Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Malleability in Sociometabolic Systems

At the 2025 Scenarios Forum held in Leeds, Shonali Pachauri presented on "Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Malleability in Sociometabolic Systems: Foundations for Sustainable Wellbeing Transformations" on July 18 during the first morning breakout session, "The futures we want."

The presentation introduced a novel framework for understanding and assessing societies' capacity to intentionally reconfigure their resource provisioning and sociometabolic systems towards normatively desired futures of greater equity and sustainability. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights, it outlined three key dimensions of malleability:

• cultural-narrative

• institutional-governance

• technical-infrastructural

The session highlighted the importance of proactive transformation strategies and the potential of crises to catalyze sustainable change.

For more details you can find the presentation here: https://zenodo.org/records/16308580