SustainLux serves to connect people and organisations who are taking initiatives for sustainability across different sectors and interests

SustainLux was developed by eight core partner organisations (inser hyperlink to partners) based on the conviction that actions towards a sustainable society are urgent. The most recent report of the International Panel on Climate Change estimates we have a time window of ten years to make such fundamental changes. Otherwise, it is likely that already as early as the 2030s multiple interconnected crisis will prevent such actions, resulting in additional damages, loss and suffering (IPCC, 2023).

Whilst policies are made, actions to reduce carbon emissions are being taken, and increasing numbers of actors engaged in developing and implementing sectoral measures, progress is not fast enough (IPCC, 2023).  We need Integrated Sustainable Solutions that consider the regeneration of ecosystems in urban and rural settings at the same time as measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants.  These recommendations are congruent with adopting the set of 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as systemic framework for action.

But how can we foster such transformative action across different sectors of the economy, governments and society? Experts agree that such Integrated Solutions can only be achieved if individuals and groups collaborate across sectors of society and across different interests and expertise.

Accordingly, SustainLux offers an overview of concrete projects to learn from a broad range of diverse people and organisations who engage on different aspects of sustainability. The platform offers easy search functions and a user-friendly simple interface to share new initiatives in a decentralised and effective manner.

The design of the SustainLux platform builds on scientific research that proposes that knowledge management for enabling societal learning processes is the basis for a sustainable climate resilient development

Research on such transformation processes, which views the development of society and the environment as inextricably linked, reveals the following:

The economic policy expert and Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostroem spent 30 years researching ways to improve social coordination in the use of natural resources, such as water and forests, on which we all depend. Market competition and the legislation embedded in it often lead to the depletion of natural capital. Decentralised approaches that empower local actors to design initiatives that respond to local conditions and interests and promote innovation are more promising.  Monitoring and knowledge management in a way that enables networked social learning and research is seen by some researchers as our only chance to bring about the necessary change quickly enough in our age.

The goal of SustainLux is to contribute and facilitate societal learning and knowledge sharing. We developed it as a space for exchange that has the potential to highlight place-based knowledge, interests and expertise in the context of other geographic information. We encourage anyone visiting SustainLux to contribute to this exchange with their own entry or to get in touch with the different projects featured on the website. In addition, we have developed a call and award function on the website that is free to use for any organisation who would like to organise a call or award related to sustainability. We hope the entries for these awards will then contribute to the catalogue of best practices on the website and motivate additional sustainable action.

As learning is often more effective from mistakes, it is important that SustainLux does not only feature tidy success stories. There will be challenges and failures. SustainLux aims to create a space where these challenges and failures can be openly discussed so that as many people as possible can learn from them as they engage in ever more innovative and far-reaching sustainability and regenerative initiatives.

The collection of diverse initiatives on SustainLux in a rather standardised presentations will also provide the opportunity to conduct accompanying research on trends and gaps for climate resilient development in the future. Ideally in the future, there should be regular participatory initiatives to evaluate contents (at large or organised under more specific themes) in actual workshops where dialogues to evaluate actions in view of their goals, costs, risks, and the potential and realised impacts (intended and unintended) from multiple perspectives can take place. Only through actual exchange and evaluation will true collaborations and mutual learning manifest.

Networked learning can help to save time and money of all actors engaged in urgent sustainability-oriented transformations and can potentially result in an improved long-term planning. Thus, SustainLux also offers a tool to improve accountability for investments in human, material and financial resources. There is a need for an evaluation of the performance of financial instruments in the public sector that are linked with sustainability policies in combination with a documentation that allows analysis and evaluation of diverse sustainability actions across sectors. This can also be important for accountability and learning, for future distribution of public financial instruments and the planning of political strategies, action plans and measures for enhanced resilience.

We have collaborated with and built on other initatives such as the data base on the implementation of the ‘Charte de la Diversité’ by the IMS, INDR's inventory of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the platform for Bildung für Nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE) with initiatives relevant to school education, and the award process by the Oeuvre de la Grande Duchesse Charlotte.