ISEP membership grades and Chartered Environmentalist Sustainability Transitions, Governance & Social Dimensions: practice questions

1 · Multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions · medium

Organic farming and agroecology began as niche practices. How does the MLP describe their partial uptake by mainstream food systems?

1. Niche practices absorbed into the regime in modified form
2. Landscape shocks eliminating the regime overnight and replacing it
3. The regime remaining entirely unchanged because niches cannot influence it
4. Governments banning conventional farming to force a sudden switch

2 · Polycentric and multi-level governance; commons governance · medium

What does polycentric governance describe?

1. Governance by many cities in one country with identical rules
2. A decision rule requiring unanimous agreement among all nations
3. A single central government taking all environmental decisions
4. Overlapping decision centres at several scales that interact

3 · Stakeholder mapping and engagement · medium

Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) proposed that stakeholder salience depends on which three attributes?

1. Power, legitimacy and urgency
2. Wealth, age and education
3. Interest, influence and location
4. Size, sector and nationality

4 · Stakeholder mapping and engagement · hard

Why can stakeholder mapping based mainly on power lead to poor outcomes in agricultural projects?

1. Low-power groups always oppose projects, so including them causes delay
2. It sidelines women, landless workers and others with little power
3. Mapping by power is prohibited by international engagement standards
4. Powerful stakeholders never influence project outcomes in agriculture

5 · Behaviour change and social norms · medium

Making a green electricity tariff the default option for new customers is an example of

1. an information deficit campaign
2. a regulatory ban on fossil electricity
3. a carbon tax on electricity use
4. a nudge through choice architecture

6 · Gender and social inclusion in environmental programmes · medium

Which practice best supports women's participation in agricultural programmes where social norms limit mixed meetings?

1. Collecting data only from household heads, who are mostly men
2. Delivering all information through written manuals in a national language
3. Separate consultations timed to fit women's workloads
4. Requiring women to attend evening meetings chaired by men only

7 · Just transition for farmers and rural workers · medium

Why do environmental measures perceived as imposed and unfair by farmers often fail?

1. Farmers are legally exempt from all environmental rules
2. Unfair measures always improve the environment faster
3. They provoke backlash that weakens the measures
4. Farmers cannot affect policy in any democratic country

8 · Just transition for farmers and rural workers · hard

A deforestation-free sourcing rule risks excluding smallholders who cannot prove compliance. Which response best fits just transition principles?

1. Abandon the deforestation rule because smallholders cannot meet it
2. Require smallholders to pay for full certification before any purchase
3. Support traceability via cooperatives while keeping smallholders in
4. Drop all smallholder suppliers and buy only from large plantations with satellite records

9 · Just transition for farmers and rural workers · medium

For smallholders in developing countries, which condition is especially important for a just transition?

1. Immediate removal of all support for small farms
2. Full responsibility for historical global emissions
3. Secure land tenure and access to finance and markets
4. Mandatory adoption of the most expensive technologies

10 · Communicating environmental science · medium

Which is good practice when communicating scientific uncertainty to the public?

1. Hide all uncertainty to make the message sound more certain
2. Replace numbers with vague words such as 'some' and 'maybe'
3. Emphasise uncertainty so strongly that no conclusion seems possible
4. Ranges, natural frequencies and calibrated terms with meanings