Fifteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Sustainability science is an emerging transdisciplinary research which necessitates not only the communication and collaboration of scientists, practitioners and stakeholders from different disciplines and interests, but also the paradigm shift from deterministic and reductionist approaches to the old basic. Ecological-societal systems (ESS) are co-evolving complex systems having many interacting agents whose random interactions at local scale give rise to spontaneous emerging order at global scale (i.e., self-organization). Here, the flows of energy, matter and information between the systems and their surroundings play a key role. We introduce a conceptual framework for such continually morphing dynamical systems, i.e. self-organizing hierarchical open systems (SOHOs). To understand the structure and functionality of SOHOs, we revisit the two fundamental laws of physics. Re-interpretation of these principles helps understand the destiny and better path toward sustainability, and how to reconcile ecosystem integrity with societal vision and value. We then integrate the so-called visioneering (V) framework with that of SOHOs as feedback/feedforward loops so that ‘a nudged self-organization’ may guide systems’ agents to work together toward sustainable ESS. Finally, an example is given with newly endorsed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Lab (i.e., ‘Rural systems visioneering’) by Future Earth, which is now underway in rural villages in Tanzania.