Sustainable futures: Multi-disciplinary perspectives on multi-level transitions

What is the disparity between the climate and resource challenges we face and the measures in place to meet them? This special issue addresses that question by outlining various aspects of current problems, more sustainable alternatives and elements of transition pathways to achieve a more sustainable future. Twenty five years ago the Brundtland Commission highlighted the urgent need to address poverty and align the promotion of human well-being with the protection of the natural environment (UN, 1987). Since 1987 this goal has ‘‘acquired a preeminent status in all environmental policies’’ (Zaccai, 2012) and has been affirmed by various organisations from the corporate, civil society, non-governmental and governmental sphere at national, supra national and international levels. This summer in Rio de Janeiro the international community is going to reflect on this process and on the global commitment to integrate ecological recovery and resilience, interand intra-generational equality and development. Since 1987, a widespread agreement has been achieved on a current mismatch between the earth’s finite resources and humanity’s increasing demands. There is a broad scientific consensus that fossil fuel dependent lifestyles of industrialised nations and a steep upwards trend in greenhouse gas emissions in industrialising nations (Anderson and Bows, 2011) are increasingly in tension with commitments to curbing climate change (Rogelj et al., 2010; Stern and Taylor, 2010). Climate is one of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ that define a safe operating space for humanity (Rockström et al., 2009), many of which are currently threatened by large-scale global changes to the biophysical and biogeochemical environment influenced by natural developments and human activities (Dellas et al., 2011). Whereas a consensus on the need for systemic transformation away from current unsustainable practices has proven to be possible, it appears more difficult to agree on how a more sustainable future could be achieved. Sustainable development implies normative dimensions that are open to interpretation, giving rise to debate, for example, about what is actually entailed by notions of interand intra-generational equity, well-being and human needs (e.g. Daly et al., 1999). The concept of sustainable development is also ambiguous with regards to the relative priority of ecological, economic and socio-cultural aspects of development. According to Zaccai (2012), ‘‘the interpretation of sustainable development has always been a kind of game that academic, political and social actors can play, because of its openness and plasticity to every context’’. To cross the divide between ‘where we want to be’ and ‘where we are heading’, current societal structures and paradigms are likely to require radical changes. Such transitions offer nontrivial challenges due to distinct characteristics of natural and social systems, and there is a need to test the power and the limits of the ambiguous sustainable development concept on an operational level. The first such characteristic is ‘multiplicity’ maintaining that sustainable futures and ways to achieve them vary across multiple levels (from local to global and from biophysical to institutional), sectors (e.g. energy, transportation, agriculture, food systems, waste management) and regions. The second