Shanghai, June 8 - 11 2014
Global Transitions to Sustainable Production and Consumption Systems
GRF International Conference
The Second International GRF conference was a forum to present and discuss new research outcomes from the Asia-Pacific region as well as from Latin America, Africa, Europe, and North America. This conference provided a unique opportunity for Chinese and Asian SPaC researchers and practitioners to join together with the others in the global community. The conference took stock of new issue framing and explored emerging research questions. The scope covered local and global issues and interconnections across scales, connecting regions and researchers. One of the aims was to strengthen the international community of SPaC researchers and practitioners and to connect them with knowledge users in business, social movements, and policy making.
The Conference Program (Agenda) can be downloaded here (PDF).
Presentations from the conference can be found here. Videos of the keynote presentations can be found here.
The Conference Program (Agenda) can be downloaded here (PDF).
Presentations from the conference can be found here. Videos of the keynote presentations can be found here.
Formatting, submitting and reading the papers...
Download the abstract book (download - PDF document - 1 June version).
The formatting guidelines for submitted papers can be found here (download - Word Doc).
Papers should be submitted to the following email address: [email protected].
You can download the conference papers (they are on the web page "Download Shanghai", which is under the tab "Shanghai Papers"). When prompted, enter the password. Conference participants will receive the password by email.
The Call for Papers was closed in December 2013. For reference, it is available here: English version (PDF); Bilingual version (PDF).
The formatting guidelines for submitted papers can be found here (download - Word Doc).
Papers should be submitted to the following email address: [email protected].
You can download the conference papers (they are on the web page "Download Shanghai", which is under the tab "Shanghai Papers"). When prompted, enter the password. Conference participants will receive the password by email.
The Call for Papers was closed in December 2013. For reference, it is available here: English version (PDF); Bilingual version (PDF).
Conference themes
The conference will be concerned with four key issue groupings:
1. Systemic Issues and Pathways to System Change
2. Chinese, Asian, and other Developing Regions: Priorities in SPaC
3. Actors and Strategies in Transitions to SPaC:
4. Alternatives and Experiments: Metrics, Lifestyles, Business Practices, and Governance
1. Systemic Issues and Pathways to System Change
- Sustainability challenges and barriers to change, especially with respect to consumption and production, but also pertaining to finance and investment, business and supply-chain management, lifestyles and culture, public policies, and procurement.
- Analysis of the conditions for and barriers to change such as elimination of perverse subsidies on fossil fuels, agriculture, advertising, and financial transactions.
- Absolute reductions in material throughput and energy use (with a focus on industrialized countries and the emergent global middle class).
- System modeling and modeling of socio-technical transitions.
- Ecological ethics and values relevant to a low-carbon society.
2. Chinese, Asian, and other Developing Regions: Priorities in SPaC
- Priorities for SPaC in China.
- Potential of a Chinese circular economy
- Challenges of poverty and inequality and creating opportunities for sustainable livelihoods that reinforce local and regional economies and contribute to living wages and employment creation.
- Role of traditional practices and knowledge and its potential to contribute to innovative solutions for sustainable lifestyles.
- Measurement of the social and environmental impacts of consumption in China and Asia.
- Enhancing sustainability of middle-class consumer practices.
3. Actors and Strategies in Transitions to SPaC:
- Relevance of sustainable cities, urban resilience, eco-villages, and alternative communities, infrastructures, and lifestyles.
- Development and diffusion of social innovations such as transition towns, slow food, and local living economies, and peer-to-peer provisioning.
- Technological change, socio-technical transitions, institutions, and market-based instruments for low-carbon transitions.
- Marketing and social media in sustainability transitions.
- Management and policy making to encourage system change.
- SPaC in education and curricular development.
4. Alternatives and Experiments: Metrics, Lifestyles, Business Practices, and Governance
- Experiments in collaborative consumption, new forms of business ownership and practice, novel modes of stakeholder collaboration.
- Governance of urban sustainable development.
- Indicators and metrics to support transitions to sustainable lifestyles.