Denise visited Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia to obtain a deeper understanding of the operational activities of the different Solid Waste Management stages in the city. She accompanied supervisors of the local waste collection company to observe their operational procedures and waste picking activities. She visited waste pickers storages and used action cameras to record the activities of informal waste pickers in order to explore related social impacts. Additionally, she conducted a workshop with representatives of the municipality, private cleansing company and NGOs to validate a system dynamic model of the Solid Waste Management system in Santa Cruz,
 
Robert visited the provinces of the Western Cape and the Gauteng in South Africa to interview experts and conduct surveys with local farmers about the current role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the country’s food system. He conducted 86 surveys with smallholder farmers located in 6 urban and peri-urban areas in the townships of Cape Town and Johannesburg to understand the barriers and challenges of ICT adoption, as well as the desirable characteristics of ICT tools. He complemented this knowledge with interviews with experts from NGOs, ICT companies and the food industry to understand more broadly these issues in South Africa.
 
Rodo visited the three islands Nargana, Soledad Miria, and Carti Sugdub in the Guna Yala region of Paname. He conducted household surveys to capture the perspective of the local Guanas communities, in order to identify what are their main development concerns. Questionnaires captured socioeconomic activities, perceived value from ecosystem services, traditional values, and ranked through a Discreet Choice Experiment (DCE) the key development challenges. He conducted approximately 240 questionnaires across the three islands to conduct a conjoint analysis that will help identify the key development challenges in Guna Yala.
 
Vinamra visited multiple logging sites in in Sarawak, Malaysia, to understand the impact of logging on local communities. Initially he visited Iban communities in Anap Muput Forest Management Unit to understand the effects of past and current commercial logging practices in the area. In particular he carried out 21 household interviews in 7 villages located in the Muput cluster. Subsequently he visited the Kapit Forest Management Unit (149,756 ha), whose southern part is located inside Heart of Borneo (HoB) project area, and met each of the village chiefs of the sixteen settlements at Mujong-Melinau FMU (44,300 ha). He conducted multiple expert interviews with officials from the Forest Department, Sarawak Forestry Corporation and different logging companies, and also attended the Forest Management Certification and Forest Management Unit Readiness Assessment Workshop organised by Sarawak Forestry Corporation in Sibu.

Alex Gasparatos visited Bali with six undergraduate students from the University of Tokyo. The team undertook fieldwork for two student-led research projects as part of the Sustainability cluster of the Global Leadership Education Program - Global Education for Innovation and Leadership (GLP-GEFIL).
 
The two projects explored issues related to youth involvement in agriculture, and waste generation and management in the island. The students collected information from different areas around Bali including farms, waste management facilities, beaches and research institutions. They conducted numerous interviews with farmers, and stakeholders from the waste, tourism and agriculture sector. During this research the team worked closely with the local think-and-do tank, su-re.co.

Merle, Nikole and Spencer graduated on 25 March. All of them defended successfully their PhD and MSc theses in January 2019. Congratulations!

Alexandros Gasparatos and Jelena Aleksejeva attended the 2nd annual meeting of our project funded by the Asia-Pacific Network (APN). The meeting was held in Beijing and brought together project partners from the City University of New York (CUNY), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the National Taipei University, the Asia Institute of Technology (AIT), and the University of Tokyo.
 
Partners discussed ongoing research and results about sub-city GHG emission and energy use in Beijing, Bangkok, New York, Taipei and Tokyo. Jelena presented her work on green roofs as a climate change mitigation strategy for the Sumida ward in Tokyo.

Alice visited Kiambu and Murang’a Districts of Kenya for follow-up household surveys. The goal of this exercise was to understand how seasonal climatic change can influence household cooking energy choices and usage patterns. She conducted about 300 household questionnaires along two transects, and interviewed local stakeholders such as forest officers, firewood sellers and biomass stove producers.
 
Denise conducted a household waste characterization study in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. With the support of the local university UPSA and the municipal cleansing enterprise EMACRUZ, she coordinated a team of around 30 student volunteers to survey 105 households from different socioeconomic strata. This entailed daily waste collection, separation, weighing and analysis for 7 consecutive days. The results will elicit household waste generation rates across the city, which is an important input to a system dynamic model she develops. 
 
Ei visited the Max Myanmar cement plant close to Naypyitaw, Myanmar. She collected data about the material and energy inputs and output for each of the production stages of cement production, from quarrying to final product. This information will be used to assess the environmental impacts of cement production through life cycle assessment (LCA).

Eric conducted household surveys in the Assin North District, Ghana to understand how cocoa certification affects the livelihood of smallholders. He collected 300 household surveys in 10 rural communities from certified and uncertified cocoa smallholders, as well as subsistence farmers not growing cocoa. Surveyed certified farmers had adopted different certification standards such as UTZ and Rainforest Alliance.

Helen conducted household surveys in Pyin Oo Lwin (Myanmar) to understand the benefits that green spaces offer to urban residents. She conducted 230 household surveys around five green spaces such as monasteries, a golf course and the National Botanical Gardens, as well as control areas in the city centre. These surveys captured, among others, the provisioning and cultural services that resident obtain from the green spaces, as well as how proximity to this spaces can reduce residents vulnerability to heat, drought, and air and noise pollution.  
 
Robert visited the provinces of the Western Cape and the Gauteng in South Africa to interview experts about the current role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the country’s food system. He interviewed 18 experts from academia, NGOs, local/national government and the food industry to understand the structure of the food system, as well as the drivers, barriers and challenges of ICT adoption in the South African food system. He also presented the preliminary results of a consumer survey he conducted last winter, to the local farmers of the Izindaba Zokudla (Lit. "Conversation about Food") during their monthly workshop in Soweto.
 
Vinamra visited Iban communities in Anap Muput Forest Management Unit, Bintulu division in Sarawak, Malaysia. These Iban communities traditionally live in longhouses and rely for their sustenance on shifting agriculture of hill rice, cash crops (e.g. pepper, oil palm) and the collection of various timber and non-timber forest products. To understand the effects of past and current commercial logging practices in the area, he carried out 63 household interviews in 9 villages located in the Takan and Malat clusters in and around the forest management unit operated by Zedtee Snd. Bdh.