TY - JOUR

T1 - Many pathways toward sustainability

T2 - not conflict but co-learning between transition narratives

AU - Lüderitz, Christopher

AU - Abson, David J.

AU - Audet, René

AU - Lang, Daniel J.

PY - 2017/5/1

Y1 - 2017/5/1

N2 - Sustainability transitions aim to comprehensively address key challenges of today’s societies through harmonizing ecological integrity and social viability. During the last decades, increasing attention has focused on the conceptual development and identification of trajectories that navigate societies toward sustainability. While a broad agreement exists with regard to the need for mainstreaming sustainability into the core of decision-making and everyday practices, different transition pathway narratives are advocated to foster urgently needed structural and societal changes. In this article, we describe four archetypes of present transition narratives, examining the system properties (from underpinning intent to mechanistic parameters) that each narrative seeks to transform. We review the articulated critiques of, and provide exemplary case studies for, each narrative. The four transition narratives are (1) the green economy, (2) low-carbon transformation, (3) ecotopian solutions and (4) transition movements. Based on our analysis, we argue that despite the assumption that these narratives represent competing pathways, there is considerable complementarity between them regarding where in a given system they seek to intervene. An integrative approach could potentially help bridge these intervention types and connect fragmented actors at multiple levels and across multiple phases of transition processes. Effectively mainstreaming sustainability will ultimately require sustainability scientists to navigate between, and learn from, multiple transition narratives.

AB - Sustainability transitions aim to comprehensively address key challenges of today’s societies through harmonizing ecological integrity and social viability. During the last decades, increasing attention has focused on the conceptual development and identification of trajectories that navigate societies toward sustainability. While a broad agreement exists with regard to the need for mainstreaming sustainability into the core of decision-making and everyday practices, different transition pathway narratives are advocated to foster urgently needed structural and societal changes. In this article, we describe four archetypes of present transition narratives, examining the system properties (from underpinning intent to mechanistic parameters) that each narrative seeks to transform. We review the articulated critiques of, and provide exemplary case studies for, each narrative. The four transition narratives are (1) the green economy, (2) low-carbon transformation, (3) ecotopian solutions and (4) transition movements. Based on our analysis, we argue that despite the assumption that these narratives represent competing pathways, there is considerable complementarity between them regarding where in a given system they seek to intervene. An integrative approach could potentially help bridge these intervention types and connect fragmented actors at multiple levels and across multiple phases of transition processes. Effectively mainstreaming sustainability will ultimately require sustainability scientists to navigate between, and learn from, multiple transition narratives.

KW - Sustainability Science

KW - Leverage points

KW - Meta-narratives

KW - Narrative analysis

KW - Sustainability mainstreaming

KW - Sustainability science

KW - Sustainability transformation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84996879334&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11625-016-0414-0

DO - 10.1007/s11625-016-0414-0

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:84996879334

VL - 12

SP - 393

EP - 407

JO - Sustainability Science

JF - Sustainability Science

SN - 1862-4065

IS - 3

ER -