ABSTRACT
The challenge of understanding and managing for sustainability comes down to re-thinking how we understand messy, dynamic situations. Our Cartesian-Newtonian upbringing means that both we, and the institutions we work in, are immersed in a worldview that is hard-wired to seek predictability, control, and testable hypotheses. And yet as human beings interact with the environment and with each other, we consistently behave in ways that demonstrate the inadequacy of this worldview to deal with complex “wicked” problems – such as sustainability. Systems thinking is an alternative way to deal with the complexity associated with sustainability problems – one that embraces the nature and organization of coupled human and natural components, actors and relationships. To shift towards systemic thinking, it helps to challenge our own assumptions. Revising which metaphor drives our worldview is a start. We need to understand and manage the world as an organism, not as a machine. In this chapter we introduce theoretical foundations about systems thinking and complexity so as to understand coupled human and natural systems—a necessary step to move toward sustainability. These foundations provide a language that helps us shift from unidisciplinary to inter- and supra-disciplinary thinking; where we relinquish the security of our disciplinary approach.
