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Sustainability is a contested concept that can mean different things to different people, and in different contexts (Vos 2007). Moreover, ‘sustainability’ is not inherently desirable- i.e. if what one is sustaining is a system or process that is antithetical to mutual flourishing. If one recalls the etymological roots of the word, connotations include the ability of something- i.e. an activity, process, system- to be maintained without exhausting its own conditions of possibility. In the context of sustainable development, development is sustainable if it meets the needs of present generations without undermining the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. However, with only 17% of SDG targets on track and over one-third actually regressing (SDG Report 2024), six of the earth’s nine planetary boundaries breached (Richardson et al 2023), global biodiversity abundance in freefall (WWF 2024), the world on track to reach 3C of warming by 2100 (Carrington 2024), and mounting extreme socioeconomic inequality (Watts and Ambrose 2024), it’s clear that we are rushing headlong down radically unsustainable trajectories.
Averting the unravelling of the very fabric of life (Ripple et al 2024) will require profound structural, political, socioeconomic and cultural transformations. We need to start asking some difficult questions, such as whether global socioeconomic systems predicated on endless economic expansion and material extractivism can in fact be reconciled with biospheric integrity (Ward et al 2016; Hickel 2020). We urgently need to think outside the confines of ‘business as usual’, which is leading us towards socio-ecological catastrophe. All of us, no matter our discipline or sector, have a stake in this, because all earthlings need a habitable planet on which to subsist. In this two-day symposium, we seek contributions from diverse actors within and beyond the University of Manchester community on how we might ‘get serious’ about sustainability in our research, teaching, advocacy and daily lives. What might ‘transformative’ change look like? How can we build meaningful collaborations between diverse stakeholders for moving beyond ‘sustaining’ the status quo, and towards improving planetary conditions for more just and sustainable futures for all earthlings?
Contributions can be oral, visual or written, and can include, but need not be limited to, such topics as:
· Academic-activist collaborations for climate justice
· Transdisciplinary perspectives/approaches to sustainability
· Student-led sustainability initiatives
· Degrowth/post-growth
· Just energy transitions
· Multispecies justice
· Living cities/urban rewilding
· Fair food systems (i.e. agroecology)
· Sustainable, accessible and inclusive transport
· Eco-pedagogies and embedding sustainability into curricula
· Ecological values
· Creative visions for sustainable futures
· Decolonial & feminist approaches to sustainability
A plant-based lunch, teas/coffees and pastries will be provided on both days.
Contact: Heather Alberro, Lecturer in sustainability (heather.alberro@manchester.ac.uk)
