Cross-cutting Issue Sustainable Development

The cross-cutting issue “Sustainable Development” is an integral part of the KIT Center Humans and Technology. The persons and institutions working on this issue concentrate on the analysis and design of interactions between technological progress and sustainable development. Among others, the complexity of these interactions, methodological questions of integrated sustainability assessment, and the creation of the necessary prerequisites for the support of Sustainable Development by technical progress are studied.

Hence, it is a major task to assess and influence technology development, based on the objective of Sustainable Development. The underlying Integrated Concept of Sustainability (ICoS) is used as a framework, target orientation for development processes, and scale to assess states. Studies concentrate on responsibility and justice for today’s and future generations, the objective being an appropriate target-oriented implementation and politico-social management or public perception of sustainability issues. The activities and structures to be developed are mainly understood to be the conceptual basis and “methodological home” for the development of fundamentals for sustainability analyses and assessments. These fundamentals may be applied to various branches and fields of needs, various actors and perspectives (among others, scalability between individual and society), various aspects and dimensions of sustainability (e.g. resources problem), and various action and intervention options (among others, instruments), with an integrated approach being pursued.