Lecture 2

Sustainability and Sustainable Development - Defining the concepts

Guest Lecturer: Josefin Wangel

Content: The lecture will be an introduction to the concept of sustainability and sustainable development. In particular the lecture will cover different definitions and perspectives on sustainability and sustainable development and how these contrast each other. Furthermore, the lecture will touch upon values connected to these definitions and how different actors are or can be involved in sustainable development.

About: Josefin Wangel is a researcher, educator and project leader at the Division of Environmental Strategies Research (fms), the Centre for Sustainable Communications (CESC), and Green Leap, a network for design and sustainability. She sits in the steering group for the KTH Smart Sustainable Cities initiative. Josefin has a strong belief in issue-driven transdisciplinary research. Currently she is working in several research project, some of them being ICT for sustainable cities, Policy analysis of energy system transition, Certification systems for sustainable cities and Urban design for energy efficient everyday life.

Assignment: A brief and voluntary (but highly recommended) assignment before the lecture, scroll through the following sustainability models: http://computingforsustainability.com/2009/03/15/visualising-sustainability/ and choose a couple that you particularly like. Make sure to write down or memorise the number of the chosen models. During the lecture, we will use these as points of departure for discussing the concept of sustainable development.

Literature:

Mebratu, D.: Sustainability and sustainable development: historical and conceptual review. Environmental impact assessment review. 18, 6, 493-520 (1998)

Connelly, S.: Mapping sustainable development as a contested concept. Local Environment. 12, 3, 259-278 (2007)