Systems thinking

What you can do at this level

• K

  Knows that every human action has environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts.

• K

  Knows that human action influences outcomes across time and space, leading to positive, neutral or negative results.

• K

  Knows about life cycle thinking and its relevance for sustainable production and consumption.

• K

  Knows the main concepts and aspects of complex systems (synthesis, emergence, interconnectedness, feedback loops and cascade effects) and their implications for sustainability.

• K

  Knows the United Nations SDGs and is aware of interconnections and possible tensions between individual goals.

What you can do at this level

• S

  Can describe sustainability as a holistic concept that includes environmental, economic, social, and cultural issues.

• S

  Can assess interactions between environmental, economic, social, and cultural aspects of sustainability action, events and crises (e.g. migration caused by climate change or wars caused by resource scarcity).

• S

  Can assess how humans and nature interact across space and time.

• S

  Can use life cycle thinking to analyse the risks and benefits of human action.

• S

  Can identify in a system those challenges and opportunities that have the greatest potential to trigger change for sustainability.

What you can do at this level

• A

  Acknowledges the root causes of unsustainability for which humans are responsible, such as climate change.

• A

  Has a holistic grasp of connections and interactions between natural events and human actions.

• A

  Is concerned about the short- and long-term impacts of personal actions on others and the planet.

• A

  Cares about systemic consequences of environmental crises for current and future generations and for other species.

• A

  Is concerned about unpredictable cascade effects of human action.