Accompanying Lausanne University's Transition Assembly

I accompanied the University of Lausanne (UNIL) through its ecological transition plan with a day of workshop for the University's Transition Assembly.

60 people representative of all users and contributors at UNIL participate in the process (selection by lottery).

The Assembly has one year to formulate measures for a just and fair ecological transition to the UNIL direction and the University community at large.

www.unil.ch/durable/assemblee

We opened the Assembly with a workshop around the Myths of the future which offers a very good basis for objectifying and questioning the main archetypal stories of the future. In doing so, we were able to discover different concepts and understanding of sustainability and their explicit or implicit views of human and physical nature.

We then wondered why our desirable visions of the future often do not match our perceptions of the probable future? To what extent does this relate to our perception of 'human nature', i.e. our perception of ourselves, individually and collectively? In other words, how much potential for change do we allow ourselves, and to what extent does this delimit our horizon of possibilities and our capacity to act? And if so, what vision of human and physical nature do we want to favour? How can we achieve trade-offs between different concepts of sustainability?

This workshop on visions and concepts of sustainability provided a common foundation and understanding among the Assembly members and opened the one-year process of the Assembly towards formulating ecological transition measures for the UNIL's future until 2050.