SLIDE 3 Cambridge Sustainable Investment Partners
Sustainability - a Wicked problem – high risk!
Characteristics of Wicked Problem
1.
A wicked problem has no definitive formulation.
2.
Wicked problems have no stopping rules (How do we know when design is enough?)
3.
Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better
4.
There is no immediate or ultimate test of a solution.
5.
Every solution to a wicked problem is a one-shot trial. Every attempt counts significantly.
6.
You cannot identify a finite set of potential solutions.
7.
Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
8.
Each can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
9.
The discrepancies (and causes themselves) can be explained in numerous ways.
- 10. The planner has no right to be wrong.
(Rittel & Webber, 1973)
Sustainability is the ability to continue a defined behaviour indefinitely. For more practical detail the behaviour you wish to continue indefinitely must be defined. For example:
- Environmental sustainability is the ability to maintain
rates of renewable resource harvest, pollution creation, and non-renewable resource depletion that can be continued indefinitely.
- Economic sustainability is the ability to support a
defined level of economic production indefinitely.
- Social sustainability is the ability of a social system,
such as a country, to function at a defined level of social well being indefinitely.
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