Society and Sustainability

For twenty five years, as economies have grown, technology has developed and resources dwindled, Professor Enzo Tiezzi has been a consistent voice of criticism of the prevailing industrial and economic models.

In this month’s Comment Visions we travel to Italy to meet with Professor Tiezzi and get his views on the energy debate within the wider context of his work – the study of sustainability. A champion of the idea of sustainability across different fields and disciplines, Professor Tiezzi has seen his work shift from under-regarded research on the margins of the debate to a central theme in our search for solutions to a global issue.

In this fascinating interview Professor Tiezzi talks about the need for an economic model that pays more heed to the laws of nature and explains the difference between development and growth and the significance of this difference as regards sustainability.

The philosophical and political quest for peace between nations states dates back as far as Immanuel Kant’s hugely influential 1795 essay Perpetual Peace. However, over the last two centuries dramatically destructive wars have again and again undermined the Kantian ideal.

Dr Stein Tonnesson is Director of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway. A historian whose PhD research focused on the causes of the 1945 Vietnamese revolution, he sees the increasing scarcity of fossil fuels as a potential catalyst of insecurity in the global arena. Warning that nations pursuing narrow national solutions to the crisis based on their own self interest will ‘envenomate the international climate’ he is nevertheless hopeful that co-operation at a global level is possible.

This month’s Comment Visions looks forward by looking back, reviewing the Comment Visions interviews of the past year to put the individual episodes in context. A journey that began by travelling to Oslo, Norway to speak to Dr. Olav Orheim, a world expert on climate change, also saw us talking to pioneering scientists who suggested ways in which developments in robotics, space exploration and biotechnology could open up new frontiers in our approach to the energy crisis, as well as talking to business leaders about the need for responsive action.

From harnessing photosynthesis to colonising Titan, from solar-powered air conditioning to energy-saving robots, this month’s Comment Visions brings together the series of disparate, brilliant and inspiring interviews about the future of our planet.

Sustainable Development and its possibilities, challenges and demands, has been on the agenda of the international business community for the past two decades. Since 1995, the World Business Council on Sustainable Development – a 200-member coalition of major businesses – has taken the lead in putting the business case for sustainable development.

This month’s Comment Visions talks to the Council’s President, Bjorn Stigson. Formerly a business executive in his native Sweden, Bjorn has spent the last decade based in Geneva bringing CEO’s of some of the world’s leading companies together to formulate and advocate the business response to the challenges of sustainable development.