Dear Colleagues,

Environmental problem-solving and sustainability oriented decision-making often involve discussion processes in groups that combine experts, stakeholders, politicians and citizens as for example in roundtable discussions, future workshops, or focus groups. Two important and mutually entangled aspects of such group discussions are consensus building as groups are striving for common decisions or viewpoints, and mutual learning between the group members resulting from the exchange, integration, and elaboration of viewpoints and knowledge. As individual perspectives, insights, and information are exchanged and elaborated upon, group members can gain new insights, and revise their initial ideas, opinions, preferences, norms, and values. The complexity of sustainability makes inter- and transdisciplinary communication indispensable for sustainability oriented learning and decision-making. Group discussions and consensus building processes promoting creativity and mutual learning are therefore important to facilitate sustainable development. The analysis of sustainability oriented group processes as well as the development and application of effective methods for structuring and organizing such group processes is thus crucial for promoting sustainable development and merits special interest in this Special Issue. It shall provide insights on how group processes can be organized to maximize cooperation, creativity, active participation, mutual trust and learning, and facilitate sustainable collective processes and decisions.

Dr. Ralph Hansmann
Guest Editor

• mutual learning
• sustainability
• transdisciplinarity
• group processes
• collective decision-making
• consensus building
• cooperation