Risk Management Challenges for Sustainability and Wellbeing

Dear Colleagues,

The great challenge of our time is to create a sustainable and desirable future—one that the achieves Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In today’s “Anthropocene” world, human impacts on ecological life support systems are increasingly complex and far-reaching. At the same time, there are increased demands on the planet’s life support functions to maintain living standards in developed nations, and to reduce poverty in developing nations. In this “full” world, the emphasis in research, education, and policy needs to shift from addressing problems in isolation to studying whole, complex, and interconnected systems and the dynamic interactions between the parts. Several scholars have focused on how the concepts of vulnerability and resilience may be employed in the analysis of and to ensure future sustainability and wellbeing. Various approaches have been proposed, concerning different fields of applications spreading from environmental to financial settings. While much of the existing literature on vulnerability and resilience is sector- or country-specific, in this volume, we are proposing a more holistic approach that allows for the sustainability of human well-being to be analyzed as a whole. Our understanding is that well-being equals sustainability, where several domains are interlinked. Moreover, while the majority of studies consider vulnerability and resilience as aspects of the sustainability of a “system”, that is a society, a country, an organization, or even the whole planet; this volume’s focus is on the interrelated dimension of well-being, considering the exposure to risk and the ability to manage it. We are seeking the use of both objective and subjective indicators of well-being, in case studies, theory, and practice.

Dr. Simon Grima
Guest Editor

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