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In a world in need of profound change, the importance of transformative education is increasingly recognized. However, barriers abound in our Higher Education Institutions, including that educators often have little notion of how to make their teaching more transformative in practice. This paper builds on our experience of developing a transformative learning intervention in the context of our sustainability education at Utrecht University. For this project, we designed a learning cycle consisting of seven steps, summarized as excavate, absorb, experience, observe, deepen, exchange, and consolidate. We tested this seven-step learning journey in two Bachelor courses, using qualitative student evaluations (n = 305), and then substantiated it by drawing on the learning sciences literature. We conclude this cycle can help educators structure their teaching; include reflective, experiential, and interactive learning methodologies; and invite learners to systematically reflect on their change in meaning making, thereby supporting (transformative) education design in different contexts.

Understanding the drivers of dietary decisions is crucial for encouraging and facilitating environmentally sustainable consumption patterns. Previous work has focused on the utility that consumers place on factors such as price, quality, and ethics when making dietary decisions, or on the effects of personal values and peer influence on consumption of individual products. However, less attention has been paid to the interacting roles of values, perceptions, and social networks in dietary decision-making, and how these relate to mismatches between values and diet choice. Here, we develop an agent-based model of individual consumers making choices between five possible diets: omnivore, flexitarian, pescatarian, vegetarian, or vegan. Each consumer makes decisions based on personal constraints and values, and their perceptions of how well each diet matches with those values. Consumers can also be influenced by each other’s perceptions via interaction across three social networks: household members, friends, and acquaintances. We show that consumers primarily make decisions based on cost and taste, even when they value ethics and health, and illustrate three potential causes of the ‘attitude-behavior gap’ between ethical motivations and diet choice. This highlights the potential for both policy-driven changes to pricing structures, and increased awareness around sustainability and health attributes of different diets, in overcoming constraints and misperceptions to facilitate transitions to sustainable diets.

Introduction An increasing percentage of Dutch students aged 18-25, currently standing at 25 percent, is overweight. Unhealthy dietary habits are the primary cause of this increase (CBS, 2023). Young adults enrolled in tertiary education spend considerable time on campus, making the role of campus caterers significant in shaping their food behavior (Tam et al., 2017). Unfortunately, many third-level education institutions are currently filled with unhealthy food options, and transitioning to a healthier food environment is a complex process due to the conflicting goals of the stakeholders involved. To understand and solve this issue, this study answers the research question: "To what extent are there mismatches between the goals of third-level education caterers, the organizations they cater to, and the customers' wants, and which pathways can be taken to transition to a healthier food environment?". This is supported by sub-questions that focus on identifying stakeholders, finding barriers, and formulating pathways for transition. The findings of this study will serve as valuable input for the pilot study that the Healthy Food Coalition plans to launch in the upcoming year. With this study, the Healthy Food Coalition aims to demonstrate the profitability of offering healthy food options in the catering industry. The input from this thesis will be used to design an optimal food environment that supports this goal. Theoretical framework Transitioning to a healthier food environment is a complex process. To facilitate this, the following theories were used: system thinking (Arnold & Wade, 2015) and the leverage points framework by Meadows (1999) and Abson et al. (2017). These theories seek to find barriers and leverage points for change at different ‘depths’ within a system. This not only contributed to a comprehensive understanding of the goals (intent) of the different actor groups but also dived deeper into the other levels of the system, such as design, feedback

The Dutch regional water authorities (DRWA) experience pressure to increase their sustainable practices due to the changing climate and political pressure. This research focuses on the structural organisational barriers encountered by the Dutch regional water authority Hollandse Delta (WSHD) during the integration of sustainability. It examined the complex network of the WSHD to resolve current misunderstandings and provide recommendations for sustainable management. The actor-issue network, supplemented by the attributes of organisational change and the power-interest matrix, serves as the theoretical framework. The study is qualitative, aiming to delve deeply into the complexities of the interdependencies of actors and issues within the network of WSHD to identify structural barriers of sustainable integration. A total of 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather detailed insights from individual employees. These interviews identified collaborations between actors, issues experienced by them, and their interrelationships to map out the actor-issue network, provide an overview of the structural barriers, and gain insights into the level of power and interest of stakeholders. Based on the actor-issue network, three organisational issues that had the highest out-degree and were identified by all departments were chosen for further examination. Subsequently, the governance gaps were identified for these barriers. Internal stakeholder formulated 33 bridging measures for four structural barriers; different priorities, lack of clear goals, level of specialisation and lack of focus. Key recommendations include the establishment of a sustainability advisory group to centralise and streamline sustainability efforts across departments. This group would ensure coherent communication and collaboration. To foster these processes, support from bridging departments and the board of directors is essential. Key stakeholders to foster this process include the bridging d

Quantifying historical land use change (LUC) can help estimate historical contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. Additionally, understanding LUC in former colonies can help fairly distribute the remaining carbon budget over colonising and colonised countries. Historical LUC is often quantified using a modelling approach and historical data is only sporadically used. In contrast, this thesis uses solely historical documents and assesses the archives of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC) to find information on land use. Additionally, a text mining methodology is developed for the identification of such information from transcribed archives of the VOC. A total of 14 lists concerning land use were identified with the text mining methodology. For Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka) a land use reconstruction is made using one of these lists. The list is georeferenced onto a contemporary map allowing 34% of the locations in the list to be connected to a location on a map. Additionally, two historical maps on land use were georeferenced, offering another data source for the estimation of land use. By identifying more lists and improving the georeferencing procedure, future research can disentangle the drivers for LUC and make land use estimates for all the colonies of the VOC. This thesis offers the foundations for such an approach and is a starting point for improving our understanding of historical LUC.

This thesis explores sustainable design principles for a climate-adaptive food forest (FF) at estate Zuylestein in the Utrechtse Heuvelrug. The landowner wished to integratea former forested area into the productional focus of the entire estate while restoring the look of a forest as required by national monument legislation and adapting to climate change. FFs represent an agroecological, sustainable way of producing food while benefitting the local community and nature. It can thus be seen to in crease food sovereignty. For this purpose, the estate needed to be evaluated from a social-ecological system (SES) perspective to reveal constraints, opportunities, and goals for the FF. Further, benefits, services and income opportunities of FFs needed investigation. Lastly, the vision and priorities of the main stakeholders needed to be considered. Scientifically, this thesis systematically assessesgeneral design principles for FFs in temperate regions, with a focus on climate adaptation. Further, the ap proach of the thesis being transdisciplinary with a social-ecological lens, adds to literature on transdis ciplinary projects. In this thesis, transdisciplinary work means the co-production of knowledge with the main stake holders as well as consultations with FF practitioners. Soil analyses were conducted to evaluate soil fertility and water availability. Interviews with the landowner completed the necessary social ecological knowledge on the system. What the target state of the FF should be and how a transforma tion could be facilitated was further informed by conducting a scenario and backcasting workshop with the main stakeholders. Reviewing scientific and grey literature completed the picture. By applying these methods, in an iterative process, design principles were derived. Most importantly, sufficient startup funds for the beginning years, when the system is still vulnerable need to be secured. Further, to establish resilience, effort should be put into increasing

The study of past societies’ relation with climate is a precious resource to contextualize our own struggles with the current climate crisis, but the field has been left largely unexplored by both historians and climatologists. In this project, we aim at providing a contribution to fill this gap. Our focus is on the late Roman Empire, from the onset of the third century crisis (235 AD) to the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD). This period coincided with climatic change in Europe, as it represented the transition between the Roman Warm Period and the Dark Ages Cold Period. We are interested in exploring the relation between climate change and the Empire’s crisis, through the use of a computational simulation of the Empire’s agricultural productivity and food staples economy. The project was divided in two phases. First we constructed a simulation that reproduced the known historical trade patterns around 200 AD to a reasonable level of accuracy. In a second phase, we tested this simulation through a different reconstructed climate forcing and evaluated the anomaly between them. We found that the climate transition caused a significant rise in grain import costs in several cities of the Roman East, which could justify some of the Empire’s socio-economic issues starting around the 3rd century AD.

System transitions are needed to create a more sustainable world that provides for future generations. When it comes to dietary choices, a protein transition from animal-based proteins to plant-based proteins in the diets of young adults can facilitate more sustainable diets for the betterment of human health and the environment. To find current patterns and study a smaller subsystem that is under researched to add on to this system change away from the meat and dairy regime towards more plant-based diets: The dietary habits of 25 young adults in Utrecht are studied through interviews, with a focus on the role of social and non-social information, as well as their own values and motivations in determining current diets, in order to find strategies to increase a dietary protein transition and provide insight into more plant-based diets. Diet labels are not well defined for flexitarians and vegetarians, and vegan diets can be challenging in modern society. Power and achievement values and motives are found to be central to these students' wanting to make a change in the current practices. Environmental degradation mitigation and animal welfare play a bigger role in vegetarian and vegan diets than in flexitarian diets, but they are not unimportant to flexitarians. Health plays a role in every diet, and protein is broadly known to be important for an active lifestyle. It was found that food environments can still reduce the availability of animal product-based foods and promote plant-based foods better through nudging and price differentiation. Young adults have busy schedules and not a lot of money to spend on food items. Social networks of plant-based eating young adults adapt to more sustainable diets when eating together, which makes them influential in a transition towards plant-based protein diets. Life transitions, in which social situations often change, are windows of change for adapting to more plant-based diets. The opportunity for plant-based diets is increa

There is potential for circular food systems to improve quality of life for humans, farmed animals, and ecosystems. However, increasing circularity in the food system brings with it novel risks that should be managed to avoid negative unintended consequences. Under circularity, the interconnectivity of food subsystems is likely to increase. For example, waste streams are proposed to be used as feed or fertilizer. Creating such loops brings novel risks that may become reinforcing. Risk is interdependent across system scales and may related to animal welfare, pollution, spread of disease, or international trade. If these risks are not identified and managed, the project of circular food systems may be undermined. We propose a new framework for managing and governing risk within circular food systems, more specifically within the EU including the context of the Green Deal. Our framework places an emphasis on building resilience of food subsystems as a pathway to managing risk. We explore how the current movement toward restructuring of interconnections within the food system to increase circularity may introduce novel and unintended risk factors, and how this connectivity can be managed to mitigate these risks. We outline how risk owners can be identified and connected to improve governance across food system scales. Finally, we explain how resilience principles can be applied to manage changing risk associated with transition to a circular food system.

There is potential for circular food systems to improve quality of life for humans, farmed animals, and ecosystems. However, increasing circularity in the food system brings with it novel risks that should be managed to avoid negative unintended consequences. Under circularity, the interconnectivity of food subsystems is likely to increase. For example, waste streams are proposed to be used as feed or fertilizer. Creating such loops brings novel risks that may become reinforcing. Risk is interdependent across system scales and may related to animal welfare, pollution, spread of disease, or international trade. If these risks are not identified, managed, and regulated, the project of transition to circular food systems may be undermined. We propose a new, multidisciplinary framework for managing and governing risk within circular food systems, more specifically within the EU including the context of the Green Deal. Our framework places an emphasis on building resilience of food subsystems as a pathway to managing risk. We explore how the current movement toward restructuring of interconnections within the food system to increase circularity may introduce novel and unintended risk factors, and how this connectivity can be managed to mitigate these risks. We outline how risk owners can be identified and connected to improve governance across food system scales. Finally, we explain how resilience principles can be applied to manage changing risk associated with transition to a circular food system. Relationship of the contribution to SDGs: SDG 2: Zero hunger: target 2.4 and target 2.5 SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production: target 12.8 By 2030 SDG 15: Life on land: target 15.5, target 15.8, target 15.9 Relationship of the contribution to the theme of the Conference – “Sustainable Development and Courage. Culture, Art and Human Rights”. Transition in food systems, includin

National Park Utrechtse Heuvelrug is a nature area that currently faces many challenges related to climate change. Climate adaptation (CA) is required to ensure that the Utrechtse Heuvelrug (UH) can fulfil its current functions relating to recreation, nature conservation, living, drinking water etc. This CA transition involves various stakeholders, who already play a role. However, the implementation of CA solutions proceeds slowly. This thesis researches the social-ecological system (SES) of the UH to analyse what acceleration possibilities exist for the transition towards a climate-adapted landscape. This was done by conducting an actor-issue network analysis, which provides insight into the interconnectedness of actors and/or climate issues. The network was complemented by a power-interest matrix, showing the different levels of power and interest held by stakeholders, and by a PESTEL-analysis, which is a strategic planning tool that helps define key drivers for change (KDFC). The network and the power-interest matrix were developed based on data collected through desk research and 22 interviews. The PESTEL-analysis resulting in the KDFC was based on two workshops with relevant stakeholders. 12 KDFC were identified to accelerate the transition towards a climate-adapted landscape at the UH: 1) Set priorities and frameworks, 2) Strengthen governmental leadership (“regie”), 3) Invest in CSR, 4) Stakeholders should better argue what benefits their solution has, 5) Combine functions and always consider CA, 6) Work from intrinsic motivation, 7) Increasingly connect other stakeholders and boost CA solutions, 8) Seize opportunities, 9) Prioritise long-term solutions, 10) Establish an overarching research direction: measuring and monitoring, 11) Increase the capacity of municipalities, and 12) Better substantiate why stakeholders believe a project should proceed. These results apply to the UH and while some KDFC may be useful to other national parks, the results cannot di

The global food system is in dire need of reform. How we produce and consume food contributes to some of society's most pressing challenges. As a reaction, short food supply chains (SFSCs) have developed in Europe, supported by the idea of producing and consuming food in a way that respects both the environment and the different actors in the food chain. Utrecht, the fourth biggest city in the Netherlands, is also following that trend, and many initiatives that seek to offer fresh and local food to citizens have arisen. Nevertheless, this alternative system remains relatively small compared to the conventional value chains. This thesis examines how SFSCs of Utrecht can be upscaled through the creation of meaningful collaborations while still respecting the primary identity of SFSCs i.e., small and local. The acceleration mechanisms of Gorissen, Spira, Meynaerts, Valkeringa, & Frantzeskaki (2018) are adapted and then combined in a novel conceptual framework with the concepts of transformative alliances and actors of Haan & Rotmans (2018) and the different collaboration levels offered by Mittal, White, & Krejci (2017). This framework highlights the way different types of actors are creating transformative alliances to foster system change. These theories are then visualised using social network concepts which allowed for a thorough overview of the different actors collaborating to strengthen SFSCs in Utrecht. Based on these observations, recommendations on how to strengthen SFSCs are formulated. These are mainly focused on connectors and topplers who appeared to be critical actors in unifying, assembling, and giving relevance to SFSCs and later upscale SFSCs. The results help to further define how upscaling processes occur within a local context. The research offers a new narrative on how alternative markets such as SFSCs are being developed by creating meaningful collaborations between diverse actors. Moreover, the methodology suggests a novel and concrete way to vis

We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines’ different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally co-constituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the “characteristic management challenges” that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions

Due to the rising complexity of today’s globalised business environment, leaders need new mindsets, skills and capacities to meet the systemic nature of its global challenges. To equip leaders with these necessary capacities, the emergence of systems leadership programs, and more specifically Theory U, has been a promising development. Whereas Theory U is widely praised by organisational change and leadership practitioners, existing literature in these fields lacks critical assessments of the practical outcomes of Theory U, and specifically if it gives rise to systemic change required to meet global challenges. Hence, this research aimed to better understand the value of Theory U in practice by researching to what extent leadership programs inspired by Theory U give rise to systemic changes in organisational systems. To do so, this study applied a qualitative, abductive research design, in which insights from an empirical case (Better Future) were systemically combined with insights from existing theory on systems, leadership and organisational change. Results indicated that Theory U mostly affected people on an individual level, as well as the way those individuals interact with others both in their team and organisations as a whole. Moreover, it was observed that organisations set several steps towards achieving their new goals and purpose defined during the U-process. Despite these achievements, the program did not facilitate systemic change, because changes were mostly actor-focused, did not sufficiently address system structures and the changes implemented across different system levels were not aligned (enough) with each other and with the overall goal of the system. Overall, this research contributed to existing literature on systems and organisational change by being first of its kind to (1) research the impact of Theory U on all three organisational levels, (2) study how the impacts across these levels interact and how they affect the overall success of the

We present a new framework for modelling the complexities of food and water security under globalisation. The framework sets out a method to capture regional and sectoral interdependencies and cross-scale feedbacks within the global food system that contribute to emergent water use patterns. The framework integrates aspects of existing models and approaches in the fields of hydrology and integrated assessment modelling. The core of the framework is a multi-agent network of city agents connected by infrastructural trade networks. Agents receive socio-economic and environmental constraint information from integrated assessment models and hydrological models respectively and simulate complex, socio-environmental dynamics that operate within those constraints. The emergent changes in food and water resources are aggregated and fed back to the original models with minimal modification of the structure of those models. It is our conviction that the framework presented can form the basis for a new wave of decision tools that capture complex socio-environmental change within our globalised world. In doing so they will contribute to illuminating pathways towards a sustainable future for humans, ecosystems and the water they share.

We convened a workshop to enable scientists who study water systems from both social science and physical science perspectives to develop a shared language. This shared language is necessary to bridge a divide between these disciplines’ different conceptual frameworks. As a result of this workshop, we argue that we should view socio-hydrological systems as structurally co-constituted of social, engineered, and natural elements and study the “characteristic management challenges” that emerge from this structure and reoccur across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. This approach is in contrast to theories that view these systems as separately conceptualized natural and social domains connected by bi-directional feedbacks, as is prevalent in much of the water systems research arising from the physical sciences. A focus on emergent characteristic management challenges encourages us to go beyond searching for evidence of feedbacks and instead ask questions such as: What types of innovations have successfully been used to address these challenges? What structural components of the system affect its resilience to hydrological events and through what mechanisms? Are there differences between successful and unsuccessful strategies to solve one of the characteristic management challenges? If so, how are these differences affected by institutional structure and ecological and economic contexts? To answer these questions, social processes must now take center stage in the study and practice of water management. We also argue that water systems are an important class of coupled systems with relevance for sustainability science because they are particularly amenable to the kinds of systematic comparisons that allow knowledge to accumulate. Indeed, the characteristic management challenges we identify are few in number and recur over most of human history and in most geographical locations. This recurrence should allow us to accumulate knowledge to answer the above questions