In Memory of Klaus Töpfer

On 8 June 2024, Klaus Töpfer – colleague, mentor, and friend – passed away. We mourn the loss of one of our founders who was heralded for his work on sustainable development. And while Klaus’s impressive accomplishments were inspiring, his questions on, and approach to, fostering change deeply impressed upon me and shape TMG’s commitments today.

In 2011 when I met Klaus at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), he had set out to fundamentally rethink how research should be conducted to support social and institutional transformation towards sustainability. Based on his already great breadth of experience, Klaus was driven by questions like, “How could research be conducted so that those responsible for steering transformation processes were intricately involved in its design and implementation?”.

This type of question arose during a time when prominent thinkers had another vision for the role of science in society. In 2002, Paul Crutzen published, “Geology of Mankind”: the article widely cited as establishing the term Anthropocene. As a concept, the Anthropocene designates humans as a geological force by acknowledging the enormity of our impact on the environment, and this became the grounds to argue for a new geological epoch. In the article’s concluding paragraph, we’re presented with a suggested direction of interaction: “A daunting task lies ahead for scientists and engineers to guide society towards environmentally sustainable management during the era of the Anthropocene.”

Yet, readers are left to wonder: where are society’s democratically elected representatives in the change processes needed to take on this daunting task? Could our lack of decisive action to counter the climate crisis or protect biodiversity lead to a situation in which those who are democratically elected become mere implementers of a pathway designed for them by “scientists and engineers”? Would our choices for development pathways or certain technologies constrain rather than enlarge the portfolio of our future choices?

For Klaus, the needed fundamental shift to drive change required moving beyond simply ensuring this suggested later uptake of scientific research findings. Instead, it was important to directly involve responsible stakeholders from the outset. This approach moreover reflected Klaus’s commitment to inclusive processes that strengthened democratic principles.

In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted. The SDGs challenged development models by holding a mirror to a global reality: development is not just something economically less powerful countries need to achieve. All countries have a stake in building a sustainable future. (Though the extent to which we fully acknowledge this in light of our woeful shortcomings to achieve the SDGs is still in question.)

However, while the goals are clear on what should be achieved, they are obviously less clear on the precise nature of transformation pathways for individual countries. In a word, the how is missing: how can the goals be achieved? How can the goals be achieved through democratic decision-making processes? How could human rights be progressively realized through national efforts to achieve the SDGs? These questions were suited for an IASS of Klaus’s making. Yet, 2015 was also the year in which it became increasingly clear that his vision for IASS would become untenable after his term as Executive Director.

Here arose an opportunity to lasso the “how change happens” question and translate its expansive set of answers and processes into an initiative. This was the founding moment of TMG Research in 2016, wherein Klaus, Alexander Müller, and myself decided to give continuity to Klaus’s vision for a new science-with-society approach. Our first building blocks were the results of our work at IASS on soil, land management and human rights-based approaches to govern the world’s scarce land resources.

At its essence, TMG’s contribution to sustainable development centres around our commitment to being deeply embedded in transformation processes across all levels, rather than observing them from an eagle-eye perspective and attempting to hand down directives. This reflects Klaus’s re-orientation of the starting point: that it’s not only about scientists or engineers alone propagating transformative research for later uptake. Right at the outset, the research must also benefit from the contribution of a multitude of stakeholders driving transformative processes, whether local activist, grassroots organization, scientist, policymaker, or president alike. Change hinges on this very convergence of viewpoints to form meaningful action.

In many ways, 2024 looks very different from 2015. Political polarization often undermines the much-needed joint quest for solutions, and democratic spaces around the world continue to shrink. And as we still grapple with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re also confronted with other major geopolitical crises that have led to fundamental shifts in policy priorities. In the time of polycrises, it has become significantly harder to achieve progress on climate goals, the protection of our environment, or sustainable development more broadly. Our understanding of how to push this needle farther under so many competing constraints would have truly benefitted from Klaus’s insights and perspectives.

I will miss Klaus – my colleague, friend, and mentor. For those who had the pleasure to work closely with him, we will miss the way that he urged us to achieve clarity of argument, always with a twinkle in his eye. As a team, we are committed to continuing our work at TMG Research in the spirit that we started it, with Klaus as an inspirational thinker on environment for development.