Introduction

This chapter aims to explore ways of facilitating effective collaboration between environmental and development organisations (as social movements) to meet the political challenges of global sustainability. It will discuss the framing of a new way of thinking, using the convergence concept, which could facilitate the development of global equity within planetary boundaries.

The chapter is placed in the context of a wider inquiry about the conceptual frames, principles and processes that groups and organisations could use in order to guide joint approaches to sustainability. It will demonstrate how issues in political science regarding globalisation and equity can be explored with citizens using active approaches for learning for sustainability.

Convergence is based on an approach to global eco-justice that was developed during the Kyoto climate talks by Aubrey Meyer (2001). This combines the concept of equal rights of all citizens to use the earth's atmosphere with a per capita allocation approach. This would mean that rich countries would contract their use of carbon, leaving poorer countries to continue to develop. Convergence would occur when equal levels of development are achieved with sustainable carbon emissions. The CONVERGE project (funded by the EU) is exploring the potential of this approach to act as a unifying frame to address local-to-global sustainability questions. The CONVERGE project involves a number of partners, including the Bristol-based Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Solutions and the University of Bristol. CONVERGE focuses on ‘rethinking globalisation’ and is developing a convergence platform as a policy base for steering globalisation towards sustainability. The convergence concept has been developed to provide an overall frame of reference based on the latest sustainability science and a toolkit will provide tools and approaches to help to develop joined-up strategies for ‘equity within planetary boundaries’.

The convergence approach developed by the project will be the focus here, in particular, the potential of convergence to act as a ‘unifying framework’ and to inform sustainability practitioners in contributing to the process of developing the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).