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Regional Sustainability

Sustainability is, without a doubt, the buzzword of the decade.

When the sustainability issue is addressed at a local or regional level, the notion of "sustainable region" implies a geographical identity and a systemic conjunction of interests, which challenges the functionality of existing administrative boundaries and governing communities. "Region" implies an identity and a commonality that is less bound by political-administrative membership and is potentially more open for the values and concepts of sustainable development. This "meso-level" scales between the challenge of individual behaviors and changes, and the overarching governance processes and other forcing drivers.

The Local and Regional Sustainability Project goals are:

Systematizing knowledge and concrete evidence from various reference cases: replicability, scaling-up and scaling-out of local and regional successful initiatives in Western and non-Western contexts;
Questioning the indicators, methods and standards used in evaluation of situations and of the effectiveness of specific instruments for sustainable development; analyzing the overall "resilience" of regions and local communities;
Understanding the consequences of the definition of the boundaries of "regions" and enclosure of the various issues, stakeholders and processes;
Specifying and promoting more refined climate-change models in the context of "scaling down" predictions of impacts;
Understanding and enhancing local and regional capacity to mitigate the effects of climate change and to adapt to them;
Promoting a better scientific understanding of the relationship between multi-level governance and sustainable development and providing policy recommendations based on discussions among scientists, public authorities and stakeholder groups;
Understanding how regional identities and cultural symbols drive behaviors, how to help aligning individual and collective preferences and values with actions, with limited information about the overall distant consequences, and how to reorient business in a more "region friendly" direction and provide a "natural" basis for re-coupling business and the environment;
Understanding how to combine regulation ("hard" approaches) with self-regulation and reflexive social assessment ("soft" approaches) for citizens, policy makers and corporate managers in order to improve local and regional governance;
Developing a conversation and visioning process of a sustainable future at a regional level grounded in individual, group and community-wide perspectives and integrating best available research.

In order to tackle these issues, the project uses interdisciplinary approaches based on new models of social processes, collective intelligence methods and tools, modeling and participatory methods articulated with scenarios for calibration, assessing and fostering change in the individual and collective behaviors.



Home About ISSP People Living Technology Regional Sustainability Publications Events News Downloads Contact	Working Group News	Document Actions Regional Sustainability Sustainability is, without a doubt, the buzzword of the decade. When the sustainability issue is addressed at a local or regional level, the notion of "sustainable region" implies a geographical identity and a systemic conjunction of interests, which challenges the functionality of existing administrative boundaries and governing communities. "Region" implies an identity and a commonality that is less bound by political-administrative membership and is potentially more open for the values and concepts of sustainable development. This "meso-level" scales between the challenge of individual behaviors and changes, and the overarching governance processes and other forcing drivers. The Local and Regional Sustainability Project goals are: Systematizing knowledge and concrete evidence from various reference cases: replicability, scaling-up and scaling-out of local and regional successful initiatives in Western and non-Western contexts; Questioning the indicators, methods and standards used in evaluation of situations and of the effectiveness of specific instruments for sustainable development; analyzing the overall "resilience" of regions and local communities; Understanding the consequences of the definition of the boundaries of "regions" and enclosure of the various issues, stakeholders and processes; Specifying and promoting more refined climate-change models in the context of "scaling down" predictions of impacts; Understanding and enhancing local and regional capacity to mitigate the effects of climate change and to adapt to them; Promoting a better scientific understanding of the relationship between multi-level governance and sustainable development and providing policy recommendations based on discussions among scientists, public authorities and stakeholder groups; Understanding how regional identities and cultural symbols drive behaviors, how to help aligning individual and collective preferences and values with actions, with limited information about the overall distant consequences, and how to reorient business in a more "region friendly" direction and provide a "natural" basis for re-coupling business and the environment; Understanding how to combine regulation ("hard" approaches) with self-regulation and reflexive social assessment ("soft" approaches) for citizens, policy makers and corporate managers in order to improve local and regional governance; Developing a conversation and visioning process of a sustainable future at a regional level grounded in individual, group and community-wide perspectives and integrating best available research. In order to tackle these issues, the project uses interdisciplinary approaches based on new models of social processes, collective intelligence methods and tools, modeling and participatory methods articulated with scenarios for calibration, assessing and fostering change in the individual and collective behaviors.