Research Update: “Re-Conceptualizing the Science of Sustainability” now available

AC⁴ Director Josh Fisher and Project Coordinator Kristen Rucki have recently published an article in the journal Sustainable Development. Titled “Reconceptualizing the Science of Sustainability”, this article recommends an expanded view of sustainability science that operates at the nexus of conflict, development, and the environment, explicitly incorporating concepts of peace and conflict.

The authors suggest applying a complex systems framework, including aspects of coupled systems and dynamical systems theory, to this expanded approach to sustainability. Such an analytic framework may lead to insights on factors that drive our complex social-ecological system towards or away from true sustainable development.

The article was produced as part of the AC⁴ Sustainable Human Development project, in partnership with the Agirre Lehendakaria Center for Social and Political Studies at the University of the Basque Country.

Read the paper online here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sd.1656/epdf

See more about the Sustainable Human Development Project here.

Authors:

Kristen Rucki is a Project Coordinator at AC4. She holds a Masters degree in International and Comparative Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, where her work focused on issues of peace and human rights and educational inequalities

Learn more about Director Joshua Fisher at Earth Institute’s Blog State of the Planet.