STEPS/SPRU seminar

Nicholas A. Ashford, PhD., JD.
Professor of Technology and Policy and Director of the Technology and Law Program
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The most important barriers to achieving a transformation to a more sustainable industrial system is lock-in or path dependency due to (1) the failure to envision, design, and implement policies that achieve co-optimization, or the mutually reinforcing – rather than the compromising – of societal goals (economic welfare, environmental quality, and employment/earning capacity) and (2) entrenched economic and political interests that game (and gain from) the present system and advancement of its current trends. System-wide change requires system-wide thinking and action.

Sound legislative and programmatic changes, and an independent judiciary, are compromised by gridlock, corruption, and diversionary tactics while the debates we should be having are sidestepped by the media and self-serving political maneuvering. Sustainable development requires both technological and institutional changes, while ‘opening up the participatory and political space’ to enable new voices to contribute to integrated systems thinking and solutions. Societal innovations and transformation are also needed but they are insufficient by themselves to transcend technical, economic, financial, and political lock-in. However, technology is neither the major barrier nor the solution. Financial and political reform is key to accomplishing both.

Insights from Prof Ashford’s recent book with Ralph Hall: Technology, Globalization, and Sustainable Development: Transforming the Industrial State (2011, Yale University Press) will inform the presentation.