Structuring sustainability science

Abstract

It is urgent in science and society to address climate change and other sustainability challenges such as biodiversity loss, deforestation, depletion of marine fish stocks, global ill-health, land degradation, land use change and water scarcity. Sustainability science (SS) is an attempt to bridge the natural and social sciences for seeking creative solutions to these complex challenges. In this article, we propose a research agenda that advances the methodological and theoretical understanding of what SS can be, how it can be pursued and what it can contribute. The key focus is on knowledge structuring. For that purpose, we designed a generic research platform organised as a three-dimensional matrix comprising three components: core themes (scientific understanding, sustainability goals, sustainability pathways); cross-cutting critical and problem-solving approaches; and any combination of the sustainability challenges above. As an example, we insert four sustainability challenges into the matrix (biodiversity loss, climate change, land use changes, water scarcity). Based on the matrix with the four challenges, we discuss three issues for advancing theory and methodology in SS: how new synergies across natural and social sciences can be created; how integrated theories for understanding and responding to complex sustainability issues can be developed; and how theories and concepts in economics, gender studies, geography, political science and sociology can be applied in SS. The generic research platform serves to structure and create new knowledge in SS and is a tool for exploring any set of sustainability challenges. The combined critical and problem-solving approach is essential.

Defining Terms for Integrated (Multi-Inter-Trans-Disciplinary) Sustainability Research

“…Jerneck et al [16] note that the very essence of sustainability science lies in its attempts to "... rethink interactions across domains and scales; nature and society, science and democracy, the global and the local, as well as the past, present and possible futures". Luks and Siebenhüner [17] similarly note that sustainability science (which they describe as a "new paradigm of scientific research") has been constituted around the need for resolving real world sustainability issues by combining research on the ecological and social components and involving diverse forms of knowledge.…”

Using Sustainability Engineering to Gain Universal Sustainability Efficiency

“…It mostly happens because the conservators of the content of the sustainability category were not claiming to turn it into scientific category. As has been earlier noted [26,27] there is an emerging area called sustainability science. Though sustainability is not yet an autonomous discipline in its perception field or knowledge extension it has been perceived to be problem-driven and seen as a network of aims, oriented towards guiding the decision-making.…”

Interlinking ecosystem services and Ostrom’s framework through orientation in sustainability research

“…However, ES researchers have realized that sustainable solutions cannot be based solely on system knowledge, but that there is high relevance for the inclusion of norms, values, and subject perspectives related to ES demand (Görg et al 2014, Jordan and Russel 2014. Specifically, the ES concept attributes values to biophysical, socio-cultural, and monetary value domains (Fig.…”