Sustainability Science

Sustainability science is a new kind of science. It has been developed as a new academic discipline in the last decade. Sustainability science is about sustainability, it focuses on issues relating to sustainable development and it supports sustainable policies. 

As a science, it tries to find solutions for bridging the gap between needs of humans and needs of the planet. The concept of sustainability science started to gain significant attention in academic circles with the publication of  “Sustainability Science” in Science (Kates et al, 2001). According to Kates et al (2001), “a new field of sustainability science is emerging that seeks to understand the fundamental character of interactions between nature and society” and that focuses “on society’s capacity to guide those interactions along more sustainable trajectories”.  Clark (2007) argues that sustainability science facilitates a transition towards sustainability. 

Sustainability science deals with global ecological problems, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, freshwater scarcity, from new perspectives. More specifically, sustainability science tries to bridge natural and social sciences for finding innovative solutions to global ecological problems. It focuses on interactions between environmental, economic and social systems. As a science and field of research it points the way to a sustainable global society by addressing challenges that existing academic disciplines have not done. It relies on inter – and transdisciplinary research approaches. Sustainability science creates a transdisciplinary academic structure that encompasses the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. It integrates knowledge from disciplines. Sustainability science relies on transdisciplinary research and education in order to supports sustainable development. 

Sustainability science integrates knowledge and perspectives from various outside stakeholders in order to solve existing challenges. It encompasses scientific research, but also knowledge and ideas from various experts and from non-scientific backgrounds. It has been argued that sustainability science is an applied science determined by the practical issues it address. 

In the contemporary world, sustainability science has become a subject matter for ever-increasing number of books, scholarly journals and articles, masters’ degrees and PhD theses, various educational materials and scientific conferences. 

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been taking impressive steps for the development and enhancement of sustainability science.
 

“Sustainability Science”,  UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme

The Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme is  operated by the UNESCO in order to strengthen the connection between research and policy and between knowledge and action. 

The MOST Programme contributes to UNESCO’s endeavours to “develop sustainability science as a new kind of science by providing interdisciplinary knowledge-based input to tackle global environmental challenges.” MOST addresses social transformation challenges by development and strengthening of sustainability science. According to MOST, sustainability science aims to understand how complex physical, biological and social systems function. According to MOST, “sustainability science is both a distinctive form of knowledge and specific approach to mobilizing and applying knowledge.”
 

The international UNESCO project “Broadening the Application of the Sustainability Science Approach” 

The international UNESCO project “Broadening the Application of the Sustainability Science Approach” was initiated in 2015 with the support of the Japanese government in order to develop guidelines to help member states to harness the potential of sustainability science in their sustainable development strategies. According to the project, “an enhanced interface between academia and practitioners is vital to develop and implement such solutions. Strengthening connections between a variety of stakeholders - including governments, think tanks, the private sector, NGOs and other civil society actors - is required to support good governance for a sustainable society and reach the full potential of sustainability science.”

The project states that science has a significant role to play in achieving SDGs, it must focus on “problem solving through interdisciplinary research  . . . to make concrete contributions to sustainable development. Through research and education, transdisciplinary sustainability science is a fundamental component of this approach.” 

According to the project, it aims to help to introduce a sustainability science approach into transdisciplinary research and education in order to address global challenges. “Guidelines on Sustainability Science in Research and Education”, adopted in 2017, is the main result of the project.