Registration for the AGU meeting was not required. The conference objective was to explore recent global environmental change and sustainable development research in Southeast Asia, its implications for policy, and application to the transition to ecologically, sociologically, and economically sustainable societies in the region. At the IGFA meeting there were two keynote lectures in a session on the future directions of global change research. Scientists from the natural and social sciences and from across the world convened at Sweden's Friibergh Manor in October 2000. Participants concluded that promoting the goal of sustainability requires the emergence and conduct of the new field of sustainability science.
Sustainability science seeks to improve on the understanding of nature-society interactions.
By structure, method, and content, sustainability science must differ fundamentally from most science as we know it. Sustainability science will learn to work with all manner of social groups to recognize how they come to gain knowledge, establish certainty of outlooks, and adjust their perceptions as they relate to each other's needs. Previous IAP conferences were held in New Delhi in 1993, focusing on population issues, and in Istanbul in 1996, focusing on the unique challenges facing cities. The purpose of the 2000 conference was to build on these two previous meetings and create a specific action plan the academies can use to help advise governments worldwide as they face the challenges brought on by population growth, consumption, and environmental degradation. At the conclusion of the conference, the academies issued a collective statement that speaks to the specific responsibilities of the scientific, engineering, and medical communities in facilitating the transition to global sustainability over the next 50 years.