Derk Loorbach

I am fascinated by the interplay between technology and society and how one shapes the other. It is obvious that technological innovation plays a critical part in accelerating and achieving a nature positive future. But it might as well lead to a future in which we are stuck in an EV traffic jam still hardly using our individual cars and consuming completely ridiculous amounts of resources and energy. To realize the potential of transitions towards truly minimized ecological footprints and maximizing benefits for people and consumers, we need to rethink how innovation works and how we produce it. The NEON consortium is a fascinating attempt to create a context in which we can produce innovation in context. But to make this work in itself requires a transition in research: exploring transition in context outside in and through backcasting. If we want a future energy/mobility that is not only renewables based, minimizing resource consumption and circular, we need to identify the future (economic, institutional, behavioral) conditions and then explore how identified solutions could fit or develop within these.