The Tällberg Forum 2009 will take place on 25-28 June 2009, under the theme "How on earth can we live together, within the planetary boundaries?".

A group of over 450 leaders will gather to develop ideas and designs for the governance solutions that will be necessary to solve the conflict between the economic, financial or political systems of human activity and the earth and nature. The Forum itself will, through plenary sessions, workshops, presentations and breakout group conversations, look at five themes: the Planet, the Economy, Technology, Learning/Education and, building on these four, Governance. It will also include discussions of the micro level and the bottom-up task of creating millions of sustainable livelihoods.
 
Last summer’s Forum ended with a focus on the need for radical renewal of the systems of global governance that grew out of World War II, Bretton Woods, the UN and other groupings. This has become all the more apparent in the deep crises that the world is facing. A half-century of growth has led to two major consequences: First, a far-reaching globalization of the systems of finance, production, information, communication, transportation, and of markets. This process has resulted in ever-increasing degrees of interdependency between businesses, citizens and nations. The second major consequence is the growing destabilization of natural systems, which are now responding on a global scale to human-induced interferences. Scientists have for some time been telling that we are in a state of planetary emergency. Out of the Tällberg Forum 2007 grew the idea that a better understanding of nature’s boundary conditions for economic activity is needed. The Stockholm Environment Institute, a partner of the Tällberg Foundation, took the initiative to gather some 25 leading scientists from all over the world in a process to research this question. They have been working to define critical “planetary boundaries” that should not be transgressed, if human activity is to avoid triggering “tipping points” that destabilize Earth systems. This groundbreaking work, refined at the Tällberg Forum 2008, will be published in scientific journals in the spring of 2009.

The problems to be solved are systems problems. The Earth system is global. Nature is a complex, multidimensional, adaptive and self regulating system in constant flux. Many systems of human activity – finance, production and value-creation, information, etc. – have also become global. But human activity and nature are dealt with as though they were separate. Therefore, there must be one critical requirement for the future of the systems of human activity: that they be organized and governed to function within the planetary boundaries, in order to avoid the risks stemming from a destabilized, unpredictable and impoverished natural systems. The laws and values that govern human affairs must stay in harmony with the laws of nature.

In preparation for this transition, innovation is required in economic policies, in business models, in technology, and in the way we think and learn. This need not be a future of constraints but one of new opportunities, for welfare, equity, security, human development and economic growth, in short, progress.