Leuphana Sustainability Summit: Enabling a trans-disciplinary approach

W dniach 29 lutego – 2 marca 2012 w Lüneburg w Niemczech odbędzie się Leuphana Sustainability Summit: Enabling a trans-disciplinary approach, organizowany przez EABIS i the Centre for Sustainability Management, and Business Strategy and the Environment na Uniwersytecie Leuphana.

In 2012 the international community will celebrate 20 years of Agenda 21, the guiding vision agreed to by 179 nations at the Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. Since then the idea of sustainable development has been discussed at uncountable gatherings around the world and numerous activities – in academia, politics, civil society as well as the private sector – have been initiated to bring the idea of sustainability to life. Interconnected sustainability challenges such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, economic and social instability are however still with us – and some of them are becoming increasingly serious. The institutionalization of sustainability as a regulative idea has only started in some spheres of activity and some areas of the world. To achieve transitions towards sustainability, continuous inquiry, learning, and adaptation is needed. And this requires science to go beyond disciplinary – and even interdisciplinary – approaches. By bringing about mutual learning, collaborative research, and problem solving among business, government and civil society, transdisciplinarity can serve as an important guiding concept for sustainability science and practice. Over the last 10 years, progress has been made to better understand and design the interface between sustainability science and transdisciplinarity. The conference focuses on three leading questions:

1. What insights about the role of transdisciplinarity for
 sustainability transitions have we gained over the last 10 years?

2. What gaps in research still remain?

3. How can we fill these gaps?

These guiding questions will focus the debates in workshops, plenary and parallel sessions in four topical areas: Biodiversity, Global Sustainability, Education, and Corporate Sustainability.