Sustainability Science: Task 2

The Basics of Sustainability Science

Introduction

The world is grappling with unprecedented sustainability challenges—climate change,

biodiversity loss, and resource depletion—issues that traditional scientific approaches
alone cannot address. This is where Sustainability Science comes into play. Emerging as
a distinct field, it aims to understand and guide the dynamic interactions between society
and the environment, combining insights from different disciplines and building on a
paradigm shift in how we approach science itself, from “traditional science” to “post-
normal” or “mode-2 science”, which also calls for the active participation of an extended
peer community.

You will also apply your knowledge to the CCS case. CCS represents a crucial
technological strategy in the fight against climate change, yet its implementation is
fraught with complex social, environmental, and ethical considerations.

Readings:

 Matson, P., Clark, W.C., Andersson, K. (2016). Pursuing sustainability; A guide to the
science and practice. Princeton, University Press, Chapter 3: Dynamics of social-
environmental systems (pp 52-82). Available on KeyLinks.
 Kates, R. W., et al. (2001). "Sustainability Science". Science 292 (5517): 641-
642. [Link] to an external site.
 Funtowicz, S., Ravetz, J. (1993). “Science for the post-normal age.” Futures 25(7): 739-
755. [Link] to an
external site.

Other Question:

- What are the elements of a social environmental system?

- What are the differences between normal science, professional consultancy, and applied science (normal
science)? Give examples of each.
The key differences lie in the levels of system uncertainty and decision stakes (the potential costs and benefits
of the decisions).

- Applied science (Low Uncertainty, Low Decisions Stakes): has a routine puzzle-solving focus.
The goal is generally a technical application of existing, well-established scientific knowledge.
System uncertainty is low (technical uncertainties are manageable using standard routives,
procedures, and statistical tools). Decision stakes are low (costs/benefits are modest and affect
a narrow community). Achieved primarily through peer review and the established quality
control mechanisms of the scientific community. Produces knowledge to solve societal
problems. Example: in engineering (calculating the necessary thickness of a steel beam for a
standard commercial building using well-known structural equations), in chemistry (routine
quality constrol testing in a factory to ensure a product batch meets known specifications.

- Professional consultancy (Medium Uncertainty, Medium/High Stakes): focuses on applying

existing knowledge to unique, complex situations where routine methods are insufficient,
requiring skill, judgment, and experience from a qualified professional. The professional is the
key source of advise. System uncertainty is medium (there are significant technical
uncertainties, but they are not so complex as to be unmanageable by an expert. Decision stakes
are medium to high (the outcome is important, but the decision is typically confined to a client-
 professional relationship or within an organization). Relies on the professional’s expertise,
codes of practice and professional association’s standards. The professional is personally
responsible for the quality of their judgment. Example: medicine (a surgeon performing a
complex, non-routine operation where success depends heavily on their individual skill and on-
the-spot judgment), environmental assessment (a senior environmental consultant advising a
local government on the remediation of a moderately contaminated site, where no single
textbook solution exists, and balancing costs with risk requires skilled judgment).
- Post-normal Science (High Uncertainty, High Stakes): focuses on addressing complex problems,
often related to global environmental or health issues, where facts are uncertain, values are in
dispute, stakes are high, and decisions are urgent. It requires integgrating scientific expertise
with broader societal values and perspectives. Questions knowledge itself (broader problem-
solving strategy). Builds on Applied Science and Professional consultancy. System uncertainty is
high (the system is poorly understood, complex, and unpredictable). Decision stakes are high
(the decisions affect large communities or future generations). Requires an extended peer
community, including affected citizens, policymakers, and diverse experts for quality control,
leading to a focus on the quality of the process and dialogue, not just the technical product.
Example: climate change policy (debating the appropriate national carbon emission targets,
where scientific predictions are uncertain, economic and ethical values conflict, and the
decision affects the entire global population), nuclear waste disposal (determining the long-
term, safe storage of high-level radioactive waste, involving deep technical complexity, high
potential impact, and intense public concern).

Study Questions

 What is a dynamic social-environmental system? (Matson et al)

It is a tightly coupled system where various factors must work together for sustainable development to occur.
These systems encompass the interactions between social and environmental components, with all kinds of
trade-offs and surprises in store. Production and consumption processes, which are responsible for
transforming capital assets into goods and services, are embedded within the dynamics of these complex,
interacting systems.
 They are complex adaptive systems, which have multiple interconnected components that interact in diverse
ways. They exhibit positive and negative feedbacks, connections across space and time, and nonlinearities and
tipping points that influence ethe way the system works and the way it changes with each new intervention.

 What are the 5 most challenging features of complex social-environmental systems? (Matson et al)
1. Invisibilities and long-time lags: the causes and effects in these systems are often separated by long
distances and long periods of time, making it difficult to link an action to its ultimate outcome
2. Cross-scale interactions: actions taken at one scale (e.g. local decision) can have unintended consequences
at other scales (e.g. regional or global).
3. Tipping points, regime shifts, and surprises: these systems do not always respond linearly to change. They
can have tipping points, where a small change can lead to a large, abrupt, and sometimes irreversible shift
in the system’s state.
4. Vulnerability and resilience: these systems are exposed to many external forces or perturbations, that can
alter their function. Resilience is the ability for a system to continue to function or even benefit from these
disturbances, while vulnerability is the likelihood of suffering harm.
5. Diversity, redundancy, and connectivity: while these characteristics can be beneficial, they can also make a
system more difficult to manage.

 What is the normal (mode 1) way of doing science? (Funtowicz and Ravetz)

Normal science refers to the unexciting, anti-intellectual routine puzzle solving by which science progresses
steadily between its major conceptual revolutions. In this normal state of science, uncertainties are managed
automatically, values are unspoken, and foundational problems unheard of.

 How do you think IPBES would operate when taking a more co-productionist perspective of science-policy-
society interactions?

Post-normal science is a new type of science that emerges in response to the challenges in of policy issues
related to risk and the environment. It is appropriate when systems uncertainties or decision stakes are high.
Systems uncertainties refer to situations where the problem is not about discovering a fact, but rather about
comprehending or managing a complex reality. Decision stakes are the various costs, benefits, and value
commitments involved in an issue for different stakeholders.

 What is sustainability science? (Kates et al)

It is a new field of science that seeks to understand the fundamental character of interactions between nature
and society. This must encompass the interaction of global processes with the ecological and social
characteristics of particular places and sectors.

Discussion Questions

 Why is it so difficult to pursue sustainability? (Matson et al)

o The constant expansion of the framing of sustainability creates a risk of losing sight of sustainability as a
whole and focusing on the many individual elements. Progressing requires commitment to details but also
maintaining a broader perspective on how the different elements interact and depend on one another and
co-evolve.
o Too many powerful interests have a stake in resisting such change and in continuing “business as usual”.
Meeting the challenges of sustainable development requires a commitment to social agitation.
o It requires contributions from scientists to have informed social agitation.
o It requires thinking analytically about the development over the multigenerational time periods.
o It requires involving technology users in the design and operation of technology-augmented systems. (Nepal
case)
o It requires collaboration between people, and between government and authorities with people. (Nepal
case)
 o It requires respecting the functioning elements of traditional systems rather than imposing outside systems.
(Nepal)
o It requires ongoing monitoring and analysis.
o It requires engagement of decision makers in governments, corporations, and civil society.
o A wide variety of stakeholders = varied normativity

 Why is post-normal science relevant for sustainability problems? (Funtowicz and Ravetz)

Post-normal science is relevant for sustainability problems because these issues are characterized by high
systems uncertainties and high decision stakes. Sustainability problems, such as climate change and
environmental degradation, involve radical uncertainty, ignorance, and ethical uncertainties that traditional
science cannot resolve on its own.

 What is an extended peer-community, and why is it important for pursuing sustainability? (Funtowicz and
Ravetz)

An extended peer-community consists of all those with a stake in the dialogue on the issue. This includes not
just technically qualified researchers, but also other stakeholders in the issue. It Is a necessary component for
the quality assurance of scientific information provided for policy decisions in post-normal science, especially
for global environmental risks. The authors argue that this community is a natural continuation of a trend
where the peer community involved in quality assurance expands as problems become more complex. Its
importance for pursuing sustainability lies in the fact that it fosters mutual respect among various perspectives
and forms of knowing, which can lead to a more effective and democratic approach to science.

A peer community is defined by the system (temporal, spatial). It includes new issues brought up by the
extended community.

 Kates et al (2001) state that “In areas like climate change, scientific exploration and practical application
must occur simultaneously”. Traditionally, practical application would follow after scientific exploration. Do
you think that such simultaneous actions might compromise science?

I agree that, depending on the urgency of matters, scientific exploration and practical application can occur
simultaneously, however, I am of the idea that in order to avoid large-scale collateral damage, it is important
to apply new practices in smaller scale and controlled environments and progressively expand.

I do not believe that such simultaneous actions will compromise science, but will serve as evidence for the
effectiveness or lack there-of and as a result raise awareness of the effective initiatives in order to find the
necessary financing for upscaling if necessary.

Other questions:

- What are 5 challenging features of social environmental systems?

- What is normal science?
- What are the 4 Ps in science? (Product, process, people, purpose)
- What are the pitfalls of extended peer communities?
o Bureaucracy
o Conflict of interests
o Dealing with trade-offs
o Hard to find representation
o Conflict between scientific knowledge vs. traditional/native knowledge
 TASK 2: KEY CONCEPTS

Key Concepts:

- Social environmental system: a tightly coupled system comprising people, their institutions, technologies,
manufactured goods, and the planetary resources and environment, all interacting dynamically. These
complex, interacting systems set the stage for sustainable development and involve all kinds of trade-offs.
- Challenges of complex social-environmental systems: includes long time lags, cross-scale interactions, tipping
points, regime shifts, vulnerability and resilience, and the complexity generated by diversity, redundancy and
connectivity.
- Complex adaptive systems: interconnected components within systems interact in diverse ways, exhibiting
positive/negative feedbacks, connections across space and time, and nonlinearities and tipping points.
- Stocks: amounts of particular components in a system (water in a tank or biomass in a forest) at a point in
time.
- Flows (inputs and outputs): control the size or amount of the stock over time, such as water flowing into or out
of a reservoir.
- 5 capital assets: the five clusters of underlying capital assets, also known as the ultimate determinants of well-
being, on which society draws to subsist and improve life (Natural, Manufactured, Social, and Knowledge)
- System boundary: conceptual or physical boundary defining a system as a bounded area with a set of
interacting elements or components. Defining these boundaries is necessary for analysing and managing a
particular system
- Time scale: temporal period relevant for defining systems of interest and for sustainability analysis, which
involves seriously grappling with the long-time scales inherent in intergenerational concerns.
- Geographical scale (spatial scale): the physical scale (urban, regional, global) at which social-environmental
systems are defined and studied, where connections across and between these scales are important.
- Feedback interactions/loops: fundamental way system elements interact, where a change in one component
causes a change that eventually loops back to influence the original component, either reinforcing the change
(positive feedback) or dampening it (negative feedback)
- Invisibilities in space and time (ignorance of problems, spatial invisibility, intergenerational invisibility):
linkages between systems across space and time that are not immediately visible, where decisions made in
one place or time have distant consequences.
- Ignorance of problems: occurs when the state of scientific knowledge is insufficient to reveal a potential risk or
consequence.
- Spatial invisibility: occurs when decisionmakers cannot see the damages or benefits of their actions to people
who live in other places, such as transboundary air pollution.
- Intergenerational invisibility: occurs when decision makers can’t see the damages or benefits of their actions
to future generations, leading to “selfish” choices today.
- Complexity: in social-environmental systems, any intervention is likely to have consequences well beyond its
intended target due to the sheer number of interacting components, feedbacks, and invisibilities.
- Tipping points: a critical threshold in a system where a small perturbation can abruptly and sometimes
irreversibly alter the state and functioning of the system
- Regime shift: the resulting large, persistent, and often abrupt change in the system’s dynamics, where the new
state functions differently from its predecessor.
- Resilience: the ability of a social-environmental system to continue performing its current functions or extract
benefits when faced with stresses, shocks, or disturbances.
- Vulnerability: the likelihood of suffering harm from these disturbances, often linked to a lack of access to
capital assets.
- Wicked problem: a type of complex policy issue, often related to sustainability, where facts are uncertain,
values are disputed, stakes are high, and decisions are urgent. These “unstructured problems” exceed the
capacity of traditional scientific methodologies.
- Facts: uncertain in post-normal science
- Values: in dispute in post-normal science
- Sustainability science: an inter/transdisciplinary field focused on complex interactions between natural and
social systems, which seeks to integrate study and practice through use-inspired research to understand and
promote sustainable development.
- Mode 1/normal science: the traditional scientific practice characterized by routine, puzzle-solving work within
an existing paradigm, where uncertainties and decision stakes are low, values are unspoken, and technical
uncertainties are managed by standard routines.
- Mode 2/ post-normal science: a new problem-solving strategy appropriate for issues where systems
uncertainties or decision stakes are high. It integrates scientific expertise with broader societal values and
perspectives and requires quality assurance through an extended peer community.
- Linear model of science-policy relation: the conventional approach (often called the pipeline or technology
transfer model) where flows unilaterally from scientists to decision makers (science speaks truth to power).
This model is deemed insufficient for unstructured sustainability problems.
- Extended peer community: all those who have a stake in the dialogue on a complex policy issue, including
affected citizens, policymakers, and diverse experts. Their participation is necessary for quality assurance and
legitimacy in the domain of post-normal science.
- Issue driven: the primary goal of post-normal science, focusing on addressing complex, high-stakes societal
problems, contrasting with core science (curiosity-motivated), applied science (mission-oriented), and
professional consultancy (client-serving).
- Boundaries: the conceptual or institutional interfaces that separate the research community from the world of
action, policy making, and other societal domains. Managing these interfaces through boundary work is central
to linking knowledge with action.
- Funtowicz and Ravetz: articulated the concept of post-normal science to address policy issues of risk and the
environment characterized by high system uncertainties and high decision stakes.
- Kates et al: defined sustainability science as a field dedicated to understanding the fundamental character of
interactions between nature and society, emphasizing the need for simultaneous scientific exploration and
practical application.
- Matson et al: provide a comprehensive framework for pursuing sustainability by analysing the dynamics of
Social-Environmental systems and defining the five underlying capital assets.
- Varied normativity: characteristic of complex sustainability problems resulting from the presence of a wide
variety of stakeholders and contested values.