New Alliances for Sustainability Policy Cooperation perspectives for environmental actors with unions, social organization and charities

Environmental actors increasingly realize the need of cooperative thinking and acting. Links to other policy areas are too close; possible impacts of the necessary transformation too strong. It is essential to convince further societal actors of sustainability policy – not only in theory but also in practice. Sustainable development at a societal level is a challenging task. It entails distributional conflicts that do not only affect the competitiveness of the economy, but also have social consequences: everyday life cannot continue as usual.

The project “New Alliances for Sustainability Policy” aims to explore synergy potentials between environmental policy actors, trade unions, social associations and charities as well as develop cooperation strategies both conceptually and practice. It intends to increase insight into the heterogeneity of the actors’ interests, worldviews, functional logics and performance expectations in order to identify conditions for cooperative practices.

In addition to the scientific analysis, the project initiates and accompanies a process of mutual exchange and understanding, which seeks to contribute to the planning and implementation of joint activities between potential alliance partners.

In order to achieve these objectives, the project addresses the following questions:

• Against the backdrop of present challenges and following current environmental strategies and programs how can new debates about a common future and alliances with trade unions and welfare organizations succeed?
• Which topics, problem areas and approaches are best suited, which less? What are potential common interests? Which conflicting positions can be reconciled and which differences can and must be accepted?
• What can new cooperation strategies look like? To what extend can a modern integrated environmental policy contribute to or benefit from these cooperation strategies?