Sustainability has been established to be a multidisciplinary and systemic issue with interactions of multiple systems. To understand the dynamic and complex nature of sustainability, an appreciation of the interlinkages between the environmental, economic and social aspects have been highlighted in literature. However, the interactions of these three systems with the technological and political systems seem to be overlooked. Based on the complexity of these interactions, sustainability is classified as a systemic and wicked problem that cannot be resolved with a reductionist approach. This paper highlights the limitations of the current widely used model of sustainability and combines STEEP analyses with Systems Thinking to develop a more comprehensive model to promote better understanding and contribute to policy development models for sustainability issues in various global trends.

Authors: Nkechi Nwankwo, Titus Olaniyi

Published in: World Congress on Sustainable Technologies (WCST-2023)

• Date of Conference: 13-15 November 2023
• DOI: 10.20533/WCST.2023.0016
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-64-8
• Conference Location: St Anne’s College, Oxford University, UK