From May 2020 to January 2021, the RECIPES team has engaged in a co-creative process to identify needs and ideas for guidelines and tools to support the future application of the precautionary principle.
Over the past decades, evidence has mounted that the Earth’s entomofauna is in an ongoing state of collapse. Globally, insects make up three quarters of animal and plant species.
Pollinator decline, and more broadly insect decline, has become a pressing societal challenge. Jeroen P. van der Sluijs, from the RECIPES Consortium, together with Stéphane Foucart and Jérôme Casas just published the editorial in the Insect Science journal: Halting the pollinator crisis requires entomologists to step up and assume their societal responsibilities.
After having identified the needs of stakeholders for guidelines and tools to support the future application of the precautionary principle in a co-creative process, the RECIPES team has moved to the next step.
This month, Fritz-Julius Grafe and Harald A. Mieg, who conducted the case study on "Financial risks in water infrastructure planning", have published the article “Precaution and Innovation in the Context of Wastewater Regulation: An Examination of Financial Innovation under UWWTD Disputes in London and Milan”, on the Sustainability journal.
Pollinator decline, and more broadly global insect decline, is increasingly recognised as an emerging global environmental risk urgently requiring an internationally coordinated and integrated policy response.
To fully understand the complexities and the controversies around the application of the precautionary principle, the RECIPES project conducted nine case studies.
As an emerging technology and an important group within the so-called advanced materials, nanotechnologies are characterized by manifold areas of application and high uncertainty.
The case study on "Financial risks in water infrastructure planning" aims to understand the complexities and controversies around the application of the precautionary principle in the context of urban waste water infrastructure provision.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are at the centre stage of a scientific and regulatory controversy. Chemicals shown to have endocrine disrupting effects have mostly been man-made.
Genetically modified organisms (GMO) are the product of advanced biotechnology and are non-naturally occurring plants, animals and microorganisms whose genomes have been altered intentionally and artificially.
In Europe, hundreds of different pesticides are allowed in farming to control fungi (fungicides), weeds (herbicides) and plague insects (insecticides) that may harm the crop. Among them are Neonicotinoid insecticides (in short: neonics) that, due to the risk they pose for the environment and pollinating insects in particular, are regulated through the precautionary principle.
Artificial Intelligence is often characterized as a transformational technology for the twenty-first century. Healthcare could be the domain in which AI will have the most impact, transforming practices in, amongst others, the fields of diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, allocating resources, organizing files, and automated operations.
Microplastics are small pieces of plastics, usually defined as smaller than 5 millimeters. They enter the environment via two routes. Primary microplastics are intentionally added to products, as is done in cosmetic products, to increase certain product characteristics.
Glyphosate is one of the world’s most widely used herbicides, used in European agriculture to control weeds in a wide range of crops. The substance’s license was recently renewed, causing outrage and controversy due to its assumed connection to carcinogenic effects on humans and animals.
Synthetic gene drives based on the CRISPR-cas9 genetic engineering method could be used to spread artificially modified genes through wild populations faster.
The precautionary principle is supposed to enable decision-makers to adopt precautionary measures even if scientific uncertainties about environmental and health risks remain.
One of the RECIPES project’s aims is to understand and explain the differences in the application of the precautionary principle in 9 different case topics, in a way that reflects the particular context of the case and the arguments for invoking the precautionary principle.
How can we ensure that innovative products and solutions are fostered and encouraged when their impacts on human health and the environment are not fully known?
