Policy assessment and simulation of actor orientation for sustainable development

Understanding, assessing, and simulating behavior requires knowledge of the precepts that are explicitly or implicitly orienting behavior. Human actor s can be viewed as (conscious) self-organizing systems attempting to remain viable in a diverse environment containing other self-organizing systems ( other human actors, organisms, ecosystems, etc.), all driven by their own v iability (sustainability) interests. These fundamental system interests, or basic orientors, have emerged in response to general environmental propert ies and are therefore identical across self-organizing systems: existence, effectiveness, freedom of action, security, adaptability, coexistence. Even in simulated actors learning to 'survive' in a difficult environment, the basic orientors emerge in the (simulated) evolutionary process - but differ ent actors may evolve into different 'cultural types' with different orient or emphasis. Since balanced attention to all basic orientors is crucial for viability, the set of orientors can be used to derive indicators that Faci litate comprehensive viability and sustainability assessments. The paper ou tlines the theoretical approach of 'orientation theory' and its application to the assessment and simulation of sustainable development issues. The fo rmal approach of mapping indicators on basic orientors and assessing sustai nability dynamics is illustrated using Worldwatch indicator time series. In an actor simulation this approach is used to successfully guide a small gl obal model onto a sustainable path with high 'quality of life'. (C) 2000 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.