Aesthetic Expertise for Sustainable Development: Envisioning Artful Scientific Policy Advice

Abstract

Unsustainable developments will continue to be a significant challenge from the global to local level. The United Nations Transformation Agenda 2030 reflects the breadth and depth of the task and serves as a central reference point. The participation and collaboration of state and non-state actors are considered necessary to make progress in this context. However, politics and policy-making play a central role for guiding and shaping sustainable development. In order to secure societal acceptance for the targeted sustainability transformation, this article claims that policy-making for sustainable development should aim to bring about well-being-oriented transformations. In this regard, besides cognitive insight into the need for change, the multisensory dimensions of human existence in general as well as in everyday social practices in particular should be taken into account more systematically. It is argued that the presented approach of artful scientific policy advice may enable sensory-informed and creative policy-making by providing aesthetic expertise.