Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V.

Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies IASS in Potsdam Germany

Ilan Chabay, Ph.D. Professor and Senior Advisor for Global Sustainability Research, Institute

for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam Germany Chair of Knowledge, Learning, and Societal Change Research Alliance

(www.KLASICA.org)Transformation KAN webinar June 22, 2016

Seeking Collective Behavior Change: The KLASICA action research agenda

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KLASICA: The Knowledge, Learning, and Societal Change International Alliance

Heinz Gutscher, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, University of Zürich; Member of the Future Earth Scientific Committee

Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V.2

Mission: 1) enable collective behavior change (CBC) toward just and equitable sustainable futures by

• engaging or developing cohesive communities of purpose,

• making meaning of knowledge from diverse sources, and

• collaboratively establishing priorities for policies and actions,

2) understand the occurrence or failure of CBC at different spatial and temporal scales and in diverse contexts, and 3) use that understanding to advance solutions for and promote actions on pathways to sustainable futures.

KLASICA: the Knowledge, Learning, and Societal Change Alliance

The KLASICA office is based at and supported by IASS, Potsdam

Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V.

Why Collective Behavior Change?

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1. Individuals generally lack a strong sense of agency when the • issue is complex and has large temporal and social scales • causality and impacts are uncertain and not apparently personal • outcomes of individual actions are difficult or impossible to assess

2. Individual behaviors may be insufficient for transformation because they are often uncoordinated, inconsistent, or in opposition to each other

3. Governance (e.g., policies and regulations) may be insufficient for meaningful, sustained compliance without a strong base of support, including establishment of concordant social norms

4. Broad societal engagement is essential for making strategic short-term decisions, rather than deferring difficult, value-based decisions to a future time with damaging long-term outcomes

Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V.

IASS KLASICA Workshop, Feb. 2016

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KLASICA seeks to identify sufficient conditions for collective behavior change toward sustainable futures: • in different spatial and temporal scales and cultural settings • spontaneous/emergent or intentional processes, • fast and slow change, • potential or actual unintended consequences • secondary or follow-on impacts “It’s not enough to adopt policies or negotiate agreements (e.g. the Paris Agreement) and hope for the best. What we need is CBC or shifts in actual social practices. So, the question then becomes a matter of directing attention to identifying the conditions that can generate or produce CBC in response to situations of the sort we now confront.” comment by Oran Young after the KLASICA Workshop

Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V.

KLASICA Workshop Outputs

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Produced a framework and portfolio that expanded and improved the original IHDP science plan (2011) and consisted of

• concepts • terminology • methods • examples of relevant case studies

Formed an excellent international group to support the further development of KLASICA and from which a scientific steering committee will be formed in Fall 2016

In process: a paper on workshop output for a major journal

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KLASICA Collective Behavior Change Workshop February 2016

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host: IASS, Potsdam

Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V.

Next: KLASICA Taipei Symposium

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November 21-24, 2016 at the NTU Global Change Research Center in collaboration with NTNU and IASS

Theme: “Collective Behavior Change For Sustainable Futures In Asian Island and Isolated Communities”

Facilitated by Ortwin Renn and Viola Gerlach (IASS)

Chairs: Jiun-Chuan Lin (NTU), Shin-Cheng Yeh (NTNU), and Ilan Chabay (IASS)

Goals: • new insights on CBC for transformation to sustainability • framework for implementation and empirical tests • links with Future Earth projects and KANs, especially TKAN • papers for a special issue of a journal or an edited book • identify funding opportunities for future KLASICA events