Systems Thinking as a Construct in Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is a broad concept and its variables often make seeing the bigger picture difficult. Systems thinking overcomes this by enabling academics and practitioners to understand and consider the internal and external interrelationships and patterns of a system, rather than following the traditional methods of de-constructing issues. It's composed of elements (visible parts), interconnections (less visible parts) and a function or purpose which is deduced through a system's behaviour.

Thinking systemically means that ideas are changeable, adaptable, open-minded and factors in the rate of change in society, data availability and technology. It also takes into account all sectors- economic, social and environmental by acknowledging that all components of systems are essential to each sector and their relationship to each other. These combined components lead to actions which can contribute to or prevent sustainability and is why systems thinking is necessary for sustainability challenges.

The ability to analyse a system's structure means that one can identify how a system can cause its own behaviour, recognises that the world is dynamic and is reflective of the consequences of human decisions and actions. Within a sustainable development framework, identifying system components can aid academics and practitioners in dealing with complexity, recurring problems, hidden concerns and it can help them to transcend spatial and temporal issues. Awareness generated from systems thinking creates sustainability as policy, capacity building, partnerships and strategies that can be implemented to get to the root of a problem rather than deal with its overlying symptoms.

The benefits of systems thinking are understood, yet key questions still remain about how systems thinking develops. Barriers persist in terms of a lack of agreement of how to define, validate or measure it. Nevertheless the construct of systems thinking is increasingly important in academia, industry and government. It is suggested that these ideas be extrapolated into formal research studies, so that the mechanisms that most effectively develop systems thinking leads to new knowledge and used to train professionals to think systemically.