Economics Commons^™

Giving Voice To The Future In Sustainability: Retrospective Assessment To Learn Prospective Stakeholder Engagement, Mark W. Anderson, Mario F. Teisl, Caroline L. Noblet

Publications

There is a broad understanding that intergenerational equity is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for sustainability. Likewise, there is a growing consensus that sustainability science requires stakeholder engagement to be successful. These two ideas demand some meaningful way of engaging the future as a stakeholder if sustainability is to be operationalized. Rawls' theory of justice provides a model for how this might be accomplished, yet there are both conceptual and practical problems with a Rawlsian approach. We propose using retrospective assessment as a means of learning how to approach future stakeholder engagement in sustainability.