It brings together experts in conservation, mathematics, systems modelling, social science, political science, computer science and environmental policy to work towards robust and sustainable solutions at the interface of environmental, societal and economic endeavours. A nexus that includes issues such as biodiversity loss, water supply, energy production, food security and social justice.
Environmental management has been slow to embrace robust decision-making approaches relative to areas such as health, transport and the financial sector. We believe that we can aid in better outcomes for the environment by supporting managers and policy-makers to make structured decisions. While on a small scale we have all contributed either methodological advances in environmental decision analysis or the use of these approaches for on-ground environmental successes, on a global scale these stories are all too few and far between. As organisations concerned for our environment we came together to precipitate a shift to decision analysis as the norm. In 2018 we launched the Environmental Decisions Alliance with the express aim of building decision analysis capacity in the environmental sphere, sharing research advances and real world successes in this area, and catalysing the use of decision analysis for pressing global environmental challenges.
The Alliance draws together world leading organisations as members (see members page) driven by its purpose to improve environmental decisions for a better world for society and nature. The inaugural Chair and Director will be Dr Eve McDonald-Madden based at the University of Queensland, Australia.
The initial idea for the Environmental Decisions Alliance was incubated within the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. The Alliance would like to thank all the funding bodies who contributed to its formation by supporting the inaugural meeting of our founding members at Berkeley in June 2017.