Social Learning and Sustainability: Exploring Critical Issues in Relation to Environmental Change and Governance

This report presents the proceedings of a workshop held on June 1–2, 2010, at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The event brought together approximately 35 scholars to explore the role of social learning in environmental change, governance, and sustainability, focusing on its application across diverse contexts such as natural resource management, climate change adaptation, and formal education.

• Social learning is characterized by significant definitional complexity, with participants noting that it is variously defined and sometimes used synonymously with other participatory research fields, which risks making the term lose its meaningfulness.
• In the context of natural resource management, social learning often manifests as 'single-loop learning'—focused on technical and regulatory fixes—rather than the 'double' or 'triple loop' learning required for systemic transformation and the redefinition of goals.
• Power dynamics and hierarchy significantly influence social learning processes; in some Southeast Asian contexts, hybrid governance regimes combining democratic and authoritarian elements can obstruct collective organization and group problem-solving.
• Short-term, time-bound participatory projects in the Stockholm region showed that while they can foster immediate reflection on climate adaptation, the resulting learning is fragile and often reverts to conventional routines once the project ends.
• The use of 'shadow spaces'—areas between the political and scientific spheres—can facilitate learning in international governance by allowing for the reframing of conflicting goals, such as the relationship between climate change mitigation and adaptation.
• Measuring social learning remains a major challenge for researchers; while individual learning is easier to quantify, aggregate group or organizational learning is often only visible through the occurrence of change itself.
• Indigenous knowledge in Canada and Sweden reveals a conflict between formal education and traditional knowledge, suggesting that governance transformation requires institutional change to be effective.
• In the Baltic Sea region, the priority given to coercive EU policies over regional voluntary actions (like the Baltic Sea Action Plan) can lead to 'resource dilemmas' where environmental problems are simply moved from one country to another.

APA

Swartling, Å. G., Lundholm, C., Plummer, R., & Armitage, D. (2011). Social Learning and Sustainability: Exploring Critical Issues in Relation to Environmental Change and Governance. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-ProjectReport-Swartling-SocialLearningAndSustainability.pdf

Chicago

Swartling, Åsa Gerger, Cecilia Lundholm, Ryan Plummer, and Derek Armitage. Social Learning and Sustainability: Exploring Critical Issues in Relation to Environmental Change and Governance. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2011. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-ProjectReport-Swartling-SocialLearningAndSustainability.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Swartling |first1=Åsa Gerger |last2=Lundholm |first2=Cecilia |last3=Plummer |first3=Ryan |last4=Armitage |first4=Derek |title=Social Learning and Sustainability: Exploring Critical Issues in Relation to Environmental Change and Governance |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2011 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-ProjectReport-Swartling-SocialLearningAndSustainability.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{swartling2011social, author = {Swartling, Åsa Gerger and Lundholm, Cecilia and Plummer, Ryan and Armitage, Derek}, title = {{Social Learning and Sustainability: Exploring Critical Issues in Relation to Environmental Change and Governance}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2011}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-ProjectReport-Swartling-SocialLearningAndSustainability.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }