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Transformation to Global Sustainability: Implications for Evaluation and Evaluators
Author(s) -
Patton Michael Quinn
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
new directions for evaluation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.374
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1534-875X
pISSN - 1097-6736
DOI - 10.1002/ev.20362
Subject(s) - sustainability , transformational leadership , humanity , sustainability science , resilience (materials science) , sustainability organizations , sustainable development , transformation (genetics) , environmental resource management , earth system science , face (sociological concept) , psychological resilience , process management , computer science , management science , environmental economics , business , engineering ethics , political science , sociology , public relations , economics , psychology , engineering , social science , ecology , social psychology , law , chemistry , biology , biochemistry , gene , thermodynamics , physics
Sustainability has traditionally been associated with maintaining programs and their results over time, especially after focused funding has been withdrawn. This is a static view of sustainability. With the infusion of systems thinking and complexity theory into evaluation, and in the face of climate change and the vision for the future of humanity represented by the Sustainability Development Goals, sustainability has become associated with major and rapid transformation of global systems and the resilience of transformed systems to adapt over time. This is a dynamic view of sustainability with implications for both design of transformation initiatives and evaluating them. Evaluating transformation means transforming evaluation. Evaluation for transformational sustainability treats the whole Earth as the evaluand and the future of humanity on Earth as the essential sustainability issue, and does so with a sense of urgency.