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Prof Sybil Seitzinger, member of our Advisory Board and professor at the ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� of Victoria in Canada, attended most of our annual conferences. We asked her to reflect on how they have evolved over the years in a blog.

The 2023 Pathways Conference once again brought participants out of their comfort zones, requiring them to examine the world and their lives from new perspectives.   

This year we were confronted with the future in 2060.  For me, the open plenary session was particularly moving with singer Nynke Laverman singing “Ancestors”, so vividly foreshadowing the failure of growth as a holy grail. This was followed by Lewis Akenji telling it like it really is – or will likely be in 2060 given the current lack of inaction on climate change and sustainability. Fatima Denton turned our minds to a wonderfully positive perspective on African world leadership in 2060.  There was much more, piercing our hearts and minds.

This isn’t to say that previous conferences haven’t been excellent. I’ve attended all, except in 2021.  But this year the message of the reality of the challenges and consequences of inaction have become “lived experiences” as climate is changing much faster than I believe most thought, including myself.  Extreme events of flooding, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and beyond have been directly experienced in some way by essentially everyone in the room.  And many of these impacts are happening simultaneously.  Conversations I had with conference attendees during the morning break often revolved around how truth telling the plenary event had been – we were feeling the future.

The theme of the Pathways conferences has evolved over the years, reflecting the changing perspective of the times.  For example, in 2018 during the first Pathways to Sustainability Conference, climate change impacts seemed in a rather vague future. In 2019 we were “Narrating Sustainability Futures”, and in 2020 talking about “Accelerating the Transformation”.  Then in 2021 the theme became a bit more proactive in “Making Change Happen”.  But in 2023 the Pathways conference made us really see and feel the future, and think more deeply about the reality of the challenges to change course. 

The overall format of the Pathways conferences is nicely varied, and generally follows a morning plenary of high-level speakers, a mid-morning coffee break with much animated discussion, and a long break for lunch with creative and fun activities to engage in.  The interactive afternoon breakout sessions are inspiring and thought provoking and give conference participants an opportunity to learn about and engage in a range of Pathways projects.  Clearly a lot of effort goes into organizing these very innovative sessions.   Unfortunately, for practical purposes, one can only attend one breakout event each year; I would like to attend them all.  However, the one-day time frame doesn’t make that possible without skipping between them, which is not a good alternative.  On the other hand, the one-day conference is in my opinion the appropriate length of time – always have your participants wanting more when they leave.

In today’s world of Zoom meetings and multiday online conferences, this in-person one-day event is not only refreshing, but also much more impactful and effective at developing new relationships and generating ideas. The mix of academics, government policy makers, consultants, students, practitioners and more is very much aligned with the Pathways approach.

Now let’s look at the stated Vision for Pathways: Joining forces within the university and with society to discover, explore and validate pathways to just and sustainable futures for all.

The Pathways conferences clearly bring together the university and society to discover and explore.  The question becomes – could this annual conference do more to embrace the next step – to validate pathways?  Using the transdisciplinary approach, define one or two real-world tangible impacts that a group of participants (and others) work towards over the ensuing one to two or more years, and report back on progress at the following conferences?  Yes, there are many challenges of timing, organization, support, energy, to name a few that transdisciplinarity requires (see Transdisciplinary Field Guide developed by Pathways to Sustainability), but wouldn’t it be powerful to over time be able to point to tangible outcomes initiated at these conferences, validating the pathways work, in a world that so critically needs them, and as this year’s plenary so deeply reminded us? 

Looking forward to next year!