Challenges in Sustainability | 2017 | Volume 5 | Issue 1 | Pages 2–6

DOI: 10.12924/cis2017.05010002

ISSN: 2297–6477

Challenges in

Sustainability

Editorial

Pluralism in Search of Sustainability: Ethics, Knowledge and

Methdology in Sustainability Science

Ellinor Isgren

1,2

, Anne Jerneck

1,2,

* and David O’Byrne

1,2

Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund, Sweden

Lund University Centre of Excellence for Integration of Social and Natural Dimensions of Sustainability, Lund, Sweden

* Corresponding author: E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +46 462220512

Published: 13 February 2017

Sustainability Science is an emerging, transdisciplinary aca-

demic field that aims to help build a sustainable global soci-

ety by drawing on and integrating research from the human-

ities and the social, natural, medical and engineering sci-

ences. Academic knowledge is combined with that from rel-

evant actors from outside academia, such as policy-makers,

businesses, social organizations and citizens. The field is

focused on examining the interactions between human, en-

vironmental, and engineered systems to understand and

contribute to solutions for complex challenges that threaten

the future of humanity and the integrity of the life support

systems of the planet, such as climate change, biodiversity

loss, pollution, and land and water degradation. Since its

inception in around the year 2000, and as expressed by a

range of proponents in the field, sustainability science has

become an established international platform for interdisci-

plinary research on complex social problems [

]. This has

been done by exploring ways to promote ‘greater integra-

tion and cooperation in fulfilling the sustainability science

mandate’ [

]. Sustainability science has thereby become an

extremely diverse academic field, yet one with an explicit

normative mission. After nearly two decades of sustainability

research, it is important to reflect on a major question: what

critical knowledge can we gain from sustainability science

research on persistent socio-ecological problems and new

sustainability challenges?

As a step in that direction, we solicited submissions

to a special issue on Sustainability Science in the open

access journal Challenges in Sustainability (CiS). Whilst

the question above will not be sufficiently answered in

this special issue, what is provided are some examples

of what sustainability science can offer and how parallels

can be drawn with other study areas dealing with issues of

sustainability. As direction for the issue and as inspiration

for authors, we asked them to reflect on the field’s mis-

sion, achievements and conflicts. To complement more

systematic assessments such as literature reviews, we

hope that this type of exercise can be a recurrent one, as

a way to continually spur active reflection among scholars

in the field.

1. Reﬂecting on the Evolving Characteristics of

Sustainability Science

Sustainability science seeks knowledge integration

across disciplines, domains and scales including the

natural and social sciences, nature-society, science-

society and knowledge-to-action. The quest to produce

knowledge and expertise on global sustainability chal-

lenges while working actively to reduce the distances

between disciplines, theory and practice is what most

distinguishes it from other fields [

]. These ambitions

have led to specific criteria being proposed, for example

that sustainability science should be salient in focus and

findings, credible in data and methods, and legitimate

in outreach and solution options, as stated early on by

Cash et al. [

]. In a further step to describe the mission

of the field, proponents have emphasized that sustain-

 2017 by the authors; licensee Librello, Switzerland. This open access article was published

under a Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

librello

ability science is defined more by the problems it studies

and the type of solutions it seeks—rather than by its

disciplinary content [

]. In that respect the field is often

defined by its research purpose, its applicability, and

our roles as reflexive researchers [

]. This explains why

proponents stress the constructive, normative and trans-

formational attributes of the field along with the core

values of integrity, justice, and viability [

]. Further-

more there is agreement that to match the ambition of

being problem-based and solution-oriented, the process

of knowledge production within sustainability science

is to be characterized by collaborative approaches in

the form of interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary

research [

]. To that end, it builds on several founda-

tional disciplines and employs methodological pluralism.

Variety in perspectives is crucial for understanding how

multiple persistent social problems interact with new

sustainability challenges [

]. Concepts like socio-

ecological system and transition management are used

as theoretical frames and foundations to bridge and bet-

ter understand different but interrelated problem areas

[

]. Sustainability science also goes beyond these

frames to engage with critical theory and other perspec-

tives necessary for bridging the boundaries between

disciplines, social and natural systems, science and so-

ciety, and knowledge and action [4,11].

All of these characteristics contribute to clarify the mis-

sion and mandate of sustainability science, but also in-

crease the demands on the ﬁeld thus making it difﬁcult to

grasp in its entirety [

]. By continuously integrating pre-

viously separate research problems and methodologies,

the landscape of sustainability science is rapidly changing

and expanding [

]. Reﬂecting on this process, some

scholars are partly critical of the extent to which the ﬁeld’s

aspired characteristics have materialized; Wiek et al. [

]

for example, claim that sustainability science fails to make

sufﬁcient and signiﬁcant contributions to potential options

for transformational change, and [

] point to a discrepancy

between promises to provide solutions and the actual deliv-

ery. These must be taken seriously. Others argue that both

interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in sustainability sci-

ence are making progress, albeit the latter at a slower pace

[

]. Why is this type of reﬂexive debate important? Some

argue that sustainability science emerged as a revolutionary

concept in the Kuhnian sense [

], referring to how the

ﬁeld responded to the scientiﬁc crisis in the normal sciences

which could neither deal appropriately with the complexity

of the new sustainability challenges nor bridge the science-

society divide. Although this may be contested, it is widely

acknowledged that sustainability science aspires to a new

mode of knowledge production [

]. Given this am-

bitious agenda, including core questions, announced at

the ﬁeld’s inception and followed by a rapid expansion that

has also added new dimensions to this agenda, scholars

need to engage in continuous assessment of sustainabil-

ity science as a ﬁeld—both challenges that remain, and

achievements that point to promising ways forward.

2. Introducing the Contributions to This Special Issue

2.1. How Can Transformative Processes of Knowledge

Co-Production and Partnership Be Designed

How do we need to proceed as researchers if we think that

sustainability science should progress in ways that matter

to people? Many scholars advocate pluralism in pursuing

this task [18,19]. It implies that we should use approaches

in sustainability science that take various forms of knowl-

edge into consideration even if this can give rise to new

challenges. As an example, efforts to integrate western

science with indigenous knowledge may run into difﬁculties

if they clash either in worldviews or in forms of knowledge

production—or in both. To overcome this, and to support a

wider sustainability agenda that takes both time and scale

seriously, we may follow Meg Parsons et al. in their call for

environmental ethics that help recognize the inﬂuence that

colonialism and environmental determinism have in shaping

views on and for sustainability. In doing so we must con-

sider the underlying aims of research, how it is designed,

how the dynamics between past and present is studied, and

how communities that we do research with and for (rather

than on) are deﬁned, framed and represented. To illustrate

this, Parsons et al. discuss insights from a case study on

Waip

a River in New Zealand where an indigenous commu-

nity successfully renegotiated and enacted new approaches

to tackle several socio-ecological crises. In that process,

knowledge sharing and mutual learning were appreciated,

practiced and found useful.

In another case study, Cordula Ott persuasively illus-

trates how North-South collaboration across the science-

society divide can promote and provide transformative

knowledge, and how the notion of sustainable development

in itself has integrative potential when used as a shared

frame of reference by the different actors involved. Over

a ﬁfteen year period, this partnership program, based on

meaningful participation, interaction and agency, generated

context-based knowledge and innovations for sustainability

while also taking into account local needs. Ott emphasizes

that transdisciplinary practice in the context of North-South

research partnerships is a complex process that requires

long-term commitment, adaptiveness, and particular atten-

tion to Southern partners’ capacity and ownership.

2.2. How Can Film as a Medium Serve The Purpose of

Knowledge Integration and Distribution?

It is an oft-spoken ambition in sustainability science to com-

bine critical analysis with problem solving activities [

For that purpose researchers may take a critical theory ap-

proach to inform the substance and process of dialogue

with citizens and communities who have a stake in certain

socio-ecological matters. Multiple strategies, methods and

techniques can be used in such a dialogue, sometimes tak-

ing the form of a real co-production of knowledge, including

social learning. The film that Elina Andersson and Ann

Akerman produced in collaboration with small-scale farmers

in Uganda, is a perfect illustration of how academic and local

knowledge can be fused and also aligned with a suitable

outreach strategy. In the film we learn about causes and

consequences of land degradation and soil nutrient deple-

tion and how problems of low agricultural productivity can be

tackled and partially overcome in a setting of food insecurity.

2.3.

Sustainability Science and Urban Planning—How Can

We Foster Mutual Learning?

Also in line with the ambition to foster interdisciplinarity and

knowledge integration, sustainability scientists can point to

opportunities for scholars and practitioners in neighbouring

ﬁelds to beneﬁt from work done within sustainability science,

and vice versa. Concerned with both continuity and change

in the search of sustainability, Fran

c¸

ois Mancebo argues

that as part of its mission, sustainability science can help

change the way urban planners think about and engage

with urban problems. Given that effective standard planning

may not be either possible or relevant for sustainability, ur-

ban planners should be ﬂexible and continuously consider

contextual and long-term consequences of decisions, poli-

cies and technology change. In order to understand how

change is received by and responded to, planners should

build effective action on the basis of collaborative planning

together with interests in society—both organizations and

civil society.

2.4. What Kinds of Methodology Are Appropriate for

Solutions-Oriented Research In a Complex World?

Henrik von Wehrden et al., like Mancebo, conceptualize

the problems that Sustainability Science seeks to treat as

wicked problems. They do so in order to tease out some of

the methodological and knowledge integration challenges

that complexity and solutions-orientation generate. Suit-

able methodologies, they show, ought to be at once ﬂexible

and precise: they must consider a variety of different ap-

proaches while at the same time employing ﬁrm procedural

and ethical guidelines. The authors close with a call for

longer-term research projects and longitudinal designs to

track the development and shifting of sustainability prob-

lems over time.

2.5. Are There Ways to Address the Challenges of

Contradicting Norms and Value Based Dilemmas?

Sustainability problems are often described as deeply nor-

mative [

] both in the sense that sustainable develop-

ment itself is a normative goal and that competing norms in

society need to be understood and considered as part of

research in sustainability science [

]. In a paper on com-

peting norms and contradictory principles, Tim O’Higgins

takes environmental legislation in the EU as a case to illus-

trate how directives and legislation are embedded in both

past and present norms, and how a more proactive and

transformative approach is required to halt biodiversity loss.

O’Higgins examines how biodiversity norms are translated

into three types of environmental policies—Practical, Pop-

ular and Pure—which vary in the approach to biodiversity

and environmental protection. Importantly, they display a

particular tension between giving priority to the practical

provision of food versus ensuring pure protection of nature.

Here the use of the concept ecosystem services may help

resolve some of the tensions.

2.6. Education for Sustainability—What Are the Best

Criteria and Methods to Continually Assess Field

Based Courses?

There is a call for educational programs at all levels to fos-

ter the next generation of sustainability professionals both

within and outside of academia [

]. To make the most of

such programmes, course designers and teachers must

consider both content and instruction format, and establish

quality criteria and procedures to continually assess how

well education meets the requirements of sustainability and

the need for social change. In their study, Ricardo San

Carlos et al. focus on procedures to assess problem-driven

approaches in educational programmes in sustainability

science. They do so—speciﬁcally in ﬁeld based courses

and by using the criteria of the ‘ﬁve key competencies’ [

]

serving to increase students’ awareness of their future roles

in science and society. Although this set of criteria may

function well as a basis, they recommend that we go be-

yond them in further assessments to include other aspects

that are pertinent to sustainability science education.

3. Applying Plurality in Perspectives, Procedures and

Values as a Way Forward

What are the principal achievements, persistent challenges

and pathways forward in sustainability science, as reﬂected

by the snapshot of the ﬁeld presented in this special issue’s

articles? Some clear themes emerge; some we recognize

from the mission for sustainability science, which were set

out in the founding work of the ﬁeld. Other themes represent

familiar challenges to those who do research in and teach

sustainability science; these have become more apparent

as the ﬁeld has developed. The themes notably connect

to different kinds of plurality, and describe domains where

considerable progress has been made, sites of ongoing

struggles, and indications of promising avenues for future

research in this burgeoning ﬁeld.

3.1. Knowledge Integration

There is agreement that sustainability science is supposed

to take an integrated, comprehensive and participatory ap-

proach [

]. As such, sustainability science seeks knowl-

edge integration across disciplines, domains and scales

[

]. A number of articles in this issue deal with different

aspects of this broad question of knowledge integration.

Mancebo discusses the mutual learning and benefits that

can occur between fields or disciplines concerned with

solving complex problems, while both Ott and Parsons

et al. deal with the incorporation of different forms of

knowledge, with the latter highlighting the ethical dilem-

mas involved. Andersson and

Akerman cross both the

science-society and the knowledge-to-action gap, using

film as medium for both dissemination and transformation.

Looking to the future, we are reminded to remain vigilant

about how we achieve integration between disparate forms

of knowledge. At the same time, we are challenged to

make more conscious efforts to engage systematically with

what may seem to be unexpected disciplines, and to use

creative methods like non-traditional media, which can not

only facilitate more useful dissemination but also contribute

to transformative processes.

3.2. Ongoing Methodological Challenges

The challenge of knowledge integration across many con-

ventional ‘gaps’, though recognized early on, was per-

haps underestimated in terms of understanding what ap-

proaches and methodologies would be effective, both for

research and learning. In this issue, von Wehrden et

al., speaking of sustainability science research in gen-

eral, deal with the tension between the need for pluralism

and flexibility on the one hand and the requirement for

precision in methodological approaches on the other. In

relation to teaching and learning sustainability, San Car-

los et al. investigate the best methods and criteria for

evaluating non-traditional problem-based field courses,

proposing a continued and broadened focus on such eval-

uation in the future. That the methodological challenge

was initially underestimated should spur us forward, to

continue critical discussions but more importantly to dare

to innovate, to investigate the variety of forms that plu-

ralism can take, both in research and in the classroom,

and to discover what knowledge and understandings such

pluralism can produce.

3.3. Dealing with a Plurality of Values

Lafferty pointed out 20 years ago that sustainability transi-

tions are normative actions [

]. Social and political theory

has struggled for centuries with conceptualizing the causes

and effects of a plurality of values in society, as seen by,

Hobbes, Rousseau and many more, and so it is a subject

not likely to be settled anytime soon. Nevertheless, two of

the articles herein suggest how we might address this plu-

rality more directly when it comes to the speciﬁc challenges

of sustainability science. As mentioned earlier, Parsons

et al. employ an ethical approach as a means to medi-

ate between discrete forms of knowledge. O’Higgins, on

the other hand, in a piece on European biodiversity policy,

makes the norms entailed in policies the subject of theoreti-

cal investigation, with the intention of solving value-centred

dilemmas. While the question of normativity has been cen-

tral to sustainability science since its inception, the articles

here provide a glimpse of the wealth of approaches within

the social sciences and humanities, which has not yet been

fully exploited. This is an inspiring challenge for up and

coming interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary researchers.

References and Notes

[1]

Miller TR. Constructing sustainability science: emerging perspectives

and research trajectories. Sustainability Science. 2013;8(2):279–293.

doi:10.1007/s11625-012-0180-6.

[2]

Kauffman J, Arico S. New directions in sustainability science:

Promoting integration and cooperation. Sustainability Science.

2014;9(4):413–418. doi:10.1007/s11625-014-0259-3.

[3]

Kates RW, Clark WC, Corell R, Hall JM, Jaeger CC, Lowe I,

et al. Sustainability Science. Science. 2001;292(5517):641–642.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.257359.

[4]

Cash DW, Clark WC, Alcock F, Dickson NM, Eckley N, Guston DH,

et al. Knowledge systems for sustainable development. Proceed-

ings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2003;100(14):8086–8091.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1231332100.

[5]

Clark WC. Sustainability science: A room of its own. Pro-

ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2007;104(6):1737.

doi:10.1073/pnas.0611291104.

[6]

Spangenberg JH. Sustainability science: A review, an analy-

sis and some empirical lessons. Environmental Conservation.

2011;38(03):275–287. doi:10.1017/s0376892911000270.

[7]

Wiek A, Ness B, Schweizer-Ries P, Brand FS, Farioli F. From com-

plex systems analysis to transformational change: A comparative

appraisal of sustainability science projects. Sustainability Science.

2012;7(1):5–24. doi:10.1007/s11625-011-0148-y.

[8]

Wiek A, Iwaniec D. Quality criteria for visions and visioning in

sustainability science. Sustainability Science. 2014;9(4):497–512.

doi:10.1007/s11625-013-0208-6.

[9]

Stock P, Burton RJF. Deﬁning Terms for Integrated (Multi-Inter-Trans-

Disciplinary) Sustainability Research. Sustainability. 2011;3(8):1090–

1113. doi:10.3390/su3081090.

[10]

Jerneck A, Olsson L. Breaking out of sustainability impasses: How

to apply frame analysis, reframing and transition theory to global

health challenges. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions.

2011;1(2):255–271. doi:10.1016/j.eist.2011.10.005.

[11]

Kajikawa Y, Tacoa F, Yamaguchi K. Sustainability science: The

changing landscape of sustainability research. Sustainability Sci-

ence. 2014;9(4):431–438. doi:10.1007/s11625-014-0244-x.

[12]

Kajikawa Y. Research core and framework of sustainability science.

Sustainability Science. 2008;3(2):215–239. doi:10.1007/s11625-008-

0053-1.

[13]

Kajikawa Y, Ohno J, Takeda Y, Matsushima K, Komiyama H. Cre-

ating an academic landscape of sustainability science: An analysis

of the citation network. Sustainability Science. 2007;2(2):221–231.

doi:10.1007/s11625-007-0027-8.

[14]

Kuhn TS. The structure of scientiﬁc revolutions. Chicago, IL, USA:

University of Chicago Press; 2012.

[15]

Sala S, Farioli F, Zamagni A. Progress in sustainability science:

lessons learnt from current methodologies for sustainability assess-

ment: Part 1. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

2013;18(9):1653–1672. doi:10.1007/s11367-012-0508-6.

[16]

Martens P. Sustainability: Science or ﬁction? Sustainability: Science,

Practice, & Policy. 2006;2(1). doi:10.1109/EMR.2007.4296430.

[17]

Thor

en H, Breian L. Stepping stone or stumbling block? Mode

2 knowledge production in sustainability science. Studies in His-

tory and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and

Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 2016;56:71–81.

doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.11.002.

[18]

Thor

en H. The Hammer And The Nail [PhD Thesis]. Lund University:

Centre for Sustainability Studies. Lund, Sweden; 2015. Available

from: https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/e8155748-544c-4b41-

9fa5-3fe3281414be.

[19]

Shahadu H. Towards an umbrella science of sustainability. Sustain-

ability Science. 2016;pp. 1–12. doi:10.1007/s11625-016-0375-3.

[20]

Jerneck A, Olsson L, Ness B, Anderberg S, Baier M, Clark E,

et al. Structuring sustainability science. Sustainability Science.

2011;6(1):69–82. doi:10.1007/s11625-010-0117-x.

[21]

Swart RJ, Raskin P, Robinson J. The problem of the future: Sustain-

ability science and scenario analysis. Global Environmental Change.

2004;14(2):137–146. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2003.10.002.

[22]

Lang DJ, Wiek A, Bergmann M, Stauffacher M, Martens P, Moll P,

et al. Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: Practice,

principles, and challenges. Sustainability Science. 2012;7(1):25–43.

doi:10.1007/s11625-011-0149-x.

[23]

Hopkins C, McKeown R. Education for sustainable development: an

international perspective. Education and sustainable development

Responding to the global challenge Cambridge: IUCN Commission

on Education and Communication. 2002;pp. 13–26.

[24]

Wiek A, Withycombe L, Redman CL. Key competencies in sustain-

ability: A reference framework for academic program development.

Sustainability Science. 2011;6(2):203–218. doi:10.1007/s11625-011-

0132-6.

[25]

Lafferty WM. The politics of sustainable development: global norms

for national implementation. Environmental Politics. 1996;5(2):185–

208. doi:10.1080/09644019608414261.