Keywords

1 A Call for a Radical Shift

The 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development [32] urges transformative reconsideration of our present societal model, echoing an intensifying discourse across science, policy, and practice about the imperative for systemic shifts. Designed as a blueprint for people, the planet, and prosperity, it acknowledges the intricate interplay between economic, social, and environmental progress, underscoring that the triumph of any one facet hinges on the well-being of the others. Sustainability-driven transformations claim a prime spot on global agendas, marked by the radical socio-cultural, political, economic, and technological transformations required to propel societies toward more promising futures in the Anthropocene [31].

The 2021 Dasgupta Review affirmed that the welfare of each individual—our livelihoods and economies—rests upon the natural environment [10]. It serves as a reminder that humanity is deeply intertwined with nature—a reality often neglected amidst our technological self-assuredness—and that our economies are intricately embedded within the natural world. Nevertheless, our current trajectory of development is glaringly unsustainable, imperiling the prosperity of both present and future generations. The ‘Horizon Europe Climate Mission’ and the ‘Intergovernmental Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services’ urge science’s role in catalyzing a comprehensive transformation of the Humans-Nature Relationship (HNR) [19, 25].

We necessitate transformations spanning economic and financial systems, institutions, developmental metrics, education, and our perception of our place within the wider planet [36]. This sort of transformative change is a necessity and an attainable goal, but it hinges on knowledge and alternative visions of viable pathways.

In recent years, evaluation has emerged as an increasingly pivotal tool for assessing the value of sustainable development interventions in terms of relevance, impact, performance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability [33]. Its reach extends across public and private organizations. Governments, especially in education, health, and social services, employ evaluation to shape their strategies for tackling the challenges within their purview. Private entities continually appraise their performance, regardless of whether they explicitly use the term “evaluation.” Most foundations have embraced regular evaluation, not only of their beneficiaries but also of the overarching direction of their funding initiatives [33].

Evaluation has formalized its role within most development agencies, both multilateral and bilateral. Despite notable strides, there remain areas where evaluation lags behind. Some evaluative practices remain mechanistic and introspective, addressing minutiae rather than engaging with the broader landscape of a swiftly changing world. Evaluation must adapt to meet the demands of sustainable development and actively contribute to transformative change.

This essay delineates the context wherein the evaluation and appraisal discipline hold the potential to incite fresh values, mindsets, and behaviors, steering us toward an inclusive sustainable future. Our exploration is filtered through the lenses of the value creation process and our current historical context. By “historicity,” as Hartog puts it [14], we encapsulate not only “the manner in which a society regards and discusses its past” but also “the modes of self-awareness within a human community.” We posit that embracing this newfound perspective to scrutinize value creation, situated at the juncture of science history, psychology, anthropology, and the broad domain of transdisciplinary mode-2 science, has the potential to yield an invigorated epistemology for prevailing narratives about sustainability transition—an endeavor wherein the appraisal discipline could (and should) offer guidance.

2 The Sustainability Value Within the Appraisal Discipline

In 2018, a pivotal moment emerged at the annual seminar of SIEV - the Italian Real Estate Appraisal and Investment Decision Society. Titled “Integrated Evaluation for the Management of Contemporary Cities,” the seminar signaled a clarion call for a paradigm shift in the discipline's approach to value creation [22]. Within this context, the appraisal discipline holds profound potential in spearheading the sought-after transformations, offering operational insights to transform evaluation activities into robust supports for more sustainable policymaking [25].

Recent evolutionary shifts within the appraisal discipline have predominantly revolved around intervention “projects,” viewed as pivotal transitional phases characterized by “decisive and well-defined transformation, facilitated by a sequence of interconnected, interdependent, and consequential actions” [9]. Research into these human-environmental transformations has aimed to shape a more sustainable future for all. Yet, the implicit normative essence of “sustainability” remained a nebulous terrain [29].

Narratives play a pivotal role within Sustainability Assessments (SA), even when they are not overtly articulated. Concurrently, worldviews, values, and imaginaries subtly shape individual and societal sustainability narratives—deliberately or unconsciously—particularly when seeking solutions for intricate challenges and scrutinizing various option spaces [28]. For instance, within prevailing SA terminologies, the concepts of sustainable development or growth are never juxtaposed as contradictions. Even integrated assessments fostered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fail to explore scenarios involving the cessation of economic growth, globally or in affluent nations, deeming sufficiency or degrowth strategies implausible [28]. The sacrosanct notion of boundless economic growth remains largely unexamined, while scientists may question methodological approaches and calculated quantities, achieving a ‘critically objective evaluation’ seems elusive [4].

The proliferation of these “unquestioned” audit cultures is frequently interpreted as a shift from regimes of trust—often tied to professional practice’s legitimacy [8]—to regimes of accountability [15, 16]. However, viewed through Foucault's lens of neoliberal statecraft, this “accountability rhetoric conceals the true imperative for the state to justify itself to the market, effectively emulating market dynamics” [8].

In this landscape characterized by the absence of empirical evidence, suitable knowledge, unbiased research, and applicable assessment tools for sustainability, valuers find their ability to offer informed market value opinions for existing and sustainable assets in jeopardy. Recent research has chastised valuers for their hesitance and laid blame for their inability to furnish financial justifications for investing in sustainable commercial real estate [34]. Valuers occupy a pivotal role within the commercial real estate realm, serving as critics and impartial assessors of asset market values. Thus, their treatment of sustainability within valuation practice holds implications for the real estate sector and broader financial markets with vested interests in real estate. A wealth of research delves into the sustainability-market value interplay; however, the interpretation and application of this research in the valuation sphere remain limited. The positivist orientation and constrained critical analysis of the sustainability-market value nexus have left the valuation profession grappling with uncertainties regarding clarity, reliability, and validity of presented information.

Amidst these challenges imposed by our “regime d’historicité” and concurrent crises, we discern substantial potential residing within the evaluation and appraisal disciplines. The distinctive facet setting evaluation apart from akin disciplines—like monitoring and performance audit—is its reluctance to take the status quo at face value. These counterparts are compliance-focused, tasked with verifying whether projects and programs adhere to their intended objectives. While both audit and evaluation oversee organizational activities, their paradigms and methodologies markedly diverge. Evaluation takes a broader stance, empowered to transcend internal intervention logic. It delves into how an intervention aligns with the broader landscape, questioning its contribution to solving the designated problem [17, 23]. Evaluators possess the capacity to scrutinize an intervention's original logic and design against performance and impact evidence, although this isn’t always the norm. Evaluators and those commissioning evaluations often steer clear of challenging the foundational assumptions underpinning their programs.

3 Transdisciplinarity for Holistic, Inclusive and Participative Value Creation

The transformative potential of transdisciplinary (TD) aspects within sustainability science is widely acknowledged [1, 30]. Yet, venturing into the realm of transdisciplinarity, which extends its reach to social sciences and humanities, presents both novel policy and practice landscapes [26]. Gaining legitimacy for TD approaches in the appraisal discipline demands forging novel, enduring, participatory, and transformative pathways. These avenues provide platforms to acknowledge and engage with macro-ethical, adaptive, and cross-disciplinary challenges, even amplifying the voices of the marginalized. Thus, evaluators must recognize and embrace alternative knowledge forms beyond linear and Western paradigms. This includes Eastern knowledge production, indigenous wisdom, marginalized communities’ insights, and the wisdom of the common citizen. Regrettably, the appraisal discipline, nestled within academic departments, appears to lag behind these unfolding trends.

Especially in the European Union context, scholars contend that higher education institution reform necessitates a critical reassessment of learning processes [5, 35]. Presently, such processes do not furnish ample opportunities for students to delve into sustainable ways of existence, understanding, and engagement within socio-ecological systems. A historical assertion emphasizes that disciplinary research and teaching models contribute to excessive knowledge fragmentation [2, 3], breeding disciplinary ‘silos’ that obstruct essential communication across both disciplinary and organizational frontiers [24]. Numerous experts underline that academia's disciplinary structure encompasses not only mastery of the scientific domain but also ingrained habits and symbolic-cultural resources, pivotal in shaping communities’ pursuits and attributing significance to their endeavors. “Disciplines shape scientific research by forming the primary institutional and cognitive units in academia […] Members of a discipline communicate within their community, share basic assumptions and examples about meaningful problems, and set standards for reliable and valid methods, as well as establish what is considered a good solution to a problem.” [13: 27]. In this regard, the discipline of evaluation cannot disregard its inherent political character. This raises essential questions about who holds the right to engage in evaluation, who defines the foundational values and principles, and who can initiate a design process acknowledging the inherent non-neutrality of technology and tools.

Indeed, prior to evaluating the impact of policies, products, or entities on sustainable development, it is imperative to uncover the narratives and values underpinning a comprehensive Sustainability Assessment (SA) framework [27]. The concept of wicked problems intrinsic to sustainability issues implies that problem definition is subjective, stemming from the observer's relationship with the world. Rather than reconciling divergent perspectives on a problem, a TD strategy might seek ‘cognitive shortcuts’ to frame and address the situation. It approaches wicked problems as an epistemological challenge, as opposed to prior research that mainly responded to management, governance, or decision-making quandaries posed by these issues [6, 18, 21].

Unraveling the sustainability value within appraisal research is an intricate fusion of three surplus values: energetic and non-entropic, genealogical-ecological, and scientific-cultural [11, 20]. Such intricacy rests upon a fresh interpretative narrative, cultivated through collaboration between natural sciences, humanities, and knowledge co-production with external actors orbiting a particular reality. The emergence of novel value categories—social use value and total economic value—responds to the societal and disciplinary demand for expressing a multifaceted value that transcends private use and exchange values, embracing a spectrum of dimensions (ethical, aesthetic, economic, cultural, scientific, political, juridical, and equitable). The confluence of environmental transformation and social development calls for a reevaluation of economic exchange, moral principles, knowledge, and established social interactions. In essence, it beckons a transdisciplinary approach to co-creating values [23].

4 Toward a New Epistemology in Our Regime D’historicité

Supported In his insightful work [14], François Hartog—an esteemed historian of antiquity with a keen contemporary focus—profoundly delves into societies’ interaction with their history. He scrutinizes their methods of experiencing and representing it, ultimately probing into the essence of their existence across time. At the core of his exploration lies the notion of a “regime of historicity,” a concept meticulously fashioned through the inspirations of Lévi-Strauss, Sahlins, Koselleck, Lenclud, and a historical trajectory spanning two centuries of European culture, from Hegel to Heidegger. Within the realm of this historicity regime, Hartog contends that we can grasp its essence in two ways: narrowly, as the manner in which a society engages with and narrates its past, expansively, encompassing a community's self-awareness dynamics. Serving as a tool for comparative historical analysis, the concept of a regime of historicity proves pivotal in deciphering societies’ historical temporalities, which, in turn, influence their value creation processes.

This perspective becomes our vantage point to delve into the creation of value, inherently situated at the crossroads of the history of science, psychology, and anthropology. Such an approach yields exhilarating outcomes, including the formulation of a novel epistemology for present sustainability narratives [7]. The subsequent reformation of values and evaluation criteria transcends the mere pursuit of not compromising future generations, as implied by sustainability. Instead, it signals an epistemological shift in how we perceive ourselves as human beings. Within today's global cultural context dominated by technological strides and business imperatives, a penchant for simplicity over complexity prevails—a paradigm synonymous with shedding superfluous layers and second thoughts in favor of total performative efficiency. Yet, while this era of the eternal present dismantled intermediaries and authorities, it didn’t always foster the open-mindedness it initially promised. The digital culture, birthed to obliterate boundaries and tear down walls, paradoxically nurtured conservative, obscurantist, populist, and individualistic tendencies. These reverberations are manifest not only in our digital realm but have permeated modern political landscapes. Consequently, the political role of the appraisal discipline needs a reflective overhaul, navigating uncertainties of the contemporary climate to ensure the integrity of integrated sustainability assessments. Essential questions for evaluators include: to what extent does the chosen methodology shape the analysis’s narrative? This work contends that these questions are inherently intertwined. Echoing Thoreau's proposition that we become tools of our tools, language isn’t merely a communication conduit—it also steers the discourse. Hence, in sustainability assessment, the alignment between arguments and methodologies isn’t uncommon to discern.

Recent exploration into sustainability assessment methodologies has engendered diverse approaches to value co-creation. These range from envisioning sustainable transformation scenarios to transformative research—an endeavor entailing participatory action research with stakeholders and civil society to both understand and catalyze sustainable change [12]. Both approaches share the fundamental premise that ecological transition inherently necessitates political transformation, and vice versa. Nonetheless, the prevailing dualistic perspective stemming from conventional Cartesian or Kantian lenses often restricts the interpretation of Nature—or the global Earth system. This limited perspective is aligned with the traditional view of science and technology as dominion over the material world. Consequently, the intricate interplay between society and nature, now largely governed by technoscience within a framework of capitalist relations underpinned by neoliberal logic, remains inadequately explored. This framework harnesses biophysical dynamics not solely for control or coexistence but to effectively ‘ride’ them, underlining the complexities inherent in our evolving relationship with nature.

The dimensions of the sustainability concept, layered with its narratives, representations, and assessment methods, have revealed the ethnocentric nature of our attempts to define and describe reality. Even within influential encyclicals, such as the Pope’s recent proclamation, the deep material connection to Nature remains elusive. Much like Saint Augustine’s concept of time, Nature’s essence remains universally understood yet hard to encapsulate in precise terms, surrounded by cognitive uncertainties and philosophical discourse. A chorus of scholars from various fields has questioned the very construct of Nature, advocating for a “multinaturalism” that transcends Western paradigms and embraces diverse ontologies.

This exploration also beckons us to scrutinize our implicit assumptions. Whether as appraisal professors or practitioners, an introspective examination of our approach is imperative. It nudges us to reconsider the fundamentals we may have taken for granted, inviting us to chart a new trajectory.

5 Conclusions

The current polycrises and consequent call for transformation recognizes the urgency to shift our economic, financial, institutional, educational, and perceptual paradigms in order to address the challenges presented by the Anthropocene epoch. The Anthropocene, characterized by human influence on the Earth's ecosystems and geology, requires us to fundamentally reconsider our behaviors, systems, and worldviews to foster a thriving and sustainable future.

Woiwode [36] aptly underscores the critical nature of this transformation, asserting that it encompasses domains as diverse as economics, finance, institutions, developmental metrics, education, and our overall perception of humanity’s role within the intricate web of planetary existence. This transformation is not merely a theoretical ideal, it’s an imperative, and it demands a departure from business-as-usual approaches.

Within this context, evaluation emerges as a powerful instrument poised to contribute substantively to the facilitation of such transformational change. Evaluation, as a discipline, is deeply rooted in systematic inquiry, analysis, and assessment. It operates as a reflective process that seeks to comprehend the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, and impact of various initiatives, policies, and interventions. This inherently empirical and analytical nature of evaluation aligns with the scientific rigor required to drive transformative change.

Evaluation functions as a mechanism for knowledge generation and accumulation. It can systematically gather data and evidence, scrutinize outcomes and impacts, and discern patterns and trends. This accumulation of knowledge serves as a foundation for fostering alternative visions and pathways toward a thriving Anthropocene. In essence, evaluation provides the empirical grounding necessary for envisioning and shaping transformative trajectories.

Moreover, evaluation’s emphasis on multidimensional assessment and systemic thinking resonates strongly with the epistemological shift necessary for thriving in the Anthropocene. As a professor in sustainability, leadership, and change management, you’re acutely aware of the need to view complex systems holistically, acknowledging their interdependencies, feedback loops, and emergent properties. This systemic perspective aligns with evaluation’s mandate to consider both intended and unintended consequences, as well as the broader ecological, social, and economic implications of interventions.

The transformative potential of evaluation is enhanced by its capacity to engage stakeholders and foster participatory processes. As you've expressed in your profile, appropriate participation is a key tenet in navigating complex systems. Evaluation’s engagement of diverse voices, including those of local communities, policymakers, experts, and marginalized groups, amplifies the democratic and inclusive nature of the transformational discourse. In this way, evaluation becomes a platform for co-creating visions and strategies that resonate with the collective aspirations for a thriving Anthropocene.

The intricacies revealed by the exploration of such transformative dimensions, combined with the imperative to scrutinize implicit assumptions, form a rich backdrop against which the potential of evaluation stands out prominently. The ethnocentrism laid bare by the dimensions of sustainability underscores the importance of adopting more inclusive and diverse ontological perspectives. The alignment between the challenges of understanding Nature’s essence and the complexity inherent in evaluation further solidifies the evaluation’s discipline’s capacity to contribute to transformative change, urging us to:

  • Probe the intricate ties between energy, work, and value within the capitalism/nature nexus, illuminating the dynamics of our current socio-ecological configuration.

  • Unearth the diminishing natural fertility of biophysical and socio-technical systems, investigating its implications for economic processes.

  • Challenge the separation between expectations and reality that underpins financial crises, dissecting the uncertainty inherent in real economy sectors.

  • Reframe language to expose the paradox of “sustainable growth.”

  • Embrace practices that inherently challenge dominant paradigms, such as reducing consumption and adopting an anti-utilitarian stance.

  • Engage interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to amplify marginalized voices and topple dominative relations over both humanity and nature.

  • Reevaluate social practices through an ontological re-composition of the social and natural realms.

Sustainability science embodies the prospect of surpassing reductionist analyses, embracing systemic designs that holistically map contemporary phenomena. Through thinking skills and diverse perspectives, an inter/trans-disciplinary appraisal may illuminate the shaping of values in the digital post-COVID world. Recognizing that complex systems thrive on a multiplicity of legitimate perspectives, this endeavor requires us to map out distinct contexts to grasp systemic phenomena.

Our community of evaluators spans diverse disciplines, from ecology to sociology. Rather than seeking a singular theory of appraisal, we should embrace the diversity of backgrounds, weaving together materials, methods, and case studies to explore the interstitial spaces between different perspectives and concerns. These lines encapsulate both epistemological and political tensions, representing opportunities to embrace the complexity of evaluation as a generative perspective. Amidst these tensions, lies the true value of research in urban appraisal under the veil of global change and uncertainty. As we navigate this uncharted terrain, we stand at the threshold of reshaping appraisal for sustainability, weaving a tapestry that celebrates the myriad voices shaping our world.