Research
Research Projects on Existential Sustainability
Sept 2023 – August 2025
Lovisa Nyman, Researcher in Systematic Theology
PI: Johanna Gustafsson Lundberg
Existential Sustainability: Developing a New Dimension of Agenda 2030’s Sustainability Goals
Summary
For several decades, there has been a focus on the economic, environmental, and social sustainability goals of Agenda 2030, in society as well as in the academy. However, we can now also discern a demand for a fourth aspect on sustainability, namely the existential. This research project defends existential sustainability as an apt concept for developing a broader model of sustainability. By critically examining two specific areas, the technological idea of the seamless life and the call for inner transformation in sustainability studies, the project aims to uncover the implicit values and norms regarding what it is to be human, what a good life is, and how to relate to time in these discourses. Departing from this critical analysis, it then suggests an interpretation of what existential sustainability can mean in contemporary Western societies.
Research Grant: The Crafoord Foundation
Resarch on future existential sustainable living for elderly people
Rooms for aging - existential perspectives for better living environments
How do we build and design housing for the elderly that provides quality of life and is existentially sustainable?
In this project our aim is to study different housing initiatives for the elderly in order to investigate what in the elderly's living environments can contribute to creating existentially sustainable living conditions. The concept of existential sustainability is a complement to the three pillars of Agenda 2030 for green, economic, and social sustainability. Existential sustainability intertwines the three established areas by focusing on how existential needs are taken care of in sustainability thinking, needs such as dignity and meaningfulness for the individual. The results of the project will be summarized in a handbook intended for urban planners and architects, also useful across the board in housing policy, health, and care for the elderly.