#ISSS2019 Corvallis

Several major cities in the world will face major issues, such as a shortage of clean water, due to unsustainable development, poor planning and political decision making. As a society supporting the United Nation’s sustainable development goals we need to act to promote both environmental and societal sustainability that can help to address these crises. However, we cannot do this alone due to our limited capacity and resources. We need to work with like-minded societies who are also supporting the UN’s SDG’s. But working together as a network is not easy even if we have good intentions. To do this effectively we need to find a way to govern the activities of the network to work towards a common goal. Work being done in network governance by organizational and project management scholars can guide us to manage a network-based approach to sustainable development. This plenary will discuss some of these issues and then introduce the theme proposed for the 64th ISSS meeting. If we start collaborating with other organizations now with an aim to achieve some progress by the time we meet in 2020 we can carry this forward to contribute meaningfully to the society we live in.