Navigating the Socio-ecological Tipping Points in Urban Transitions: Resilience and Sustainability Trade-offs in Coupled Urban Infrastructure Transitions
Special Session for the International Society for Industrial Ecology conference 2025 in Singapore
Organizers: SUS Section Board
Co-chairs: Professor Shauhrat Chopra and Dr Thomas Elliot
Dear colleagues,
On behalf of the SUS Section Board, we would like to invite you to speak as part of our Special Session at the 12th ISIE conference in Singapore. The conference is 1-4 July 2025. Details about the session can be found on the conference website and a Summary of the Special Session theme is given at the end of this message.
- This session will consist of a small group of invited experts providing brief, potentially provocative perspectives related to socio-ecological tipping points (STPs) or transition thresholds pertaining to urban resilience and sustainability pathways.
- The initial presenters engage in a moderated discussion in a "fishbowl" format. Other participants can join the discussion by taking an empty seat in the fishbowl, allowing for a dynamic and inclusive exchange of ideas.
- The session concludes with a facilitated brainstorming session where all participants contribute to developing a shared research agenda based on the insights generated during the debate.
We invite you as an expert in this field, to participate in our session at the 12th ISIE conference in person in Singapore.
To ensure your contribution is included within our Special Session, please be sure to clearly indicate "Special Session: Navigating the Socio-ecological Tipping Points in Urban Transitions: Resilience and Sustainability Trade-offs in Coupled Urban Infrastructure Transitions" when submitting your abstract through the conference website. This will help streamline the review process and ensure your abstract is directed to the appropriate track for peer review by the Scientific Committee.
If you're interested in potentially joining the session, please submit an abstract before the deadline, i.e., December 31st.
Sincerely,
Thomas Elliot and Shauhrat S. Chopra and on behalf of the SUS Section Board
Summary of the Special Session
This special session explores the resilience-sustainability nexus in coupled urban social, environmental, and technical transitions, focusing on understanding and navigating these trade-offs. We are particularly interested in identifying potential STPs – moments of rapid and potentially irreversible change – within and between interconnected systems, and how these tipping points can either accelerate or hinder progress towards both resilience and sustainability.
The session aims to bridge the gap between social and technical science perspectives, fostering a deeper understanding of how to effectively navigate these complex trade-offs and achieve both resilient and sustainable urban futures. Not limited to energy transitions, the scope includes agricultural and dietary transitions, transport modal transitions, and the ways in which positive STPs can be facilitated and transcended by and in urban systems, for example, by social contagions.
This session will specifically address the following questions:
- How can we identify and analyze trade-offs between resilience and sustainability in coupled urban systems (energy, transport, water)?
- How can systems modeling approaches, such as system dynamics and agent-based modelling be used to explore STPs.
- What are the key social and technical factors that exacerbate or mitigate these trade-offs?
- How do interdependencies between infrastructure systems affect the likelihood and impact of STPs related to both resilience and sustainability?
- How can policy interventions and technological innovations be designed to leverage positive tipping points and mitigate negative ones, considering both resilience and sustainability goals?
