This open access book brings science and practice together and inspires a global movement towards co-creating regenerative civilizations that work for 100% of humanity and the Earth as a whole. With its conceptual foundation of the concept of transformation literacy it enhances the knowledge and capacity of decision-makers, change agents and institutional actors to steward transformations effectively across institutions, societal sectors and nations.
Humanity is at crossroads. Resource depletion and exponential emissions that not only cause climate change, but endanger the health of people and planet, call for a decisive turnaround of human civilization. A new and transformative paradigm is emerging that advocates for regenerative civilizations, in which a narrative of systemic health as much as individual and collective vitality guide the interaction of socio-economic-ecological systems. Truly transformative change must go far beyond technical solutions, and instead envision what can be termed 'a new operating system' that helps humankind to live well within the planetary boundaries and partner with life's evolutionary processes. This requires transformations at three different levels:
- Mindsets that reconnect with a worldview in which human agency acknowledges its co-evolutionary pathways with each other and the Earth.
- Political, social and economic systems that are regenerative and foster the care-taking for Earth life support systems.
- Competencies to design and implement effective large-scale transformative change processes at multiple levels with multiple stakeholders.
This book provides key ingredients for enhancing transformation literacy from various perspectives around the globe. It connects the emerging practice of stewarding transformative change across business, government institutions and civil societyactors with the most promising scientific models and concepts that underpin human action to shape the future collectively in accordance with planetary needs.
Petra Künkel is an executive board member of the International Club of Rome and the founder of the Collective Leadership Institute, a Germany, USA and South Africa-based social enterprise building collaboration competency for transformative change towards world sustainability. As a seasoned systems psychologist, visionary author and expert in complex multi-stakeholder settings, she promotes systems transformations by scaling-up collective stewardship skills for decision-makers from corporations, public sector and civil society. With her educational background in change management, organizational psychology and political science, she has profound international experiences in corporate change, development cooperation and policy implementation. She is a leading strategic advisor to pioneering international initiatives that tackle sustainability challenges. Based on successful transformation processes, she developed the dialogic change methodology and the Collective Leadership Compass, a guiding tool for navigating change in complex multi-actor settings. Petra Künkel's ground-breaking previous publications The Art of Leading Collectively (Chelsea Green 2016) and Stewarding Sustainability Transformations (Springer Nature 2019) received international attention. Petra Künkel is also the lead author for the open access transformation guide Leading Transformative Change Collectively (Routledge 2020).
Kristin Vala Ragnarsdottir is a member of the International Club of Rome and is the professor of Sustainability Science at the Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland. Previously, she was the dean of Engineering and Natural Sciences at the University of Iceland and the professor of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Bristol, UK. She is actively involved with international think tanks on sustainability including being an ambassador and a formal global council member of the Well-being Economy Alliance, a distinguished fellow at the Schumacher Institute (UK), and a member and the former vice president of the Balaton Group. Vala is a member of several scientific academies such as Academia Europaea, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Icelandic Academy and the Royal Society of Arts and Commerce. Grounded in Earth Sciences, Vala has been envisioning sustainable futures with her students since the turn of the century. Her research engagement focuses on evaluating natural resources and their economics link through system dynamics, determining sustainability indicators for soil, tourism and the circular and well-being economy and finding fabric for sustainable communities. Her recent activities include casting light on corruption in natural resource management, linking population, soil, phosphorous and sustainable land management with food security, developing groundwork for new economies to achieve the SDGs and demonstrating the needfor the well-being economy and female leadership due to the global climate emergency. She was a member of the Prime Minister´s of Bhutan International Expert Group on new indicators for UN development inspired by Gross National Happiness. Vala was a member of the Icelandic Prime Minister committee that developed 39 indicators well-being and the government´s committee outlining future energy policy to 2050. She is the author of over 100 academic publications and chapters. Vala co-edited Pollutants, Human Health and the Environment. A Risk Approach published by Wiley (2011) and was a subject editor of The Oxford Companion to the Earth published by Oxford University Press (2000). She has also co-edited several special journal issues.
