Content area
Full Text
Ambio 2017, 46:3039DOI 10.1007/s13280-016-0800-y
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s13280-016-0800-y&domain=pdf
Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s13280-016-0800-y&domain=pdf
Web End = PERSPECTIVE
Leverage points for sustainability transformation
David J. Abson, Joern Fischer, Julia Leventon, Jens Newig, Thomas Schomerus, Ulli Vilsmaier, Henrik von Wehrden, Paivi Abernethy, Christopher D. Ives, Nicolas W. Jager, Daniel J. Lang
Received: 30 November 2015 / Revised: 29 April 2016 / Accepted: 7 June 2016 / Published online: 25 June 2016
Abstract Despite substantial focus on sustainability issues in both science and politics, humanity remains on largely unsustainable development trajectories. Partly, this is due to the failure of sustainability science to engage with the root causes of unsustainability. Drawing on ideas by Donella Meadows, we argue that many sustainability interventions target highly tangible, but essentially weak, leverage points(i.e. using interventions that are easy, but have limited potential for transformational change). Thus, there is an urgent need to focus on less obvious but potentially far more powerful areas of intervention. We propose a research agenda inspired by systems thinking that focuses on transformational sustainability interventions, centred on three realms of leverage: reconnecting people to nature, restructuring institutions and rethinking how knowledge is created and used in pursuit of sustainability. The notion of leverage points has the potential to act as a boundary object for genuinely transformational sustainability science.
Keywords Humanenvironment systems
Institutional change Knowledge creation and use
Socialecological systems Sustainability science
Transdisciplinarity
INTRODUCTION
Societies are increasingly operating outside safe planetary boundaries (e.g. Steffen et al. 2015), while many communities remain beset by poverty and inequality. Such situations persist despite substantial focus on sustainability issues in both science and politics (Fischer et al. 2007). Here, we argue that although sustainability science seeks to guide humanity along more sustainable trajectories (Kates et al. 2001, p. 641), much of what might be
constituted as sustainability science fails to engage with the root causes of unsustainability, and is therefore unlikely to substantially alter our current development trajectories.
Addressing unsustainability requires societies to address interacting biophysical, social, economic, legal and ethical dimensions (Geels 2011). However, the dominant scientic discourses address sustainability problems from largely disciplinary perspectives. Different dimensions of sustainability are often researched separately with a focus on proximal problems and quick xes to unsustainability, rather than on the underpinning, ultimate drivers of current trajectories (Ehrenfeld 2004)....