• Technology

• Health

• Environment

• Project Co-ordinator: Dr. phil. Georg Kamp, M.A.

• Duration: 9/10–2/13

• Funding: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

• Further information on „Sustainability“

Sustainable acting requires the actor’s competence to make long-term plans that balance the proximate (now-for-now) preferences with those targeted at a more distant future (now-for-then). To meet their now-for-then preferences actors have to sustain and ensure the future availability of the resources necessary to keep their options to act open for adequately long planning periods.

A one-sided focus on the so-called “natural resources” would be inadequate, as sustainable acting also has to assure the long-term provision of cognitive and social resources. This includes planning competences as well as the competence to cope with uncertainty and risk rationally, to retain the ability of efficient decision making even under complex conditions, to use creative problem-solving heuristics etc. Furthermore, there is a need for competences in solving social dilemmas and conflicts as well as competences which allow the forming and sustaining of fruitful and stable conditions for cooperation and competition. In this respect, the stabilising function of governmental and non-governmental institutions and the organized reconciliation of interests between interacting partners play a crucial role.

Using the results of action-, decision-, risk- and game-theory as well as insights from empirical economics, the project will develop a consistent methodological basis for the requirements of long-term planning allowing improved sustainability of individual and collective action.

Sustainability