TY - JOUR

T1 - Three principles for co-designing sustainability intervention strategies: Experiences from Southern Transylvania

AU - Lam, David P.M.

AU - Horcea-Milcu, Andra I.

AU - Fischer, Joern

AU - Peukert, Daniela

AU - Lang, Daniel J.

N1 - Funding Information: We are deeply grateful and feel privileged to work with all the organisations and local actors in Southern Transylvania. We thank Charlotte Z. Griestop who consistently supported us in essential stages of the journey. This research is supported by the Volkswagenstiftung and the Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur (Grant Number A112269). This research draws on work undertaken in a large transdisciplinary research project (Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation). The author(s) acknowledge and thank all project members for their ideas and input in the early stages of this work, even where they are not listed as authors. Full details of project members and their research are available at https://leveragepoints.org . David P. M. Lam has also been supported by a research fellowship granted by the Foundation of German Business (sdw). Publisher Copyright: © 2019, The Author(s).

PY - 2020/9/1

Y1 - 2020/9/1

N2 - Transformational research frameworks provide understanding and guidance for fostering change towards sustainability. They comprise stages of system understanding, visioning and co-designing intervention strategies to foster change. Guidance and empirical examples for how to facilitate the process of co-designing intervention strategies in real-world contexts remain scarce, especially with regard to integrating local initiatives. We suggest three principles to facilitate the process of co-designing intervention strategies that integrate local initiatives: (1) Explore existing and envisioned initiatives fostering change towards the desired future; (2) Frame the intervention strategy to bridge the gap between the present state and desired future state(s), building on, strengthening and complementing existing initiatives; (3) Identify drivers, barriers and potential leverage points for how to accelerate progress towards sustainability. We illustrate our approach via a case study on sustainable development in Southern Transylvania. We conclude that our principles were useful in the case study, especially with regards to integrating initiatives, and could also be applied in other real-world contexts.

AB - Transformational research frameworks provide understanding and guidance for fostering change towards sustainability. They comprise stages of system understanding, visioning and co-designing intervention strategies to foster change. Guidance and empirical examples for how to facilitate the process of co-designing intervention strategies in real-world contexts remain scarce, especially with regard to integrating local initiatives. We suggest three principles to facilitate the process of co-designing intervention strategies that integrate local initiatives: (1) Explore existing and envisioned initiatives fostering change towards the desired future; (2) Frame the intervention strategy to bridge the gap between the present state and desired future state(s), building on, strengthening and complementing existing initiatives; (3) Identify drivers, barriers and potential leverage points for how to accelerate progress towards sustainability. We illustrate our approach via a case study on sustainable development in Southern Transylvania. We conclude that our principles were useful in the case study, especially with regards to integrating initiatives, and could also be applied in other real-world contexts.

KW - Leverage points

KW - Place-based

KW - Social-ecological system

KW - Transdisciplinarity

KW - Transformation

KW - Transition

KW - Transdisciplinary studies

KW - Sustainability sciences, Communication

KW - Sustainability Science

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85077030716&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s13280-019-01302-x

DO - 10.1007/s13280-019-01302-x

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 31858486

AN - SCOPUS:85077030716

VL - 49

SP - 1451

EP - 1465

JO - Ambio

JF - Ambio

SN - 0044-7447

IS - 9

ER -