ABSTRACT
The term 'sustainable development' has received much attention in many spheres, in scientific discourses, in daily life practices, in international negotiations, in local policy measures, in marketing, in business. This chapter provides a collection of interdisciplinary research articles: history, politics, governance, complex systems, economics, philosophy and cultural studies are only but some approaches this book builds upon. Solutions to the problems of the interconnected environmental, economic, and social spheres cannot be reduced to mere technical engineering, but must include social innovations, institutions, innovative governance mechanisms, and politics. The research book can serve as a textbook for courses on sustainable development and environmental politics. Theorizing sustainable development also has implications for the implementation of sustainability. While the idea of sustainable development has emerged in many cultures of the world, the conceptualization of sustainable development as such began with Carlowitz in seventeenth-century Europe.
