Great Problems, Great Minds Seminar Series—Sustainability Science Trilemma: Puzzle and Pathways

Join the Department of Social Sciences for this Great Problems, Great Minds seminar series event featuring guest speaker Xiaoling Zhang, a professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs and an affiliated professor in the School of Energy and Environment at the City University of Hong Kong. This event is open to the public and will take place over Zoom on Thursday, April 27, 2023, from 12:40–1:40 p.m.

Abstract

Challenges facing sustainability remain, including insufficient engagement with stakeholder groups, lack of robust communication and entrepreneurial skills between scientists and practitioners, the need for scientific quantification to attract and maintain committed “common public goods” to the field, and enhanced qualitative and quantitative meta-studies to unravel “universal” law (mechanisms and evidence emerging from sustainability science research). The mismatch between rhetoric and practice in sustainability science is the core of which being the notion of “sustainability trilemma.” Sustainability science should be conceived as dynamic, relational, and multi-dimensional, encompassing social, economic, ecological, and governance spheres on which sustainability takes on variegated forms. This presentation will define the “sustainability trilemma” to quantify the trade-offs among scales, actors, and spheres through unraveling the black box of “resource economy, environmental externalities, and social inequality.” This will help dissolve the distinction among eco-centric, anthropocentric, and complex ecosystem network approaches to sustainability.

Bio

Xiaoling Zhang received her Ph.D. in building and real estate from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and her bachelor’s degree in business management from Shandong University. Zhang’s research has mainly focused on sustainability science, energy economics, urbanization, and environmental management. Her main focus is to identify, monitor, assess, and simulate the interdependencies, trade-offs, and interactions among energy, environment, economic, and social-ecological systems in shifting towards dynamics of anthropogenic sustainability and resilience. Her recent research focuses on decarbonization pathways through the investigation and implementation of sustainable development practices, such as renewable energy systems in countries of the global south. She explores this through a technical, managerial, economic, and behavioral perspective. Her research has led to many research articles published in high-quality journals, such as Nature, Nature Food, and Habitat International. Zhang’s research projects have been funded by the Research Grant Council of the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong, the Environment and Conservation Fund of Hong Kong, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Ministry of Education of China. She is an associate editor of npj Urban Sustainability (Nature partner series) and co-editor in chief of Land Use Policy. She received the Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers Award in 2022.

This event is part of the Great Problems, Great Minds seminar series which explores the major problems facing humanity as we move into the heart of the twenty-first century. To see the full schedule and videos from previous events, visit the seminar series page. For more information, contact Assistant Professor of Social Sciences Hao Huang at hhuang48@iit.edu.

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