The new planetary challenges of our time are highly complex. New and effective forms of democratic governance for civil society, states, and markets are needed. istock/Nattakorn Maneerat

Headline: Democratic Governance for Ecopolitical Transformations

The research group Democratic Governance for Ecopolitical Transformations is realigning itself to better reflect the Institute's understanding of its mission. Born out of three separate research projects in early 2019, the group applies the RIFS methodology to identify opportunities for democratic transformations towards sustainable societies and to support their development.

The actual research process entails a critical appraisal of democratic innovations, followed by the development of prototypes in transformative labs and their co-creative implementation, in particular in the Amazon region. Research results from similar projects such as Social Transformation and Policy Advice in Lusatia are applied to support this work. The research group also cooperates with other RIFS projects and groups, for example with the Science Platform Sustainability 2030 on the implementation of the first labs, which will explore how technological innovations can serve democratic transformations towards sustainability.

The Werder/Kessin wind farm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is one of Germany’s largest. Wind energy is a controversial issue in many parts of the country.

For a successful energy transition, it is vital that the general population supports the expansion of renewable energies. This project asks whether a more environmentally friendly expansion could lead to greater acceptance of renewable energies.

Butterflies and peace symbols adorn a wall. The project “Governance & Participation” explores the pathways and prospects for democratic change towards more sustainable societies.

This project investigates diverse forms of political and economic participation within the context of socio-ecological transformations like the energy transition, the German environmental movement, and the transformation of agriculture. The project aims to generate a nuanced understanding of the interdependencies of actors and structures experiencing change.

In order to overcome the challenges of the Anthropocene we must learn to grapple with multiple temporal dimensions simultaneously.

How can we create institutions with the capacity to attune contemporary political time, with its focus on election cycles, to the realities of planetary time and the development of life-sustaining resources over centuries? The project investigates questions such as this. It explores the emergent challenges presented by the Anthropocene and considers how they might be addressed within democratic societies.

Extreme weather events such as drought and flooding are occurring more often due to climate change. In 2016, the Seine River burst its banks in Paris, the city that has become a symbol for global climate protection.

The Paris Climate Agreement has been in force since November 2016. The countries that have adopted the agreement must now develop a regulatory regime for its implementation, deliver on their proposed commitments, and develop these further as the process progresses. This project analyses the main barriers to and drivers of implementation and examines the courses of action open to different actors.

Team

This year’s Berlin Science Week (1-10 November 2023) will once again showcase the sciences across a host of events, promoting discussion of recent research and its findings. The ten-day festival is expected to attract over 20,000 visitors and will feature presentations from around 500 speakers, supported by some 150 organisations. RIFS researchers and fellows will also participate in this inspiring dialogue between science and society, art and research. An overview.

Indigenous leaders Bemoro Metuktire, Watatakalu Yawalapiti and Tapi Yawalapiti (from left) spoke in Berlin as part of their international campaign for the protection of the Amazon rainforest.

In the struggle for their land and way of life, the indigenous Amazon peoples have already achieved a lot. But they need support in protecting their territories, which are so important for the global climate and biodiversity. During a European tour, a delegation of indigenous chiefs visited Berlin, met with the President of Germany and subsequently discussed their concerns at a public event.

Young people will bear the brunt of climate change.

Young people have long been marginalized in national, regional, and United Nations political fora. Now they are actively demanding their rights as representatives of present and future generations. They do so through public protests, but also by taking legal action to assert their claims. Scientists at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) have studied the potential impacts of climate litigation in the Anthropocene.

In a podcast series, RIFS researchers discuss the role of carbon in climate and sustainability politics. They talk to academics, activists and artists whose work has influenced their own research on the transformations of our carbon-dependent society. In the fourth episode, Usha Natarajan (Columbia University/Dalhousie University) and Julia Dehm (La Trobe Law School) discuss their book “Locating Nature: Making and Unmaking International Law”.

Title page Social Sustainability Barometer 2022

Is the current energy crisis putting the brakes on climate action? Undaunted by the growing financial burden, support for the energy transition remains strong in Germany. Despite the spectre of skyrocketing energy prices, a broad section of the public wants to see the government double down on its efforts to achieve climate neutrality. This is the conclusion of the annual “Social Sustainability Barometer 2022”.

Losland, a cooperation between the IASS and the association Mehr Demokratie, supports municipalities to sustainably shape their future. The Losland team draws from citizen participation methods to develop individualised participation processes in these municipalities. IASS political scientist Daniel Oppold has been scientifically accompanying the process since 2021. In an interview, he explains how the project works, what an “assembly for the future” is, and the project’s aims.

Young people march for intergenerational justice at the climate strike demonstration on 27 September 2019 in Barcelona

The climate crisis continues to be a major concern for many young people, who must also grapple with new and emerging crises such as the war in Ukraine. This has serious implications for mental health and lends urgency to the issue of intergenerational justice. In recent years, young people have sought to bring the responsibilities of older generations toward younger people more sharply into focus in environmental and climate debates. In a new paper, IASS researchers show how sustainable futures have become an important issue in climate policy discourse.

Amazon River meets Atlantic Ocean: satellite image of northern Brazil.

Satellite data have played an important role in efforts to monitor the rate of deforestation in the Amazon Basin for decades. But the way these data are used has changed under the government of President Jair Bolsonaro. His supporters are questioning the validity of scientific findings as a means to propagate a worldview that puts profits first.

Democracy is the only promising route for dealing with the complexity of sustainability issues in an adequate way.

In contemporary societies, the relationship between democracy and sustainability has become ever more complex. A new handbook edited by IASS researchers provides comprehensive and critical coverage of this topic from both a theoretical level and through analysis of political discourses and practices.

Will changes in our routines and lifestyles during the pandemic translate into more sustainable behaviour over the longer term? A team of researchers from the Science Platform for Climate Protection (Wissenschaftsplattform Klimaschutz - WPKS) examined this question with the support of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) and considered whether policy measures could help to consolidate gains.

Covid_19, India, worker fills medical oxygen cylinders for patients with Covid-19 infections

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in some cases stalled progress decades in the making. The pandemic has revealed social inequalities and widened the gulf between countries. In a new study published by the IASS a team of Alexander von Humboldt Climate Protection Fellows analyses the effects of the pandemic on climate mitigation and sustainable development in the Global South.

Globalization, digitalization, sustainabilization – three major waves of transformation are unfolding around the world. The social upheaval caused by these transformation processes has given rise to populist movements that endanger social harmony and threaten democratic values. What rules and institutions can promote stability in the face of such systemic risks? A new study published by the IASS offers some surprising answers.

A new publication examines what is at stake in democratic sustainability transformations.

Calls for new forms of democratic sustainability and their achievement by way of a “great,” “socio-ecological,” and/or “democratic” transformation of societies have gained traction, both in academia and among policy makers. A special issue of the journal “Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy”, edited by researchers from the IASS, examines what is at stake in current debates.

The participants employed hands-on prototyping to understand and further develop labs as democratic innovation.

Modern times are characterised by an increase in “wicked problems” that threaten established forms of democratic governability. What can labs ¬¬– collaborative spaces for testing innovative ideas – contribute to democratic innovation and sustainability in government? In the workshop “Toward Democratic Transformation: A Lab on Labs” at the IASS, international practitioners, leading researchers and government experts explored lab methods and principles to promote democracy and sustainability.

Zimbabwe-after-cyclone_Idai_Copyright_Ashraf_Hendricks_GroundUp

It seems reasonable to expect that the people who suffer most from the impacts of climate change are represented in the international climate negotiations. Patrick Toussaint, a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), has analysed the status quo from the perspective of international law. He concludes that those who currently bear the brunt of climate change – or will do so in the foreseeable future – have little or no influence on the negotiations.

In recent months young people across the world have been going on strike on Fridays to protest about their governments’ failure to adequately address the climate crisis. In their view, lack of political action to protect the climate is putting their future in jeopardy. But Wales is leading by example here with a law passed in 2015 that echoes the demands of the Fridays for Future protesters: the Well-being for Future Generations Act. It requires public authorities in Wales to consider the long-term effects of their decisions and make sustainable development a touchstone for policymaking.

Windenergie-Anlagen werden überwiegend auf dem Land errichtet. Um Akzeptanz zu schaffen, sind Beteiligung und finanzielle Teilhabe der Bevölkerung wichtig.

People are often apprehensive when they hear about plans to build a wind farm in their locality. They wonder how it will change the landscape. And whether the noise of the rotor blades will get on their nerves. People need information about the planned changes, but their direct involvement in the decision-making process is also important, because the expansion of wind energy depends on public acceptance. The Fachagentur Windenergie an Land and the IASS invited representatives from politics, the energy sector, and civil society to participate in the 3rd Workshop on Public Participation in the Development of Wind Farms on 15 and 16 January.

The IASS at the COP23 in Bonn in November 2017. The institute will also inform about its work at a booth in Katowice.

The 24th UN Climate Change Conference (COP24) is due to take place in the Polish city of Katowice from 2 to 14 December. At this year’s COP, minds will focus on concrete steps towards implementing the Paris Climate Agreement. A whole host of experts from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) will be there. At the international symposium on “Safeguarding Our Climate, Advancing Our Society”, IASS Scientific Director Patrizia Nanz will speak about the role democratic structures can play in the shift to sustainability. And IASS Scientific Director Mark Lawrence will represent the institute at the High Level Assembly of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition on the margins of the conference.

Dr. Bernardo Jurema

Elias König

In recent years, both activists and researchers have started to invoke the term "fossil imperialism" to highlight the ways in which imperialist politics are tied up with the logic of fossil capitalism. Under fossil capitalism, ceaseless accumulation of capital necessitates continued expansion of an energy base of coal, oil, and natural gas.

Giovanni Mascarenhas

RIFS fellow Giovanni Mascarenhas explains the relationship between corporate compliance and ESG activities against the backdrop of efforts to rein in the power of social media in Brazil.

Dr. Benno Fladvad

The ambivalent role of material infrastructure (and especially large-scale energy technologies) in planetary crises has attracted increasing scholarly attention in recent years. RIFS Fellow Benno Fladvad examined this issue in January’s Justice in Sustainability lecture.

Anke Kläver

What do reactive border closures and the de-nationalization of undocumented populations around the world have to do with the climate crisis-mobility nexus? As part of the RIFS public lecture series `Justice in Sustainability’, Dr Mimi Sheller recently examined the interconnections of the climate crisis, unsustainable mobilities, and migration through the lens of the politics of movement, also known as kinopolitics.

Dr. Maria Cecilia Oliveira

Dr. Bernardo Jurema

What to expect of the incoming Lula government’s environmental policy.

Africa is a continent rich in cultures, natural resources and biodiversity. However, the continent faces diverse environmental challenges, including pollution, deforestation, and species extinction. In a recent lecture Dr. Caiphas Brewsters Soyapi argued that traditional knowledge offers a moral compass that Africans can use to find their own response to ecological problems, a view that many judiciaries are coming to share.

The team behind the IASS Focal Topic “Justice in Sustainability” has released a short film that explores issues of justice in the context of climate crises and the decarbonisation of energy systems. The film presents prominent voices in the field from scientists, activists and practitioners who have participated in events and lectures hosted as part of the IASS Focal Topic in 2022.

Dr. Benno Fladvad

Benno Fladvad is part of the research team of the IASS focal topic 2022, "Justice in Sustainability".

Alexandra Tost

In April’s session of the IASS focal topic “Justice in Sustainability” lecture series, Dr Leah Temper shed light on “just transformations towards sustainability” from the perspectives of those fighting on the ground to achieve them. Her discussion of environmental justice activism took us back to the roots of thinking justice and environmental politics together. Find out in this summary what transformative sustainability studies should learn from environmental justice movements a summary of her lecture. You can also rewatch the lecture and the following Q&A session on the IASS YouTube channel.

Francesco Laruffa is part of the research team of the IASS Focal Topic 2022, "Justice in Sustainability".

Elias König

Elias König recently joined the IASS as a Justice and Sustainability Fellow and will be working on a research project that examines the youth-led climate strike movement. In this blog post, he outlines his professional background and his plans for the fellowship.

We will not see quick transformations towards sustainable futures without the consideration of past and present inequalities and injustices. We can tackle the climate crisis much more efficiently and sustainably only if equity and justice are treated as top priorities by all countries at the negotiation table. While we acknowledge that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions to today’s complex and diverse challenges, and that the process begins from different starting points, a closer look at the negotiations of the COP26 and ongoing actions around climate change can help us identify locations and processes that promote injustices and inequalities in preparations for the COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

Isadora Cardoso Vasconcelos

The notion of development, or what we understand as prosperity, whether of a country, group, or individual, has been shaped throughout history by social constructs that stem from colonialism as an ideology. Colonialism is entrenched in our society as a monocultural form of domination and understanding and shaping the world. Its influence extends to the ways in which we interact with each other and with nature.

Dr. Bernardo Jurema

The struggle for agrarian and environmental justice by the farmers movement in Northwest India was the second lecture in this year’s IASS Focal Topic series “Justice in Sustainability.” Our guest, Navdeep Boora, is a graduate student at the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER) Mohali. In his presentation, Navdeep gave us insights into the farmers’ protest against the Indian government’s attempt to further liberalize the country’s agricultural sector in 2021.

The April 2021 decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the case Neubauer et al. vs Germany has drawn a lot of attention worldwide. Louis Kotzé, Research Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, North-West University, South Africa and currently Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellow at the IASS, and Jannis Krüßmann, a young climate activist, spoke on the ruling and its wider consequences for climate litigation on January 27, 2022 as part of the focal topic "Justice and Sustainability".

Alexandra Tost

A symphony composed by the melting arctic deeply touches an audience of policymakers at COP25. A photograph inspires a political scientist to expand her research on the Amazon with a performance set in a Berlin city forest. And a museum about possible futures doesn’t just have an education team running workshops for its exhibitions but dedicates a whole floor to a lab where scientists and artists can “go nuts” in collaborative projects.

Dr. Maria Cecilia Oliveira

Concern with the Amazon is common in international climate discourse. Indeed, “saving” the Amazon for the sake of the climate has become a rallying cry among climate policymakers and researchers alike. In this post, I want to argue that while curbing deforestation in the Amazon is undoubtedly important, framing the challenge as a mission to “save” the Amazon in order to fight climate change is problematic.

Dr. Tobias Haas

The transport sector is climate policy’s problem child. While emissions reductions have been achieved across every other sector since 1990, transport-related emissions have climbed by 3.7 percent between 1990 and 2018.

Events

22.02.2024 - 23.02.2024

Green hydrogen is being discussed globally as one of the necessary contributions to a decarbonized economy. However, its role in achieving a just transition is controversial.

08.11.2023

Can podcasts serve as a digital arena to open up conversations between professors, activists, artists, and other practitioners, and the audience? Which challenges are associated to this?

16.05.2023

In partnership with WZB Berlin Social Science Center, the RIFS will host a Meeting with Distinguished Indigenous Leaders from the Amazonian Xingu area in Brazil as part of their International Campaign for the Protection of the Amazon Forest. The scientific and public debate aims to bridge these leaders’ knowledge and perspective with the Berlin academic and activist community.

04.11.2022

“Jatun Yacu” is the indigenous name, in Quechua language, for one of the tributaries of the Amazon river in Ecuador. As the Amazon river flows from its source to the Atlantic Ocean, it crosses four countries with different legal systems. This pilot documentary film traces the ebb and flow of rights in and of the Amazon across space and time, ethnographically exploring the question of what it means for a river to have rights, where these rights come from and what they might look like visually. It aims to show that while the notion of rights of nature may seem exotic to Western legal minds at first glance, a closer look reveals that the idea that non-human entities have rights is not new.

29.09.2021

The Democratic (Re)Configurations of Sustainability Transformations research group of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V. (IASS Potsdam) is pleased to invite you to a screening and discussion of the documentary film: jatun yacu – amazon of rights. This documentary film traces the ebb and flow of rights in and of the Amazon across space and time, ethnographically exploring the question of what it means for a river to have rights, where these rights come from and what they might look like visually.

08.09.2020 - 11.09.2020

In the face of the challenges that have emerged and been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, collective responses by and for communities have emerged in Latin America (e.g. community food banks and open data citizen-led initiatives). In view of this development, the research group Democratic Reconfigurations of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) Potsdam has decided to convene a Cabildo por América Latina (CabildoxLatAm), a participatory digital space to learn, strengthen and design collective responses to the pandemic. The event will bring together civil society actors, governments, communities and citizens from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Puerto Rico.

09.12.2019 - 10.12.2019

The purpose of this workshop is to explore and experiment with lab methods and principles to promote democracy and sustainability. We will be guided by the question: What can labs contribute to democracy and sustainability in the German governmental system? The workshop aims to design early prototypes for such labs.

21.11.2019

Zum Auftakt der Innovationsreihe #Tech4Society wird die Wertschöpfung in modernen Volkswirtschaften unter die Lupe genommen. Wie kann wirtschaftlicher Wandel mithilfe technologischer Innovationen gestaltet werden und sich stärker an gesellschaftlichem Fortschritt orientieren? #Tech4Society widmet sich dem wertbasierten technologischen Wandel.

02.02.2018 - 03.02.2018

Was wird aus Europa? Rücken die Staaten der Gemeinschaft wieder stärker zusammen oder läuft es eher auf eine reine Wirtschaftsunion hinaus? Und was bedeutet das für uns Europäer?

Completed Projects