Francesca Farioli

• Ph.D
• Managing Director at Italian Association for Sustainability Science

Educators, including those who are involved in education for sustainability (EfS), are not always aware of their role as agents of change. Yet education is not only a fundamental drive for creating and/or transmitting the values that shape a society, but also for its transformation, since it helps to build worldviews, values, competences, and actio...

This chapter comprises a discussion between three international teacher training contexts in Italy, the USA and the UK and explores the tensions that exist in assessing education for sustainable development (ESD) competences. It recognises the need for a form of assessment that is consistent with the aims and values of education for sustainability...

The paths followed by sustainability science, post-normal science (PNS), and education for sustainable development (ESD) have crossed several times in the last 20 years. The conversation reported in this chapter highlights some of the elements that connect them and the suggestions that can be drawn for the training of educators who are aware of the...

The severity of the two deeply correlated crises, the environmental and the economic ones, needs to be faced also in theoretical terms; thus, the authors propose a model yielding a global “stationary state”, following the idea of a “steady-state economics” by Georgescu-Rogen and Herman Daly, by constructing only one dynamical system of ecological a...

In this article, recognizing the complexity of sustainability, we discuss two main problems: (1) the yet unfulfilled need to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge necessary to address sustainability, and (2) the crucial need to strengthen the science-policy-industry interface in order to effectively co-create knowledge and solutions for sustainab...

Over recent decades, education policy has been preoccupied with economic growth while paying insufficient heed to global sustainability challenges. International initiatives to promote education for sustainable development (ESD) have been hampered by a lack of clarity on how to implement this form of education. To address this concern, a Rounder Se...

In the last decades much attention has been dedicated to the interpretation of relevant phenomena in the socio-economic field, highlighting the need of general frameworks of reference for the governance of sustainability and often recurring to the Elkington’s triple bottom line and the Etzkowitz’s triple-helix representations as reference models. I...

In 2011 the UNECE produced a document, “Learning for the future” suggesting a framework of core competences for ESD educators. In 2015, the Erasmus+ project “A Rounder Sense of Purpose” (RSP) started a reflection on the UNECE framework aiming to transform it into an effective tool to be used for building, assessing and awarding the competences that...

The two crises which the title refers to are the two sides of a same coin; aiming to provide a more straight reading, the argumentation has been developed in three different parts. In Part I we recognize that the environmental crisis is generated by the predation and pillage of natural resources, characteristic of the capitalist mode of production...

The two crises which the title refers to are the two sides of a same coin; aiming to provide a more straight reading, the argumentation has been developed in three different parts. In Part I we recognize that the environmental crisis is generated by the predation and pillage of natural resources, characteristic of the capitalist mode of production...

The two crises which the title refers to are the two sides of a same coin; aiming to provide a more straight reading, the argumentation has been developed in three different parts. In Part I we recognize that the environmental crisis is generated by the predation and pillage of natural resources, characteristic of the capitalist mode of production...

nature sustainability environment culture education life green change complessità ecologia mondo società future global ambiente ethics locale engagement nature sustainability environment culture education life green change complessità ecologia mondo società future global ambiente ethics locale engagement nature sustainability environment culture ed...

In Part I the challenges of the environmental crisis have been put forwards, with a particular focus on the climatic instability, that will characterize the next few decades. Part II will explicitly address the underlying reasons for a change of the development model that has basically caused the crisis, and how this model could be changed. Over th...

The two crises which the title refers to are the two sides of a same coin; aiming to provide a more straight reading, the argumentation has been developed in two different parts on this Journal. In Part I we recognize that the environmental crisis is generated by the predation and pillage of natural resources, characteristic of the capitalist mode...

Purpose - Sustainability and Sustainable Development should be the top priorities of a Smarter Planet. On the basis of this statement, our aim is to highlight opportunities of knowledge co-creation that derive from the integration of the research efforts of two communities of scientists, scholars and professionals, recognized worldwide that share a...

The current intensification of efforts to develop post-carbon solutions to the global food/energy security problems is developing a highly contested policy/technology/production/consumption arena. The paper examines how current attempts to resolve these new productivist priorities are embedded in combinations of sustainability, security, sovereignt...

Sustainability science still struggles with transitioning from problem-focused to solution-oriented endeavors that yield positive impacts on mitigating sustainability challenges. This article presents and compares three sustainability science studies on the reconstruction after the 2011 triple-disaster in Japan; limited energy and livelihood option...

Over the last decade Sustainability Science emerged as an interdisciplinary and innovative field of investigation attempting to conduct problem-driven and solution-oriented research that links knowledge to action. Based, inter alia, on use-inspired basic research, post-normal and mode-2 that employ corresponding research practices, such as transdi...

The present paper proposes and describes a new method, called L2A (listen-to-apprise), conceived of in order to improve the commitment of all the participants involved in an educational process specifically dedicated to sustainability and the green economy. The first stage consists in listening to the students and, when possible, in listening to th...

Purpose Sustainability Science (SS) is considered an emerging discipline, applicative and solution-oriented whose aim is to handle environmental, social and economic issues in light of cultural, historic and institutional perspectives. The challenges of the discipline are not only related to better identifying the problems affecting sustainability...

Access to energy that is sustainable, secure, and affordable is a critical catalyst for economic growth and development. Nevertheless, today 2.7 billion people, mainly in poor countries, still rely only on inefficient and pollutant forms of energy for their basic needs. The development of modern forms of bioenergy for heat, electricity, and liquid...

Purpose In the context of progress of sustainability science, life cycle thinking and, in particular, life cycle sustainability assessment may play a crucial role. Environmental, economic and social implications of the whole supply chain of products, both goods and services, their use and waste management, i.e. their entire life cycle from “cradle...

Within the last decade there have been significant discussions and initiatives on use of biofuels as alternatives to fossil fuels. Primarily, the interest in biofuels as alternative fuels has been prompted by their perceived ease of availability and increasing world oil prices. In Africa biofuel programmes have been seen to have the added advantage...

Firewood, dung and charcoal dominate household energy consumption in many developing countries. The lack of access to modern energy services is more acute in Sub-Saharan Africa where 89 per cent of the population still relies on traditional biomass energy compared to 0.05 in North Africa and the Middle East (Gaye 2007, UNDP 2010). Modern bioenergy...

Sustainability science is being developed in constructive tension between a descriptive–analytical and a transformational mode. The first is concerned with analyzing problems in coupled human–environment systems, whereas the second conducts research on practical solutions to those problems. Transformational sustainability research is confronted wit...

These challenges are nolonger ignorable, as they have triggered fierce debates andcontroversies across all sectors and classes of society,finally infiltrating the ivory towers of academia. Yet, publicattention is captivated by the entertaining media episodeson these catastrophes and hardly any attention is paid to thecatastrophes’ underlying structure...

Energy is a basic necessity for survival and a key input to economic and social development. In Sub-Saharan Africa access to modern energy remains very low and the energy situation is still heavily dependent on traditional biomass that accounts for 80–90% of the countries energy balances. Lack of energy services is correlated with many elements of...