Planning for sustainability as a learning concept

The major theme of the following discussion is the importance of a transdisciplinary approach to guide sustainability-related planning and management activities. The proposed approach involves much more than the usual interaction between partners from different disciplines. A revised process is needed to allow real cooperation in sustainability planning. This process will require a more open recognition of the subjective priorities that become the framework of sustainable development issues of various interest groups and disciplines. The sustainable development agenda should be more geared towards learning processes than projected future outcomes. Learning is enhanced through a participatory framework inclusive of stakeholder interests. Insights from a broad range of disciplinary areas including the science of complexity, sociology, philosophy, law, economics and management are presented to support this position. The conventional stranglehold of disciplinary thinking in policy circles limits the capacity of our decision makers to unravel the complexity of all real world environmental policy and management problems. Policy making needs to embody respect for that complexity and allow flexibility to promote perpetually evolving learning. As a fundamentally transdisciplinary framework, ecological economics has some prospect to represent these interests in a purposeful and necessarily pragmatic way. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.