Closing remarks: novel approaches to complex societal change and sustainability

This paper summarizes some personal impressions of the 7th conference of the International Complex Systems Society, co-organized with “Future Earth”, held in Stockholm on August 24–26, 2017. The main point is that it is urgent and important to consider the sustainability conundrum as long-term, soci...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability science 2018-11, Vol.13 (6), p.1589-1596
Main Author: van der Leeuw, Sander
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate Change Management and Policy
Complex systems
Dynamic stability
Earth and Environmental Science
Environment
Environmental Economics
Environmental Management
Landscape Ecology
Public Health
Social sciences
Society
Special Feature: Integrated Knowledge Generation for Transformations towards Sustainability from Local to Global Scales
Special Feature: Original Article
Sustainability
Sustainable Development
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Summary:This paper summarizes some personal impressions of the 7th conference of the International Complex Systems Society, co-organized with “Future Earth”, held in Stockholm on August 24–26, 2017. The main point is that it is urgent and important to consider the sustainability conundrum as long-term, society-driven one, and to place societal dynamics at the core of how we, as a global society, came to this point, how ongoing dynamics are driving us towards a tipping point, and which role the Information and Communication Technology revolution plays in that process. A much wider involvement of the social sciences is essential. This also requires major changes in our thinking about sustainability—we need to develop an approach in which change is the natural state of affairs and societies attempt to impose stability on the dynamics involved. We need to focus on learning from the past, about the present, but above all for the future. And we need to shift from an entity-focused approach to a relational one, which pays more attention to contexts and networks. Other issues raised by such a shift in our thinking are about the role of science, the adoption of complex systems approaches and a few others that the paper points to.
ISSN:1862-4065
1862-4057
DOI:10.1007/s11625-018-0581-2