This workshop is organized by Verena Winiwarter from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna.
Please find the agenda HERE
Aim
This exploratory workshop brings together experts from different fields to discuss the complex and wicked issue of long-term legacies that might compromise any sustainability transition. It is clear that knowledge and methods from a wide range of disciplines are needed to address this issue. Participants are invited to identify possibilities to address these issues in joint research, using the potential of big data and of a long-term view on side-effects as employed in environmental history.
What is the issue?
The fossil-fuel based way of living has enabled society to gain unprecedented control over materials and develop multiple technologies. Its side effects are likewise unprecedented. A sustainability transformation envisaged as the way out of this conundrum is operationalized in the SDGs on a global level. Goal 3.9 specifically addresses the toxic legacies, but as a health issue: “By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination”, Goal 6.3 spells out the water-related perspective: “By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally.” While the introduction to the SDGs claims that the negative impacts of urban activities and of hazardous chemicals should be reduced, the document is devoid of any systematic treatment of the legacies of the industrial mode of living which have developed since the 1850s at the very latest.