Towards A Natural Social Contract Transformative Social Ecological Innovation For A Sustainable Healthy and Just Society 1st Edition Patrick Huntjens

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Patrick Huntjens
Towards a Natural
Social Contract
Transformative Social-Ecological
Innovation for a Sustainable,
Copyright © 2021. Springer International Publishing AG. All rights reserved.
Healthy and Just Society

Foreword by René Kemp
Huntjens, Patrick. Towards a Natural Social Contract : Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation for a Sustainable, Healthy and
Patrick Huntjens
Towards a Natural Social

Contract
Transformative Social-Ecological
Innovation for a Sustainable, Healthy
and Just Society
Foreword by René Kemp

Patrick Huntjens
Research and Innovation Centre Agri, Food
and Life Sciences (RIC-AFL)
Inholland University of Applied Sciences
Delft, The Netherlands
ISBN 978-3-030-67129-7 ISBN 978-3-030-67130-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67130-3
# The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021, corrected publication 2021. This book is an open
access publication.
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To Nicole, Talin, and Matteo.
Foreword by Prof. Dr. René Kemp
As a sustainability transition researcher, I am truly excited about this book. The book
shows how the social fault lines of our times are deeply intertwined: how the social
and natural world linkages raise existential concerns of security as well as justice,
which call for a new social contract and transformative social-ecological innovation.
Two unique aspects of the book are that it considers bigger transformation issues
(such as societies’ relationship with nature, purpose, and justice) than those studied
in transition studies and offers analytical frameworks and methods for taking up the
challenge of achieving change on the ground. This is achieved by drawing on
theories of structuration, power, governance, institutional design, and business
models. The cases of nature-inclusive and regenerative agriculture, climate resilient
and healthy cities, and feeding and greening megacities (in which the author is
involved) are interesting cases for transition research and action research. In taking
an actor-centric institutional perspective, the book addresses two mistakes: a too
structuralist point of view (common in political economy) and voluntarism (common
in actor-centric research of specific innovations). The author’s background in con-
flict resolution and cooperation is a great asset. It helps to consider the political in a
constructive way, through attention to justice, power, and governance.
The writing is exceptionally clear and lucid on a wide range of issues which
include complex systems, reflexive and deliberative governance, transformative
learning, effective cooperation, security and justice challenges, well-being, transfor-

mation literacy, and transdisciplinary research. On those issues, the writing never
gets obscure or plain. This is a remarkable achievement.
With the notions of transformative socio-ecological innovation and natural social
contract, the book makes an original contribution to the nature of transformative
change that is needed (which goes beyond socio-technical change) and possibilities
for bringing this on, through innovation, new partnerships, changes in governance,
and attention to multiple value creation that jointly (in combination) make up a
transition to a sustainable, healthy, and just society. If you liked the books The Great
Mindshift of Maja Göpel and Doughnut Economics of Kate Raworth, you will also
like this book. The same holds true if you liked the book Transitions to Sustainable
Development by John Grin, Jan Rotmans, and Johan Schot.
Anyone interested in transformative change will find the book interesting, but I
think the following readers will be particularly attracted by the book: researchers
vii
viii Foreword by Prof. Dr. René Kemp
interested in doing multi-, inter-, or transdisciplinary research on transformative

social-ecological innovation, reflective practitioners involved in transformative
change projects, and students from universities of applied sciences who have no
patience for mono-disciplinary academic research and who find the transition
frameworks unduly schematic. Students of political science, political philosophy,
and economics will like the discussion of transformative change (going beyond ideas
and institutions) and the discussion of ‘institutional design principles’ for governing
the commons and supporting processes of transformative socio-ecological
innovation. On the last issue, the author is able to stroll further than others (Paul
Mason, Paul Collier, and Mariana Mazzucato), thanks to his collaboration with
Elinor Ostrom and his multidisciplinary background (which includes complex
systems science, policy science, political science, biology, ecology, and environ-
mental management).
United Nations University (UNU-MERIT) René Kemp

Maastricht, Netherlands
Maastricht Sustainability Institute (MSI)
Maastricht University
Maastricht, The Netherlands
Acknowledgements
My research group ‘Social Innovation and Governance for Sustainability’ is funded

by the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, as part of the ‘Impact
Programme: Transition in the green sector’, a research programme including five
research groups at four universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands.
This book is a further development of my original publication (in Dutch: Sociale
Innovatie voor een Duurzame Samenleving: Op weg naar een Natuurlijk Social
Contract), which was published in 2019 on the occasion of my inaugural address and
inauguration as a Professor of Social Innovation and Governance for Sustainability,
which took place on 20 June 2019 in Rotterdam, Inholland University of Applied
Sciences, the Netherlands. I am grateful to Hasan Aloul (HALO Communications)
and Maxime de Jong for the design and layout of the figures and tables in this book,
as well as the editorial team of Springer International Publishing.
ix
Contents
Part I The Quest for a Natural Social Contract

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 Reader’s Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2 Sustainability Transition: Quest for a New Social Contract . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Paradox of Prosperity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Ecological Limits of Our Planet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3 Emerging Security and Justice Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.4 The Sustainability Transition: Humankind’s Quest
for a New Social Contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5 What’s Beyond the Sustainable Development Goals? . . . . . . . . . 24
3 Towards a Natural Social Contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.1 What Is a Social Contract? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2 Human Progress Without Economic Growth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.3 Redesigning Economics Based on Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.4 Debate on Role and Scope of the Free Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.5 Anglo-Saxon Model Versus Rhineland Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.6 Looking for a New Social Contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.7 A Natural Social Contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.8 Dimensions and Crossovers Within a Natural Social Contract . . . 49

3.9 TSEI-Framework for Understanding and Advancing the Process
Towards a Natural Social Contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.10 Development of a Natural Social Contract at Multiple
Governance Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Part II Theories and Concepts

4 Conceptual Background of Transformative Social-Ecological
Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.1 Definition of Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation
(TSEI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.2 Transition Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.3 Institutional Design Principles for Governing the Commons . . . . 90
xi
xii Contents
4.4 Design Principles from Nature: Benchmarks for a Natural Social

Contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.5 Complex (Adaptive) Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.6 Adaptive, Reflexive, and Deliberative Approaches
to Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
4.7 Social Learning, Policy Learning, and Transformational
Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
4.8 Shared Value, Multiple Value Creation, and Mutual Gains . . . . . 107
4.9 Effective Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.10 Transdisciplinary Approach, Living Labs, and Citizen Science . . . 111
4.11 The Art of Co-creation: Approaches, Principles, and Pitfalls . . . . 113
Part III A Research and Innovation Agenda

5 Analytical Instruments for Studying TSEI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.1 Analytical Framework for Transformative Social-Ecological
Innovation (TSEI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.2 Power and Network Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
5.3 Framework for Analysing Different Levels of Collective
Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
5.4 Collaborative Action Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6 Transition to a Sustainable and Healthy Agri-Food System . . . . . . . 139
6.1 Challenges and Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
6.2 NWA Programme ‘Transition to a Sustainable Food System’ . . . . 144
6.3 Nature-Inclusive and Regenerative Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
6.4 Closing the Gaps Between Citizens, Farmers, and Nature . . . . . . 149
6.5 Measuring Sustainability and Health Aspects of Our Food
Chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
6.6 South Holland Food Family: Transition Towards a Sustainable
and Self-Sufficient Food System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
7 Governance of Urban Sustainability Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

7.1 Urban Challenges and Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
7.2 Climate-Resilient and Healthy Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
7.3 Feeding and Greening Megacities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
7.4 From Linear to Circular and Regenerative Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
7.5 Collaboration for the City of the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Correction to: Conceptual Background of Transformative
Social-Ecological Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
About the Author
Patrick Huntjens PhD. is a Professor of ‘Social

Innovation and Governance for Sustainability’ at the
Research and Innovation Centre Agri, Food and Life
Sciences (RIC-AFL), Inholland University of Applied
Sciences, the Netherlands. In addition, he is Professor of
‘Governance of Sustainability Transitions’ at Maastricht
Sustainability Institute (MSI), The School of Business
and Economics (SBE), Maastricht University.
From 2017 to 2019, he was a Director of The Hague
Humanitarian Cooperative for Water (HHCW), from
2013 to 2017, Head of Water Diplomacy and Climate
Governance at the Hague Institute for Global Justice,
and from 2011 to 2013, he was a Director of the Water
Partner Foundation. At Wageningen University and
Research (WUR), he was a coordinator of the Centre
of Excellence—Governance of Climate Adaptation
from 2010 to 2012, after working as a Coordinator of
EU-Asia relations on Water Governance in the
EU-funded multi-stakeholder platform ASEM Waternet
(2006–2010). In the period 2000–2006, he worked as a

policy officer for the Netherlands Government and as an
international consultant for Royal HaskoningDHV.
With 23 years of professional experience and work-
ing in more than 40 countries, his work focuses on
environmental governance and diplomacy, societal
innovation, and sustainability transitions at multiple
levels (global to local). He is spearheading a Research
and Innovation Agenda with a core focus on the gover-
nance of sustainability transitions, with specific atten-
tion to issues of politics, power and justice in transitions,
and drawing on the wider field of governance,
innovation, and transition studies as well as other fields
xiii
xiv About the Author
like complexity theory and systems theory. Ongoing

research and educational activities include (1) transition
to a sustainable and healthy agri-food system, (2) gover-
nance of urban sustainability transitions, and (3) transi-
tion to circular and regenerative economies and cultures.
Patrick has a multidisciplinary background, includ-
ing a Ph.D. (Magna Cum Laude) in Complex System
Sciences and Policy Sciences, an MSc degree (Cum
Laude) in Political Science and International Relations,
and an MSc degree in Ecology and Environmental
Management. His Ph.D. dissertation was endorsed by
Prof. Dr. Elinor Ostrom, the first woman in history
receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics.
He solidifies his expertise with activities on the
ground, mainly as international team leader, consultant,
action researcher, process manager, and mediator. For
example, from 2014 to 2015, he was a lead mediator
(Track II) in the Israeli–Palestinian water conflict,
assigned by the Geneva Initiative and the Netherlands
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Other clients include the
World Bank, United Nations, European Commission,
various governments, and NGOs.
Part I
The Quest for a Natural Social Contract
Introduction
1
The world moves fast. Earth’s exploding global population has exasperated eco-
nomic development, accompanied by wealth inequality, water and food insecurity,
climate change, increased pollution, resource depletion, and loss of biodiversity as
human encroachment on natural ecosystems continues. These events have all led to
unparalleled economic, social, and environmental challenges with the COVID-19
pandemic as the latest deadly example. And although the pace of change may feed
fear—creating a sense of powerlessness and insecurity about our shared future—
these developments do not need to cause despair.
Based on scientific insights, public debate, democracy, and collective action,
humankind is the only species on Earth that can deliberately change its behaviour.
Our societies have enormous potential for adaptability, technological and societal
innovation, and social justice. However, enacting fundamental changes will require
shifting our thinking from anthropocentric social contracts and mainstream eco-
nomic growth models to an ecocentric and regenerative social contract and more
inclusive and deliberative approaches founded on good governance principles. This
book explores these opportunities to improve the way humans live and interact with
our social and natural environments.

The core philosophy of a social contract, as articulated by Aristotle, Hobbes,
Rousseau, Locke, Kant, Rawls, and other political philosophers, emphasizes an
implicit arrangement between citizenry, their respective societies, and legitimate
government to create a healthier and safer society together. Social Contract theory
states that legitimate, collective governance arrangements should be informed by the
consent of the people (Weale 2004), and this theory, therefore, informs our modern
concepts of democracy. The question remains, however, if current social contracts
can adequately respond to the challenges of the twenty-first century. This question is
more urgent when considering the current social contract focused on individualism,
materialism, short-terminism, and the free market. This mindset on economic growth
pays little attention to social and ecological values, as we have witnessed in the past
decades. The fact that ecological vulnerability translates into social and economic
vulnerability, and a complex set of security and justice challenges (Sect. 2.3), is an
# The Author(s) 2021 3

P. Huntjens, Towards a Natural Social Contract,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67130-3_1
4 1 Introduction
important omission in Social Contract theory. As Albert Einstein said: 'we cannot
solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them'. Looking
ahead, our societies will need to rethink how we inhabit and cultivate our planet and
keep it healthy for future generations. Making these changes involve profound, long-
term, and systemic changes in society’s common practices, policies, and
philosophies that will rely on new knowledge and skills.
The nature of the social, environmental, and economic problems we face today
requires a new social contract, a Natural Social Contract. A Natural Social Contract
does justice to a human being’s natural state (human life is group life) and to the
natural position of humankind and society within a larger ecosystem, that of planet
Earth. The Natural Social Contract regards society as a social-ecological system,
focusing on people as members of a community and as part of a natural ecosystem. It
emphasizes long-term sustainability and general welfare by combining human and
nature, and recalibrating our unfettered approach to unlimited economic growth,
overconsumption, and over-individualization. The end result, I argue, is for the
benefit of ourselves, our planet, and future generations.
‘Towards a Natural Social Contract’ poses several thought-provoking questions
about human nature, our relation to social and natural environments, and how we
humans have shaped and organized our societies.
How would Mother Nature judge humankind? Would she be proud or concerned?
Would she agree with Friedrich Nietzsche saying, ‘Our planet is sick, and the disease
is called Man’? Or would she view us as children or adolescents who seek thrills and
take risks? They have to, she might say, because they learn from it. But perhaps
Mother Earth thinks it’s time for us to mature, clean up our mess, and take
responsibility.
This brings me to a fundamental question of Political Philosophy. Is current
society a reflection of true human nature, or did we somehow along the way lose
sight of our true nature? Is current society really the best we can think of? In this
book I argue that the divide between humans and nature that arose during the
Enlightenment, and the capitalist economic logic and related economic structures
that were put in place after the Second World War, have blurred or ignored several
important core values. These include social and environmental stewardship, plane-
tary health, environmental security and justice, intergenerational justice and equity,
and the Rights of Nature. Hence, do we prefer to consider ourselves a ‘Homo
Economicus’, namely a species that places more value on individualism, self-
interest, material wealth, privatization, short-term gains, and a free-market economy
focused on profit and economic growth that erodes social and ecological values? Or
do we prefer to consider ourselves as a ‘Homo Ecologicus’? A species that puts more
value on unity, solidarity and connectivity, sustainable co-management of the
Commons, social and environmental stewardship, human security, planetary health,
environmental protection, and achieving justice, human rights, and the Rights of
Nature?
I argue for an approach that draws out the best in people and our societies. An
approach that facilitates a transition from ego-awareness to eco-awareness and
considers humans as a ‘Homo Ecologicus’ rather than ‘Homo Economicus’. This
1 Introduction 5
approach will help us restore our balance with our own nature and with planet Earth.
An approach where Nature serves as our guide, teacher, companion, and inspiration,
and not as our enemy or obstacle to be dominated or controlled by humans to serve
the exclusive needs of humanity.
A Natural Social Contract as proposed in this book (Sects. 3.7 and 3.8) is an open
and broad theoretical framework across multiple dimensions (i.e. social, ecological,
economic, and institutional), which serves to start a dialogue about ways to improve
the current social contract, targeting a more sustainable, regenerative, healthy and
just society. It can help policymakers, administrators, and decision makers,
concerned citizens and professionals to make better decisions about how to organize
our twenty-first-century society.
This book explains how Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (TSEI)
plays a central role in the sustainability transition and humankind’s search for a
Natural Social Contract. Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation is defined as
‘systemic changes in established patterns of action and in structure, including formal
and informal institutions and economies, that contribute to sustainability, health and
justice in all social-ecological systems’ (definition by author). Creating a sustainable
and healthy future for societies will require institutional change as well as multiple
parties, multiple sectors, and multiple levels of government to act and collaborate
effectively. TSEI is based on processes of collective learning and co-creation in
which different but interdependent parties learn to develop new knowledge and
solutions in a transdisciplinary approach.
From an economic perspective, the most fundamental systemic change required
for realizing a Natural Social Contract is a transition from our current linear economic
system (i.e. produce, use and dispose) towards circular and regenerative economies
and cultures. The promise of a circular and regenerative economy is to organise
sustainability, circularity and social justice at different scales, preferably as an
integrated economic and social endeavour, which involves technological, social,
organisational and institutional innovation. In practice, this will require a radical
change from linear to circular business models characterized by collective and
shared value creation. Innovative and hybrid forms of financing, such as revolving
energy and sustainability funds, will also be a part of this development. Likewise, the
joint management of commons (instead of private ownership) and a sharing econ-
omy improving access to goods and services would offer important systemic
changes toward a Natural Social Contract and in turn boost efficiency, sustainability,
and community values.
In Part 2 of this book, I introduce and define the concept of Transformative
Social-Ecological Innovation (TSEI) (Sect. 4.1) and apply its use in the complex
multi-actor and multi-level context of the sustainability transition. Based on a
literature review, I have highlighted key theories and concepts that add substance
to the workings of TSEI. This includes transition studies (Sect. 4.2), institutional
change and the structure-agency debate (Sect. 3.9), resilience theory and social-
ecological systems (Sect. 3.8), institutional design principles for governing the
commons (Sect. 4.3), design principles from nature (Sect. 4.4), complex adaptive
systems (Sect. 4.5), adaptive, reflexive, and deliberative approaches to governance,
6 1 Introduction
management, and planning (Sect. 4.6), social learning, policy learning, and transfor-
mational learning (Sect. 4.7), shared value, multiple value creation, and mutual gains
approach (Sect. 4.8), effective cooperation (Sect. 4.9), quintuple helix innovation
model (Sect. 3.9), transdisciplinary cooperation, living labs, and citizen science
(Sect. 4.10), and finally, a section on the art of co-creation: approaches, principles,
and pitfalls (Sect. 4.11).
Drawing on the insights from this literature, I argue that studying Transformative
Social-Ecological Innovation should involve both structure and agency, in particular
a focus at decisive moments where both structure and agency intersect (i.e. in action
situations). This also includes outputs, outcomes, and impacts. I identify a critical
need to focus on the fundamentally political character of TSEI and the need for
multiple value creation for parties to identify shared values, mutual gains, and
common interest.
These findings from literature have been brought together in a conceptual frame-
work (Sect. 3.9) and an analytical framework (Sect. 5.1) for Transformative Social-
Ecological Innovation (TSEI). The TSEI-framework is proposed as an open frame-
work. In that sense, TSEI accounts for additional predictors and moderators if they
have a documented effect. The framework can also be used for institutional and
political-economic analyses, with a special focus on the power dynamics at play
(Sect. 5.2). Power dynamics can be studied by looking at series or clusters of closely
related action situations in which the initiation, format, content, and output of each
action situation are analysed. To further support the practical applicability of the
TSEI-framework, an analytical framework for different levels of collective learning
has been operationalized (Sect. 5.3).
In Part 3, I present a Research and Innovation Agenda with various analytical
instruments (Chap. 5) and an overview of relevant and ongoing research and
educational activities, including Transition to a sustainable and healthy agri-food
system (Chap. 6), and Governance of urban sustainability transitions (Chap. 7).
The Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (TSEI) framework offers new
ideas for unpacking and understanding institutional change across sectors and
disciplines and at different levels of governance. To this end, it identifies interven-

tion and leverage points and helps to formulate sustainable solutions that can include
different perspectives, as well as changing and competing needs. Overall, a new
Natural Social Contract and the concept of TSEI encourage public officials, business
leaders, and the greater public to consider how society can concretely improve
humankind’s response to our greatest challenges.
If you are concerned about our society and our planet, and keeping both healthy
for future generations, then this book is written for you. And if you have an interest
in the systemic changes required to fundamentally shift our social, economic,
ecological, and institutional perspectives, this book is for you too. Together, we
can promote a sustainable, healthy, and just society and achieve change on the
ground. This book offers a way forward.
1.1 Reader’s Guide 7
1.1 Reader’s Guide
This book is intended for academics and broader audiences alike. Policymakers,
civic leaders, entrepreneurs, and the public will find practical insights and
philosophies along with more in-depth theoretical discussions summarized in
outline.
The book will also appeal most to individuals engaged in multi-, inter-, and
transdisciplinary research on Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation, and
reflective practitioners involved in transformative change projects. A wide reader-
ship of students, researchers, and policymakers interested in social innovation,
transition studies, social policy, development studies, social justice, climate change,
environmental studies, political science, and economics will find this cutting-edge
book particularly useful.
In Chap. 2, I provide a problem definition and the related field of development. I
will start with an introduction to the paradox of prosperity (Sect. 2.1), the ecological
limits of our planet (Sect. 2.2), and how this relates to a broad range of security and
justice issues (Sect. 2.3). Following this, the chapter addresses the necessity and
nature of the sustainability transition (Sect. 2.4). Chapter 2 concludes with a plea to
be more explicit on the future beyond the sustainability transition (Sect. 2.5).
In Chap. 3, I explain how the sustainability transition offers humankind an
opportunity for a new social contract: a ‘natural’ social contract. Following a brief
introduction on the origins of the social contract (Sect. 3.1), I address the question of
whether there can be human progress without economic growth, and explore
redesigning economics based on ecology. This chapter includes a debate on the
role and scope of the free market (Sect. 3.4), as well as an examination of how the
Anglo-Saxon and Rhineland models fare in this debate (Sect. 3.5). Chapter 3 will
also describe why we need a new social contract and what it should entail (Sect. 3.6).
In doing so, I will embark on a quest for a Natural Social Contract (Sect. 3.7), and I
will describe its theoretical foundations with multiple dimensions and crossovers
(Sect. 3.8). In order to gain a better understanding of a Natural Social Contract and
boost the development of such an arrangement, this chapter presents a conceptual

framework for Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (TSEI) (Sect. 3.9), and
how this may transpire at various governance levels (Sect. 3.10).
Part 2 of the book provides a brief literature review on the conceptual background
of Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (Chap. 4). This includes a survey of
key theories and concepts such as transition studies, institutional design principles
for governing the commons, design principles from nature, various approaches to
collective learning, multiple value creation, effective cooperation, and a section on
the art of co-creation among others.
Part 3 offers a research and innovation agenda for a better understanding and
advancement of Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation towards a sustainable,
healthy, and just society. Chapter 5 highlights several analytical instruments for
studying Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation, including an analytical
framework for Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (Sect. 5.1), a power
and network analysis (Sect. 5.2), a framework for analysing different levels of
8 1 Introduction
collective learning (Sect. 5.3), and a section on collaborative action research (Sect.
5.4).
Chapters 6 and 7 will underscore relevant and ongoing research and educational
activities, including the transition to a sustainable and healthy agri-food system
(Chap. 6) and urban sustainability transitions (Chap. 7).
Finally, Chap. 8 wraps up the book with a conclusion, followed by a
bibliography.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and
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statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from
the copyright holder.
Sustainability Transition: Quest for a New
Social Contract 2
This chapter will provide an overview of the necessity and nature of the
sustainability transition, starting with the paradox of prosperity (Sect. 2.1), the
ecological boundaries of our planet (Sect. 2.2) and how this relates to a broad
range of security and justice issues (Sect. 2.3). Following this, the chapter provides
a brief description of the nature of the sustainability transition (Sect. 2.4), and
concludes with an argumentation to be more explicit on what comes after the Sus-
tainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN 2030 Agenda (Sect. 2.5).
2•1 Paradox of Prosperity
Economies around the world are usually designed for one purpose: economic
growth. In recent decades, the free market has flourished, and though it has brought
tremendous economic prosperity to society in the process, it also has major
downsides. The positive prospects for globalization and economic growth that
spurred people on in the 1990s have made way for uncertainty, an actual crisis
(the 2008 global credit crisis), and fears about the future. Already in 2006 the Stern
Review on the Economics of Climate Change concluded that: ‘Our actions over the
coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social
activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated
with the great wars and economic depression of the first half of the twentieth century’
(Stern Review 2006, page xv).
Never before has humankind been confronted with the negative consequences of
its own actions on such a large scale. Growing wealth inequality, depletion of natural
resources, pollution of water, land, and air, climate change, loss of biodiversity,
malnutrition, and (often within one country) diseases of affluence such as obesity
and diabetes type II, financial crises (in 2008 and 2020), epidemics and pandemics
(including Avian Flu, SARS, MERS, Corona-virus), trade wars (e.g. between the
USA and China), and migration challenges (e.g. Syria, and climate change-related
refugees in many parts of the world) are but some of the issues we face today. We are

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67130-3_2
10 2 Sustainability Transition: Quest for a New Social Contract
now discovering that the ecological vulnerability translates into social and economic
vulnerability. These problems feed fear, powerlessness, and uncertainty about
developments that individuals do not seem to be able to control. Accordingly, the
downside of prosperity has major consequences for society and the planet. This is
also known as the paradox of prosperity. I will follow-up on the economic debate
behind this paradox in Chap. 3.
By way of illustration, recent research has shown the increase in economic capital
in the Netherlands has been out of step with the country’s ‘broad prosperity’ since
the 1970s (Lintsen et al. 2018). Broad prosperity includes the economic, ecological,
and social aspects of prosperity, such as education, health, good governance, social
equality, the quality of the environment, and natural capital. The Broad Prosperity
Monitor (CBS 2020) paints a troubling picture of the trend of broad prosperity in the
Netherlands (see Fig. 2.1), with indicators related to natural capital steadily declin-
ing or not improving. Also trends in human and social capital are out of step with the
increase in economic capital. The report shows that using economic growth as a
compass for government policy could, in the long run, have disastrous consequences
(Lintsen et al. 2018).
The Broad Prosperity Monitor also looks at broad prosperity elsewhere, i.e. the
effects that Dutch society has on the rest of the world. Again, the results are
worrying. The trends in this area show that the Netherlands has started using more
and more fossil fuels and biomass originating from the rest of the world, the least
developed countries in particular (CBS 2018, 2020). In many African countries in
particular, this trade in natural resources leads to problems that can reduce broad
prosperity in those countries, and often mainly benefit a small elite; a phenomenon
called the 'resource curse' in literature (ibid).
2•2 Ecological Limits of Our Planet
The necessity of a Natural Social Contract underlying a sustainable society becomes

clear when we look at the ecological boundaries of our planet.

The planet’s ability to sustain humankind is put under increasing pressure,
primarily due to the growing world population, economic growth, large-scale pollu-
tion, depletion of natural resources, and climate change. In order to keep our planet
healthy for future generations, we will have to accurately map out and respect our
planet’s boundaries. This is by no means an easy task. Johan Rockström et al. (2009)
have mapped nine of our planet’s boundaries: climate change, loss of biodiversity,
excess nitrogen and phosphorus production, stratospheric ozone deposition, ocean
acidification, global freshwater consumption, changes in land use caused by agricul-
ture, air pollution, and chemical pollution.
While three of those boundaries had already been exceeded in 2009, a follow-up
study published in Science in 2015 claimed that 4 of the 9 planetary boundaries have
already been exceeded as a result of human activity, namely climate change, loss of
biosphere integrity (in 2009 called: loss of biodiversity), changes in land use caused
2.2 Ecological Limits of Our Planet 11
Fig• 2•1 Broad Well-being Trends (Central Bureau of Statistics 2020)
Fig• 2•2 Boundaries for nine planetary systems (Steffen et al. 2015). The wedges represent an
estimate of the current status of each variable
by agriculture, and excess nitrogen and phosphorus production (Steffen et al. 2015).
See Fig. 2.2.
Humankind has triggered a biodiversity crisis that is no less severe than the
climate crisis. A report of the UN biodiversity panel (IPBES 2019) shows that
without rapid, far-reaching measures, hundreds of thousands of plant and animal
2.2 Ecological Limits of Our Planet 13
species will become extinct and vital ecosystems will decline. ‘The liveability of our
planet is at risk’, so concludes the UN report on biodiversity (IPBES 2019). Loss of
biodiversity is at least as great a threat to humankind as global warming, but the UN
is concerned that the urgency of halting declining biodiversity and ecosystems is
much less keenly felt. This, however, is at our own peril, the UN report concludes,
because the decline is a direct consequence of our consumption patterns and nature
and biodiversity are essential for food production, our water supply, medicine
supply, and general public safety and social cohesion (ibid.).
The 1800-page UN report paints a gloomy picture of the many ways in which
humankind is plundering nature and undermining its ecosystem services (the
benefits that living nature confers on humankind). More than 75% of all land, 40%
of the oceans, and 50% of our rivers have been degraded due to deforestation for
agricultural and livestock farming purposes, by mining, urbanization, infrastructure,
and fishing. Only 13% of all land and 23% of the oceans are still more or less
untouched. More than 20% of all agricultural land is degraded (IPBES 2019).
Ecosystem pollution also takes its toll. For example, more than 80% of the
world’s wastewater is not treated. In addition, an estimated 300 to 400 million
tonnes of heavy metals and other toxic substances are dumped into the environment,
as a result of which 40% of the world’s population does not have access to clean
drinking water, to name but one consequence. Millions of tonnes of plastic disappear
into the oceans every year (ibid.).
Nature and biodiversity are essential in our fight against climate change. Forests
and oceans absorb half of our carbon emissions. Over the past 5 years, however,
deforestation has wiped out rainforest equivalent to five times the size of England for
agriculture in order to meet the world’s needs for beef, soybeans, palm oil, and
biofuels (ibid.).
‘Climate change has been called the single biggest challenge for humanity over
the coming centuries (UNSG 2014, 2018; McKibben 2019). Given the scale of the
problem, its impacts on human life, and the level of coordinated action required to
address it, this statement seems more than justified. After the Intergovernmental
Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) published its first assessment report in 1990 it was
accused of dramatizing the anthropogenic causes as well as the potential effects of
global warming; now we know that the researchers had in fact underestimated both
causes and effects. Although uncertainty and unpredictability remain, the scientific
basis of climate change is now well established. It suggests that change is happening
more quickly than previously estimated and can no longer be framed as a distant
threat (Stern 2013). The past three decades have likely been the warmest 30 years of
the last 1400 years (IPCC 2013). The atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases
(GHG) has increased to a level unprecedented in the last 800,000 years, and their
“mean rates of increase” over the past century “are, with very high confidence,
unprecedented in the last 22,000 years” (idem). Changing precipitation patterns,
melting ice caps, rising sea levels, acidification of oceans, and heightened climatic
variability are only some of the predictable consequences of a climate destabilized
by warming atmosphere and oceans’ (cf. Huntjens and Nachbar 2015; Huntjens et al.
2018).
In October 2018, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC) published a landmark report that concluded that governments must take
urgent, unprecedented, and far-reaching action by 2030 in order to limit global
warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, the target set in the
Paris climate agreement of a maximum of 1.5 degrees of warming will almost
certainly not be achieved, such is the painful conclusion of the UN climate panel
(IPCC 2018).
Recent information from the World Meteorological Organization, the World
Bank, and the International Energy Agency shows the relentless pace of climate
change (WMO 2019).
With global warming, we are now seeing deadly heat waves and massive
wildfires in some parts of the world, while the largest physical structures on our
planet, such as coral reefs, ice caps, and rainforests, disappear before our eyes
(McKibben 2019). António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, said, ‘I
am beginning to wonder how many more alarm bells must go off before the world
rises to the challenge’ (UNSG 2018).
The UN climate panel notes that global warming is currently more likely to reach
3 degrees than 2, let alone the targeted 1.5 degrees. This is because the 195 countries
that signed the Paris Climate Agreement have not yet devoted enough effort to
reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. As of 2018, global carbon emissions
amount to some 42 billion tonnes. If we keep going at the current rate, we will
have reached 1.5 degrees of warming in about 15 years from now (IPCC 2018).
Based on the above, we can undoubtedly state that humankind has wreaked havoc
on the planet. ‘Our planet is ill, and the disease is called man’. This is the diagnosis
made by Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the brightest philosophers in European history,
some 150 years ago. As a species, humans can be compared to a parasitic infectious
disease that kills its own host, i.e. our planet. This image stands in stark contrast to
the common belief that humankind is the highest, most developed species in nature.
The great existential question of our time is whether humankind can shift from being
a parasitoid to a symbiotic species that can live sustainably with its host, i.e. planet
earth, on time. The answer to that question is an emphatic YES, provided that people
as individuals, groups, and societies, from global to local, are willing to immediately
and effectively make work of the sustainability transition.
There is every reason to unite our efforts and work on this issue together.
Humankind is the only species on this earth that—based on scientific insights, public
debate, and collective action—can deliberately steer its behaviour. This means
society has enormous potential for technological and societal innovation and
adaptability.
2•3 Emerging Security and Justice Challenges
Security and justice mean different things to different groups and individuals and the
potential implications of climate change, resource depletion, and environmental
degradation for security and justice are varied and complex (Huntjens et al. 2018).
2.3 Emerging Security and Justice Challenges 15
Both the security and justice implications of climatic change and environmental
degradation have been subject to an increasingly broad debate in the scientific as
well as the policy community. Despite this increase in attention, the ways in which
the effects of the ecological crisis will impact security and justice at various levels
are still far from clear (ibid.).
‘Human security as a concept aims to capture the broad range of factors that
determine people’s livelihoods and their ability to exercise their human rights and
fulfil their potential. The UNDP’s 1994 Human Development Report definition
argues that the scope of global security should be expanded to include threats in
seven areas: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and
political security (UNDP 2011). For instance, climate change is understood as a
threat to human security in that it disrupts individuals’ and communities’ capacity to
adapt to changing conditions, usually by multiplying existing or creating new strains
on human livelihoods (Brauch and Scheffran 2012; Barnett and Adger 2007). The
various effects of global warming, resource depletion, and environmental degrada-
tion are already being felt as real consequences for real people and communities
around the world. Because it changes ecosystems that form the basis not just for
plant and animal but human life, climate change is a development that goes to the
very heart of human coexistence and confronts us with challenges concerning the
security as well as justice of our societies’ (cf. Huntjens and Nachbar 2015; Huntjens
et al. 2018).
The human security approach emphasizes ‘the interconnectedness of both
insecurities and responses. Insecurities are interlinked in a domino effect in the
sense that each insecurity feeds on the other. If not managed proactively, these can
spread to other regions or countries. For example, climate change may induce
drought, giving rise to food insecurity with impacts on health, while competition
over scarce resources threatens community cohesion, and personal and political
security’ (cf. United Nations 2016). Besides human security, other security
dimensions such as planetary security, as well as national security and international
security (the security of states) need to be taken into account. An overview of
security challenges is provided in Table 2.1.

‘A broad range of human rights is affected by climate change and environmental
degradation, including the rights to life, freedom of movement, housing, water, food,
health or professional development. Consequently, they ought to be dealt with in
national and international human rights bodies, such as the European Court of
Human Rights, the European Parliament subcommittee on human rights, the Council
of Ministries at the Council of Europe and during UN Human Rights Council
Sessions. A human rights-centred approach shifts the focus from purely economic
and scientific considerations and consequences towards human rights violations
caused or exacerbated by climate change or environmental degradation. This
approach enhances democratization through active citizen participation and the
claim for transparency and accountability. Thus, a positive side-effect of such
responses to climate change is the creation of new ways of governance seeking
justice based on good governance principles’ (cf. Huntjens et al. 2018).
Table 2•1 Security challenges (non-exhaustive) related to the various effects of global warming,
resource depletion, and environmental degradation
Security challenge Brief explanation
Planetary security Four planetary boundaries have already been exceeded as a result
of human activity, namely climate change, loss of biodiversity,
changes in land use caused by agriculture and excess nitrogen
and phosphorus production (Steffen et al. 2015).
Food security Over the coming decades, a changing climate, growing global
population, rising food prices, and environmental stressors will
have significant yet uncertain impacts on food security.
Currently, about 2 billion people in the world experience
moderate or severe food insecurity (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP,
and WHO, 2019). The lack of regular access to nutritious and
sufficient food that these people experience puts them at greater
risk of malnutrition and poor health. Although primarily
concentrated in low- and middle-income countries, moderate or
severe food insecurity also affects 8 percent of the population in
Northern America and Europe (ibid.).
Water security ‘There are many factors affecting water security, including a
growing population, agricultural irrigation, rising domestic
demand due to rising standard of living, increasing industrial
demand, escalating energy consumption, mining, climate
change, urbanization, deforestation, and migration of people’
(cf. Singh 2017). Water Security is defined by UN-Water (2013)
as ‘The capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access
to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water for sustaining
livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic
development, for ensuring protection against water-borne
pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving
ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability’. For more
on water security see Pahl-Wostl et al. (2016)
Energy security Climate change tends to negatively affect the power sector, inter
alia, by causing cooling problems in power plants and impairing
the water supply required for hydropower generation (Van Vliet
et al. 2013; Rübbelke and Vögele 2013).
Economic security According to the Global Risk Report (World Economic Forum
2020) the top five of risks to global economy (in terms of
likelihood) are: (1) Extreme weather, (2) Climate action failure,
(3) Natural disasters, (4) Biodiversity loss, and (5) Human-made
environmental disasters. From a business perspective, climate
change poses wide-ranging threats to business operations, such
as reduction/disruption in production capacity and supply chains,
increased operational costs, or inability to do business, with the
latter usually resulting in loss of jobs.
Environmental security ‘Environmental security is the proactive minimization of
anthropogenic threats to the functional integrity of the biosphere
and thus to its interdependent human component’ (cf. Barnett
1997). There multiple threats to environmental security, such as
resource scarcity (diminishing supplies of inputs into human
systems) and pollution (the contamination of inputs into human
systems), occurring at multiple scales (from global to local).
(Barnett 2009). ‘The condition of environmental security is one
(continued)
2.3 Emerging Security and Justice Challenges 17
Table 2•1 (continued)

Security challenge Brief explanation
in which social systems interact with ecological systems in
sustainable ways, all individuals have fair and reasonable access
to environmental goods, and mechanisms exist to address
environmental crises and conflicts’ (cf. Glenn et al. 1998).
Health security Environmental degradation can have a significant impact on
human health. ‘Air pollution and exposure to hazardous
chemicals are important causes of the environment-related
burden of disease in OECD countries’ (cf. OECD 2011). ‘The
transport and energy sectors are major contributors to air
pollution, while important sources of chemical pollution are
agriculture, industry, and waste disposal and incineration’
(cf. ibid.). Furthermore, health security is threatened by
environmental stressors such as malnutrition and insufficient
access to health services, clean water, and other basic necessities.
Community, personal and ‘Competition over scarce resources threatens community
political security cohesion, and personal and political security (United Nations
2016). The effects of climate change, particularly climate change
related environmental impacts and associated resource scarcity,
and following migration of people once coupled with other
structural and socio-political factors can contribute to exacerbate
existing conflicting relations between parties in destination area’
(cf. Islam and Nur 2019).
In addition, ‘rapid onset events (such as storms, floods, and bush
fires) and slow onset events (such as droughts, water scarcity, sea
level rise, desertification, and coastal erosion) place stress on
those who are already vulnerable, such as indigenous peoples,
women, and children. These groups may be more dependent on
natural resources and a healthy ecosystem for their survival and,
in addition, may have less access to coping mechanisms
(e.g. mobility, land ownership, and emergency funds) in their
place of residence. As a result, they become refugees, migrants,
or Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as an adaptation strategy’
(cf. Huntjens et al. 2018). Since 2008, an average of nearly
twenty-seven million people have been displaced annually by

natural hazard-related disasters. This is the equivalent to one
person being displaced every second (IDMC 2015). The effects
of climate change are expected to intensify such disasters and
accelerate displacement rates in upcoming decades (ibid.).
National and international Climate change is a threat to national and international security
security (the security of states) in two ways. Firstly, climate change
contributes to higher instability in some of the world’s most
volatile regions. Secondly, climate change can contribute to
tensions in stable regions (CNA Military Advisory Board 2007;
Huntjens et al. 2018). Most strategic documents that have
established a link between climate change and state security have
also emphasized the need for disaster preparedness and measures
aimed at building resilience in countries at risk of climate-
induced conflict (Brzoska 2012)
‘A range of immediate and effective mechanisms is needed to safeguard the rights

of future generations and protect them from the potential negative implications and
harm caused by climate change and environmental degradation. Polly Higgins and
colleagues argue that the rights of nature itself must be protected against ecocide
(Higgins 2010; Gauger et al. 2012; Higgins et al. 2013; Lay et al. 2015), and propose
to criminalize human activities that cause extensive damage to ecosystems. One
proposed step forward could be the legal acknowledgement of the crime of ecocide
as the fifth Crime Against Peace, the other four being genocide, crimes against
humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression as set out in the Rome Statute of
the International Criminal Court. The United Nations has discussed the crime of
ecocide for decades (see Gauger et al. 2012), although the chances of succeeding in
modifying the Rome Statue are small, particularly as countries with large fossil fuel
interests or with large fossil fuel related multinationals are likely to vote against,
afraid of being held accountable and combined with a complex set of legal
complications’ (cf. Huntjens and Zhang 2016).
In contrast to international law, a more effective approach, so far, is illustrated ‘by
a variety of lawsuits on climate change and environmental degradation in national
jurisdictions, while several states have started to recognize the rights of nature,
ecosystems, and animals and there has been an increasing recognition of the
intersection between human rights and environmental degradation’ (cf. Huntjens
et al. 2018). Significantly, several court judgements afford protection to ecosystems
and animals (ibid.), while several countries have recognized Rights of Nature in their
legal frameworks and/or jurisprudence, e.g. in Uganda, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico,
Colombia, India, Bangladesh, New Zealand, and communities in the USA.
More recently, lawsuits to force countries towards an effective climate policy are
increasingly being considered as an important avenue for breaking through political
indifference and deadlock (ibid.). The verdict in the court case on climate justice in
the Netherlands is the first of its kind worldwide. When filing the court case, civil
society organization Urgenda argued that the government is doing too little and
should be held accountable for not taking appropriate action to safeguard a healthy
environment for future generations. In particular, Urgenda claimed that the

Netherlands must reduce greenhouse gases drastically by 2020, and much more
than agreed to within the EU. In its defence the State of the Netherlands made an
appeal to EU policies and international agreements. In addition, the State relied on
the separation of powers: it claimed that political decisions on climate policy should
not be taken in court, but by the government and parliament. The judge argued that
independent courts sometimes need to decide on the conduct of politics, but it must
be done with reticence. Since mitigation of climate change actually requires a
reduction of 25 to 40 percent of GHG in 2020, with explicit reference to scientific
consensus on this topic, the judge found 25 percent a modest and thus reticent
requirement, when compared to the upper target of 40 percent. As a result, the State
of the Netherlands was legally forced to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with at
least 25% by 2020, much more than its own government plans, which was about
17% by the time of filing the court case. Never before has a court sentenced a
national government to a more effective climate policy.
2.4 The Sustainability Transition: Humankind’s Quest for a New Social Contract 19
While it is important to recognize the progress made by national jurisdictions in

addressing crimes to the environment, a void within international law remains and
affects the ability of domestic jurisdictions to respond to grave problems of climate
change. For instance, ‘the Arctic is still protected by soft law instruments only, and
the legal regime protecting the environment against reckless exploitation remains
inadequate’ (cf. Lay et al. 2015).
2•4 The Sustainability Transition: Humankind’s Quest

for a New Social Contract
The five decades from 2000 to 2050 will go down in history as the sustainability
transition. The sustainability transition constitutes a search for a new social contract,
in this book coined as a Natural Social Contract (see Chap. 3). The core philosophy
behind a social contract is that the members of a society enter into an implicit
contract with the goal of living a better, safe life together (Kalshoven and Zonderland
2017). Such a contract includes agreements about public goods and services, for
instance, as well as taxes, detailing how everyone contributes to and benefits from
society. The purpose of the social contract is serving the common or greater good to
ensure the sustainability of the society in question and protect the individuals within
it. In other words, the social contract is expected to provide security and justice for
all (see Sect. 3.1 for more details).
The global and systematic nature of the environmental problems we face today
necessitates fundamental changes in key societal, economic, and legal systems.
Making these changes, however, will require much more than step-by-step effi-
ciency improvements. Rather, we will have to realize profound, long-term changes
in dominant practices, policies, and philosophies that, in turn, will require new
knowledge.
Transition is defined as a fundamental change in the structure (institutional,
physical, and economic structure), culture (shared ideas, values, and paradigms),
and methods (routines, rules, behaviour) of a system (Rotmans 2005). The

sustainability transition will have to include changes in all these dimensions if we
are to leave the earth in better shape for future generations. This also means
overcoming short-termism and a singular focus on economic growth, which cur-
rently dominate political and economic thought. On the flip side, the list with
counter-proposals to unlimited economic growth has grown rapidly and the rollout
is getting stronger, in particular since the 2008 global credit crisis (see Sect. 3.2). The
Corona-crisis is expected to become the next major tipping point towards a sustain-
able society, illustrated by an observation from EU-officials that the new EU Green
Deal is expected to have an accelerated implementation due to the devastating
impact of the Corona-crisis on industries relying on burning fossil fuels, such as
the car and aviation industry, transportation, agriculture, construction, and electricity
production. In any case, the granting of substantial EU aid packages to keep the
economy going during the Corona-crisis will have to go hand in hand with hard
conditions for a transformation towards a green economy, according to the EU.
The call for fundamental societal changes targeting sustainability is high on local,
national, and international agendas. At the global level, the United Nations have set
Sustainable Development Goals, as part of its 2030 Agenda, comprising both socio-
economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability. In Europe, ‘a good and
healthy life in 2050 within our planet’s ecological boundary’ is a core component of
environmental policy (EU, 7th Environment Action Programme 2013). This vision
has also been incorporated in other lines of EU policy.
In the past two decades, the European Union has introduced a large body of
environmental legislation, which has succeeded in significantly reducing air, water,
and soil pollution. Legislation on chemicals has been modernized and the use of
many toxic or hazardous substances has been restricted. Today, EU citizens boast the
highest-quality water in the world, and more than 18% of the land mass covered by
the EU has been designated as a protected area. However, many problems remain
and must be tackled in a structured way (EU, 7th Environment Action Programme
2013). To solve these problems and achieve the goals set in environmental policy,
the EU will need to make far-reaching changes in its production and consumption
systems. The Low-Carbon Economy Roadmap, for instance, aims to reduce green-
house gas emissions in the EU by 80% by 2050, while the Circular Economy
Strategy focuses on significant improvements in waste reduction and management
by 2030. In December 2019, ‘the European Commission released the European
Green Deal, a blockbuster policy aimed at halting climate change by shifting to clean
energy and a circular economy, thereby increasing resource efficiency and restoring
biodiversity. The agreement will establish a €100bn “Just Transition Mechanism”
and urge European countries to set up a broad national tax reform Mechanism, with
“climate taxes” as the focus’ (cf. UN-Habitat 2020).
Within the sustainability transition, we can identify three important systemic
changes:
1. climate and energy: greenhouse gas emissions (such as carbon dioxide, meth-
ane, and nitrous oxide) must be reduced drastically. Fossil energy must be
replaced en masse by clean energy. Climate change mitigation and adaptation is

required in almost every sector.
2. agriculture and food: the quality of nature, water, and air must be improved
without compromising the production of a sufficient supply of healthy, sustain-
able, and safe food. All around the world, we will have to feed approximately
10 billion mouths by 2050.
3. circular and regenerative economies and cultures: the depletion of raw
materials and the continued undermining of ecosystems must be prevented.
This transition to a new, sustainable economy and society has many faces. The
next economy will be a digital, bio-based, circular, sharing, maker and robot
economy (RNE 2016). The new economy will be increasingly based on horizontal
relationships and small-scale, locally organized networks of producers and
consumers rather than vertically integrated structures (ibid.), but the new economy
will also be characterized by great uncertainty and disruptive developments (ibid.).
Many traditional sectors, such as the fossil fuel industry and companies that fail to
make serious work of sustainability, may disappear. On the other hand, new sectors
will emerge, including the sector for renewable energy and circular economy,
creating new jobs.
The Netherlands government has developed and is still developing a wide range
of policies, rules, and regulations to facilitate this transition, such as the National
Climate Agreement, a major societal transition that aims to cut carbon emissions in
the Netherlands in half by 2030. Another example is the policy vision on Circular
Agriculture (LNV 2018), which presents a shared foundation for a societal transition
towards circular agriculture and involves addressing agriculture, food (production
and consumption), water, nature, climate, and the living environment in a series of
concerted efforts. The question is, however, whether this vision will engender a true
and radical transition or just several minor changes and efficiency improvements in
the existing system. One of the more fundamental questions is whether a policy
targeted at circular agriculture is compatible with the promotion of free trade in
WTO and GATT negotiations and other fora, in particular by the European Union,
the USA, and Japan, while at the same time practicing protectionism and subsidies
for the domestic agricultural sector (Otero et al. 2013).
When it comes to radically new practices, insights, and values, however, small
steps can resonate, ultimately bringing about large-scale changes (Bryson 1988).
That is why, in response to the policy vision on Circular Agriculture (LNV 2018),
Termeer (2019) advocates a ‘small-wins’ approach. This approach aims to work on
major societal issues by dividing them into a series of ‘small wins’: small, meaning-
ful steps with tangible results (Weick 1984; Vermaak 2009). The main thought
behind this approach is that it keeps energy levels up and pushes forward progress in
the transformation process without resorting to simplistic short-term gains or making
impossible promises (Termeer and Dewulf 2017). By focusing on small-scale goals,
people are less likely to be overwhelmed by the complexity of a given issue, which
would restrict the freedom and precision of their thinking and increase the temptation
for abstraction (ibid.). Responding to the ‘small-wins’ approach, however, Rotmans
(2019) and Grin (2019) argue that this approach is too superficial and limited.
According to Rotmans (2019), the dynamics of transitions include profound,
broad, and slow changes as well as narrow and fast ones, with the essence of the
transition being characterized by the ‘parallelism of big and small, broad and narrow,
fast and slow, construction and demolition’. Grin and Rotmans believe that particu-
larly the transition towards circular agriculture requires system breakthroughs
targeting a new culture, a new regime, a new paradigm, and a new infrastructure.
According to the ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, the policy
vision is not a blueprint for a system of circular agriculture, but rather describes a
long-term process during which the government will have to adapt legislation,
companies will have to apply circular principles and consumers will have to start
paying fairer prices for their food (LNV 2018). Both producers and consumers will
have to develop increased awareness and change their behaviour, forming two of the
greatest challenges in realizing this agricultural transition. In response to the
Ministry’s future policy, Rotmans (2019), opposing Termeer (2019), argues that
the government should not seek to direct matters: ‘The harder the government
pushes and pulls, the less room it leaves for other parties. Transitions originate
from society and economy and though they can be facilitated by the government, this
is all the government can do’. This viewpoint is not shared by everyone. A case in
point is the historical Urgenda-court case on climate justice (see Sect. 2.3), where the
Higher Court concluded, based on scientific evidence, that the Netherlands Govern-
ment should step up its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases drastically by 2020.
Reasoning from the perspective of social contract theory (see Chap. 3), and in
contrast to above argument of Rotmans (2019), government should do much more
than facilitation only. After all, the purpose of the social contract is serving the
common or greater good to ensure the sustainability of the society in question and
protect the individuals within it. If not, political authority loses its legitimacy, and the
social contract will be eroded, or will even fall apart, as illustrated by the Arab
spring. Within the context of the sustainability transition, there is a wide variety of
policy instruments and policy mixes that can be deployed for making a substantial
contribution to the sustainability transition. For example, a systematic review of the
European policy ecosystem shows that taxation is the most effective policy tool for
mitigating unsustainable and unhealthy products and services in the food system
(SAPEA 2020). Tax revenues, in return, can be used to provide positive incentives
for realizing a transition to a sustainable and healthy agri-food system.
Many people feel that changing their individual lifestyle will not make a differ-
ence. You can put your best foot forward and install solar panels and insulate your
house, or eating less meat or no meat at all, but the realization that a selection of only
100 companies is responsible for 71% of all carbon emissions since 1988 (CDP
2017) could be enough to discourage even the most optimistic mind.
The majority of Dutch citizens (65%) therefore believe that the government
should take measures, according to a study by I&O Research (2019). When it
comes to combating climate change, it appears that citizens are waiting for the
government and businesses to lead by example (ibid.). Citizens believe having the
government force businesses to adopt more sustainable production methods (62%
have high expectations) and encourage technological development by these

businesses (63%) will have the best effects. 6 out of 10 Dutch people (59%) agree
with the statement ‘As long as big companies fail to cut their carbon emissions, what
I do will not make a difference’. The government has therefore come to realize that it
must take action in all possible areas, including standardization, charges, subsidies,
legislative amendments, binding agreements, budgetary choices, and green deals
between public and private parties to facilitate the transformation towards
sustainability. Also the introduction of a carbon tax for polluting businesses, as
part of the National Climate Agreement, is a good example of government
intervention.
Every change in society will provoke resistance, and attempts to change
established patterns always come up against resistance, rigidity, and/or normative
questions as to the legitimacy, justness, methods, and direction of the transition (Grin
2016; Meadowcroft 2009). Society is usually stuck in its old structures, thought
patterns, and vested interests. Good intentions often fail because of the discrepancy
between long- and short-term interests. Front-runners may introduce valuable

initiatives, but they can struggle to establish a level playing field in the market. In
addition, laws and legislation often offer insufficient scope for experimentation.
As a result, many efforts in the sustainability transition are struggling to move
beyond the initiation phase and fail to realize acceleration and consolidation (see
Sect. 4.1). This stalling of a transition can be characterized as follows (cf. Foresight
and Commonland 2017):
• ‘Fragmentation: many small, competing initiatives and isolated projects’

• ‘Narrow scope & lack of holistic approach: progress is measured on short
timespans, and relative to competitors; transformation approaches focus on
optimizing only a few dimensions, potentially at the cost of others; projects
focus on only one link in the system’
• ‘Brittle: sustainability claims are based on marginal improvements’
• ‘Focus on inputs and processes rather than on outcomes’
• ‘Cause inflation: risk of losing credibility and being accused of greenwashing’.
The sustainability transition will also give rise to unease, discomfort, and uncer-
tainty, both financial and otherwise, which means resistance is inevitable (RNE
2016). To fight this resistance to change, mitigate negative consequences, and
compensate for the adverse effects of the transition, it is very important to offer
citizens and businesses appealing short-term or long-term prospects or attractors.
The circular economy, for instance, will require more raw material collection,
recycling and upgrading, creating new, low-skilled jobs in the process (ibid.).
Large-scale sustainable development of the built environment will also create new
jobs in the construction and installation industry (ibid.).
The sustainability transition is characterized by significant complexity and uncer-
tainty. The sustainable development of our cities, for instance, has become such a
complex and dynamic issue that it can no longer be tackled by just one party alone,
such as government, private sector, or civil society (Karré 2018). The transition to
climate-proof cities, for instance, will raise normative questions on what will make
cities climate-proof and who should bear the costs involved in the process (Eriksen
et al. 2015). Complex social issues of this kind are characterized by incomplete or
fragmented knowledge and differing interests, values and ideas about problems,
causes, and solutions.
The transition to a sustainable society will only succeed if everyone is given the
chance to participate and if the costs, benefits, and risks are all shared fairly and
proportionally. However, sustainable lifestyles are often restricted to the more
affluent layers of society. Grants intended to encourage sustainable behaviour
often flow to people with higher incomes, who can afford to invest in solar panels
and an electric car. One of the major risks of the sustainability transition, therefore, is
overemphasizing individual responsibility and relying too little on structural, sys-
temic, and collective solutions. A major pitfall with problems such as climate change
or sustainable consumption is that it tends to be reduced to personal choices and
responsibility. In reality, however, these are structural problems requiring structural
solutions, such as regulations, policy, and financial measures.
Besides an important role for government, it is clear that the sustainability

transition can only succeed if all elements of society cooperate and assume their
responsibilities. Sustainability certainly need not create a social divide between the
‘green’ and the ‘grey’ class, or between citizens and businesses, but should be part of
an agenda for an inclusive society and social cohesion. A collective problem requires
systemic, sustainable, and fair solutions, which requires all actors, including the
government, the private sector, civil society, academia, and media to play their part.
2•5 What’s Beyond the Sustainable Development Goals?
The term ‘transition’ or ‘transformation’ presupposes a fading to something new, a

new state of mind, a new reality, a new normal, a new paradigm, or a new social
contract. However, current literature on sustainability transitions is often occupied
with the process, rather than its outputs, outcomes, or impacts (Köhler et al. 2019).
This is illustrated by some transition scholars warning that describing the outcome
can lead to processes in which the destination transcends the journey towards it
(e.g. Haxeltine et al. 2016). Admittedly, precaution for trajectories where purpose
justifies the means is undisputed, and requires careful attention for procedural justice
(see Sect. 4.8). Moreover, dealing with complexity and uncertainty requires adaptive
planning and governance (see Sect. 4.6), while a social learning process (see Sect.
4.7) is geared towards the process rather than a fixed goal (Bagheri and Hjorth 2007).
This is something else, however, than developing a joint vision. A tangible and joint
vision could serve as a vehicle to identify and develop shared and common values
during the process of transformation. Agreement on these ethical and normative
aspects is important for holding actor coalitions together during a transition process,
and could be achieved through deliberation on shared beliefs and values, shared
discourses, mutual understanding of common and diverging interests, procedural
justice, and options for multiple value creation and mutual gains (see Sects. 3.8 and
4.8 in particular).
Within this context, literature on global environmental politics questions whether

compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals should be considered as the
ultimate goal of the sustainability transition, or whether we should be more explicit
on what’s beyond the 2030 Agenda (Wahl 2016; Dabelko and Conca 2019). Some
scholars point out that the word sustainability itself is inadequate, as it does not tell
us what we are actually trying to sustain (Wahl 2019). Wahl (2019) argues that
design for sustainability is, ultimately, design for human and planetary health, which
can be achieved through regenerative cultures (see Fig. 2.3).
Reicher and Hopkins (2001) argue ‘that images of society’s future are important
for shaping social change. Social action must be animated by a vision of a future
society, and by explicit judgements of value concerning the character of this future
society’ (cf. Chomsky 1970/1999, p100). A Natural Social Contract and the related
concept of Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation, as proposed in this book
(Chap. 3), serve as a vehicle to think about ways to improve current social contracts,
targeting a sustainable, regenerative, healthy and just society, which can help
2.5 What’s Beyond the Sustainable Development Goals? 25
Fig• 2•3 Beyond sustainability: Designing regenerative cultures (based on Reed, 2006 & Roland, 2018)
policymakers, administrators and decision makers, concerned citizens, and

professionals to make better decisions about how to organize our twenty-first-
century society. In further developing ideas about the future of society, research
on how people think about their own future may offer useful insights (Bain et al.
2013).
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3
In this chapter I will explain why and how the sustainability transition is
humankind’s search for a new social contract: a Natural Social Contract (conceptu-
alization by author). I will start with a brief introduction on the origins of the social
contract (Sect. 3.1), followed by a debate on the question whether there can be
human progress without economic growth (Sect. 3.2) and a section on redesigning
economics based on ecology, including circular and regenerative economies and
cultures (Sect. 3.3). This chapter includes a debate on the role and scope of the free
market (Sect. 3.4), as well as an examination of how the Anglo-Saxon and Rhineland
models fare in this debate (Sect. 3.5). This chapter will also describe why we need a
new social contract and what it should entail (Sect. 3.6). In doing so, I will embark on
a quest for a Natural Social Contract (Sect. 3.7) and its theoretical foundations with
multiple dimensions and crossovers (Sect. 3.8). This section concludes with an
overview of fundamentals and design principles for a societal transformation
towards a Natural Social Contract (see Table 3.4), which is a summary of Sect. 3.8
shaped as a course of action and is intended to help readers to grasp the core rationale
of this book. For a better understanding of, and advancing the process towards, a
Natural Social Contract this chapter presents a conceptual framework for Transfor-
mative Social-Ecological Innovation (Sect. 3.9), and how this will play out at various
governance levels (Sect. 3.10).
3•1 What Is a Social Contract?
The sustainability transition constitutes a search for a new social contract. The core
philosophy behind a social contract is that the members of a society enter into an
implicit contract with the goal of living a better, safe life together (Kalshoven
and Zonderland 2017). Such a contract includes agreements about public goods
and services, for instance, as well as taxes, detailing how everyone contributes to and
benefits from society. The contract describes the freedoms and obligations of all
citizens: their rights and duties. This social contract does not exist in the sense that all

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67130-3_3
28 3 Towards a Natural Social Contract
citizens above the age of 18 sign a piece of paper. Rather, the social contract is an
abstraction, a way of thinking that helps us understand how the world works that
originates from the works of enlightenment philosophers (ibid. 2017).
Social contract theory has a long history in political philosophy. The main
founders of classical contract theory are Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John
Locke (1632–1704), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), and Immanuel Kant
(1702–1804). Despite their differences, what these contract thinkers all have in
common is that they tried to explain human society based on the idea that people
once lived in some state of nature without rules and with unlimited freedom. In
Hobbes’s thinking, humankind naturally lives in a state of war (the conflict model),
whereas Rousseau believed that humans were peaceful and timid in their pre-social
state of nature, with social cohesion being created through consensus (the consensus
model). According to Rousseau, the social contract enables humankind to pursue
self-preservation by joining forces with others and sacrificing some individual
freedoms for the will of the people. Rousseau used the metaphor of a contract to
explore the relationship between individuals and their societies and legitimate
government, and he argued that the ability to govern can only be legitimate if it
comes from the people.
Following these enlightenment philosophers, contract thinking was given an
important boost by the publication of A Theory of Justice, by social-liberal John
Rawls (1971). There are also political philosophers, however, such as Michael
Sandel and Charles Taylor, who criticize Rawls’ work. Rawls does reserve a central
position for the individual, for instance, but in Sandel’s eyes fails to appreciate that
all individuals are part of the community in some specific way (Sandel et al. 1985).
Another important and more recent point of criticism is that ‘Nature has had little or
no intrinsic value for most (but not all) social contract theorists’ (cf. O’Brien 2012),
with no attention for the role of ecosystem services (Dobson and Eckersley 2006).
The fact that ecological vulnerability translates into social and economic vulnerabil-
ity, and a complex set of security and justice challenges, is an important omission in
social contract theory.
In the past two decades, some scholars have argued that social contracts should be
renegotiated due to the societal risks of climate change (O’Brien et al. 2009;
Schellnhuber et al. 2011; Adger et al. 2013) and the ongoing ecological crisis
(Jennings 2016), in particular given the co-evolving nature of risks and multi-actor
influences on change (O’Brien 2012). Some scholars argue that the nature of
environmental problems we face today requires new roles for states (Dryzek et al.
2002), while stressing several limitations of current social contracts: they can
exclude those that may not recognize the legitimacy of government, and they can
be influenced by non-democratic lobbying activities by powerful players (Weale
2011), and future generations are not represented. For instance, climate risks form a
particular challenge for governments, given the related uncertainties and the often
unequal distribution of risks and burdens (Pelling 2010).
A social contract is a more or less coherent whole of the freedoms, rights, rules
and obligations that all residents have with regard to healthcare, education, labour,
social security, and pensions, as well as in relation to our living environment, food,
3.2 Human Progress Without Economic Growth? 29
agriculture, nature, energy, water, the climate, and spatial planning. For example, all
EU citizens have a right to the protection of fundamental rights, freedom of move-
ment, and residence in the EU. The social contract might differ per country, but most
European countries have similar rights and obligations as part of the social contract.
Examples of such rules or obligations for EU citizens include compulsory insurance
for medical expenses or compulsory education up to the age of 16. Likewise, all
citizens are required to obtain a driving licence before driving a car and adhere to
the traffic rules. Also pension schemes for employees, and phosphate rights for
farmers are but some examples of the many arrangements in a social contract. The
social contract, therefore, is key to the structure and functioning of our society. All
citizens have a say in determining these arrangements through their voting rights, but
there are more ways to give substance to a social contract. Each and every party in
society can play a role in shaping and influencing the social contract, not only by
means of our democracy (in various forms and at various levels), but also by bottom-
up governance through civil society involvement, a participatory and inclusive
society, transition management, multi-party collaboration, social entrepeneurship,
corporate social responsibility, exercising the right to demonstrate, collective action,
social innovation processes, citizen engagement, and through local, national,
European or global citizenship (see Sect. 3.8 - social dimension of a Natural Social
Contract). For each of these processes, it is necessary to identify how the governance
of a societal transformation towards a Natural Social Contract can be designed,
facilitated, and realized in effective and legitimate ways (see Sect. 3.8—institutional
dimension). Attempts to change established patterns always come up against resis-
tance, rigidity, and/or normative questions as to the legitimacy, justness, methods,
and direction of the transition (Grin 2016, p. 112; Meadowcroft 2009). Hence, it
requires inclusive procedures to broaden legitimacy of decisions and actions,
through stakeholder participation and involving all layers of society. It also requires
deliberation on shared beliefs and values, common interests, procedural justice, and
opportunities for multiple value creation and mutual gains. In Sects. 3.8 and 3.9, as
well as in Chap. 4, I will provide more detail on the governance approaches that are
required for such a transition. In Sect. 3.6, I will continue the above discussion on
why we need a new social contract and what it should entail (Sect. 3.6). Before doing
so, let us start with a debate on the question of whether there can be human progress
without economic growth (Sect. 3.2) and a section on redesigning economics based
on ecology, including circular and regenerative economies and cultures (Sect. 3.3).
This chapter also includes a debate on the role and scope of the free market
(Sect. 3.4), as well as an examination of how the Anglo-Saxon and Rhineland
models fare in this debate (Sect. 3.5).
3•2 Human Progress Without Economic Growth?
The social contract is not only about our rights and freedoms as stated in the
constitution, but also about how we fairly distribute the costs and benefits of what
we produce and consume in a country and about a broader definition of welfare (see
Sect. 2.1). It is clear, however, that a fair distribution of cost and benefits of what we
produce and consume is not being achieved, since empirical studies show that
inequality is increasing (Piketty 2013; Kremer and Maskin 2006). The assets are
becoming more and more concentrated and a group of people is created that is
extremely rich. On top of that, there is a well-established correlation between
inequality and social and political instability (Russett 1964; Galbraith 2012; Stiglitz
2012, 2015). The problem, as Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz argues, is that inequal-
ity can ruin democracy itself (Stiglitz 2012, 2015). Stiglitz argues that inequality is a
choice—the cumulative result of unjust policies and misguided priorities (Stiglitz
2015).
Growing wealth inequality and the 2008 global credit crisis are merely symptoms
of a deeper, systemic crisis. This can be traced back to decades of excessive
production, consumption, and depletion of our natural resources and raw materials
(Rotmans 2010). Over the past decade, a growing body of literature has been
accumulating pointing out the contradiction between the pursuit of economic growth
and ecological sustainability (Trainer 2011). We are now discovering that the
ecological vulnerability translates into social and economic vulnerability, which is
known as the paradox of prosperity (Sect. 2.1). For a more adequate conceptualiza-
tion of the sustainability transition and the quest for a Natural Social Contract, we
need a better understanding of the relationship between modern capitalist societies
and the global ecological crisis. Naomi Klein, among others, has emphasized in
‘Climate versus Capitalism’ that the sustainability debate urgently needs to include a
critical focus on economic systems (Klein 2015). Likewise, Mariana Mazzucato
(2018) argues that we need to rethink capitalism, rethink the role of public policy and
the importance of the public sector, and redefine how we measure value in our
society, in particular since modern capitalist economies reward activities that extract
value rather than create it (Mazzucato 2018). The literature on an alternative
economy, written by economists such as Mariana Mazzucato, Paul Mason, Guy
Standing, Colin Crouch, Eric Olin Wright, Paul Collier, and others, represents an
expanding field of critical approaches to capitalism from various different angles.
For instance, Paul Mason (2016) shows how the rise of the new digital economy is
bringing about the decline of capitalism. According to Mason, capitalism cannot
survive because primary resources (in particular information) are unrestrictedly
available with an almost unlimited shelf life. This does not fit in an economic
model based on private ownership. As a response, Mason argues for more coopera-
tive schemes of free exchange—a ‘sharing’ economy to replace a predatory one—
and more collective ownership as well. Likewise, Guy Standing (2019) argues for
guarding our natural resources from private companies, by exploring the potential of
the commons and commoning as an antidote against the erosion of society (see
Sects. 3.8 and 4.3 for more information).
In particular since the 2008 global credit crisis the list with counter-proposals to
unlimited economic growth has grown rapidly and is still counting. Many of these
proposals are inspired by the ‘Limits to Growth’ report by the Club of Rome in 1972,
followed by the UN Brundtland report on sustainable development ‘Our Common
Future’ of 1987, and that led to the Millennium Development Goals dating from
2000, and eventually to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2015), as part of

the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’. Although the 2030 Agenda has the
ambition to end poverty and create a sustainable economic growth path and protect
the planet from degradation, it does not state how to deal with the trade-offs and
synergies of the various goals (Van Vuuren et al. 2017). For example, ‘although
some improvement with respect to global poverty can be observed, historical
development patterns especially for environmental issues have mostly been at
odds with this ambition’ (cf. Van Vuuren et al. 2017).
On the most radical side opposed to unlimited economic growth there is a social
movement and academic debate on degrowth, which started in the beginning of the
twenty-first century. The English term ‘degrowth’ was ‘officially’ introduced at the
2008 conference in Paris on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and
Social Equity, which also marked the birth of degrowth as an international research
area (Demaria et al. 2013). Kallis et al. (2018) review the broader literature relevant
to degrowth debates.
The key propositions from this literature on degrowth are that economic growth is
not sustainable and that human progress without economic growth is possible. More
specifically, it argues that an equitable downscaling of production and consumption
increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and
global level, in the short and long term (Schneider et al. 2010). According to
Schneider et al. (2010) degrowth theorists and practitioners support an extension
of human relations instead of market relations, demand a deepening of democracy,
defend ecosystems, and propose a more equal distribution of wealth. Schneider et al.
(2010) make an important distinction between depression, i.e. unplanned degrowth
within a growth regime, and sustainable degrowth, a voluntary, smooth, and equita-
ble transition to a regime of lower production and consumption (ibid.).
In addition to degrowth theorists there is burgeoning emerging literature, from
diverse origins, with counter-proposals to unlimited economic growth. This varies
from literature on steady-state economy (Daly 1973; O’Neill 2012; Kerschner
2010) to green growth (Ekins 2000; Hallegatte et al. 2011; Jänicke 2012; OECD
2011; European Commission 2011; UNEP 2011), to circular economy (Webster

2013, 2014; Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2015; EU Commission 2014; Murray
et al. 2017; Prieto-Sandoval et al. 2018; and many others) and regenerative econ-
omy (Fullerton 2015; Moreno and Charnley 2016; Raworth 2017; Wahl 2016), with
multiple definitions and distinctive developments in different contexts (Webster
2013; Lieder and Rashid 2016).
The green growth discourse has been the most dominant in the past 10 years, not
in the least because the green growth concept was embraced by key global interna-
tional organizations, including UNEP, the OECD, the European Commission, and
the Global Green Growth Institute (OECD 2011; European Commission 2011;
UNEP 2011) and eventually led to the adoption of the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development’ by the UN member states in 2015.
More recently, however, the green growth discourse has been increasingly
criticized, especially as economic growth is still a necessity in the proposed
‘green’ economies. First, a major criticism is that both neoliberal and keynesian
economic approaches assume that prosperity stems from healthy GDP growth, but
do not recognize biophysical limits to exponential growth, ignoring important
lessons from ecology and thermodynamics about the natural limits of growth. In
any case, this will reach a certain point where the incremental income is overtaken by
the incremental damage, thereby decreasing global wealth (Hoffmann 2015;
Fullerton 2015). To illustrate, a recent estimate shows that the ‘hidden social and
environmental costs’ of the global food system and land use amount to USD
12 trillion, which is 20% more than the market value of USD 10 trillion (Pharo
et al. 2019). Second, using GDP as the primary measure of our economic health does
not accurately assess the economy or the state of the world and the people living in it
(Van den Bergh 2017; Stiglitz 2019a, b). Third, there is a lot of criticism that the
failure of market forces is solved by enlarging the market and introducing new
market mechanisms (Fatheuer et al. 2015). This is done, among other things, by
redefining the relationship between nature and the economy, in order to allow the
market to arrange matters that were previously beyond its reach, such as pricing
ecosystem services. This hides the many structural causes of the environmental and
climate crisis. The result is a new version of the concept of nature as natural capital
and the economic services of ecosystems, but it does not change the economic
growth paradigm. New market mechanisms such as trading biodiversity credits or
carbon credits in many cases do not prevent the destruction of nature, but only
organize it along market lines (Fatheuer et al. 2015).
In a study by Van den Bergh (2017) ‘agrowth’ is proposed as an alternative to the
disjunction between the ‘green growth’ and ‘degrowth’ positions. As it is impossible
to know for sure whether growth and a stable climate are compatible, van den Bergh
considers that it is better to be agnostic about growth (a-growth) and proposes a
strategy that discounts GDP as an indicator, ‘since growth is not an ultimate end, not
even the means to an end’ (Van den Bergh 2017). GDP is a measure of what the
economy produces, but not for broader welfare. Nobel Prize laureate and
pre-eminent economist Joseph Stiglitz points out that the interrelated crises of
environmental degradation and human suffering of our current age demonstrate
that ‘something is fundamentally wrong with the way we assess economic perfor-
mance and social progress’. He argues that using GDP as the chief measure of our
economic health does not provide an accurate assessment of the economy or the state
of the world and the people living in it (Stiglitz 2019a, b). By contrast, there are
many non-monetary ways of measuring well-being (Mazziotta and Pareto 2013;
Allin and Hand 2017; Fleurbaey and Ponthière 2019; Veneri and Murtin 2019;
Hoekstra 2019). Many things of value in life cannot be fully captured by GDP, but
they can be measured by metrics of health, education, political freedom, and metrics
of sustainability, for example, to measure to extent of resource depletion
(or circularity), pollution, energy use, climate change, biodiversity, ecosystem
services, and so on.
Jeroen van den Bergh (2017) points out that ‘green growth’ is the dominant
strategy among those accepting climate change as a serious threat and searching for
solutions which minimize growth effects. Citing van den Bergh: ‘The Paris climate
agreement reflects this, through its voluntary national pledges without back-up from
Fig• 3•1 Doughnut economy (Raworth 2017)
globally consistent policies. One must expect non-compliance, energy rebound and
carbon leakage as a result, promising the agreement to be highly ineffective’ (Quote
from interview by AUB, 2017).
In Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics (2017) she argues that markets are
inefficient and growth cannot continue unpunished. The carrying capacity of the
earth must be respected and the economy must offer all people a decent life. Raworth
uses the doughnut metaphor for this (see Fig. 3.1). The dough section of the
doughnut represents a sustainable economy, the empty heart indicates the social
deficits that may occur and marks the outer edge when ecological ceilings are
exceeded. This means that the economy must adapt to the social and ecological
preconditions, even if this would slow down economic growth. Between the social
and planetary boundaries there is an environmentally safe and socially just, in short
sustainable space within which humanity can flourish (Raworth 2017).
As such, her book is a counter-proposal to mainstream economic thinking that
formulates conditions for a sustainable economy. Raworth calls for bringing
‘humanity back at the heart of economic thought’ (Raworth 2017). She argues that
not everything can or should be left to the market, that the ‘rational actor’ model of
economic conduct is problematic and that we cannot rely on the processes of growth
to redress inequality and solve the problem of pollution. This plea echoes the work of
many others, such as Nobel prize laureate Elinor Ostrom, who argued that ‘neither
the state nor the market is uniformly successful in enabling individuals to sustain
long-term productive use of natural-resource systems’ (Ostrom 1990). According to
Ostrom, the joint and sustainable management of commons cannot succeed without
institutions for collective action (ibid.). Based on extensive empirical research she
showed that common pool resources need not succumb to the so-called tragedy of
the commons (exploitation by someone taking more than their share) if a system of
checks and balances prevails (see Sect. 4.4).
3•3 Redesigning Economics Based on Ecology
In the past decade the above mentioned counter-proposals to unlimited economic

growth have been subject to an increasingly broad debate in the scientific as well as
the policy community. A wide variety of initiatives and programmes, from local to
global level, are being elaborated, operationalized, and implemented, for example, in
the form of circular economy and closely related concepts, such as regenerative
economy. While these two concepts are not exactly the same, both with multiple
definitions, the commonality between both concepts is their key proposition that
wealth creation can be decoupled from the consumption of finite resources. Bottom
line is that these new economic models are using the ‘universal principles and
patterns underlying stable, healthy, and sustainable living and nonliving systems
throughout the real world as a model for economic-system design’ (Fullerton 2015).
Redesigning our industrial system of production and consumption around the
circular patterns of resource and energy use that we observe in ecosystems is only
one example of redesigning our economy using the insights of ecology (Wahl 2016).
The concept of the circular economy (CE) has become very popular in Europe
and increasingly other global regions. It has been a catalyst at European policy level
(Webster 2013) and has become influential across business circles (Howard et al.
2019). It has become so popular because it offers a solution that will allow countries,
firms, and consumers to reduce harm to the environment and to close the loop of the
product lifecycle (EU Commission 2014; Murray et al. 2017; Prieto-Sandoval et al.
2018), which stands in sharp contrast to the deeply rooted and intensive linear
economic activity that is depleting the planet’s resources (Prieto-Sandoval et al.
2018).
More than 100 different definitions of circular economy are used in scientific
literature and academic journals. There are so many different definitions on Circular
Economy because the concept is applied by a very diverse group of researchers and
professionals (Kirchherr et al. 2017). Definitions often focus either on system change
or on resource use. According to Korhonen et al. (2018), definitions that focus on
system change often emphasize three elements, namely closed cycles, renewable
energy, and systems thinking. Definitions that focus on raw material use often follow
the 3R approach, namely ‘Reduce’ (minimum raw material use), ‘Reuse’ (maximum
reuse of products and parts), and ‘Recycle’ (high-quality reuse of raw materials).
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But, with two-handed wrath,
If baseness or pretension crossed his path,
Struck once nor needed to strike more.
2.
His magic was not far to seek,—

He was so human! Whether strong or weak,
Far from his kind he neither sank nor soared,
But sate an equal guest at every board:
No beggar ever felt him condescend,
No prince presume; for still himself he bare
At manhood’s simple level, and where’er
He met a stranger, there he left a friend.
How large an aspect! nobly unsevere,
With freshness round him of Olympian cheer,
Like visits of those earthly gods he came;
His look, wherever its good-fortune fell,
Doubled the feast without a miracle,
And on the hearthstone danced a happier flame;
Philemon’s crabbed vintage grew benign;
Amphitryon’s gold-juice humanized to wine.
III. 1.
The garrulous memories
Gather again from all their far-flown nooks,
Singly at first, and then by twos and threes,
Then in a throng innumerable, as the rooks
Thicken their twilight files
Tow’rd Tintern’s gray repose of roofless aisles:
Once more I see him at the table’s head
When Saturday her monthly banquet spread
To scholars, poets, wits,
All choice, some famous, loving things, not names,
And so without a twinge at others' fames;
Such company as wisest moods befits,
Yet with no pedant blindness to the worth
Of undeliberate mirth,
Natures benignly mixed of air and earth,
Now with the stars and now with equal zest
Tracing the eccentric orbit of a jest.
2.
I see in vision the warm-lighted hall,

The living and the dead I see again,
And but my chair is empty; ’mid them all
’Tis I that seem the dead: they all remain
Immortal, changeless creatures of the brain:
Well nigh I doubt which world is real most,
Of sense or spirit, to the truly sane;
In this abstraction it were light to deem
Myself the figment of some stronger dream;
They are the real things, and I the ghost
That glide unhindered through the solid door,
Vainly for recognition seek from chair to chair,
And strive to speak and am but futile air,
As truly most of us are little more.
3.
Him most I see whom we most dearly miss,

The latest parted thence,
His features poised in genial armistice
And armed neutrality of self-defence
Beneath the forehead’s walled preëminence,
While Tyro, plucking facts with careless reach,
Settles off-hand our human how and whence;
The long-trained veteran scarcely wincing hears
The infallible strategy of volunteers
Making through Nature’s walls its easy breach,
And seems to learn where he alone could teach.
Ample and ruddy, the board’s end he fills
As he our fireside were, our light and heat,
Centre where minds diverse and various skills
Find their warm nook and stretch unhampered feet;
I see the firm benignity of face,
Wide-smiling champaign, without tameness sweet,
The mass Teutonic toned to Gallic grace,
The eyes whose sunshine runs before the lips
While Holmes’s rockets curve their long ellipse,
And burst in seeds of fire that burst again
To drop in scintillating rain.
4.
There too the face half-rustic, half-divine,
Self-poised, sagacious, freaked with humor fine,
Of him who taught us not to mow and mope
About our fancied selves, but seek our scope
In Nature’s world and Man’s, nor fade to hollow trope,
Content with our New World and timely bold
To challenge the o’ermastery of the Old;
Listening with eyes averse I see him sit
Pricked with the cider of the Judge’s wit
(Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and fresh again),
While the wise nose’s firm-built aquiline
Curves sharper to restrain
The merriment whose most unruly moods
Pass not the dumb laugh learned in listening woods
Of silence-shedding pine:
Hard by is he whose art’s consoling spell
Hath given both worlds a whiff of asphodel,
His look still vernal ’mid the wintry ring
Of petals that remember, not foretell,
The paler primrose of a second spring.
5.
And more there are: but other forms arise

And seen as clear, albeit with dimmer eyes:
First he from sympathy still held apart
By shrinking over-eagerness of heart,
Cloud charged with searching fire, whose shadow’s sweep
Heightened mean things with sense of brooding ill,
And steeped in doom familiar field and hill,—
New England’s poet, soul reserved and deep,
November nature with a name of May,
Whom high o’er Concord plains we laid to sleep,
While the orchards mocked us in their white array
And building robins wondered at our tears,
S t h d i hi i th h t
Snatched in his prime, the shape august
That should have stood unbent ’neath fourscore years,
The noble head, the eyes of furtive trust,
All gone to speechless dust.
And he our passing guest,
Shy nature, too, and stung with life’s unrest,
Whom we too briefly had but could not hold,
Who brought ripe Oxford’s culture to our board,
The Past’s incalculable hoard,
Mellowed by scutcheoned panes in cloisters old,
Seclusions ivy-hushed, and pavements sweet
With immemorial lisp of musing feet;
Young head time-tonsured smoother than a friar’s,
Boy face, but grave with answerless desires,
Poet in all that poets have of best,
But foiled with riddles dark and cloudy aims,
Who now hath found sure rest,
Not by still Isis or historic Thames,
Nor by the Charles he tried to love with me,
But, not misplaced, by Arno’s hallowed brim,
Nor scorned by Santa Croce’s neighboring fames,
Haply not mindless, wheresoe’er he be,
Of violets that to-day I scattered over him;
He, too, is there,
After the good centurion fitly named,
Whom learning dulled not, nor convention tamed,
Shaking with burly mirth his hyacinthine hair,
Our hearty Grecian of Homeric ways,
Still found the surer friend where least he hoped the praise.
6.
Yea truly, as the sallowing years
Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened leaves
Pushed by the misty touch of shortening days,
And that unwakened winter nears,
’Tis the void chair our surest guest receives,
’Tis lips long cold that give the warmest kiss,
’Tis the lost voice comes oftenest to our ears;
We count our rosary by the beads we miss:
To me, at least, it seemeth so,
An exile in the land once found divine,
While my starved fire burns low,
And homeless winds at the loose casement whine
Shrill ditties of the snow-roofed Apennine.
IV. 1.
Now forth into the darkness all are gone,

But memory, still unsated, follows on,
Retracing step by step our homeward walk,
With many a laugh among our serious talk,
Across the bridge where, on the dimpling tide,
The long red streamers from the windows glide,
Or the dim western moon
Rocks her skiff’s image on the broad lagoon,
And Boston shows a soft Venetian side
In that Arcadian light when roof and tree,
Hard prose by daylight, dream in Italy;
Or haply in the sky’s cold chambers wide
Shivered the winter stars, while all below,
As if an end were come of human ill,
The world was wrapt in innocence of snow
And the cast-iron bay was blind and still;
These were our poetry; in him perhaps
Science had barred the gate that lets in dream,
And he would rather count the perch and bream
Th ith th t’ idl f l
Than with the current’s idle fancy lapse;
And yet he had the poet’s open eye
That takes a frank delight in all it sees,
Nor was earth voiceless, nor the mystic sky,
To him the life-long friend of fields and trees:
Then came the prose of the suburban street,
Its silence deepened by our echoing feet,
And converse such as rambling hazard finds;
Then he who many cities knew and many minds,
And men once world-noised, now mere Ossian forms
Of misty memory, bade them live anew
As when they shared earth’s manifold delight,
In shape, in gait, in voice, in gesture true,
And, with an accent heightening as he warms,
Would stop forgetful of the shortening night,
Drop my confining arm, and pour profuse
Much worldly wisdom kept for others' use,
Not for his own, for he was rash and free,
His purse or knowledge all men’s, like the sea.
Still can I hear his voice’s shrilling might
(With pauses broken, while the fitful spark
He blew more hotly rounded on the dark
To hint his features with a Rembrandt light)
Call Oken back, or Humboldt, or Lamarck,
Or Cuvier’s taller shade, and many more
Whom he had seen, or knew from others' sight,
And make them men to me as ne’er before:
Not seldom, as the undeadened fibre stirred
Of noble friendships knit beyond the sea,
German or French thrust by the lagging word,
For a good leash of mother-tongues had he.
At last, arrived at where our paths divide,
“Good night!” and, ere the distance grew too wide,
“Good night!” again; and now with cheated ear
I half hear his who mine shall never hear.
2.
Sometimes it seemed as if New England air

For his large lungs too parsimonious were,
As if those empty rooms of dogma drear
Where the ghost shivers of a faith austere
Counting the horns o’er of the Beast,
Still scaring those whose faith in it is least,
As if those snaps o' th' moral atmosphere
That sharpen all the needles of the East,
Had been to him like death,
Accustomed to draw Europe’s freer breath
In a more stable element;
Nay, even our landscape, half the year morose,
Our practical horizon grimly pent,
Our air, sincere of ceremonious haze,
Forcing hard outlines mercilessly close,
Our social monotone of level days,
Might make our best seem banishment;
But it was nothing so;
Haply his instinct might divine,
Beneath our drift of puritanic snow,
The marvel sensitive and fine
Of sanguinaria over-rash to blow
And trust its shyness to an air malign;
Well might he prize truth’s warranty and pledge
In the grim outcrop of our granite edge,
Or Hebrew fervor flashing forth at need
In the gaunt sons of Calvin’s iron breed,
As prompt to give as skilled to win and keep;
But, though such intuitions might not cheer,
Yet life was good to him, and, there or here,
With that sufficing joy, the day was never cheap;
Thereto his mind was its own ample sphere,
And, like those buildings great that through the year
Carry one temperature, his nature large
Made its own climate, nor could any marge
Traced by convention stay him from his bent:
He had a habitude of mountain air;
He brought wide outlook where he went,
And could on sunny uplands dwell
Of prospect sweeter than the pastures fair
High-hung of viny Neufchâtel;
Nor, surely, did he miss
Some pale, imaginary bliss
Of earlier sights whose inner landscape still was Swiss.
V. 1.
I cannot think he wished so soon to die
With all his senses full of eager heat,
And rosy years that stood expectant by
To buckle the winged sandals on their feet,
He that was friends with earth, and all her sweet
Took with both hands unsparingly:
Truly this life is precious to the root,
And good the feel of grass beneath the foot;
To lie in buttercups and clover-bloom,
Tenants in common with the bees,
And watch the white clouds drift through gulfs of trees,
Is better than long waiting in the tomb;
Only once more to feel the coming spring
As the birds feel it when it bids them sing,
Only once more to see the moon
Through leaf-fringed abbey-arches of the elms
Curve her mild sickle in the West
Sweet with the breath of hay-cocks, were a boon
Worth any promise of soothsayer realms
Or casual hope of being elsewhere blest;
To take December by the beard
And crush the creaking snow with springy foot,
While overhead the North’s dumb streamers shoot,
Till Winter fawn upon the cheek endeared,
Then the long evening-ends
Lingered by cosy chimney-nooks,
With high companionship of books
Or slippered talk of friends
And sweet habitual looks,
Is better than to stop the ears with dust:
Too soon the spectre comes to say, “Thou must!”
2.
When toil-crooked hands are crost upon the breast,
They comfort us with sense of rest;
They must be glad to lie forever still;
Their work is ended with their day;
Another fills their room; ’tis the World’s ancient way,
Whether for good or ill;
But the deft spinners of the brain,
Who love each added day and find it gain,
Them overtakes the doom
To snap the half-grown flower upon the loom
(Trophy that was to be of life-long pain),
The thread no other skill can ever knit again.
’Twas so with him, for he was glad to live,
’Twas doubly so, for he left work begun;
Could not this eagerness of Fate forgive
Till all the allotted flax were spun?
It matters not; for, go at night or noon,
A friend, whene’er he dies, has died too soon,
And, once we hear the hopeless He is dead,
So far as flesh hath knowledge, all is said.
VI. 1.
I seem to see the black procession go:

That crawling prose of death too well I know,
The vulgar paraphrase of glorious woe;
I see it wind through that unsightly grove,
Once beautiful, but long defaced
With granite permanence of cockney taste
And all those grim disfigurements we love:
There, then, we leave him: Him? such costly waste
Nature rebels at: and it is not true
Of those most precious parts of him we knew:
Could we be conscious but as dreamers be,
’Twere sweet to leave this shifting life of tents
S k i th h l l f D it
Sunk in the changeless calm of Deity;
Nay, to be mingled with the elements,
The fellow-servant of creative powers,
Partaker in the solemn year’s events,
To share the work of busy-fingered hours,
To be night’s silent almoner of dew,
To rise again in plants and breathe and grow,
To stream as tides the ocean caverns through,
Or with the rapture of great winds to blow
About earth’s shaken coignes, were not a fate
To leave us all-disconsolate;
Even endless slumber in the sweetening sod
Of charitable earth
That takes out all our mortal stains,
And makes us cleanlier neighbors of the clod,
Methinks were better worth
Than the poor fruit of most men’s wakeful pains,
The heart’s insatiable ache:
But such was not his faith,
Nor mine: it may be he had trod
Outside the plain old path of God thus spake,
But God to him was very God,
And not a visionary wraith
Skulking in murky corners of the mind,
And he was sure to be
Somehow, somewhere, imperishable as He,
Not with His essence mystically combined,
As some high spirits long, but whole and free,
A perfected and conscious Agassiz.
And such I figure him: the wise of old
Welcome and own him of their peaceful fold,
Not truly with the guild enrolled
Of him who seeking inward guessed
Diviner riddles than the rest,
And groping in the darks of thought
Touched the Great Hand and knew it not;
Rather he shares the daily light,
From reason’s charier fountains won,
,
Of his great chief, the slow-paced Stagyrite,
And Cuvier clasps once more his long-lost son.
2.
The shape erect is prone: forever stilled

The winning tongue; the forehead’s high-piled heap,
A cairn which every science helped to build,
Unvalued will its golden secrets keep:
He knows at last if Life or Death be best:
Wherever he be flown, whatever vest
The being hath put on which lately here
So many-friended was, so full of cheer
To make men feel the Seeker’s noble zest,
We have not lost him all; he is not gone
To the dumb herd of them that wholly die;
The beauty of his better self lives on
In minds he touched with fire, in many an eye
He trained to Truth’s exact severity;
He was a Teacher: why be grieved for him
Whose living word still stimulates the air?
In endless file shall loving scholars come
The glow of his transmitted touch to share,
And trace his features with an eye less dim
Than ours whose sense familiar wont makes numb.
Florence, Italy, February, 1874.
TO HOLMES
ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY.
Dear Wendell, why need count the years

Since first your genius made me thrill,
If what moved then to smiles or tears,
Or both contending, move me still?
What has the Calendar to do

With poets? What Time’s fruitless tooth
With gay immortals such as you
Whose years but emphasize your youth?
One air gave both their lease of breath;

The same paths lured our boyish feet;
One earth will hold us safe in death,
With dust of saints and scholars sweet.
Our legends from one source were drawn,

I scarce distinguish yours from mine,
And don’t we make the Gentiles yawn
With “You remembers?” o’er our wine!
If I, with too senescent air,

Invade your elder memory’s pale,
You snub me with a pitying “Where
Were you in the September Gale?”
Both stared entranced at Lafayette,

Saw Jackson dubbed with LL. D.
What Cambridge saw not strikes us yet
As scarcely worth one’s while to see.
Ten years my senior, when my name

In Harvard’s entrance-book was writ,
Her halls still echoed with the fame
Of you, her poet and her wit.
’Tis fifty years from then to now:

But your Last Leaf renews its green,
Though, for the laurels on your brow
(So thick they crowd), ’tis hardly seen.
The oriole’s fledglings fifty times

Have flown from our familiar elms;
Have flown from our familiar elms;
As many poets with their rhymes
Oblivion’s darkling dust o’erwhelms.
The birds are hushed, the poets gone

Where no harsh critic’s lash can reach,
And still your wingëd brood sing on
To all who love our English speech.
Nay, let the foolish records be

That make believe you’re seventy-five:
You’re the old Wendell still to me,—
And that’s the youngest man alive.
The gray-blue eyes, I see them still,

The gallant front with brown o’erhung,
The shape alert, the wit at will,
The phrase that stuck, but never stung.
You keep your youth as yon Scotch firs,

Whose gaunt line my horizon hems,
Though twilight all the lowland blurs,
Hold sunset in their ruddy stems.
You with the elders? Yes, ’tis true,

But in no sadly literal sense,
With elders and coevals too,
Whose verb admits no preterite tense.
Master alike in speech and song

Of fame’s great antiseptic—Style,
You with the classic few belong
Who tempered wisdom with a smile.
Outlive us all! Who else like you

Could sift the seedcorn from our chaff,
And make us with the pen we knew
Deathless at least in epitaph?
Wollaston, August 29, 1884.
IN A COPY OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.
These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,

Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.
Fit rosary for a queen, in shape and hue,

When Contemplation tells her pensive beads
Of mortal thoughts, forever old and new.
Fit for a queen? Why, surely then for you!
The moral? Where Doubt’s eddies toss and twirl

Faith’s slender shallop till her footing reel,
Plunge: if you find not peace beneath the whirl,
Groping, you may like Omar grasp a pearl.
ON RECEIVING A COPY OF MR. AUSTIN DOBSON’S “OLD WORLD

IDYLLS.”
I.
At length arrived, your book I take
To read in for the author’s sake;
Too gray for new sensations grown,
Can charm to Art or Nature known
This torpor from my senses shake?
Hush! my parched ears what runnels slake?

Is a thrush gurgling from the brake?
Has Spring, on all the breezes blown,
At length arrived?
Long may you live such songs to make,

And I to listen while you wake,
With skill of late disused, each tone
Of the Lesboum barbiton,
At mastery, through long finger-ache,
At length arrived.
II.
As I read on, what changes steal
O’er me and through, from head to heel?
A rapier thrusts coat-skirt aside,
My rough Tweeds bloom to silken pride,—
Who was it laughed? Your hand, Dick Steele!
Down vistas long of clipt charmille

Watteau as Pierrot leads the reel;
Tabor and pipe the dancers guide
As I read on.
While in and out the verses wheel

The wind-caught robes trim feet reveal,
Lithe ankles that to music glide,
But chastely and by chance descried;
Art? Nature? Which do I most feel
As I read on?
TO C. F. BRADFORD
ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM PIPE.
The pipe came safe, and welcome too,

As anything must be from you;
A meerschaum pure, ’twould float as light
As she the girls call Amphitrite.
Mixture divine of foam and clay,
From both it stole the best away:
Its foam is such as crowns the glow
Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot;
Its clay is but congested lymph
Jove chose to make some choicer nymph;
And here combined,—why, this must be
The birth of some enchanted sea,
Shaped to immortal form, the type
And very Venus of a pipe
And very Venus of a pipe.
When high I heap it with the weed

From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed
Nicotia, big from Bacchus, bore
And cast upon Virginia’s shore,
I’ll think,—So fill the fairer bowl
And wise alembic of thy soul,
With herbs far-sought that shall distil,
Not fumes to slacken thought and will,
But bracing essences that nerve
To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve.
When curls the smoke in eddies soft,

And hangs a shifting dream aloft,
That gives and takes, though chance-designed,
The impress of the dreamer’s mind,
I’ll think,—So let the vapors bred
By Passion, in the heart or head,
Pass off and upward into space,
Waving farewells of tenderest grace,
Remembered in some happier time,
To blend their beauty with my rhyme.
While slowly o’er its candid bowl

The color deepens (as the soul
That burns in mortals leaves its trace
Of bale or beauty on the face),
I’ll think,—So let the essence rare
Of years consuming make me fair;
So, ’gainst the ills of life profuse,
Steep me in some narcotic juice;
And if my soul must part with all
That whiteness which we greenness call,
Smooth back, O Fortune, half thy frown,
And make me beautifully brown!
Dream-forger, I refill thy cup

With reverie’s wasteful pittance up
With reverie s wasteful pittance up,
And while the fire burns slow away,
Hiding itself in ashes gray,
I’ll think,—As inward Youth retreats,
Compelled to spare his wasting heats,
When Life’s Ash-Wednesday comes about,
And my head’s gray with fires burnt out,
While stays one spark to light the eye,
With the last flash of memory,
’Twill leap to welcome C. F. B.,
Who sent my favorite pipe to me.
BANKSIDE.
(HOME OF EDMUND QUINCY.)
Dedham, May 21, 1877.
I.
I christened you in happier days, before

These gray forebodings on my brow were seen;
You are still lovely in your new-leaved green;
The brimming river soothes his grassy shore;
The bridge is there; the rock with lichens hoar;
And the same shadows on the water lean,
Outlasting us. How many graves between
That day and this! How many shadows more
Darken my heart, their substance from these eyes
Hidden forever! So our world is made
Of life and death commingled; and the sighs
Outweigh the smiles, in equal balance laid:
What compensation? None, save that the All-wise
So schools us to love things that cannot fade.

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Towards a Natural Social Contract

Transformative Social Ecological

Making Health Public: A Manifesto For A New Social

Education for Sustainable Development in the

Creative Social Change Leadership for a Healthy World

Designing with Society A Capabilities Approach to

Towards a Sustainable Information Society People

Social and Technological Innovation in Africa:

Social Memory as a Force for Social and Economic

Social Control in a Free Society Robert E. Spiller

Healthy and Just Society

Towards a Natural Social

Foreword by René Kemp

ISBN 978-3-030-67129-7 ISBN 978-3-030-67130-3 (eBook)

learning, effective cooperation, security and justice challenges, well-being, transfor-

interested in doing multi-, inter-, or transdisciplinary research on transformative

United Nations University (UNU-MERIT) René Kemp

My research group ‘Social Innovation and Governance for Sustainability’ is funded

Part I The Quest for a Natural Social Contract

3.8 Dimensions and Crossovers Within a Natural Social Contract . . . 49

Part II Theories and Concepts

4.4 Design Principles from Nature: Benchmarks for a Natural Social

Part III A Research and Innovation Agenda

7 Governance of Urban Sustainability Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Patrick Huntjens PhD. is a Professor of ‘Social

(2006–2010). In the period 2000–2006, he worked as a

like complexity theory and systems theory. Ongoing

our social and natural environments.

# The Author(s) 2021 3

disciplines and at different levels of governance. To this end, it identiﬁes interven-

1.1 Reader’s Guide

boost the development of such an arrangement, this chapter presents a conceptual

2•1 Paradox of Prosperity

# The Author(s) 2021 9

2•2 Ecological Limits of Our Planet

The necessity of a Natural Social Contract underlying a sustainable society becomes

clear when we look at the ecological boundaries of our planet.

Fig• 2•1 Broad Well-being Trends (Central Bureau of Statistics 2020)

In October 2018, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

2•3 Emerging Security and Justice Challenges

security challenges is provided in Table 2.1.

Table 2•1 (continued)

twenty-seven million people have been displaced annually by

‘A range of immediate and effective mechanisms is needed to safeguard the rights

environment for future generations. In particular, Urgenda claimed that the

While it is important to recognize the progress made by national jurisdictions in

2•4 The Sustainability Transition: Humankind’s Quest

and methods (routines, rules, behaviour) of a system (Rotmans 2005). The

replaced en masse by clean energy. Climate change mitigation and adaptation is

have high expectations) and encourage technological development by these

between long- and short-term interests. Front-runners may introduce valuable

• ‘Fragmentation: many small, competing initiatives and isolated projects’

Besides an important role for government, it is clear that the sustainability

2•5 What’s Beyond the Sustainable Development Goals?

The term ‘transition’ or ‘transformation’ presupposes a fading to something new, a

Within this context, literature on global environmental politics questions whether

policymakers, administrators and decision makers, concerned citizens, and

3•1 What Is a Social Contract?

# The Author(s) 2021 27