Transitions to Sustainability

Based on debates and conclusions of the three most recent Rencontres Internationales de Reims on Sustainability Studies, organized by the International Research Center on Sustainability (IRCS) at Rheims University (www.sustainability-studies.org), this book examines the challenges and the conditions of a sound transition toward sustainability. The editors and contributors begin from the perspective that fostering sustainability requires more than the academic aims of developing the right markets, institutions and metrics, it requires social momentum. This raises many questions in need of clear and complete answers: How can social justice be linked with sustainability policies? What governance tools are needed to do so? What is the linkage between the different decision-making levels?

The book is divided into three sections. The first part, Meeting the Challenges of the Anthropocene: Back to planning? identifies new forms of planning; forms which could foster the transition to sustainability. Because the stakes are high - nothing less than the type of society we choose to promote in the long term - planning should be designed as a political process rather than just a technical or economic program. An important question is Can sustainability planning be considered as an emerging norm at the international level? The second section, Towards a New Social Contract, addresses the point that present generations are held accountable by future generations, and discusses strategies for designing and adopting a pathway to sustainability. A chapter entitled Insights for a Better Future in an Unfair World addresses the challenges of combining sustainability policies with social justice. The third section, Some Governance Issues, addresses global energy governance, multi-stakeholdergovernance for sustainable mobility, and territorial governance.

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Based on debates and conclusions of the three most recent Rencontres Internationales de Reims on Sustainability Studies, organized by the International Research Center on Sustainability (IRCS) at Rheims University (www.sustainability-studies.org), this book examines the challenges and the conditions of a sound transition toward sustainability. The editors and contributors begin from the perspective that fostering sustainability requires more than the academic aims of developing the right markets, institutions and metrics, it requires social momentum. This raises many questions in need of clear and complete answers: How can social justice be linked with sustainability policies? What governance tools are needed to do so? What is the linkage between the different decision-making levels?

The book is divided into three sections. The first part, Meeting the Challenges of the Anthropocene: Back to planning? identifies new forms of planning; forms which could foster the transition to sustainability. Because the stakes are high nothing less than the type of society we choose to promote in the long term planning should be designed as a political process rather than just a technical or economic program. An important question is Can sustainability planning be considered as an emerging norm at the international level? The second section, Towards a New Social Contract, addresses the point that present generations are held accountable by future generations, and discusses strategies for designing and adopting a pathway to sustainability. A chapter entitled Insights for a Better Future in an Unfair World addresses the challenges of combining sustainability policies with social justice. The third section, Some Governance Issues, addresses global energy governance, multi-stakeholdergovernance for sustainable mobility, and territorial governance.

Résumé
This book calls for the conditions of transition to sustainability: How to take into consideration new global phenomena such as and of the dimension of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, financial crises, demographic dynamics, global urbanization, migrations and mobility, while bearing in mind short-term or local place-based issues, such as social justice or quality of life? Meeting this challenge requires an inclusive approach of sustainability. It is a matter of designing a new social contract: Sustainability requires more than developing the right markets, institutions and metrics, it requires social momentum. To do so, many issues need a clear and complete answer: How to link social justice with sustainability policies? What governance tools to do so? What linkage between one decision-making level and the other? These are major issues to design sound transitions to sustainability.

Contenu
Introduction (F. Mancebo).- Part 1 - Meeting the Challenges of the Anthropocene: Back to Planning?.- Chapter 1. Entering the Anthropocene: The Twofold Challenge of Climate Change and Poverty Eradication (I. Sachs).- Chapter 2. Towards a New Development Planning: The Pre-eminence of Political Choices (C. Comeliau).- Chapter 3. Economic Democracy: Meeting Some Management Challenges - Changing Scenarios in Brazil (L. Dowbor).- Chapter 4. Norms, Rules and Sustainable Planning: Who Said What About Norms? (J. M. Church).- Part 2 - Towards a New Social Contract.- Chapter 5. Rousseau, Rio and the Green Economy (C. Lopes).- Chapter 6. Issue Linkage and the Prospects for SDGs' contribution to Sustainability (P. M. Haas).- Chapter 7. Putting the Individual at the Center of Development: Indicators of Well-being for a New Social Contract (A. L. Dahl).- Chapter 8. Insights for a Better Future in an Unfair World - Combining Social Justice with Sustainability (F. Mancebo).- Part 3 - Some Governance Issues. 9. The Legitimation of Global Energy Governance: A normative exploration (S. I. Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen).- Chapter 10. From Government to Multi-Stakeholder Governance for Sustainable Mobility (M. Dijk).- Chapter 11. Territorial Resources and Sustainability: Analyzing Development in a "post-Fordist" scenario (B. Pecqueur & P. F. Vieira).- Rheims Sustainability Vision.