From Potential to Implementation: An Innovation Framework to Realize the Benefits of Soil Carbon - Soil Carbon: Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits - page 54

1. At the base (local scale), the majority of
actors affected by the biophysical and
socio-economic factors associated with soil
carbon are the multitude of farmers that de-
pend on SOC directly, and also consumers
(albeit in an indirect way).
2. At the global level, actors are affected
mostly by and perceive the problem of soil
carbon loss as a socio-economic issue. At
this level, the institutional (governance)
context is dominated by a few actors (e.g.
UN bodies, multilateral treaties, multinational
companies, etc.), but their objectives and
perception of the problem of SOC loss
is fundamental, as they create the policy
environment that constrains actors at the
national scale. That is, the national level
where the number of actors is reduced to
few policy organizations effectively creates
a bottleneck through which the supranational
institutional constraints (international trade
rules, international environmental agree-
ments, etc.) are passed down to the lowest
scales.

innovations are required that address the
social, cultural and economic barriers.
While current best practices are associ-
ated mainly with innovative technologies
addressing biophysical aspects regarding
SOC (green shading on Plate 5), these are
unlikely to achieve their potential if robust
social innovations (red shading on Plate 5)
at higher scales are not put in place. The fig-
ure thus depicts a need to develop and im-
plement these higher-scale social innov-
ations, which will require the restructuring
and adaptation of powerful institutional
structures (e.g. the World Trade Organiza-
tion, United Nations Framework Conven-
tion on Climate Change, multinational com-
panies, etc.).
Innovations are particularly needed to
bridge the current gaps between short- and
long-term objectives. Such innovations must
be both technological and social. Social in-
novations relate mainly to new types of gov-
ernance structures in the public and private
sectors so that policies at higher spatial
levels, in governments or companies, filter
down effectively towards the lower scales
and ultimately reach the consumers and the
farmers, who can bring about SOC seques-
tration efficiently.
Implementation of the necessary tech-
nical and institutional innovations will
generally require a trigger, an economic feed-
back from a higher level than the local level
where the carbon management activities are
implemented (e.g. Koning et al ., 2001).
Changing prices, subsidies and taxes, laws
and regulations and reacting on increasing
awareness of environmental costs and un-
sustainability could be examples of these
feedbacks (see Izac, 1997; Sanderman and
Chappell, 2013; Chapter 3, this volume).
As noticed by Sanderman and Chappell
(2013), the 'maximum feasible C sequestra-
tion potential at any given location will
seldom be realized due to a series of biological,
physical, social, and political constraints'.
Often, in the absence of policy interventions,
it will be rational for individual farmers to
manage their SOC at levels that are sub-
optimal from a national and global natural
capital perspective (Izac, 1997; Chapter 15,
this volume).

The shape of the hourglass reflects not only
the number of actors that are associated with
the potential to design and implement in-
novative solutions but also the degree to
which such best practices are currently avail-
able (cf. the section above headed 'What ought
to be done? A summary of best practices').
Hitherto, most innovation has been focused
on the technological domain and designed to
be applied at the farm and regional scale, al-
though fewer and weaker, socio-economic
practices exist at the national (land-use regu-
lations) and fewer still at the global (e.g. inter-
national land-use conventions and corporate
governance agreements) level.
As the biophysical limitations are con-
centrated at the farm and catchment level,
innovations to address these limitations
generally have to be applied at these scales,
but in fact they often are not. Two main
reasons constrain application: (i) a lack of
information and knowledge about practices
to maintain SOC in some parts of the world;
and (ii) socio-economic constraints that pre-
vent implementation and widespread adop-
tion, even if information and knowledge
is available and accessible. In both cases,