Sustainability and Societal Transformations lecture notes
Inhoudsopgave
Lecture 1 (8-11): Sustainability and sustainable development ......................................................................... 3
1: Welcome and introductions ............................................................................................................................ 3
2: The 3 central topics of this course; ................................................................................................................. 3
3: What is sustainable development or sustainability? Let’s unpack the concepts ............................................ 3
4: Social science contributions: discussing interpretations of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainability’
(Dobson 1996) .................................................................................................................................................... 6
5: explanation paper 1 ...................................................................................................................................... 10
Lecture 2 (15-11): Societal change & transformations ................................................................................... 11
1 The need for transformative change: 1 million species threatened with extinction (Visseren-Hamakers) .... 11
2: How can we understand fundamental societal change – social change: a classical theme ......................... 13
Early thoughts .............................................................................................................................................. 13
General reflections: a diversity of societal changes..................................................................................... 14
Answers by 2 main readings ............................................................................................................................. 15
WBGU 2011 ................................................................................................................................................. 15
Geels, 2011: multi-level perspective on transitions .................................................................................... 15
3: Transformative governance defined ............................................................................................................. 16
Lecture 3 (22-11): Policy Change ................................................................................................................... 19
1: Practices and societal change ....................................................................................................................... 19
2: Policy change: what explains policy stability and change in established theories? ...................................... 22
a) Multiple Streams Model (John Kingdon à Zahariadis paper pp 25-40) ............................................ 22
b) Crisis exploitation (Boin 2009): Crisis not sufficient condition for policy change: framing contests to
interpret events ........................................................................................................................................... 23
c) Gradual or abrupt change because of new ideas? A view from discourse analysis ................................. 23
d) Gradual change (in Wiering et al) Change as an outcome of different forces of stability and change: a
view from the Policy Arrangement Approach (PAA).................................................................................... 24
3: Explanation paper 2 ...................................................................................................................................... 24
Lecture 4 (29-11-22): Gues Lecture Milieudefensie ........................................................................................ 26
Our theory of Change to halt deforestation ..................................................................................................... 26
Role of civil society actors in the societal transformation needed to halt deforestation .................................. 26
Challenges: ....................................................................................................................................................... 26
Lecture 5 (06-12-22): Global environmental justice movements as transformative change agents for
sustainability. A decolonial glance (by Cristina) ............................................................................................. 28
Environmental justice – movement and scholarly field .................................................................................... 28
Sustainability science- social metabolism and ecological distribution conflicts ............................................... 28
Global environmental justice movement – agents for sustainability transformation? A framework of analysis
.......................................................................................................................................................................... 32
Focus on power – dimensions of sustainability and scales ............................................................................... 33
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, Decolonial EJ – socioenvironmentalism (Escobar, 2016) .................................................................................. 33
Lecture 6 (13-12-22): Reimagining Planetary care: the case of Ocean “resource” management (by Jennifer
Telesca) ........................................................................................................................................................ 36
1: Overview of Planet Ocean ............................................................................................................................ 36
1.1: Why must the ocean be part of our ecological imagination? ............................................................... 36
1.2: What does a view from the sea offer a study of environmental governance?..................................... 37
1.3: To what extent is environmental governance terracentric, humancentric and market-driven? These
are empirical questions................................................................................................................................ 37
2: Basic regulatory frameworks ........................................................................................................................ 37
2.1: What are at the core instruments and legal regimes (binding and non-binding) governing the ocean
on an international scale?............................................................................................................................ 37
2.2: To what extent is the ocean as commons under threat? ..................................................................... 38
3: A look under the Hood .................................................................................................................................. 39
3.1: What does (ocean) governance look like in practice from inside a regulatory regime?....................... 40
3.2 Who (or what) is sustained in fisheries management? ................................................................. 40
3.3: How are fisheries managed? What is the role of fisheries science in management? Is it for for
purpose? Says who? .................................................................................................................................... 42
Lecture 7 (20-12-22): Briefing International Forest Negotiation + exam info.................................................. 44
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,Lecture 1 (8-11): Sustainability and sustainable development
1: Welcome and introductions
Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers
Jennifer Telesca
Cristina Inoue
2: The 3 central topics of this course;
1. Sustainability and sustainable development (today’s lecture)
a. Its history, its definitions
b. Comments and controversies
c. Current approach through the SDGs
2. Societal change & transformations
a. What to learn from historic examples?
b. What triggers, hinders societal change?
c. What is transformative change?
3. Policy change
a. How to understand policy change?
b. What is the role of policy, different actors, in triggering/hindering societal change; in
governing change towards sustainability?
3: What is sustainable development or sustainability? Let’s unpack the concepts
• Paul Warde (2011): idea of ‘Nachhaltigkeit’ (‘lastingness’) originates from 17th century
(German) forestry management
• Basic question: how to manage a forest in a sustainable way, which then meant: in order to
assure sufficient wood in the future
• Other examples of early ‘sustainable forestry’: Venice 15th, 16th century and many other
places: “no wood, no kingdom”
• Key message: societal developments that affect wood harvesting should keep pace with
natural (growth and recovery) processes (of wood, soil etc.)
Wood was central in those colonial kingdoms/ societies. So the German forestry tradition was
already thinking in how do we use our forest in a way that we have forest for the next generation?
Debate in policy on the global sustainable development
• 1948 IUCN
• 1962 Silent Spring (Rachel Carson)
• 1972 Limits to Growth (Club of Rome)
• 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm)
o This one was the start of the modern sustainable development policy era.
• 1970s Ramsar (1971), CITES (1973), CMS (1979)
• 1987 Brundtland Report coined concept sustainable development
• 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro: Agenda 21 action plan, “Rio conventions” (UNFCCC,
CBD, UNCCD)
o Huge conference. This was where the concept of sustainable development became
normal.
o 3 important things were made (the abbreviations) UNFCCC; UNF’trippleC’.
• 2000 MDGs with deadline for 2015 (only for developing countries)
• 2002 Rio+10 summit in Johannesburg: partnerships
• 2012 Rio+20 summit: agreement to develop SDGs
• 2015 SDGs for 2030 (for all countries)
• 2022 Stockholm+50
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,There are a lot of global environmental governance corporations. The question is if this is a mess and
whether this mess is good? Is this actually useful? It’s an academic debate amongst scholars. Also
ingrids work about integrative governance is also around this question: ‘is this mess a problem or
not’?.
Sustainable development: definition
- Late 1980s: the Brundtland commission (WCED) in Our common future, report on request of
the UN, both UNDP and UNEP, Anticipating the 1992 Rio summit
- Defined as:
‘Sustainable development is a development which meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.
- Emphasising north-south (and present-future) divide 10
Brundtland definition
- Vague, handy or not? Is it useful to have vague term because it creates momentum? Or is it
problematic?
- Human centred. Nature is there for us to use; anthropogenic.
Sustainable development
• Where classical (Brundtland and Rio) definition and elaboration emphasized
o Balance between environment and development (to escape from ‘Limits’ (to growth)
idea,
o and present and future (intergenerational equity),
• Gradually (through Johannesburg) ‘development’ became duplicated into social and
economic - the emphasis shifted towards a balance between people, planet and profit (later
even: people, planet and prosperity), or between economy, ecology and equity, etc.
It’s changed a bit where it’s not only about ecology but transformed over time to have 3 circles (also
social aspects) – the people, planet, profit language has been used to operationalize it a bit more.
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,Operationalization of sustainable development: the MDGs
So the international community has thought about how can we create policy programs/ more actual
language to get towards sustainable development. So the first global operationalization where the
MDGs (predecessor of the SDGs). Interestingly: only meant for developing countries.
There was a deadline for the MDGs, so what does the international community do when there’s a
deadline they don’t reach: they make new policies. The SDGS.
- Where is the individual animal? What about other species’ rights?
- It represents a very different human/non-human relationship.
- Ingrid would critique that the SDGs are not complete à Maartje the cow
Contributions from the natural sciences: the planetary boundaries approach
- There are multiple critiques on the SDG’s, apart from adding the individual animal
• Steffen et al., 2015 (and many others; crucial role of Stockholm Resilience Center, and Johan
Rockström):
• 9 physical (socio-ecological?) parameters to assess global earth system quality – and to
identify ‘a safe space’
• 3 to 5 variables (tend to) exceed both agreed standards and presumed boundaries/ceilings
=> the Anthropocene as a new label of our time (moving on from Holocene), reflecting that
humanity’s impact on the global environment is of geological magnitude: new geological time
(Zalasiewicz et al.) 15Lecturer from New York says something about the SDG’s… (couldn’t follow)
Why 17 SDGs? A diplomat from the UN told Jen that it felt almost “spontaneous” …
The HQ of the UN are in NY. And the specific conventions have secretaries in different parts of the
world.
The planetary boundaries approach
You see that we’re in overshoot in many of these boundaries.
Then:
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, The OXFAM/Doughnut: “not fair to only look at ecological levels, we should also incorporate human
needs….” Etc. this is one of the most well known author who criticises the people, planet, profit
paradigm. But also the doughnut can be criticised as it also does not acknowledge basic non-human
rights.
Raworth is one of the most well-known authors who criticize the PPP paradigm where she says:
‘people and planet should be the boundaries for the profit’.
Towards an ecocentric, compassionate and just doughnut economy
Of course, she didn’t go all the way either because she also doesn’t include intrinsic value of nature
of the needs of non-human. So even Raworth can be criticised, saying that she’s very anthropocentric
and not eco-centric.
4: Social science contributions: discussing interpretations of ‘sustainable development’
and ‘sustainability’ (Dobson 1996)
• Concepts are social constructs - Some of the readings are a bit old, but that shows that the
social/environmental science debate exists for a long time and that we’re building on other
ideas. Social scientists want us to realize that all these concepts are man-made.
• Contested - different interpretations that have political impact
• Interpreted (and re-interpreted)
• Different interpretations also promote certain solutions and exclude others – if you have a
certain view on what sust. Devel. Should be, there’s politics involved in the way you
approach these concepts.
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