water management, expanding gender-sensitive training, and reinforcing NGO-government partnerships. Such an approach can transform rice farming into a vehicle for ecological renewal and just, sustainable development.

3C: Science Center A254 (DeGrowth Track)

• Moderated Session

• Matías Vaccarezza Sevilla (PhD student and Gund Graduate Fellow, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Vermont) - Moderator
  New horizons for the political economy of degrowth

• Presenters: Jukka Kilgus, Danish Hasan, Liam Grima, Matthew Burke

ABSTRACT: Degrowth as an area of study and movement away from the imperative of economic growth includes an increased focus on relational values, practices, and ontologies, which have been explored in various disciplines. This session attends to novel and underexplored aspects on the political economy of degrowth. Panel presentations together formulate an integrated discussion founded in ecological economic theory to connect scholarship on more-than-human subjects and nonhuman agency, political theory, and cultural values for the purpose of expanding degrowth discourse. Presenters including Jukka Kilgus, Danish Hasan, Liam Grima, Matthew Burke, and others draw from research and experience in degrowth as based at the University of Vermont and in the northeast region. In scholarship and across the political spectrum, we find pushes for a revival of relational values, conviviality, and reciprocity, or a re-embedding of economy in the social-natural sphere. Several threads of inquiry come together to resolve tensions among economics, ecology, and political philosophy towards a broad movement for multispecies freedom and autonomy.