"Towards a Natural Social Contract: Taking a value-driven Whole-of-System transformation approach"

Despite thirty years of desperate warnings from scientists and civil society, we have so far failed to address the looming catastrophes of runaway climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality, and democratic decay. In my inaugural lecture, I will focus on the necessity to renegotiate and redesign our current social contracts, and how to achieve this. Social contracts form the basis of our society and democracy, serving as implicit agreements between citizens and between citizens and government and other parties about how society is structured and organized. Social contracts are different in each country and context; but essentially they comprise the web of relationships that bind together disparate citizens, communities, institutions and governments into a just society. All the possible futures that we face in this moment involve radical, structural change. Either we reshape the ways our societies function, or these crises will overwhelm our societies and economies, causing untold suffering. Given the global and systemic nature of these problems it is clear that sustainability and societal transitions cannot succeed without new economies and a new Natural Social Contract with rights and obligations with regard to care for the environment and the well-being of others, including future generations.