This book analyses the complex social and ecological processes of the Great Acceleration, the Great Transformation, and sustainable development that shape the future of the global society in the twenty-first century. The first process takes place for a longer time, the second over the past thirty years, with attempts to build a sustainable economy and society in the global policy of sustainable development. The processes and their interaction will be discussed with knowledge from inter- and transdisciplinary transformation research, social and political ecology, and theories of modern society. The guiding theoretical concepts for the social-ecological transformation will be clarified: the concepts of acceleration, transformation, and sustainable development, and the societal and ecological processes they include. To obtain a more detailed picture of the changes in the global social-ecological system, different parts of the global transformation, the digital transformation, the transformation of food systems, and the transformation of modes of living in the social lifeworld are described to show the complex changes in the epoch of the Anthropocene more concretely. The global change processes in society and nature are caused by human forces but are difficult to control through policy and governance. With the interdisciplinary integration of concepts and knowledge, it becomes possible to provide a more detailed picture, of the difficulties to achieve a sustainable future society.

This book provides a critical review of global environmental governance as part of the broader process of sustainably transforming modern society. The author argues for substantial modifications, outlining potential improvements in knowledge bridging processes, integration and synthesis that offer valuable information for environmental policy and governance. These improvements, he argues, should be achieved through the use of theoretical and empirical knowledge gleaned from global scenario analysis and interdisciplinary environmental research, and with the aid of new practices for knowledge sharing, cooperation and collective learning. The analysis presented in the book is based on recent developments in social ecology and the author’s interdisciplinary theory of society-nature interaction (Social-Ecological Transformation: Reconnecting Society and Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

This book analyses the complex social and ecological processes of the Great Acceleration, the Great Transformation, and sustainable development that shape the future of the global society in the twenty-first century. The first process takes place for a longer time, the second over the past thirty years, with attempts to build a sustainable economy and society in the global policy of sustainable development. The processes and their interaction will be discussed with knowledge from inter- and transdisciplinary transformation research, social and political ecology, and theories of modern society. The guiding theoretical concepts for the social-ecological transformation will be clarified: the concepts of acceleration, transformation, and sustainable development, and the societal and ecological processes they include. To obtain a more detailed picture of the changes in the global social-ecological system, different parts of the global transformation, the digital transformation, the transformation of food systems, and the transformation of modes of living in the social lifeworld are described to show the complex changes in the epoch of the Anthropocene more concretely. The global change processes in society and nature are caused by human forces but are difficult to control through policy and governance. With the interdisciplinary integration of concepts and knowledge, it becomes possible to provide a more detailed picture, of the difficulties to achieve a sustainable future society.

This book provides a critical review of global environmental governance as part of the broader process of sustainably transforming modern society. The author argues for substantial modifications, outlining potential improvements in knowledge bridging processes, integration and synthesis that offer valuable information for environmental policy and governance. These improvements, he argues, should be achieved through the use of theoretical and empirical knowledge gleaned from global scenario analysis and interdisciplinary environmental research, and with the aid of new practices for knowledge sharing, cooperation and collective learning. The analysis presented in the book is based on recent developments in social ecology and the author’s interdisciplinary theory of society-nature interaction (Social-Ecological Transformation: Reconnecting Society and Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).