Sustainability Scenarios
Sostenibilità

Sustainability skills are not yet a systemic element of policy and practice in member countries. To develop sustainability-oriented competences, it is necessary to promote skills and attitudes that are indispensable for thinking, planning and acting with empathy, responsibility and care for the planet and to promote sustainable utopia (Giovannini, 2018). To become competent, with reference to sustainability, means to promote responsible actions and to try to deal with far-reaching actions and, therefore, to know and act on them.

To design courses aimed at developing sustainability competence, it is appropriate to use the technique of 'scenarios'. This technique identifies a set of methodological approaches aimed at constructing verisimilar stories about the future, making uncertainties and critical issues visible, and can be useful in supporting decisionmaking processes and facilitating the planning of priority elements and possible actions and interventions to be implemented (Bradfield et al., 2005). Through scenario analysis, it is possible to consider various possible alternatives for the future, highlighting their main uncertainties and variability, attempting to acquire knowledge on the possible values and meanings they may assume for the future without overburdening the planning process and focusing attention on each individual aspect or forecast of results.

The scenario is a multi-disciplinary pathway that allows the issue to be considered through multiple perspectives and representing, at the same time, coherent, plausible, and logical forecasts of how the future might develop (Quist and Vergragt, 2006).

In this sense, a particular and interesting planning strategy, frequently used in the field of sustainability, is backcasting. In other words, it involves imagining a desirable future and then backcasting to determine the steps to be taken and the actions to be taken to guide the transformation towards that future. The design of future scenarios inspired by sustainability makes it possible to identify strategies and related pathways, providing stakeholders (students, political stakeholders, citizens, ...) with images useful in forming opinions and decisions.

48 hours divided as follows:

• MOOC course ‘What is Sustainability?’ (14 hours) online;
• Scenarios' on cross-cutting issues and problems related to sustainability (20 hours) online;
• Workshops: Duke's Walk and workshops (14 hours).

The course will be delivered in mixed mode (on line and in person).

To view the class calendar click here

Sustainability skills, Agenda 2030, Sustainable development.

Multiple-choice tests to assess knowledge acquisition.

Writing a paper for the development of sustainability skills.

Reference areas and competences:

• Embodying the values of sustainability: attributing value to sustainability; promoting nature; defending equity.
• Accepting complexity in sustainability: defining the problem; developing systemic and critical thinking.
• Imagining sustainable futures: experimenting with adaptability and exploratory thinking.
• Acting for sustainability: experimenting with individual initiative, collective action and political agency.

Transversal skills and competences
T6 Life skills and competences
T6.2 Applying environmental skills and competences

• Adopt ways to foster biodiversity and animal welfare;
• Evaluate environmental impact of personal behaviour;
• Adopt ways to reduce pollution;
• Adopt ways to reduce negative impact of consumption;
• Engage others in environment friendly behaviours.

Admission

Course with free access

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Contacts

Silvia Fioretti

  silvia.fioretti@uniurb.it

Contacts

  ok@uniurb.it