1.1. What is sustainability transition?

The current state of the planet is far from planetary well-being due to the overall impact of human activity. The conditions for well-being or leading a good life are very unevenly distributed, with certain groups of people and other species doing very well, while it is almost impossible for many other groups and species to pursue well-being – or to even exist. As we have learned on the previous courses in this series, the systems of the Earth and those of humans are intertwined, and therefore planetary well-being is hindered by a tangle consisting of multiple problems.

The most significant challenge to sustainability is posed by human-constructed systems of production, consumption, and co-operation: in particular, energy, food, and transport systems, and trading systems intertwined with all of them. The processes that sustain these systems cause so many harmful environmental impacts that the ability of the Earth and ecosystem processes to safeguard the conditions for the well-being of humans and other nature is under threat.

Sustainability transition is a prerequisite for planetary well-being. Sustainability transition means a holistic change of the operating principles and processes of human systems. James Patterson, a specialist in sustainability transition, and his colleagues define this transition as any fundamental change in the structural, functional, interactional and/or goal-related dimensions of socio-techno-ecological systems that fundamentally alters the system’s mode of operating and the impacts it has.

(In this course, we use the word “system” to refer to complex systems, not, for example, to individuals, although they, too, can be thought of as systems, as we have learned.)

The necessary change is called a sustainability transition or transformation, to emphasize the holistic and far-reaching nature of the change, and the challenge of managing it. Transition refers usually to changes within specific systems, such as energy and food systems, whereas transformation refers to the all-encompassing societal change. The word ‘transition’ emphasizes the journey-like process, while some countries speak of ‘turns’, emphasizing the change of direction (e.g., Germany's Energiewende). The ultimate, imperative goal of the sustainability transition is to reduce the environmental impact of human activity in order to safeguard the conditions for well-being. The idea of sustainability also includes the idea of social sustainability and of welfare equity between humans. However, it should be noted that social sustainability and welfare equity cannot be improved, let alone maintained at very high levels, if the ecological basis for action, i.e., the state of the Earth's systems, is not good enough. A sustainability transition will therefore only occur if the negative environmental impacts of human activity are radically reduced.

In contemporary research and public debate, sustainability transition is generally defined as an anthropocentric idea: the goal of transition is to secure the conditions for the well-being of present and future human beings and relatively stable living conditions for human societies. The planetary well-being perspective is non-anthropocentric. From this perspective, the goal of sustainability is more ambitious: the conditions for non-human well-being as well as for the existence of species and populations must also be safeguarded for their own sake, not just because non-human nature is the basis for human well-being. In this course, we will continue our reflections on how a planetary well-being perspective affects the objectives of sustainability transition and promoting them.

Accomplishing a holistic, sustainable transition requires addressing the root causes of problems, i.e. the structures, processes and values that perpetuate unsustainability, rather than technically addressing mere “symptoms” such as carbon emissions. The entrenched (even taken-for-granted) mindsets or paradigms that sustain unsustainable structures and practices are particularly notable root causes. Being entrenched means that, although other views do exist, the dominant paradigm is ultimately interpreted as the best way of understanding and addressing a particular phenomenon and challenge. Paradigms that have become dominant among middle and high-income countries and in international political debates led by the wealthiest countries include the pursuit of continuous economic growth and the linkage of a good life and well-being with material living standards as well as the associated spiral of rising living standards and increasing consumption. The most serious environmental problems derive from these paradigms; they are at the root of climate change and biodiversity loss.

The mindsets, cultural norms, and economic systems that perpetuate overconsumption, which is strongly correlated with wealth, are at the root of environmental problems. Energy, transport, and food consumption are typically the main contributors of greenhouse gas emissions (hereafter GHG emissions). The graph shows the distribution of indirect emissions from household consumption in urban areas of Japan in 2015 (source Long et al. 2021). These are emissions from the production, distribution, recycling or disposal of the goods and services consumed (i.e., all emissions from consumption except direct use of fossil fuels in households).

According to the UN's 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), the sustainability transition requires changes in six areas of human life and societies in particular:

• Access to sustainable energy for all
• Sustainable food systems and healthy eating habits
  
•  Sustainable and equitable economy
  
• Sustainable cities and urban areas
  
• Safeguarding global natural systems
  
• Citizens' well-being and ability to take action
  

The list includes two systems of production and consumption (energy and food systems) that are central to human needs. Additionally, it includes the economic system that largely governs the patterns of production and consumption, and the urban system that provides the environment in which the majority of humanity lives and functions on a daily basis. The last two points, in turn, concern the goals for the functioning and impact of these systems: securing human well-being and global ecological sustainability.

As we have learned in previous courses, human systems, Earth systems and ecosystems are so intertwined that large human systems such as societies and cities should be thought of as socio-ecological systems. In these systems, human and non-human actors participate in the same processes, in different flows of energy and matter – albeit in different ways and in different roles. Different actors benefit and suffer differently from the consequences of these processes as, for example, wealth accumulates on one side and the effects of pollution or deforestation on the other. In turn, different feedbacks can reinforce or weaken these consequences; these effects were discussed in the second course of the Planetary well-being series.

However, when a system needs to be changed, simply describing all the systems as intertwined does not go far. The “everything affects everything” assumption can produce a paralyzing feeling that intervening in the course of things with good intentions either changes nothing or changes too much or the wrong things. Therefore, promoting sustainability transition requires an understanding of the ways in which systems can and should be influenced.

Understanding the present state, the goal, and the journey

Knowledge useful for thinking about and promoting sustainability transition approaches systems and change from three perspectives:

B. Target knowledge

C. Transformation knowedge

Systems sciences produce systems knowledge, i.e., different descriptions of the world as a socio-ecological entity and of the behavioral rules of different processes. This information forms snapshots or maps of the current situation. The maps constructed from a systems perspective and the map layers produced by the different disciplines help to provide a bigger picture of the situation. At the same time, more detailed descriptions of the structures and processes of key systems are needed. For example, for food systems, the big picture shows that food-related activities account for at least a quarter, and possibly up to 40%, of anthropogenic climate effects and that the main reasons for this are land use and the current levels of meat and dairy production and consumption. More detailed descriptions, in turn, will show, for example, why meat production is such a major source of emissions and what kind of political, technological, and cultural factors maintain the meat consumption that is unsustainable from both an environmental and health perspective. In the context of the sustainability transition, the need to understand how human systems work is highlighted: Why are economic systems driven by a dependence on economic growth? How do the path dependencies (the historical tendency of a system to follow a particular trajectory from which it is difficult to break away) that hamper technological transitions emerge and deepen, and how can they be broken? We will learn more about these interactions and ways of intervening in systems as this course progresses.

A (literal) big picture of the São Simão region of Brazil, produced by science and technology. A beautiful image taken from the International Space Station can look like "scenically beautiful" without knowledge and interpretation of it. However, the region is characterized by massive and interconnected human energy, transport and food systems and their impact on the biosphere. The watershed that runs through the image is the reservoir of the large São Simão dam and hydroelectric power plant, and it is also part of the waterway from central Brazil to the coast, an important route for trade and transportation of goods. The land is almost entirely covered by a variety of fields and pastures for cattle (Photo: NASA/ISS, CC BY 2.0.)

The current state of systems, the patterns of the processes that drive them and the effects of various impetuses for the systems change are often studied by mathematical methods that use huge amounts of data as a basis for calculation and have only become widespread with the development of adequate information technology. For example, climate change monitoring and assessment of climate change impacts are essentially based on climate models, whose historical development is a major scientific achievement. Climate models have continued to evolve and become increasingly sophisticated, and their performance has been continuously improved on the basis of knowledge of the past. Models are also becoming more accurate as computers are able to process larger amounts of data. For example, current climate models divide the atmosphere into 100 x 100 km squares and dozens of layers. The oceans, which are essential to atmospheric regulation processes, are also now incorporated into the models, described by 20 to 60 layers, and the interactions within and between these accumulate to a huge number of actual calculations for supercomputers to compute. At the same time, climate change science recognizes that the data and models it produces are "forever incomplete" and require continuous development.

Target knowledge combines knowledge and cultural beliefs regarding values and good life (Good life and planetary well-being course) with knowledge about the functioning of systems. As a result, a concept of desirable futures is formed; Pentti Malaska, a Finnish pioneer in futurology, was one of the first persons to talk about future maps. Since the basis for any pursuit of well-being is a sufficiently stable living environment that enables well-being, a society that is, so to speak, carbon neutral in terms of its climate impact and that safeguards biodiversity is an essential part of any vision of the future that aims to secure the conditions for well-being. Many other questions about the future state of the planet are at least partly cultural and value-based. Different groups of people may therefore have many different and equally justifiable views on what kind of future state is desirable: for example, will people live in cities and what size should these cities be, what kind of housing will be provided and with whom will people live, and what kind of work will be done (or whether society will be organized in such a way that the concept of work as we now understand it will become irrelevant).

However, the desired future must be realistic in terms of ecological constraints. For example, research into the environmental impacts of different forms of food and energy production will help to determine what future scenarios can meet the objective of a carbon-neutral society that protects biodiversity and supports planetary well-being. Such information cannot be obtained by “common sense” alone; scientific knowledge of impacts on climate and nature is essential. This information will describe, for example, production patterns and quantitative constraints concerning sustainable energy, as well as diets and means of food production that are compatible with climate and biodiversity objectives. New practices and technological solutions are also constantly being developed and they can make previously seemingly impossible futures possible. With a better understanding of the ecological constraints on future scenarios, it will also be possible to see the nature and scale of the changes needed compared to the current situation.

In addition to knowledge about the current situation and the desired future, or current maps and future maps, we need knowledge about how to get to the desired future. This transformation knowledge maps the pathways to the desired state, which in the case of this course is planetary well-being, which we argue is a necessary component of any sustainable and responsible vision of the future. Transformation knowledge is the main theme of this course. Systems research on the sustainability transition has focused on generating knowledge about transformation, while futurology has specialized in developing tools and generating knowledge both about visions of alternative futures and about pathways to them. When viewed from the perspectives of different time spans, knowledge about transformation also takes very different forms. Moreover, before outlining futures and pathways to them, it is important to review the ways and principles of monitoring both the current state and transformation.