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LDE Sustainability Fundamentals

Vak
2024-2025

Dit vak wordt alleen in het Engels aangeboden.

Admission requirements

This course is part of the Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability (Leiden-Delft-Erasmus) and is therefore only open to students that are enrolled in this programme. Students take both courses of the programme (Fundamentals and Challenge) in the same academic year.

Topics

Sustainability, systems thinking, environmental change, transitions, design of sustainable interventions

Disciplines

Sustainability, environmental science, economics, policy science, urban studies, sociology, governance

Skills

  1. Analysing
  2. Oral communication
  3. Written communication
  4. Presenting
  5. Societal awareness
  6. Reflecting
  7. Independent learning

Number of students

Minimum of 45 and maximum 50.

Description

This seminar series introduces you to key topics in sustainability research and thereby provides you with insights that will prepare you for working on the LDE Sustainability Challenge. There will be three main sections: 1) foundations of sustainability and systems thinking, 2) system transitions and environmental change, and 3) practical options for addressing sustainability issues and challenges.

In interactive seminars, experts from the three universities, as well as invited guest speakers, will provide you with the necessary insights to start working on the LDE Sustainability Challenge.

Assessments will be based on developing the understanding of environmental and social systems, examining how systems undergo transitions, and what options we have for interventions to make systems more sustainable.

Course objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • Apply systems thinking to analyse sustainability challenges.

  • Assess how interventions can support sustainable and just transitions.

  • Explain key considerations in the design of interventions aimed to support sustainable system transitions.

  • Apply tools to design interventions aimed to support sustainable systems transitions.

Programme and timetable

Classes will begin at 19:00 and run for 2 hours on Tuesdays. They will cover a variety of content and include active engagement through various activities.

General Introduction

  • November 12th (The Hague, Wijnhaven)

Module “Foundations of sustainability and systems thinking”

  • November 19th (The Hague, Wijnhaven) – Global sustainability governance
    Prof. dr. Agni Kalfagianni (EUR): This lecture discusses the history and future of global sustainability governance. It highlights some of the major milestones as well as failures, and explores proposals for the future.

  • November 26th (The Hague, Wijnhaven) – Sustainability Science
    Dr. Patrik Henriksson (LU): We will introduce sustainability as a scientific field. We will describe how sustainability is defined and discuss major global challenges with existential consequences.

  • December 10th (Delft) – Systems thinking theory
    Quirien Reijtenbagh (TUD): We will discuss systems thinking and show several examples. We will learn you the basics on what is system thinking and how you can apply it solve complex problems.

Module “System transitions and environmental change”

  • December 17th (Delft) – System transitions
    Dr. Daan Schraven & Dr. Sonja van Dam (TUD): We will review sustainability transitions literature and discuss how it can help us identify leverage points that can be used to transform systems.

  • January 14th (The Hague, Wijnhaven) – Environmental Change
    Dr. Patrik Henriksson (LU): We will learn about the possible impacts social and technological changes can have on sustainability transitions and why many of the most important and seemingly easy transitions we can make (plant-based diets, insulation, renewable energy) require large-scale changes across many sectors of society. For these cases we will survey im-portant leverage points for systems change.

  • January 21th (The Hague, Wijnhaven) – Just transitions
    Prof. dr. Agni Kalfagianni (EUR):This lecture discusses key principles of justice and the concept of a "just transition." It examines how ethical frameworks play an essential role in shaping fair, equitable, and sustainable transitions.

Module “Practical options for addressing sustainability issues and challenges"

  • January 28th (Delft) – Design methods for sustainable transitions
    Dr. Sonja van Dam: We will discuss a range of design methods on how to approach the sustainability challenges and engage stakeholders. We will show how to translate theory to practise and accelerate change by providing examples on how design methods have been applied in the past.

  • February 18th (Rotterdam) – Social Change
    Dr. Wouter Spekkink (EUR): We will discuss the literature and theory on how social change can be achieved. We will cover examples of social innovations and interventions in different domains.

  • March 4th (The Hague, Wijnhaven) – Monitoring system change
    Dr. Patrik Henriksson (LU) : We will describe some options for measuring and analysing the changing biosphere, and explore how humanity can leverage change. For example, how can you quantify progress towards life within the planetary boundaries, and how can progress be achieved without environmental tradeoffs and increasing inequalities?

Reading list

The reading list for the three parts will include (but is not limited to):

• Module “Foundations of sustainability and systems thinking”

  • November 19th: Burch, Sarah et al. (2019). New directions in earth system governance research. Earth System Governance https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2019.100006

  • November 19th: Okereke, Chukwumerije. (2020). North-South inequity and global environmental governance. In: Agni Kalfagianni, Doris Fuchs and Anders Hayden (eds.). Routledge Handbook of Global Sustainability Governance, pp. 167-179.

  • November 26th: Richardson, K., Steffen, W., Lucht, W., Bendtsen, J., Cornell, S. E., Donges, J. F., ... & Rockström, J. (2023). Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries. Science advances, 9(37),

  • December 10th: Seto, K. C., Davis, S. J., Mitchell, R. B., Stokes, E. C., Unruh, G., & Ürge-Vorsatz, D. (2016). Carbon lock-in: types, causes, and policy implications. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 41(1), 425-452.

  • December 10th: Chapter 3 System Analysis (p.51-77). https://ocw.tudelft.nl/wp-content/uploads/Course-Book-3-Systems-Analysis.pdf

• Module “System transitions and environmental change”

  • December 17th: Loorbach, D., Frantzeskaki, N., & Avelino, F. (2017). Sustainability transitions research: transforming science and practice for societal change. Annual review of environment and resources, 42(1), 599-626.

  • January 14th: Rockström, J., Gupta, J., Qin, D., Lade, S. J., Abrams, J. F., Andersen, L. S., ... & Zhang, X. (2023). Safe and just Earth system boundaries. Nature, 619(7968), 102-111.

  • January 21th: Ciplet, David and Jill Lindsey Harrison. (2020). Transition Tensions: Mapping Conflicts in Movements for a Just and Sustainable Transition. Environmental Politics 29(3): Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2019.1595883

  • January 21th: Temper, Leah at al. (2018). A Perspective on Radical Transformations to Sustainability: Resistances, Movements and Alternatives.

  • January 21th: Sustainability Science 13: 747-764. Vol.:(0123456789)1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0543-8

• Module “Practical options for addressing sustainability issues and challenges"

  • January 28th: van Boeijen, A. G., Daalhuizen, J., & Zijlstra, J. (2020). Delft design guide: Perspectives, models, approaches, methods. bis Publishers.

  • February 18th: Michie, S., Van Stralen, M. M., & West, R. (2011). The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation science, 6, 1-12.

  • February 18th: Kolodko J, Schmidtke KA, Read D, Vlaev I (2021) #LetsUnlitterUK: A demonstration and evaluation of the Behavior Change Wheel
    methodology. PLoS ONE 16(11): e0259747. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259747

  • March 4th: Wu, T., Rocha, J. C., Berry, K., Chaigneau, T., Hamann, M., Lindkvist, E., ... & Folke, C. (2024). Triple Bottom Line or Trilemma? Global Tradeoffs Between Prosperity, Inequality, and the Environment. World Development, 178, 106595.

Further literature will be announced in class or via Brightspace.

Course load and teaching method

This course is worth 5 ECTS, which means the total course load equals 140 hours:

  • Seminars: 10 seminars of 2 hours (participation is mandatory)

  • Preparation for seminars: approx. 6 hours per seminar (60 hours).

  • Assignments: approximately 60 hours

Assessment methods

The assessment will be based on several components that address specific case studies to be selected in class.

  • Participation assessed continually through participation in seminars

  • Assignment 1: Mapping systems

  • Assignment 2: Assessing interventions for just transitions

  • Assignment 3: Initial project brief on the sustainability Challenge

  • Assignment 4: Performing a literature review to inform the sustainability Challenge

Students could only pass this course after successful completion of all partial assignments.

The assessment methods will be further explained in the first session of the class.

Brightspace

The Brightspace environment of Leiden University will be used in this course. Students will be enrolled to the Brightspace module by the organisation of the course.

Registration process

Enrolling in this course is possible from 2 September (9:00 hrs) until 6 October (22:00 hrs), through the Honours Academy of Leiden University. The registration link will be posted on the student website of the Honours Academy of Leiden University.

Please note: students are not required to register through uSis for this course. Your registration will be done centrally.

Contact

Programme coordinator: Esther van der Ent, LDEHonoursSustainability@cml.leidenuniv.nl.