From June 14 to 17, Prof Doris Fuchs and faculty members Halliki Krenin, PhD and Victoria Hasenkamp participated in the 14th conference of the ESEE (European Society for Ecological Economics) in Pisa. The conference with an economic focus took place under the motto "Will Achilles catch up with the tortoise? It's high time for transformative action on sustainability" and pointed out the imperative need for society-wide change towards sustainability in different contexts in order to break out of the vicious circle of currently largely unsustainable reality that political actors are pursuing. Especially the engagement of science and civil society was discussed in terms of transfomative, innovative approaches.
Prof Fuchs and Victoria Hasenkamp presented an article from the research project BIOCIVIS, which is based at the Center for Interdisciplinary Sustainability Research (ZIN). In it, they addressed the question of whether and how citizens* can shape a sustainable bioeconomy. In particular, they addressed the aspect of what conditions democratic and sustainability-oriented participation formats on complex issues require in order to provide added value for citizens, e.g. in discussions on the bioeconomy. Halliki Krenin, presented two publications from her dissertation. The first article, co-authored with Ernest Aigner, focused on a new target for the UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 - away from economic growth, towards degrowth. The second article, co-authored with Katha Keil, looked at German trade union narratives of the good life and examined whether trade union conceptualisations of (over)work and (over)consumption as measures of a good life are moving towards more sustainable narratives of what it means to live a good life. The conference showed once again that the transformation to sustainability is essential in the face of today's crises and that research and civil society engagement can contribute greatly to change in large and small ways.