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| Formation | 1976 |
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| Type | Non-profit organization |
President | Paul Raskin |
| Website | https://www.tellus.org/ |
The Tellus Institute is an American non-profit organization established in 1976 with the aim of bringing scientific rigor and systemic vision to critical environmental and social issues. Tellus has conducted thousands of projects throughout the world, and now focuses on the global future and how to shape it.
The Tellus Institute was founded as a non-profit research organization in 1976 by Paul Raskin and colleagues to conduct research on resource and environmental policy. Initially called Energy Systems Research Group (ESRG), the institute adopted its current name in 1990 to reflect its expanding focus on social-ecological systems from local to global levels (Tellus was the name of the Roman Earth Goddess).
Tellus has partnered with hundreds of organizations, notably the Stockholm Environmental Institute, with which it coordinated programs from 1989 to 2006. [1] The institute has conducted more than 3,500 studies worldwide. The methodology of Tellus projects has been the development of alternative scenarios of the future in order to identify and evaluate alternative paths of action. To that end, the institute developed a widely-used family of scenario planning tools, including the Long range Energy Alternatives Planning system (LEAP), which facilitates energy-environment planning; the Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP); and PoleStar, for comprehensive sustainability planning. [2] These projects sought to develop an integrated perspective on issues such as energy, water, sustainable communities, corporate responsibility, and climate change. The Institute applied these tools in scores of countries over a 25-year period, before assigning further development and application to SEI-US.
The question of the long-range global future theme has increasingly dominated Tellus’s work since the 1980s. In particular, the institute was active in developing integrated approaches and methods for exploring alternative climate change and sustainable development scenarios. Toward that end, Tellus convened the international and interdisciplinary Global Scenario Group to examine global scenarios for the twenty-first century, work that has been relied on in various UN reports and futures studies. [3]
Building on this legacy, the institute has reframed its mission, focusing on research, scholarship, and network-building for advancing a just and sustainable planetary civilization. This “Great Transition” would entail a fundamental shift in human values and the ways we produce, consume, and live. [4]
The institute’s flagship project is the Great Transition Initiative (GTI), which furthers the critical exploration of concepts, strategies, and visions for a transition to a future of enriched lives, human solidarity, and a resilient biosphere. The aim of the project is to enhance scholarly discourse and public awareness of global challenges, and to build an international community of thinkers and doers concerned with shaping a desirable global transformation.
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a multilateral environmental fund that provides grants and blended finance for projects related to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), mercury, sustainable forest management, food security, and sustainable cities in developing countries and countries with economies in transition. It is the largest source of multilateral funding for biodiversity globally and distributes more than $1 billion a year on average to address inter-related environmental challenges.
Earth systems engineering and management (ESEM) is a discipline used to analyze, design, engineer and manage complex environmental systems. It entails a wide range of subject areas including anthropology, engineering, environmental science, ethics and philosophy. At its core, ESEM looks to "rationally design and manage coupled human–natural systems in a highly integrated and ethical fashion". ESEM is a newly emerging area of study that has taken root at the University of Virginia, Cornell and other universities throughout the United States, and at the Centre for Earth Systems Engineering Research (CESER) at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. Founders of the discipline are Braden Allenby and Michael Gorman.
The Global Scenario Group (GSG) was an international, interdisciplinary body convened in 1995 by the Tellus Institute and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) to develop scenarios for world development in the twenty-first century. Further development of the Great Transition scenarios has been carried on by the Great Transition Initiative (GTI).
The planetary phase of civilization is a term created by the Global Scenario Group (GSG) to describe the contemporary era in which increasing global interdependence and risks are binding the world into a unitary socio-ecological system. Characteristics of this phase include economic globalization, biospheric destabilization, mass migration, new global institutions, the Internet, new forms of transboundary conflict, and shifts in culture and consciousness.
Paul Raskin is the founding president of the Tellus Institute, which has conducted over 3,500 research and policy projects throughout the world on environmental issues, resource planning, scenario analysis, and sustainable development. His research and writing has centered on propagating the Great Transition. Raskin has served as a lead author on a number of high-profile international reports, including the U.S. National Academy of Science's Board on Sustainability, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Environment Outlook, the Earth Charter, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report.
Stockholm Environment Institute, or SEI, is a non-profit, independent research and policy institute specialising in sustainable development and environmental issues, with seven affiliate offices around the world. SEI works on climate change, energy systems, water resources, air quality, land-use, sanitation, food security, and trade issues with the aim to shift policy and practice towards sustainability.
The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) is an international research organization focusing on the issue of sustainable development. SEI has its headquarters in Stockholm with a network structure of permanent and associated staff worldwide and with centres the US, York (UK), Oxford (UK), Tallinn (Estonia), and Bangkok (Thailand).
Mark Diesendorf is an Australian academic and environmentalist, known for his work in sustainable development and renewable energy. He currently researches at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He was formerly professor of environmental science and founding director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney and before that a principal research scientist with CSIRO, where he was involved in early research on integrating wind power into electricity grids. His most recent books are The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation (2023) and Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change (2014).
Great Transition is used by the Great Transition Initiative and its predecessor, the Global Scenario Group (GSG), to describe a vision of a just and sustainable global future. The term was originally coined by Kenneth E. Boulding in The Meaning of the 20th Century – The Great Transition (1964) and describes the shift from pre-modern to post-modern culture, and the four possible courses of action that these organizations believe will allow humanity to successfully manage the Great Transition.
Robert W. Kates was an American geographer and independent scholar in Trenton, Maine, and University Professor (Emeritus) at Brown University.
Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions : environmental, economic, and social. Many definitions emphasize the environmental dimension. This can include addressing key environmental problems, including climate change and biodiversity loss. The idea of sustainability can guide decisions at the global, national, organizational, and individual levels. A related concept is that of sustainable development, and the terms are often used to mean the same thing. UNESCO distinguishes the two like this: "Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal, while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it."
Environmental adult education is a "hybrid outgrowth of the environmental movement and adult education, combining an ecological orientation with a learning paradigm to provide a vigorous educational approach to environmental concerns." It refers to efforts in teaching environmental issues and how individuals and businesses can manage or change their lifestyles and their ecosystems in order to achieve sustainable existence. The overarching goal of this field of study is to educate global citizens in order for them to gain sustainable lives within their respective societies. The content could also include ecological justice, integrating social concerns such as poverty, race, gender, and sexual orientation, among others. This relationship is demonstrated in the impact of the excesses of global capitalism and its insatiable need for resources on people such as the polarization of power and wealth.
WEAP is a model-building tool for water resource planning and policy analysis that is distributed at no charge to non-profit, academic, and governmental organizations in developing countries.
A climate change scenario is a hypothetical future based on a "set of key driving forces". Scenarios explore the long-term effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation. Scenarios help to understand what the future may hold. They can show which decisions will have the most meaningful effects on mitigation and adaptation.
Johan Rockström is a Swedish scientist, internationally recognized for his work on global sustainability issues. He is joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, together with economist Ottmar Edenhofer. Rockström is also chief scientist at Conservation International. He is Professor in Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam and Professor in Water Systems and Global Sustainability, Stockholm University.
Transition scenarios are descriptions of future states which combine a future image with an account of the changes that would need to occur to reach that future. These two elements are often created in a two-step process where the future image is created first (envisioning) followed by an exploration of the alternative pathways available to reach the future goal (backcasting). Both these processes can use participatory techniques where participants of varying backgrounds and interests are provided with an open and supportive group environment to discuss different contributing elements and actions.
The global citizens movement is a constellation of organized and overlapping citizens' groups seeking to foster global solidarity in policy and consciousness. The term is often used synonymously with the anti-globalization movement or the global justice movement.
Energy modeling or energy system modeling is the process of building computer models of energy systems in order to analyze them. Such models often employ scenario analysis to investigate different assumptions about the technical and economic conditions at play. Outputs may include the system feasibility, greenhouse gas emissions, cumulative financial costs, natural resource use, and energy efficiency of the system under investigation. A wide range of techniques are employed, ranging from broadly economic to broadly engineering. Mathematical optimization is often used to determine the least-cost in some sense. Models can be international, regional, national, municipal, or stand-alone in scope. Governments maintain national energy models for energy policy development.
Ecocrop was a database used to determine the suitability of a crop for a specified environment. Developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) it provided information predicting crop viability in different locations and climatic conditions. It also served as a catalog of plants and plant growth characteristics.
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