Centre for Sustainability Transitions

Our PhD student, Thandeka Tshabalala, representing the South in Sweden. We look forward to hearing about her experience at the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN) PhD School!

The Centre for Sustainability Transitions will be hosting a Nature Connectedness Retreat and is calling on anyone interested in exploring kinship, relationality and more than human pathways to sustainability to register for the retreat. Tanya Uhnger Wünsche, founder of NEED FOR NATURE, and Drs Miche Fabre Lewin and Flora Gathorne-Hardy, founders of Living Justice, will be guest speakers and facilitators. Retreat details: 📅 The retreat takes place from 24 – 25 February 2025 📍 Mont Fleur Retreat Centre, Stellenbosch 🎟 Free of charge 🔗 Secure your spot and register at https://lnkd.in/d7kxjVJH For more information, contact Prof Rika Preiser at rika@sun.ac.za. RSVP by Thursday 20 February 2025. Space is limited. Find out more at https://lnkd.in/dgPGcRdy.

If you have some time, read or listen to Distinguished Professor at the Centre for Sustainability Transitions, Mark Swilling's opinion piece published in the Daily Maverick. Mark makes connections between inequality and white wealth in South Africa and Trump's MAGA movement, hosting the "G19", the bully in the playground, wealth equity and equality, and land expropriation. Visit https://lnkd.in/dPrssvgW to read the full article.

Our new cohort of PGDip in Sustainable Development students were put through their paces during the first module, Sustainability Transitions and Transformations. In this module, students are given a better understanding of the extent and nature of the sustainability polycrisis, the nature of intersecting climate, biodiversity, social, political and economic crises, all within an African context. Other modules in the programme include financing the just energy transition, biodiversity and climate change, governance and institutional change, and the water and food nexus.

2024 was a bumper year for Centre for Sustainability Transitions researchers, fellows, postgraduate students and collaborators. 34 academic articles were published, ranging from African knowledge systems, justice and urban greening, rural ecological infrastructure investment, the water-energy-food nexus, to discourse on tipping points, global South transformations, demystifying the Just Energy Transition, and much, much more. To access these articles, visit https://lnkd.in/d3pKATMR.

Interested in finding out what is in store for "the world and South Africa" beyond 2025? Join us as we host Scenario Planner and Futurist, Dr Clem Sunter, as he presents at the Centre for Sustainability Transitions' Colloquium Series. Entitled, "The world and South Africa beyond 2025: the latest flags, scenarios and probabilities", Clem will identify principal forces driving the present into the future, looking at methodologies, major trends, pivotal uncertainties, and plausible scenarios. The colloquium will take place in person and online. Registration is essential. Date: Thursday 20 February 2025 Time: 4pm - 5:30pm In person venue: Van der Sterr Building, Stellenbosch University Online venue: Zoom Register at  https://lnkd.in/d7agXkZa. Register by 12 February 2025. Find out more at https://lnkd.in/dua9wFgh

In partnership with University of Groningen, the SARChI in Science Communications (Imidibaniso (SciCom) at the Stellenbosch Department of Journalism, we hosted a successful summer school, Discourses in Sustainability Transitions, attended by postgraduate students from various institutions globally. Students were immersed in learning about the impact and relationships between discourse, worldviews, ethics and much more, in relation to the food/energy transitions nexus, and were exposed to first-hand experiences with several field trips in and around Cape Town.

After over two decades, Prof Mark Swilling, co-founder of the Centre for Sustainability Transitions, has stepped down as Co-director. Mark has steered the CST, which now boasts three postgraduate progammes and multiple projects, collaborating with national and international partners. We have profound appreciation for all Mark has done and are grateful for his leadership, mentorship and strategic direction. Mark will still play an important role at the CST as SARChI Chair in Urban Governance and Energy in Africa, supervisor to our postgraduate students, and will continue to provide strategic leadership as an exco member. Read more about Mark's current and future plans and projects at https://lnkd.in/d-aQ_xbj.

Earlier this year, in March 2024, the ReSET project met in Bengaluru, India for our final project meeting. We also took this opportunity to facilitate a gathering with early career researchers, as part of the ReSET Summer School. In a series of three articles we, Jesse Hoffman, Stuti Haldar, and I, describe how we have tried to create opportunities for a ‘global’ conversation in the ReSET project. ReSET is an international project focused on shaping just energy transitions, involving teams from India, Germany, South Africa, and the Netherlands. In this third article I reflect on how staging a global classroom on Just Energy Transitions helped to create a generative context for collective learning. Visit RESET website https://lnkd.in/dR6zNUA4 to learn more Join the LinkedIn group ‘Just Energy Transitions’ to connect with ReSET researchers here: https://lnkd.in/dyhyHC-f — The ReSET project investigates how the transition from fossil to renewable energy can become aligned with the goals for a more just, democratic and human world.  Centre for Sustainability Transitions Indian Institute for Human Settlements  Urban Futures Studio #InstituteofEnvironmentalSocialSciencesandGeography #FreiburgUniversity #ReSET #ReSETframework #EnergyTransitions #JustEnergyTransitions

We are extremely excited and proud Linda Joka, Victoria T. Shifidi, PhD, Willem Malherbe, and Kate Pringle, on your graduation. After years of hard work and determination, Linda Joka can call herself a Master of Philosophy in Sustainable Development, and we can proudly introduce Dr Victoria T. Shifidi, PhD, Dr Willem Malherbe, and Dr Kate Pringle, who graduated (in absentia) with their PhDs in Sustainable Development. Congratulations Linda, Victoria, Willem, and Kate!