[MUSIC] Hello. My name is Kes McCormick and welcome to Greening the Economy: Lessons from Scandinavia. Transitioning to a greener economy is a complex and challenging process. In this course we'll focus on solutions, rather than problems. We will explore strategies for great economies, the process of designing, implementing and evaluating solutions, examples of best practice, as well as the challenges that remain. Each week is comprised of a series of video lectures coupled with course readings, forums, as well as assessment activities. We encourage you to discuss the problems, examples, and learnings of this course with your peers from around the world. And there is usually more than one answer to most problems. So remember to visit the forums and share your ideas with us throughout this course. Now large scale environmental challenges like overconsumption, waste and climate change are sometimes referred to as wicked problems. Wicked problems are complex and often difficult to clearly define since there are different perspectives of what the problem is and what the appropriate responses should be. Wicked problems have many causes and dependent factors influencing each other. It's difficult to target the linkages of the causal factors and therefore can be hard to identify real problem and hence its solution. These problems exist in complex global systems that interact with each other and they're not fully predictable. Therefore attempts to address them often result in unforseen consequences. The complexity and size of the systems involved also means that our understanding of the problems is evolving constantly. It also means, there is no one clear solution to these problems. But rather, many different responses. We're still learning what works and what does not work and why this is the case. Because of this, wicked problems often involved in many policy failures and involve a long learning process to keep finding and testing successful responses. While technology is certainly part of the response, it is important to remember that wicked problems are socially complex, and involve changing behavior. They do not lie conveniently within the responsibility of any one organization, or area of study. These problems cross governance boundaries and disciplines. That is why we here at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University apply an interdisciplinary approach to our research and education. Naturally, one discipline is economics, but we'll also present key concepts from engineering, geography, political science and law among others. Throughout this course we'll hear from a variety of different professors and experts in different fields of knowledge. Each have a particular insight from their academic background and experience that's relevant to the overarching topic of greening the economy. The course brings together this range of insights from different disciplines to gain a bigger picture and therefore a more holistic understanding of key concepts, strategies and processes in a transition to a greener economy. Still, to explain complex topics breaking it down into parts for further explanation helps in our understanding. Instead of breaking down by disciplines, we'll break down by levels. By levels we do not mean a hierarchy or chain of command, like management levels in a company. But rather, we're talking about the levels of description that can be used to characterize a system with lots of interacting parts. This will help us approach and better understand the complexity of the whole picture. We will look at the individual level and how our individual choices can help or hinder progress towards a green economy. We'll look at the business level and how companies and organizations choose strategies that can help transition to a green economy. We'll look at how planning and designing cities can help us achieve a grand economy. And finally, we'll look at how national governments can establish policies to promote a green economy. Now these levels are not as distinct as presented here for the purpose of learning. In reality, there are complex interactions between different actors, on multiple levels, occurring at the same time. So while breaking down the systems to levels will help us better explore this topic, it's always important to remember the complexity of the systems as a whole. Throughout this course we'll start to tackle some of these wicked problems that face our world today. [SOUND]