Portland, OR – July 1, 2013

The Organizing Committee of the inaugural IEEE Conference on Technologies for Sustainability (SuSTech) is pleased to announce that the Thursday lunch keynote speaker will be Thomas P. Seager, PhD, from Arizona State University. Prof. Seager will speak on the topic of “Systems Thinking for Sustainability”:

Sustainability is now recognized as a pluralistic concept with different meanings to different people. This presentation maps out multiple understandings of sustainability, from longevity, to reliability, to resilience, to renewal and introduces the evolution of scientific thinking as it relates to sustainability. An inventory of contrasting ethical views is introduced that reveals the value laden choices that are inherent in sustainability, but not always explicitly stated. Lastly, the presentation explains three different systems approaches to sustainability, including logical problem-solving (optimization), systems thinking, lateral thinking, and big bang thinking, and discusses examples.

Thomas P Seager is an Associate Professor of Sustainable Engineering and founding Director of the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Decisions Sciences (SEEDS) studio at Arizona State University. He is President of the Sustainability Conoscente Network and chairs the annual International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technologies (ISSST), which will be held in Oakland CA 18-21 May, 2014. Dr. Seager’s research explores the systemic environmental consequences of alternative energy systems. He teaches courses in ethics, engineering business practices, and systems.