While the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, nations are facing different sources of instabilities, such as a War in Europe, exacerbation of absurd levels of capital acumination, high inflation in energy, food, and natural resources sectors, and disasters associated with the widespread effects of climate change, resulting in the aggravation of local and global inequalities and conflicts. In such a challenging situation, policymakers and social movements are increasingly paying attention to ecological economics as a source of inspiration and solutions to various urgent socio-environmental problems.

This conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) will devote efforts to discuss the notion of “economies for life,” referring to the variety of economic processes that enhance the quality of life and, at the same time, contribute to preserving or recovering life-sustaining ecological functions and means for survival, such social cohesion, biodiversity, access to potable water and livable climate regulation. Economies for life are embedded in bio-politics (as opposed to the currently predominant necro-politics). The conference will mobilize people, time, and spaces to enable the development of alliances between academia and social movements, grassroots organizations, politicians, civil servants, and entrepreneurs. In a democratic governance context, which we take to be the context within which ecological economics can be effective, building alliances is a key strategy for imagining alternative pathways and taking steps towards a better future, aiming at more harmonious relationships between humans and nature and more just human societies. In addition to seeking to facilitate the creation of alliances, the conference will also emphasize the analysis of enabling factors, mechanisms, and challenges related to achieving socio-ecological transitions and transformative change.

Moving in the direction of a more sustainable and just future, without disruptions that will jeopardize the livelihoods of vulnerable social groups, requires designing and implementing structural transformations in a wide range of dimensions and sectors, such as a transition towards a post-extractive economy, a post-carbon energy system, zero-deforestation economic land uses, and an agroecological food production sector. Discussing concrete policies, innovations, and civil society strategies that would facilitate such transitions is a core concern of the conference.

The conference is open to the participation of scholars from across a wide range of fields related to the science of sustainability and policymakers, government administrators, social leaders, civil society organizations, artists, and commercial and non-profit enterprises concerned with social and environmental responsibilities. The conference considers a diversity of modalities for participation, including but not restricted to traditional academic presentations and exchanges. Go to the GENERAL APPROACH page to learn more about the planned interaction modalities.

The conference will consist of two main events:

1. A course for policymakers and other stakeholders on socio-ecological transitions will be held in the Capital city of Bogotá on the 23rd and 24th of October, 2023. This event will be in Spanish.
2. A series of academic and related activities will take place from the 26th to the 28th of October, 2023, in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta. This event will be bi-lingual (English and Spanish).