A global conference on the 'shape' of a sustainable future.
A unique opportunity for knowledge sharing and ‘what-if’ collaboration to:
- explore the value of distributed systems as a response to urgent environmental, social and economic challenges – particularly those relating to climate change;
- engage multi-disciplinary practitioners, theorists, researchers, designers and activists to consider projects and visions for sustainable futures enabled by distributed systems;
- identify priorities for future action: research; innovation; the design of products services and built environments; policy development.
An initiative of The Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (ACSIS) and the McCaughey Centre, the University of Melbourne, Australia
Conference Chairs: Prof Chris Ryan and Prof John Wiseman
Background – the concept of distributed systems.
Distributed systems as a model.
“Distributed systems, in the sense that it is used in this context, presents an alternative model for the economy and well-being, based on networked small(er) scale systems of production and consumption that are re-localised, so that they utilise regional resources, increase diversity of productive cultures and goods and services, strengthen communities and increase socio-technical innovation.”
Ryan C. The Melbourne 2032 project. 2008 Changing the Change, Torino Italy.
Distributed systems are gaining international attention as an alternative model for the provision of socially critical resources (energy, water, food, transport) in response to the urgent challenge of climate change (mitigation and adaptation) and resource scarcity. In simplest terms this new model proposes that production and consumption should be much more decentralised, reversing a long trend to larger scale ‘globalised’ systems, reasserting the value of local and regional resources and increased diversity of productive cultures, goods and services. The term ‘distributed’ is used because it means more than ‘decentralised’ – ‘re-localisation’ of production and consumption takes place within networks of interdependence which still exist at larger scales – regional, national, global.
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