health, but also encompass goals and targets for improved work situations, income
distribution, more sustainable growth patterns and city developments as well as
resource efficiency, clean energy and the protection of marine and land ecosystems.
Two of the goals also provide targets for governance improvements and the quality
of institutions and partnerships, which should help the implementation process
(UN 2015).
Some critics may lament that these goals are pipe dreams, too ambitious and
sometimes contradictory, given that the socioeconomic pledges can only be realized
if the targets for environmental protection are missed. I think that this will certainly
be the case if the spirit of transformation and radical change that UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon expressed in his 2014 preparatory report on reaching the
SDGs is lost. Ki-moon wrote, “Transformation is our watchword. At this moment
in time, we are called to lead and act with courage. We are called to embrace
change. Change in our societies. Change in the management of our economies.
Change in our relationship with our one and only planet” (UN 2014: 3).
It is this spirit of transformation that I want to support with this book. To me it
holds a renewed window of opportunity for the radical changes that in essence the
sustainable development agenda always held. And I want to show that radicalness
in purpose should not be conflated with a call for instant revolution, tearing down
the system or hostility to dissenting ideas. Radicalness in purpose is equivalent to
holding a vision or belief in what could be possible if X, Y or Z was to change, an
imaginary that stirs up energy, commitment—and persistence in taking the many
incremental steps required to get there.
Sociologists use the term ‘imaginary’ to capture more than ideas: it includes a set
of values, institutions, laws and symbols with which people imagine their social
whole. Without this combination of radical imaginary and persistent progress
toward it, not much transformation will happen, at least not in the direction of
sustainable development. The path dependencies that shape humanity’s activities
and development dynamics today are pushing and pulling in a decidedly
non-sustainable direction.
This is why I also want to make the case that we should not simply stick the label
‘transformation’ on any amendment to the status quo, or call each technological
efficiency gain an ‘innovation.’ If the benchmark for the changes to which we aspire
is not radically different to the one that has guided development solutions so far,
humanity will not escape those strong path dependencies. At the same time, dismissing the role that incremental steps play in getting there means ignoring the
insights that complex system research offers about patterns of change. So juxtaposing the two approaches as entirely separate strategies—a practice often used to
discredit someone else’s proposals—does not help. What helps is to keep each other
challenged with respect to both the radicalness of the imagined outcomes (what do
we deem possible) and the amount of change in this direction that the next, often
little, steps could bring (what do we do to make it happen).
This book speaks to this combination under the tagline of radical incremental
transformation strategies. The purpose that these strategies should serve here is
long-term sustainable development as defined in the Rio Declaration of 1992 and
2
1 Introduction
distribution, more sustainable growth patterns and city developments as well as
resource efficiency, clean energy and the protection of marine and land ecosystems.
Two of the goals also provide targets for governance improvements and the quality
of institutions and partnerships, which should help the implementation process
(UN 2015).
Some critics may lament that these goals are pipe dreams, too ambitious and
sometimes contradictory, given that the socioeconomic pledges can only be realized
if the targets for environmental protection are missed. I think that this will certainly
be the case if the spirit of transformation and radical change that UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon expressed in his 2014 preparatory report on reaching the
SDGs is lost. Ki-moon wrote, “Transformation is our watchword. At this moment
in time, we are called to lead and act with courage. We are called to embrace
change. Change in our societies. Change in the management of our economies.
Change in our relationship with our one and only planet” (UN 2014: 3).
It is this spirit of transformation that I want to support with this book. To me it
holds a renewed window of opportunity for the radical changes that in essence the
sustainable development agenda always held. And I want to show that radicalness
in purpose should not be conflated with a call for instant revolution, tearing down
the system or hostility to dissenting ideas. Radicalness in purpose is equivalent to
holding a vision or belief in what could be possible if X, Y or Z was to change, an
imaginary that stirs up energy, commitment—and persistence in taking the many
incremental steps required to get there.
Sociologists use the term ‘imaginary’ to capture more than ideas: it includes a set
of values, institutions, laws and symbols with which people imagine their social
whole. Without this combination of radical imaginary and persistent progress
toward it, not much transformation will happen, at least not in the direction of
sustainable development. The path dependencies that shape humanity’s activities
and development dynamics today are pushing and pulling in a decidedly
non-sustainable direction.
This is why I also want to make the case that we should not simply stick the label
‘transformation’ on any amendment to the status quo, or call each technological
efficiency gain an ‘innovation.’ If the benchmark for the changes to which we aspire
is not radically different to the one that has guided development solutions so far,
humanity will not escape those strong path dependencies. At the same time, dismissing the role that incremental steps play in getting there means ignoring the
insights that complex system research offers about patterns of change. So juxtaposing the two approaches as entirely separate strategies—a practice often used to
discredit someone else’s proposals—does not help. What helps is to keep each other
challenged with respect to both the radicalness of the imagined outcomes (what do
we deem possible) and the amount of change in this direction that the next, often
little, steps could bring (what do we do to make it happen).
This book speaks to this combination under the tagline of radical incremental
transformation strategies. The purpose that these strategies should serve here is
long-term sustainable development as defined in the Rio Declaration of 1992 and
2
1 Introduction