Baywood Publishing Company
0047-2433
1541-3802
Journal of Environmental Systems
BWES
300323
http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=journal&id=300323
24
3
3
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000024000319950101
Number 3 / 1995-96
M246JUM0W9NF
http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=issue&id=M246JUM0W9NF
10.2190/VL9D-W5UJ-QPY8-RLNJ
VL9DW5UJQPY8RLNJ
1
Evolution of Regional Socio-Economic System Toward "Islands of Sustainability"
221
240
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VL9DW5UJQPY8RLNJ.pdf
http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=VL9DW5UJQPY8RLNJ
3
Heinz
Peter
Wallner
Michael
Narodoslawsky
STENUM GmbH Research Company for Materials, Energy and the Environment, Graz, Austria
This article investigates the transition process from the unsustainable to the sustainable socio-economic system. It is assumed that this transition process can be characterized as an evolutionary process. In order to build a bridge from biological evolution to sustainable development the fields of complexity and entropic development are investigated. Furthermore the article emphasizes that sustainable development will most probably be introduced at the local level first. These point-like sustainable systems are defined as Islands of Sustainability (IOS). IOS are characterized as "innovative disturbances" able to jeopardize the structural stability of the unsustainable system, and hence, able to introduce wider sustainable development. It is argued that the development of IOS and furthermore the transition toward wider sustainable development is connected to the state of the ongoing paradigm change from the mechanistic to the holistic (synergetic, network) paradigm.
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