LIST OF PANELS

Since the first awakenings of environmental consciousness in the public sphere and the questioning of endless economic growth raising the alarm about the Earth’s non-infinite resources (Carson, 1962; Club of Rome, 1972), as well as the international recognition of the definition of sustainable development (Brundtland Report, 1987), major global events have reinforced the urgency of acting to ensure a sustainable future on Earth. In addition, regulations and national awareness-raising campaigns have been planned. Laws have been put in place. Research groups and programs have been created to respond to a growing demand for knowledge on these issues.

More recently, the historic Paris Agreement on climate change (COP21, 2015), the UN Sustainable Development Goals calling for action in every part of the world (2016) , and, a few weeks ago, the urgent warning raised by the world’s leading climate scientists about irreversible damage that will occur in years from now if we do not take action (IPCC Special Report, 2018), all share the same dramatic message: unprecedented and immediate changes are needed.

However, studies on communication practices in sustainable development have shown a slow progression by communication professionals. Public commitments have brought together communicators from many fields around the importance of promoting the values ​​of sustainable development in their activities, but today's issues call for accountability and action. Governments need to act. Effective public policies should be implemented. And communication is central.

All at once engaging, active, dialogical, and participatory, communication for sustainable development requires solid roots that are both practical and conceptual. After 30 years, what are its major achievements?

With the multiplication of climatic disasters, social and economic upheavals and intolerance escalating on all fronts around the world, our models of connections and relationships are becoming more complex. Full of tensions, present times confuse, disturb, but must not paralyze.

The main goal of this panel is to explore the lessons and achievements, current issues and shortcomings encountered by sustainable development communication practitioners and professionals as well as researchers and academics addressing the responsibilities intertwined in sustainability communication.  

From climate disruptions to the many social crises that affect the planet, what are the points of reference that make sense around us? What are the directions to explore in the contemporary atmosphere of anxiety and fear? How to encourage empowerment in groups and communities facing specific social issues, precarity?  Openness, dialogue, transparency, social acceptability, ethics, what is meant by responsible communication? What are the threads differentiating genuine commitment from superficial polish or greenwashing? Digital communications, alternative facts, attacks to democracy, how to contribute to advance debates in the public space and greater social accountability? What role is given to younger generations?  

This panel raises the question of the responsibility of sustainable development communication, in all its spheres of expertise and influence. From awareness campaigns to citizen mobilization for better public policies, from commitment charters to local and global struggles, another pace, more sustained, better articulated needs to be set. Encouraging innovation, removing barriers and isolation, highlighting the interdependence of humans and nature and the global community…  communication for sustainable development requires solid roots that are both practical and conceptual.

This panel will focus on the growing practices and research that stress citizen engagement, CSR communication, relationship of humankind with nature, while at the same time emphasizing the need for equity, democracy, at the community, local, national, territorial level as well as in the diplomatic arena; or at the heart of the agenda of organizations. This panel welcomes papers from practitioners, experts, academics, and researchers in the field of sustainability communication.