CONTOURS OF AN MSDI TRANSITIONS APPROACH TO ACHIEVING THE SDGS

To achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, Monash Sustainable Development Institute (MSDI) recognises the urgent need for large-scale transitions. These must occur both at the societal level through ‘systems change’ in infrastructure, rules and institutions, and at the individual level through ‘behaviour change’ in people and organisations. These different levels of change are interconnected, with shifts in one influencing the other over time, and together they can guide societies towards more sustainable futures. MSDI has initiated a broad range of diverse strategies to achieve systems and behaviour change. However, they have so far lacked a coherent, synthesising narrative. The aim of this report is to create an overarching narrative that explains MSDI’s current practices in sustainability transitions, including both systems and behaviour change. Shared narratives are important to guide our own strategy, plus capability maintenance and development, and so we can clearly communicate what potential partners and the world can expect from us. Articulating a consistent, shared narrative across a portfolio of our approaches allows us to benchmark these practices against the scholarly literature and similar institutes, and present case studies that demonstrate the kinds of changes that have happened because of our practices (impacts) and what helped make those changes possible (enablers).