Collective Action and the transition to a sustainable society: A research and action proposal

1. Collective Action and the transition to a sustainable society:A research and action proposal Sander van der Leeuw Arizona State University Santa Fe Institute

2. Participants • Alan AtKisson (AtKisson Group) • IlanChabay (Chalmers University of Technology) • John Finnigan (CSIRO, Canberra, Australia) • Carlo Jaeger (PIK, Potsdam) • Pamela Matson (Stanford University) • ElinorOstrom (Indiana University) • Johan Rockström (Stockholm Resilience Center) • Marten Scheffer (Wageningen University) • Sander van der Leeuw (Arizona State University) • Frances Westley (University of Waterloo) • Oran Young (UC Santa Barbara)

3. Goals • Research: What has prevented a groundswell, rapid transition to sustainability? • Why do such changes occur, or don’t? • Can one stimulate them in certain directions? • All scales, all disciplines • Action: Transition as core urgency • Social Science challenge • Emergence by Design

4. Some of the barriers • difficulty of anticipating unintended consequences • path-dependency of our societies • difficulties of preparing for and dealing with major catastrophes • lacunae in our governance system for global issues • role of technology and our (over-) confidence in it • tendency to strive for panaceas and silver bullets • difficulty of anticipating impact of societal dynamics

5. What kind of transition? • Incremental or quantum jump? • Top-down, bottom-up or sandwiched? • How to match scales to local circumstances? • How to instantiate the transition? • What normative goals? • How to create ethics of stewardship? • How to deal with cultural differences?

6. How to convince? • Would one use tools integrating persuasion, dialogue, policy debate, culture and custom? • How to identify innovative and exciting accelerators of change? • Could we build positive, plausible scenarios for transition to a sustainable society ? • Would we need to explore how to deconstruct institutions? • What strategies for avoidance, adaptation, and transformation are effective at large scales?

7. What is the role of science? • To what degree can science contribute? • The role of the citizen/scientist • What will it take to have scientific leadership that really leads to change? • Do we have to transform our scientific institutions? • What is the role of scientific education? • How to educate most effectively?

8. The role of government? • How to manage for emergence? • How to learn for the future? • How to focus innovation? • Innovation got us into trouble • How to articulate normative and practical? • What kind of future do we want, and how do we get it? • How to make participation fun? • Transition town movement

9. The role of business? • Business is seeing the writing on the wall • It can contribute a lot: • The Sustainability Consortium • WBCSD • But, will it control the movement? • Turn it into a profit? • How about ‘greenwashing’? • Will it be able to deviate it?

10. Culture, perception, decision-making • It’s all about changing mindsets! • We need to become more effective: • Better understand and handle the media • Better understand decision-making • Better understand how to involve diverse partners • Find new, stimulating ways of educating • Focus education on creativity • Harness universities to find solutions

11. Qualities of sustainability scientists • Problem-driven • Acknowledges full systemic complexity • Studies dynamics of systems • Has a long-term perspective • Is steeped in inter-/transdisciplinarity • Anticipates the future • Goal-oriented • Action-oriented • Engages in stakeholder collaboration at all times • Makes contributions to real-world solutions 9