Module GEOG42530: Sustainable Transitions and Transformations

Department: Geography

GEOG42530: Sustainable Transitions and Transformations

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• To develop an advanced understanding of the key concepts, theories, and frameworks related to sustainable transitions and transformations.
• To identify and critically assess the drivers, barriers, and opportunities for transitions and transformations across different sectors.
• To explore and propose how societies, organisations, and communities can navigate complex, long-term sustainability challenges.

Content

• Sustainable transitions and transformations are key to achieving sustainable futures amid climate change and as the world rapidly urbanises. They raise vital questions of what kinds of change are desired and how to achieve change. This module explores practical experiments that attempt to generate sustainable transitions and transformations at global, national and local scales. Through field visits to UK cities and regions, this module emphasizes the intersections between cities and climate and broader environmental change. The module is organised around case studies informed by communities, NGOs, government and businesses, and an innovative ‘lab’ form of engagement between student and partners. Through various frameworks, theories, approaches, and practical case studies, the module will examine how societies, organizations, and systems move towards more sustainable futures. In lectures, seminars and field trips, we will consider various conditions for, and barriers, to change.
• The ‘lab’ form and partner engagement through case studies and site visits will enable real-world inquiry into sustainability-related problems, alongside examples of possible solutions. In assessments, students will focus on problems related either to climate change or cities.
• Indicative Content:
• Part 1: Theories of Transition and Transformation
• Understanding and conceptualising different forms of change – including incremental transitions, accumulative transitions, and disruptive transformation
• Understanding the dynamics of change.
• Part 2: Conditions for, and barriers, to change
• Geopolitics and environmental governance
• Political-economic shifts and contemporary capitalism
• Cultural practices and social norms
• Part 3: Sector specific transitions and transformations for sustainability
• Practical case studies of sustainable transitions and transformations, across different scales and in relation to different sectors and sites. Cases will be developed with partners and might include:
• Energy transitions
• Nature based solutions,
• Sustainable agriculture and food systems
• Urban sustainability projects
• Urban rewilding and nature restoration
• Green industrial strategies

Learning Outcomes

• Have knowledge of theories of sustainable transitions and transformations
• Have advanced knowledge of a range of transitions and transformations across different scales, particularly as they relate to cities and climate change
• Understand the conditions for successful sustainable transitions or transformations

• Critically engage in debates about how change can be achieved.
• Ability to identify and explain different types of sustainability related change.
• Capacity to evaluate, develop and propose transformative policy and practice initiatives.

• Ability to propose solutions to complex problems
• Collaboration and working with others
• Written and communication skills

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures covering Part 1 and 2 will introduce core concepts, focusing on elaborating frameworks for understanding sustainable transitions and transformations. Workshops delivering Part 3 of the course will engage in more depth with specific partner-supported global, national and/or regional case studies of transitions and transformations.
• The workshops will build towards critically engaging with theories and processes of sustainable transitions and transformations and the local and national field visits, specifically a) two one-day visits to local case study partners in the North-East and b) a three-day visit to a UK city. The aim of the field visits is to give students experience of a range of transitions and transformations in practice.
• The group presentation will engage with selected case studies of sustainable transitions or transformations. The ‘Transitions and Transformations’ report may draw on the local and/or national visits to partner organisations, identify a sustainability related problem, and/or evaluate various actual and potential transitions and transformations

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Formative feedback will be provided via focused activities across the seminars and field visits building towards the report, including in-seminar comments on draft report plan.

■ Students who do not attend monitored activities shown under Teaching Methods and Learning Hours, or who fail to complete the summative or formative assessment(s) specified above, may be subject to the Academic Progress procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University.