Aditi Kambuj
Home University: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Host University: Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU)
Contact Information: [email protected]
Social Learning for Sustainability: Perspectives from a Styrian Case Study
Scholars of sustainable development emphasize the importance of social learning to build adaptive capacity and resilience towards co-evolving elements of socio-ecological systems. Socio-ecological systems are complex, characterized by incompleteness of knowledge, uncertainty of outcomes, the existence of multiple legitimate perspectives and often, the irreducible incommensurability of values (Garmendia & Stagl, Public Participation for sustainability and social learning: Concepts and Lessons from three case studies in Europe, 2010). Co-evolving elements include the environment, governance, technology, behavior and culture.
It has been argued that learning is a key governance and implementation process in the complexity inherent to environmental decision-making, valuation and planning. Learning processes can lead to transformational responses which are essential for changing deeply entrenched paradigms of values, behavior and decision making. While learning receives wide attention in literature, there is a lack of systematic evaluation of learning processes and barriers to learning processes in existing instruments for transitioning to sustainable pathways. There is also a gap in the theory – practice link for practicable ways of implementing learning theories in decision making tools for sustainability.
Through an empirical study of two Austrian communities in transition to energy self-reliance, this research attempts to connect learning theories to sustainability practice and evaluates the learning processes and barriers in this transitioning to sustainability. A comparative evaluation of learning over time was possible due to previous research conducted on learning in the communities in 2005. Research methods included online surveys and personal interviews with members of two South Austrian communities, and local and regional experts, as well as comparison with data collected from these communities in 2005.
Results indicate participants are confident about their knowledge on the technologies and their respective role and impact in the transition to a renewable energy system. Civil society members continued to be perceived to have the greatest role to play, with social and economic barriers to transitioning being more significant than technological barriers. The economic argument continued to be perceived to be more persuasive than the environmental protection or national security argument in supporting renewable energy sources.
Findings also point to the relevance of experiential learning for creating individual-scale pathways towards sustainable consumption. Participants also indicated a reduced sense of complexity associated with transitioning to renewable energy systems, signaling a potential increase in the adaptive capacity for coping with co-evolving systems. The communities displayed a high level of collaboration with neighboring municipalities.
However, transition processes did not seem to facilitate broader citizen participation or conflict resolution for decision making.Outcomes from this research point to strengths and weaknesses of a widely used transition tool, lending suggestions for improving the design and implementation of benchmarking as a policy tool by focusing on the social barriers in the public’s transition to sustainability. The analysis suggests the need for learning-centered decision-making, citizen participation and conflict resolution processes in benchmarking tools. Given the shortness of the duration of the project, a significant language barrier and the small sample size, results of this research should be used with caution. Further research on joint action and processes enhancing mutual understanding is desirable.
Host University: Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU)
Contact Information: [email protected]
Social Learning for Sustainability: Perspectives from a Styrian Case Study
Scholars of sustainable development emphasize the importance of social learning to build adaptive capacity and resilience towards co-evolving elements of socio-ecological systems. Socio-ecological systems are complex, characterized by incompleteness of knowledge, uncertainty of outcomes, the existence of multiple legitimate perspectives and often, the irreducible incommensurability of values (Garmendia & Stagl, Public Participation for sustainability and social learning: Concepts and Lessons from three case studies in Europe, 2010). Co-evolving elements include the environment, governance, technology, behavior and culture.
It has been argued that learning is a key governance and implementation process in the complexity inherent to environmental decision-making, valuation and planning. Learning processes can lead to transformational responses which are essential for changing deeply entrenched paradigms of values, behavior and decision making. While learning receives wide attention in literature, there is a lack of systematic evaluation of learning processes and barriers to learning processes in existing instruments for transitioning to sustainable pathways. There is also a gap in the theory – practice link for practicable ways of implementing learning theories in decision making tools for sustainability.
Through an empirical study of two Austrian communities in transition to energy self-reliance, this research attempts to connect learning theories to sustainability practice and evaluates the learning processes and barriers in this transitioning to sustainability. A comparative evaluation of learning over time was possible due to previous research conducted on learning in the communities in 2005. Research methods included online surveys and personal interviews with members of two South Austrian communities, and local and regional experts, as well as comparison with data collected from these communities in 2005.
Results indicate participants are confident about their knowledge on the technologies and their respective role and impact in the transition to a renewable energy system. Civil society members continued to be perceived to have the greatest role to play, with social and economic barriers to transitioning being more significant than technological barriers. The economic argument continued to be perceived to be more persuasive than the environmental protection or national security argument in supporting renewable energy sources.
Findings also point to the relevance of experiential learning for creating individual-scale pathways towards sustainable consumption. Participants also indicated a reduced sense of complexity associated with transitioning to renewable energy systems, signaling a potential increase in the adaptive capacity for coping with co-evolving systems. The communities displayed a high level of collaboration with neighboring municipalities.
However, transition processes did not seem to facilitate broader citizen participation or conflict resolution for decision making.Outcomes from this research point to strengths and weaknesses of a widely used transition tool, lending suggestions for improving the design and implementation of benchmarking as a policy tool by focusing on the social barriers in the public’s transition to sustainability. The analysis suggests the need for learning-centered decision-making, citizen participation and conflict resolution processes in benchmarking tools. Given the shortness of the duration of the project, a significant language barrier and the small sample size, results of this research should be used with caution. Further research on joint action and processes enhancing mutual understanding is desirable.