Closing the ‘operationalisation gap’: Insights from systemic risk research to inform transformational adaptation and risk management

Abstract

Recent research has shown that adverse risks associated with climate and global change are becoming increasingly systemic with mounting interdependencies that will likely lead to cascading impacts. These impacts are projected to become so intolerable that standard risk management approaches alone will no longer be sufficient. Calls to consider transformational approaches to risk management and adaptation to facilitate a change towards more resilient futures are growing steadily louder. There is, however, a clear gap in terms of translating ambitions for transformational change into interventions and measures that can be directly applied in practice. To bridge this gap and help move forward with operationalising transformation in this context, we suggest harnessing ideas and insights from systemic risk research. Understanding systemic risk usually requires a careful examination of a system's components, leading to a better appreciation of how they and their interactions within a system contribute to systemic risks. Restructuring the connectivity of system elements based on this information represents a transformational change of the system and can lead to a reduction in systemic risk. From this perspective, systemic risk research and transformative risk management are closely connected disciplines, as methodological insights from the field of systemic risk research can benefit the objective of shifting climate risk management interventions towards transformative approaches that facilitate a radical and fundamental change towards more resilient futures. The pluralistic views of decision-makers regarding system boundaries and responsibilities can, however, result in forced transformation. An applied systems view can avoid this and guide deliberate transformation coupled with iterative approaches that are able to track the status of such changes and steer developments in the desired direction.