Revisiting Sustainability Boundaries from a Systems Perspective

The developments of the notions of sustainability and systems thinking have similar triggers and are complementary in their purpose. Both have evolved in response to an inability of reductionist approaches to achieve desired outcomes when dealing with messy and complex issues. Both concepts call for holistic approaches to research, development, monitoring and evaluation. Indeed, systems approaches have to be integral to sustainability investigations if the sustainability concept is to have coherent meaning. The challenge is how to establish, in applied studies of sustainability, the appropriate boundaries of the system. This challenge arises because of the multiplicity of stakeholder perspectives, togethe