Goshen College Environmental Science

About the Balaton Group

The Balaton Group is an international network devoted to the professional development of sustainability researchers and practitioners.

Formally, the Group assembles once every year in Hungary. Those sessions bring together scientists, teachers, consultants, writers, and managers in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative environment that encourages debate and learning founded on the highest scientific standards, free of political and economic pressures.

Informally, small ad hoc teams of Group members convene someplace on the planet almost every day of the year. These sessions sustain collaboration on projects such as designing research projects, teaching courses, organizing workshops, and creating educational games or computer models related to environmental conservation and sustainable development.

Since its founding in 1982, Balaton Group members have consistently advanced the boundaries of research and strategy for sustainable development. Over 30 books, more than a hundred conferences, and uncounted computer models, training programs, planning methods, and educational games have emerged from collaboration among its members.

Balaton Group members support the work of many other organizations. For example, they have made major contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Baltic 21 regional sustainable development process, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the LEAD International training program, Japan for Sustainability, the Goa 2100 scenario process, the "Race to Save the Planet" television series, and many, many others, all over the world.

By investing in its members, and supporting them in their professional work, the Balaton Group accelerates and deepens the world's general understanding of three factors that are fundamental to sustainable development: a systems orientation, a long-term perspective, and an unshakeable personal commitment to achieving positive change.

Equally important, the Balaton Group members strive to be a model for something that the world clearly lacks: global collaboration, over the long term, on the theoretical and practical challenges of sustainable development, grounded in a multi-disciplinary, systems orientation. Collaboration of this kind is a fundamental requirement for turning "sustainability" from an idea into reality.

The success of the Balaton Group's approach is illustrated by quotes from its own members, who were surveyed recently and asked why they valued participation in the network:

"Probably no other group, formal or informal, has had more direct impact on the theory and practice of issues associated with sustainable development than the Balaton Group."

"The Balaton Group has not only always been 'ahead of the curve' -- it has been quietly shaping the curve."

Purpose

To accelerate and deepen the world's general understanding of three factors that are fundamental to sustainable development:

• systems orientation,
  
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• long-term perspective,
  
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• unshakeable personal commitment to achieving positive change.
  

History & Facts about the Balaton Group

• Founded in 1982 by Donella Meadows (†2001) and Dennis Meadows, co-authors of the 1972 report The Limits to Growth.
• Created as an international "network of networks" for leading researchers on resource use, environmental conservation, systems modeling, and sustainability.
• Cross-cultural dialogue and collaboration, centered on a common set of sustainability values and principles, has been at the heart of the Group's work, and it has successfully connected members from cultural backgrounds as diverse as Latvia, Costa Rica, China, the United States, Russia, India, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Netherlands and many other countries.
• Annual meetings are limited to 50 participants, but about 130 members are currently active. They share information, support each other's initiatives, and promote sustainability leadership development. Through their activities, these members in turn affect the strategies and programs of hundreds of other sustainability-related initiatives and programs, with the aim of making them more systemic, innovative, and effective.
• The Balaton Group has strongly supported the development of emerging sustainability leaders around the world, through informal mentoring, financial assistance, and strategic support to enter formal education and training programs in universities and other institutions.
• Since its first meeting, nearly 400 participants from over 40 countries have participated in the Group. About one-third of the participants have been women. Lake Balaton was chosen as the site of the first meeting, because Hungary permitted easy assembly of scientists and practitioners from East and West, North and South. Hungary has remained the site of the annual meeting.