Introduction

In 2012 the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability called for both an intellectual transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to sustainable development by calling for a ‘new political economy’. There are five reasons why we need a new political economy. The first reason relates to sustainable development and its concomitant, globality and Earth awareness. The second is concerned with the highest level of evolution – the evolution of knowledge – and in this case the evolution of the balance between what we think we know and what we feel. Third, the rise of empathy and social, perhaps global, cohesion is a natural progression from the first and second systems changes. The fourth systems change concerns the way we organise ourselves as humans, based, as we are – at the moment – on planet Earth. Fifth, evolutionary success and human survival depends on our ability to learn, on our learning adaptability and our ability to adapt through learning.