By David Abson
The international conference “Leverage Points 2019” will be hosted by Leuphana University in the historic Hansestadt Lüneburg from 6-8 February 2019. While the conference has a number of core themes related to sustainability research and transformations, it was in no small part inspired by the seminal work of the great systems thinker Donella Meadows. In particular, Meadows’ impassioned plea for a more systematic approach to intervening in complex systems has been a key inspiration for the conference. Here I will introduce the systems thinking theme of the conference.
At its core sustainability can be thought of as a systems perspective. What it is we are trying to sustain is rarely a discrete single object, but rather a system of dynamically interconnected elements with a particular function or purpose (for example, a single farm, a pristine ecosystem, a cherished institution). In turn, that system is inevitably…
View original post 229 more words
