Sustainability science is a new academic discipline that has emerged in response to threats to the sustainability of the global environment. The purpose of this discipline is to help build a sustainable society by developing solutions to climate change, the exhaustion of resources, ecological destruction and other environmental crises that threaten the future of humanity.

Sustainability science demands a realignment of existing academic disciplines. Whereas academia has moved inexorably in the direction of fragmentation into discrete fields of in-depth specialization, sustainability science seeks comprehensive, integrated solutions to complex problems and therefore requires a restructuring of education and research that spans multiple disciplines. This volume offers diverse approaches to the development of a transdisciplinary perspective that embraces the natural, social and human sciences in the quest for a sustainable society.

Hiroshi Komiyama is Chairman of Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc., and President Emeritus, The University of Tokyo, Japan. Kazuhiko Takeuchi is Deputy Executive Director of the Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science, a Professor at the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan and Vice-Rector of the United Nations University. Hideaki Shiroyama is a Professor at the Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, The University of Tokyo, Japan. Takashi Mino is a Professor at the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan.

Contents Overview

• Sustainability science: Building a new academic discipline, Hiroshi Komiyama, Kazuhiko Takeuchi
• Positioning and connection between existing sciences and sustainability science
  Contributors include: Yuya Kajikawa, Hiroshi Komiyama, Riichiro Mizoguchi, Kouji Kozaki, Osamu Saito, Terukazu Kumazawa, Takanori Matsui, Takeru Hirota and Kazuhiko Takeuchi
• The concepts of “sustainability” and “sustainability science”
  Contributors include: Takashi Mino, Motoharu Onuki, Masaru Yarime, Kazuhiko Takeuchi and Kensuke Fukushi
• Tools and methods for sustainability science
  Contributors include: Hironori Kato, Hideaki Shiroyama, Mitsutsugu Hamamoto, Masahiro Matsuura, Nobuo Kurata, Hideyuki Hirakawa, Makiko Matsuo and Hirotaka Matsuda
• Redefinition of existing academic disciplines for sustainability science: Natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities
  Contributors include: Akimasa Sumi, Hiroyuki Yohikawa, Mitsuru Osaki, Gakushi Ishimura, Takamitsu Sawa, Jin Sato, Makio Takemura and Kazuhiko Takeuchi
• Education for sustainability science
  Contributors include: Mitsuhiro Nakagawa, Michinori Uwasu, Noriyuki Tanaka, Makoto Tamura, Takahide Uegaki, Hisashi Otsuji, Harumoto Gunji, Motoharu Onuki, Masaru Yarime, Takashi Mino, Akihisa Mori, Michinori Uwasu, Michinori Kimura, Keishiro Hara, Helmut Yabar, Yoshiyuki Shimoda, Nobuyuki Tsuji and Yasuhiko Kudo
• Building a global meta-network for sustainability science, Kazuhiko Takeuchi