13.00 Wednesday 13 September

In many fields, policymakers seem to have an increasing preference for simple, large, non-redundant systems of analysis and governance. Is this a productive trend?

To address this question, we examine several types of redundancy, as well as several fields in which scholars have studied the costs and benefits of redundancies. These include: genetic, human-designed physical system, decision systems, and complex adaptive systems. Both empirical data and models suggest that a simple prescriptive approach is, at best, premature. Bigger and less redundant may not always be "better." Several kinds of costs and benefits must be considered.

A better approach may be to ask: What conditions make the benefits of redundancy greater than the costs?

Dr. Rusty Pritchard: The Discipline of the Market and the Messiness of Institutions
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Studies, Emory University

14.00 Wednesday 13 September

Our understanding of environmental institutions will always be undisciplined, in many senses of the word. The quest for sustainability will not result in stable institutions, but in an ability to evolve and design the institutions that help us relate to the changing environment.

The search for final solutions pervades the environmental field, and whether the prescriptions are for more and better markets, science, or citizen participation, it is essential to understand these mythic solutions to move beyond them.