Convening Transformation Systems to Achieve System Transformation (original) (raw)
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United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, 2021
With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Member States pledged to transform our world, shifting onto a sustainable and resilient path by 2030 (UN 2015). If insufficient progress is made towards transformative change, however, global goals for sustainability will not be met, including those set out in the 2030 Agenda and the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity (IPBES 2019). Transformative change is defined by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as a "fundamental, system-wide reorganisation across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values." IPBES points to five key levers for generating transformative change (e.g., incentives, cross-sectoral cooperation), which can be collaboratively applied at eight prime leverage points (e.g., visions of a good life, values) to achieve broader impact (IPBES 2019). Yet, there remains a lack of clear understanding on the meaning of transformative change and how it can be initiated (Chan 2019). This policy brief offers three guiding principles for policymakers and other stakeholders to promote transformative change, by taking advantage of "seeds of change" for sustainability that are growing in landscapes and seascapes. It draws from
Overcoming the process-structure divide in conceptions of Social-Ecological Transformation
Ecological Economics, 2019
A fundamental transformation towards sustainability in face of complex social-ecological challenges needs to initiate deep changes of those incumbent system structures that support unsustainable trajectories, while at the same time encouraging a diversity of alternative practices. A review of transformation approaches towards sustainability shows that these do not (sufficiently) link processes of change at the micro level to deep leverages of change in wider system structures. Addressing this research gap, we develop a conceptual framework for a social-ecological transformation that connects the macro and the micro level and helps to bridge process-oriented and structural approaches to transformation. At the macro level, the objectives of inter-and intragenerational justice need to be pursued by challenging the central paradigms that constitute unsustainable trajectories. To make the framework concrete and applicable in practice, we propose a preliminary set of evaluation principles for the micro and meso level that reflect these normative objectives and help to measure the transformative character and transformative impact of change processes. The example of the European Organic Breeding Network illustrates the application of the framework. An Ecological Economics research that is reflective of its transformative quality in light of the incumbent paradigms can make important contributions to transformation research.
Social Networks and Natural Resource Management: Uncovering the Social Fabric in Environmental Governance, edited by Örjan Bodin and Christina Prell, 2011
This chapter will strive to add to contributions made by other authors in describing and explaining transformative change. Special attention will be paid to elucidate the collective nature of these transformations, hence the title of transformative collective action. The analysis will show that in order to bring about radical institutional change of natural resource management, a whole network of individuals and organizations are needed that through time can sustain pressure for change. These actors furthermore need to relate to each other through information exchange and repeated collaborations in order to coordinate their collective action, to learn as they go along of what works and what does not work, and to negotiate their vision of change to reach some common ground that can unite their collective effort. This type of sustained collective action furthermore needs to operate through, and challenge, already established institutions, modes of thought and ways of doing things. As such we can talk about collective action as a ‘collective actor’ – the network of actors – that over time builds enough agency to generate institutional change.
Futures, 2007
This special issue of Futures is filled with good examples of initiatives that each in their own way take part in shaping our common future. Authors from different parts of the world document that the initiatives make a difference within their own realm. The question raised here is how and to what extent such transformative efforts can contribute to transforming the world at macro level, bringing us closer to a sustainable society. Based on the flora of literature about sustainable development, five different answers are presented in the form of five alternative pathways. The goal should not be to reach consensus on which strategy is best, but rather to have as many people as possible marching together in the same direction under different banners. Individuals who see no pathway leading to their goal tend to resign. The combined efforts of people with common goals but different strategies may produce the necessary dynamics to meet the needs of future generations.
Transformations toward sustainability have recently gained traction, triggered in part by a growing recognition of the dramatic socio-cultural, political, economic, and technological changes required to move societies toward more desirable futures in the Anthropocene. However, there is a dearth of literature that emphasizes the crucial aspects of sustainability transformations in the diverse contexts of the Global South. Contributors to this Special Feature aim to address this gap by weaving together a series of case studies that together form an important navigational tool on the "how to" as well as the "what" and the "where to" of sustainability transformations across diverse challenges, sectors, and geographies. They propose the term "transformative space" as a "safe-enough" collaborative process whereby actors invested in sustainability transformations can experiment with new mental models, ideas, and practices that can help shift social-ecological systems onto more desirable pathways. The authors also highlight the challenges posed to researchers as they become "transformative space-makers," navigating the power dynamics inherent in these processes. Because researchers and practitioners alike are challenged to provide answers to complex and often ambiguous or incomplete questions around sustainability, the ideas, reflections and learning gathered in this Special Feature provide some guidance on new ways of engaging with the world.
Just Transformations to Sustainability
Sustainability, 2019
Transformations towards sustainability are needed to address many of the earth's profound environmental and social challenges. Yet, actions taken to deliberately shift social-ecological systems towards more sustainable trajectories can have substantial social impacts and exclude people from decision-making processes. The concept of just transformations makes explicit a need to consider social justice in the process of shifting towards sustainability. In this paper, we draw on the transformations, just transitions, and social justice literature to advance a pragmatic framing of just transformations that includes recognitional, procedural and distributional considerations. Decision-making processes to guide just transformations need to consider these three factors before, during and after the transformation period. We offer practical and methodological guidance to help navigate just transformations in environmental management and sustainability policies and practice. The framing of just transformations put forward here might be used to inform decision making in numerous marine and terrestrial ecosystems, in rural and urban environments, and at various scales from local to global. We argue that sustainability transformations cannot be considered a success unless social justice is a central concern.
2014. Studying the complexity of change: toward an analytical framework for understanding deliberate social-ecological transformations. Ecology and Society 19(4): 54. http://dx.ABSTRACT. Faced with numerous seemingly intractable social and environmental challenges, many scholars and practitioners are increasingly interested in understanding how to actively engage and transform the existing systems holding such problems in place. Although a variety of analytical models have emerged in recent years, most emphasize either the social or ecological elements of such transformations rather than their coupled nature. To address this, first we have presented a definition of the core elements of a socialecological system (SES) that could potentially be altered in a transformation. Second, we drew on insights about transformation from three branches of literature focused on radical change, i.e., social movements, socio-technical transitions, and social innovation, and gave consideration to the similarities and differences with the current studies by resilience scholars. Drawing on these findings, we have proposed a framework that outlines the process and phases of transformative change in an SES. Future research will be able to utilize the framework as a tool for analyzing the alteration of social-ecological feedbacks, identifying critical barriers and leverage points and assessing the outcome of social-ecological transformations.
Transformative Pathways to Sustainability
Transformative Pathways to Sustainability, 2021
Transformations to sustainability are increasingly the focus of research and policy discussions around the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the different roles played by transdisciplinary research in contributing to social transformations across diverse settings have been neglected in the literature. Transformative Pathways to Sustainability responds to this gap by presenting a set of coherent, theoretically informed and methodologically innovative experiments from around the world that offer important insights for this growing field. The book draws on content and cases from across the 'Pathways' Transformative Knowledge Network, an international group of six regional hubs working on sustainability challenges in their own local or national contexts. Each of these hubs reports on their experiences of 'transformation laboratory' processes in the following areas: sustainable agricultural and food systems for healthy livelihoods, with a focus on sustainable agri-food systems in the UK and open-source seeds in Argentina; low carbon energy and industrial transformations, focussing on mobile-enabled solar home systems in Kenya and social aspects of the green transformation in China; and water and waste for sustainable cities, looking at Xochimilco wetland in Mexico and Gurgaon in India. The book combines new empirical data from these processes with a novel analysis that represents both theoretical and methodological contributions. It is especially international in its scope, drawing inputs from North and South, mirroring the universality of the Sustainable Development Goals. The book is of vital interest to academics, action researchers and funders, policy makers and civil-society organisations working on transformations to sustainability. The Pathways Network conducts action research into transformations to sustainability in six hubs across the world. Since 2015, it has been co-led (with Anabel Marin) by the editor, Adrian Ely, a Reader in Technology and Sustainability at SPRU and the STEPS Centre,
Navigating the Back Loop: Fostering Social Innovation and Transformation in Ecosystem Management
2010
Addressing the environmental challenges of the 21 st century requires substantial changes to the way modern society views and manages ecosystems. In particular, many authors contend that fundamental transformation of the largely sectoral, expert-centered ecosystem-management institutions of modern, Western societies is needed. There is increasing agreement that more adaptive, integrated, collaborative ecosystem-management approaches, interlinked at multiple scales, would improve society's ability to sustainably manage complex social-ecological systems. Therefore, understanding processes of transformation, and factors that may enable transformation in ecosystem management, has become an active research area. We explore ecosystem-management transformations using a social-innovation framework. Based on three local-level case studies of transformation in freshwater management, we provide a pilot assessment of factors that may promote the emergence and adoption of integrated, collaborative ecosystem-management approaches. Our analysis suggests that ongoing environmental degradation, increasing environmental awareness, and shifting societal values are creating fertile ground for the emergence and adoption of new approaches to ecosystem management. Based on the case studies we examined, we suggest that initiatives that foster environmental awareness and attachment to local ecosystems, develop capacity for social entrepreneurship in the environmental arena, promote dialogue between key stakeholders, and provide institutional support to new institutions may facilitate the emergence of integrated, collaborative ecosystem-management approaches.