Plenary sessions - final program

Opening Plenary (18 June, 2013 - 6:30 - 7:30 pm)

Daniel W. Bromley (Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics - Emeritus - University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA & Visiting Professor, Humboldt University-Berlin, Germany)

Institutions and Institutionalism: Crafting a Coherent Science of Environmental Policy

Abstract: There are many visions of a properly constituted and motivated ecological economics. Some wish for it to embrace a broad vision—open to multiple ways of knowing, and thereby able to advance competing accounts of the vexing problems of sustainability and feasible prospects for the future of humans in their fraught interactions with nature. A second vision is that ecological economics should be a radical movement dedicated to criticizing and changing social organizations and institutions that are responsible for the spread of false beliefs about economic, social, and what is called “environmental reality.” Regardless of which vision ultimately prevails—and there are other visions that fall between these two—it is obvious that the concept of “institutions” is instrumental to realization of the desired future. This is unfortunate for the simple reason that those who appeal to institutions have never bothered to develop a consistent and coherent idea of this allegedly important concept. They just invoke the word. Institutions cannot possibly matter if those who write about them have no idea what they are writing about. Here I will spell out the core meaning of two central ideas to the future of a coherent ecological economics—institutionalism, and institutions. I will show that a clear understanding of these two related ideas will liberate ecological economists from continued angst and debate about ontology, epistemology, and methodology—and some wished-for grand theory. I predict that this liberation will be much welcomed by ecological economists who merely wish to get on with doing good science.

See the bio of Daniel W. Bromley

Plenary Session 1: Environment-Society Relationships : Changing Behaviour or Changing Values ? (19 June, 2013, morning)

- Michel Capron (Emeritus Professor of Management, Université Paris VIII, Chairman of RIODD, France)

The emancipation and autonomy of humanity:

Are they always liberating utopia?

Summary: In the great movement of emancipation and autonomy of humanity, the consumerism dream and the mirage of unlimited growth have not made people freer. Crises have shaken the socio-economic systems and reshaped social classifications. The working class, supposed to carry the hope of profound social change, has lost its Promethean vocation to fall back on the defense of its own survival.

More than ever people seem powerless to master their destiny in the face of economic internationalized and financialized powers which do not have any other motivation and other horizon but endless material accumulation. Bureaucratic economic organizations with gigantic size have distorted the spirit of entrepreneurship and individual and collective initiative that characterizes the human species.

But the advanced degradation of natural resources and the exacerbation of social inequalities on the planet for which economic activities are mainly responsible are not inevitable and uncontrollable phenomenon. Through a few current examples, the presentation will attempt to emphasize the stakes of the unification of social criticism on one hand and ecological criticism on the other as the matrix for the conception of a new liberating utopia.

See the bio of Michel Capron

- Andrew Dobson (Professor of Political Science, University of Keele, United Kingdom)

Environmental policy-making and behaviour change: Financial incentives, 'nudge' or citizenship?

Summary: Summary: Given their generalised commitment to ‘sustainable development’, governments around the world are looking for ways to change people’s environment-related behaviour. In recent times, and in the context of the increasing delegitimisation of the state and the turn to privatised solutions to public policy problems, attention has turned from the way in which people’s decision-making is structured by their macro-context to individual-level prompts that can influence behaviour. In the environmental context (and indeed in others) this has taken two forms. First, we have witnessed the creation of a suite of environmental incentives and disincentives (rewards and punishments) which are designed to alter people’s behavioural patterns in line with the self-interested rational actor model of behaviour. Second, increasing attention has been paid to the potential of behavioural economics – or what has been popularised as ‘nudge’, after the eponymous book by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. This presentation will outline the nature of both these policy tools, offer examples of them, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. I will then compare these ‘value-lite’ approaches with one which draws on the idea of environmental citizenship, rooted in a, ethical and practical commitment to justice.

See the bio of Andrew Dobson

Plenary Session 2: Rethinking the role of science in society (20 June, 2013, morning)

- Sybille van den Hove (MEDIAN & Visiting Professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology - ICTA - Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain)

Science, Innovation and Sustainability: Exploring Myths and Asymmetries

Summary: In our efforts to foster the transformations needed to address sustainability challenges, a reflexion on the roles of science, innovation and precaution is central. A series of pervasive myths still underlie currently dominant visions of science and innovation, including in particular the myth of the possibility to fully understand, describe and control complex systems; the myth that uncertainty is always reducible or quantifiable; the myth of deterministic science; and the myth that technology can 'solve it all'. There are also a series of asymmetries often not accounted for in our ways of dealing with evidence in support of policies and action, including the fundamental ones between the three pillars of sustainability; asymmetries in the weighing up of pros and cons and costs and benefits; or the asymmetry in the levels of evidence for 'proof' of harm vs. those for 'proof' of safety required by proponents of a technology. Building in particular on collective work done in the framework of the Late Lessons from Early Warnings project of the European Environment Agency, this presentation will explore such myths and asymmetries and reflect on the nature and purposes of the scientific and technological enterprises in today’s context, leading to some conclusions about the governance of innovation and innovations in governance.

See the bio of Sybille van den Hove

- Andrew Stirling (Professor of Science and Technology Policy, SPRU, The Sussex Energy Group, University of Sussex, United Kingdom)

Opening up Green Transitions:

Acknowledging the Politics of Ecologies, Economies and Technologies

Summary: The challenges of global Sustainability are on an unprecedented scale. So urgent are the imperatives and hard the constraints, that there seems little scope for discussion of choice. Inertia and entrenched interests are so powerful and obstructive, that it is tempting to invoke technical expertise as if it were unquestionable. Acknowledgements of uncertainty or ambiguity appear as signs of weakness. The scientific and moral stakes are so stark, they seem to leave no room for no alternatives. So, do we hear repeated reference tothe Sustainability Transition – as if this were singular and self-evident. In this light, democracy and deliberation may seem inconvenient luxuries, threatening only to slow down a self-evident direction for change. Yet these tendencies miss the point – and threaten the core – of Sustainability. Serious solutions are profoundly dependent on – and reinforcing of – inclusive, deliberative democracy. Far from being inevitably weak and slow, these can offer more rapid and effective co-ordination. Openly acknowledging uncertainty and ambiguity can de-fuse the technocratic juggernaut of an apparently choiceless ‘science-based’, ‘pro-innovation’, ‘knowledge-driven’ economy. Indeed – for the first time since the ‘European Enlightenment’ – Sustainability discourse offers the possibility of enabling the collective steering of the directions (not just the pace or impact) of scientific, technological and institutional progress. Real hopes for truly progressive transformation, rest in celebrating diversity and dissent in a vigorous, plural politics of Sustainability..

See the bio of Andrew Stirling

Plenary Session 3: Redefining Prosperity (21 June, 2013, morning)

- Florence Jany-Catrice (Professor of Economics, CLERSE, Université Lille1, France)

Redefining progress and prosperity: with which indicators?

Summary: For more than twenty years now, there has been a large dispersed movement toward the development of new indicators of wealth or prosperity, to complement GDP and growth, or to replace them. This movement can be read as an expression of a growing protest vis-à-vis the macroeconomic indicators when used as univocal representation of prosperity or progress.

If initiatives are multiplying to provide other indicators, they are also very diverse in the content of what they offer, and in the methods to achieve the aim followed. They are the expression of highly contrasting visions of this new prosperity to which it would be useful to converge.

The purpose of this conference is to provide a discussion of the plurality of objectives behind this movement, in the light of some recent initiatives, being they at an international level (UNDP new challenges toward sustainability) or at national and even territorial levels.

See the bio of F. Jany-Catrice

- Tim Jackson (Professor of Sustainable Development, Center for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, United Kingdom)

Prosperity and Equity in the 'Green Economy'

Summary: An ecologically-constrained economy calls for a vision of prosperity consistent with social justice. It also demands new models of enterprise, a coherent strategy for employment, long-term investment in real physical, social and natural assets and a finance system fit for purpose to deliver these things. This talk will establish the foundations for such a vision and explore in particular the implications for transforming the financial system. Drawing on insights from recent work on ecological macro-economics, the presentation talk will highlight some of the resonances between the demands of sustainability and the need for financial reform.

See the bio of Tim Jackson

Closing Plenary: Towards a Socio-Ecological Transition (21 June, 2013, afternoon)

- Elizabeth Shove (Professor of Sociology, University of Lancaster, United Kingdom)

The dynamics of energy and mobility demand

Summary: This talk begins by considering different methods of conceptualising the demand for energy and mobility. The suggestion that such demand is an outcome of changing social practices underlines the significance of linking social and historical research to that which deals with the provision and management of energy and mobility systems. A focus on what energy is used for in contemporary society – that is, of which practices is energy consumption a part – forces us to think differently about long term energy ‘needs’ and how they might be established and changed. I will outline different lines of research designed in response to this agenda.

See the bio of E. Shove

Online user: 1

RSS Feed