Dataset Information

An actionable understanding of societal transitions: the X-curve framework.

ABSTRACT: Sustainability transition research seeks to understand the patterns and dynamics of structural societal change as well as unearth strategies for governance. However, existing frameworks emphasize innovation and build-up over exnovation and break-down. This limits their potential in making sense of the turbulent and chaotic dynamics of current transition-in-the-making. Addressing this gap, our paper elaborates on the development and use of the X-curve framework. The X-curve provides a simplified depiction of transitions that explicitly captures the patterns of build-up, breakdown, and their interactions. Using three cases, we illustrate the X-curve's main strength as a framework that can support groups of people to develop a shared understanding of the dynamics in transitions-in-the-making. This helps them reflect upon their roles, potential influence, and the needed capacities for desired transitions. We discuss some challenges in using the X-curve framework, such as participants' grasp of 'chaos', and provide suggestions on how to address these challenges and strengthen the frameworks' ability to support understanding and navigation of transition dynamics. We conclude by summarizing its main strength and invite the reader to use it, reflect on it, build on it, and judge its value for action research on sustainability transitions themselves.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-021-01084-w.

SUBMITTER: Hebinck A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8764493 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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An actionable understanding of societal transitions: the X-curve framework.

Hebinck Aniek A Diercks Gijs G von Wirth Timo T Beers P J PJ Barsties Lisa L Buchel Sophie S Greer Rachel R van Steenbergen Frank F Loorbach Derk D

Sustainability science 20220118 3

Sustainability transition research seeks to understand the patterns and dynamics of structural societal change as well as unearth strategies for governance. However, existing frameworks emphasize innovation and build-up over exnovation and break-down. This limits their potential in making sense of the turbulent and chaotic dynamics of current transition-in-the-making. Addressing this gap, our paper elaborates on the development and use of the X-curve framework. The X-curve provides a simplified ...[more]

PMID: 35069918

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Project description:Sustainability is typically viewed as consisting of three forces, economic, social, and ecological, in tension with one another. In this paper, we address the dangers posed to societal sustainability. The concern being addressed is the very survival of societies where the rights of individuals, personal and collective freedoms, an independent judiciary and media, and democracy, despite its messiness, are highly valued. We argue that, as a result of various technological innovations, a range of dysfunctional impacts are threatening social and political stability. For instance, robotics and automation are replacing human labor and decision-making in a range of industries; search engines, monetized through advertising, have access to, and track, our interests and preferences; social media, in connecting us to one another often know more about us than we ourselves do, enabling them to profit in ways which may not coincide with our well-being; online retailers have not only acquired the ability to track and predict our buying choices, but also they can squeeze vendors based on their outsize bargaining power; and, in general, virtual technologies have changed both the way we think and our sense of self. With the rising deployment of the Internet of Things, and developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence, the threats to individual freedoms and rights, societal cohesion and harmony, employment and economic well-being, and trust in democracy are being ratcheted up. This paper lauds the benefits and addresses the harm wrought by the high tech giants in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The search for rapidly growing revenues (and shareholder returns and stock prices) drives firms to accelerate product innovation without fully investigating the entire gamut of their impacts. As greater wealth accrues to the leaders of tech firms, inequalities within firms and societies are widening, creating social tensions and political ferment. We explore the ethical nature of the challenge employing a simple utilitarian calculus, complemented by approaches rooted in rights, justice, and the common good. Various options to address the challenges posed by ICTs are considered and evaluated. We argue that regulation may do little more than slow down the damage to society, particularly since societal values and political preferences vary internationally. Firms need to establish ethical standards, imbuing the upholders of these standards with sufficient authority, while creating a culture of morality. User involvement and activism, and shareholders' concerns for the sustainability of societies on whose continued prosperity they depend, are imperative to humanity's ability to decide the future direction of technology.

Project description:Abstract Omics-based technologies have enabled comprehensive characterization of our exposure to environmental chemicals (chemical exposome) as well as assessment of the corresponding biological responses at the molecular level (eg, metabolome, lipidome, proteome, and genome). By systematically measuring personal exposures and linking these stimuli to biological perturbations, researchers can determine specific chemical exposures of concern, identify mechanisms and biomarkers of toxicity, and design interventions to reduce exposures. However, further advancement of metabolomics and exposomics approaches is limited by a lack of standardization and approaches for assigning confidence to chemical annotations. While a wealth of chemical data is generated by gas chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry (GC-HRMS), incorporating GC-HRMS data into an annotation framework and communicating confidence in these assignments is challenging. It is essential to be able to compare chemical data for exposomics studies across platforms to build upon prior knowledge and advance the technology. Here, we discuss the major pieces of evidence provided by common GC-HRMS workflows, including retention time and retention index, electron ionization, positive chemical ionization, electron capture negative ionization, and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization spectral matching, molecular ion, accurate mass, isotopic patterns, database occurrence, and occurrence in blanks. We then provide a qualitative framework for incorporating these various lines of evidence for communicating confidence in GC-HRMS data by adapting the Schymanski scoring schema developed for reporting confidence levels by liquid chromatography HRMS (LC-HRMS). Validation of our framework is presented using standards spiked in plasma, and confident annotations in outdoor and indoor air samples, showing a false-positive rate of 12% for suspect screening for chemical identifications assigned as Level 2 (when structurally similar isomers are not considered false positives). This framework is easily adaptable to various workflows and provides a concise means to communicate confidence in annotations. Further validation, refinements, and adoption of this framework will ideally lead to harmonization across the field, helping to improve the quality and interpretability of compound annotations obtained in GC-HRMS.

Dataset Information

An actionable understanding of societal transitions: the X-curve framework.

Supplementary information

Publications

An actionable understanding of societal transitions: the X-curve framework.

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