Navigating sustainable transitions considering uncertainties and evolving goals/means

International Conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) (7th : 2015)

Navigating sustainable transitions considering uncertainties and evolving goals/means Jørgensen, Ulrik

Abstract

Sustainable transitions are at the core of engineering design and in societal discourse of how to deal with climate and socio-economic challenges. As natural and societal conditions are different from place to place and are continuously changing transitions processes are to take place considering uncertain futures and changing pairs of goals and means. To cater for this the focus in training of professionals within engineering and design as well as in economic/policy topics must take into account the lack of finite metrics and operate with navigational approaches that need adjustments as part of the process. The character of uncertainties and consequentially the challenges to stage actor-configurations and navigate changes are core to this presentation. Based on results from studies of historic and contemporary transitions and their aspirations to achieve sustainable solutions as well as experiences from training design-engineers specialized in sustainable design the paper will present models of the mapping of arenas of development and how to navigate within and across these arenas. The paper concludes in outlining learning programs based on the navigational approach to sustainable transitions.

Item Metadata

Title	Navigating sustainable transitions considering uncertainties and evolving goals/means
Creator	Jørgensen, Ulrik
Contributor	International Conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (7th : 2015 : Vancouver, B.C.)
Date Issued	2015-06
Description	Sustainable transitions are at the core of engineering design and in societal discourse of how to deal with climate and socio-economic challenges. As natural and societal conditions are different from place to place and are continuously changing transitions processes are to take place considering uncertain futures and changing pairs of goals and means. To cater for this the focus in training of professionals within engineering and design as well as in economic/policy topics must take into account the lack of finite metrics and operate with navigational approaches that need adjustments as part of the process. The character of uncertainties and consequentially the challenges to stage actor-configurations and navigate changes are core to this presentation. Based on results from studies of historic and contemporary transitions and their aspirations to achieve sustainable solutions as well as experiences from training design-engineers specialized in sustainable design the paper will present models of the mapping of arenas of development and how to navigate within and across these arenas. The paper concludes in outlining learning programs based on the navigational approach to sustainable transitions.
Genre	Conference Paper
Type	Text
Language	eng
Date Available	2015-06-09
Provider	Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada
DOI	10.14288/1.0064758
URI	http://hdl.handle.net/2429/53825
Affiliation	Non UBC
Citation	Nesbit, S. & Froese, T. M. (Eds.) (2015). Proceedings of EESD15: The 7th Conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. June 9-12.
Peer Review Status	Unreviewed
Scholarly Level	Faculty
Rights URI	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/
Aggregated Source Repository	DSpace

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International Conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) (7th : 2015)