Cultivating Ecological Civilization: Wisdom, Practice, and Systems Change

Dec 3, 2025

A Global Speaker Series for a Planet in Transition

by Stephen Posner, PhD

How can cultural, ethical, and spiritual wisdom traditions guide transformation toward an ecological civilization?

As the world confronts ecological disruption, cultural fragmentation, and the impacts of climate change, the search for integrative approaches to planetary health is essential. Against this backdrop, the Pathways to Planetary Health initiative at the Garrison Institute and the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology launched Cultivating Ecological Civilization: Wisdom, Practice, and Systems Change—a global speaker series exploring traditions that can help shape pathways toward a life-affirming future.

This series brings together leaders in ecology, philosophy, systems thinking, and environmental governance to explore Ecological Civilization, an idea embedded in China’s constitution and gaining traction around the world. Ecological Civilization reframes the relationship between humans and nature, calling for social systems grounded in interdependence, moral cultivation, and ecological well-being. Through dialogues spanning Confucian humanism, Indigenous knowledge systems, organizational learning, and youth leadership, the goal of the series is to illuminate what Ecological Civilization could mean not only in China but globally.

2025 Cultivating Ecological Civilization Series Highlights

Forum 1: The Ecological Turn

March 18, 2025

Our first forum, The Ecological Turn, set the foundation for the series, exploring how contemplative traditions and relational worldviews can guide ecological renewal. Mary Evelyn Tucker and Peter Senge joined Stephen Posner to introduce Ecological Civilization as a vision for aligning human development with ecological and cultural renewal.

Mary Evelyn emphasized that Ecological Civilization represents a return to philosophical roots that understand humans as woven into the fabric of nature. Peter Senge offered his own perspective through decades of engagement in China, recounting mentorship with renowned teacher Master Nan and describing how Ecological Civilization requires not just political or technological reforms but a deep transformation in awareness and relationship: a shift from materialist worldviews toward a more holistic sense of interdependence.

Together, the speakers underscored a central insight: addressing climate and ecological crises requires an ethical and cultural paradigm shift.

Forum 2: Why Ecological Civilization, and Why Now?

August 28, 2025

The second forum opened with reflections on Ecological Civilization as it relates to organizational learning, cultural values, and societal transformation, examining China’s transition from rapid industrialization toward a more ecologically balanced future.

Stephen Posner, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Peter Senge, and ecologist Zhu Yan explored themes such as Confucian ethics, social harmony, reforestation, regeneration, and sustainable governance.

Mary Evelyn offered an overview of Ecological Civilization as a broad philosophical and national policy framework, while Zhu Yan illustrated its practical expression through examples like Beijing’s remarkable landscape restoration, where nearly half the city is now forest or parkland.

A facilitated conversation invited the speakers to respond to one another and explore pressing questions, such as: What motivated China’s turn toward Ecological Civilization? How can its lessons inform policy, education, and daily life elsewhere? What does it mean in practice to align one’s life, governance systems, or scientific work with ecological principles? And how might relational exchange—across sectors, cultures, and nations—serve as a foundation for ecological flourishing, reciprocity, and coherence in a rapidly changing world?

Forum 3: Spiritual Cultivation – Inner Practices for Outer Change

October 6, 2025

The third forum explored how Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions offer models for integrating inner transformation with societal and ecological renewal.

Featuring Peter Senge, Yao Xinzhong, Stephen Posner, and Mary Evelyn Tucker —with an introduction to Confucianism by Professor Yao—the session examined mind–body integration, ecological spirituality, and the deep cultural roots of China’s ecological policies.

Speakers discussed the limits of technological solutions alone, the need to unite science with contemplative traditions, and the revival of historical wisdom in shaping Ecological Civilization today. Central themes included understanding humans as part of a living Earth community, the endurance and relevance of ancient cosmologies such as chi, and the importance of education for self-cultivation as a pathway to the common good.

Together, the conversation highlighted how integrating ethics, policy, science, and wisdom can guide sustainable human development and inform ecological governance worldwide.

Video to be posted soon

Forum 4: Intergenerational Learning – Youth, Elders, and the Continuity of Wisdom

November 5, 2025

The fourth forum brought the conversation into a deeply human dimension—examining how relationships between generations shape our ecological identities, ethical commitments, and sense of the future.

Speakers emphasized that planetary health depends on intergenerational exchange: Stephen Posner highlighted Indigenous collaborations where ecological knowledge is carried through shared relationships and shared learning across generations; Mary Evelyn Tucker described decades of intergenerational learning, characterizing “an intergenerational handshake” that nurtures meaning, purpose, and moral imagination; and climate leader Binbin Wang reflected on China’s path toward carbon neutrality and the cultural and ethical dimensions of climate solutions.

Hazim, the first Miao selected as a UN Indigenous Fellow, shared how Miao traditions inform Vision 2061, an initiative grounded in traditional ecological wisdom and designed to bridge local lifeways with global sustainability goals. From childhood stories with his grandmother to the creation of the Global Village Tea project, Hazim illustrated how young people are innovating at the intersection of heritage and planetary responsibility.

Peter Senge emphasized that youth leadership is essential for systemic transformation—but that it must be grounded in humility, relational presence, and shared purpose. Together, these voices affirmed that intergenerational dialogue is vital for cultivating the continuity of wisdom that sustains ecological awareness, cultural resilience, and hope.

Intersecting Themes

Across the series, several intersecting themes emerged that illuminate what an ecological civilization requires today:

  • These dialogues highlighted the importance of cultivation—the inner work of awareness, reflection, and ethical orientation that enables outer action, from community resilience to planetary stewardship. 
  • Ancient wisdom traditions—from Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist lineages to Indigenous lifeways—served as living sources of ecological ethics, offering moral foundations often missing from contemporary environmental discourse. 
  • Systems change was another core theme, emphasizing the need to integrate policy, education, social institutions, and culture to support deep and lasting transformation. 
  • Finally, the series underscored the power of dialogue—between East and West, science and spirit, youth and elders—as a way to bridge perspectives, generate shared meaning, and build a more relational and regenerative future.

Looking Ahead: Ecological Civilization as Shared Work

Through this speaker series, the Garrison Institute and the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology are helping cultivate a global conversation that bridges ancient wisdom and modern systems thinking, personal cultivation and collective action, youth vision and elder insight. Ecological Civilization, as explored here, offers a practical policy framework as well as an invitation to reimagine what it means to be human in a more-than-human world.

About The Speakers

Mary Evelyn Tucker, PhD, is Co-Director of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and an expert on cultural and religious values for broadened environmental ethics.

Peter Senge, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in leadership and sustainability at MIT, co-founder of the Center for Systems Awareness, and pioneer in systems thinker and organizational learning.

Binbin Wang, PhD, is Research Professor at Peking University, founder of Climate Future Global Innovation Lab, and senior scholar-practitioner advancing China’s carbon neutrality and climate communication.

Zongxu (Hazim) Xie is UN Indigenous Fellow from China, bridging Miao traditional wisdom with global sustainability on global platforms, for example through Vision 2061 and transformative dialogues at global climate meetings.

Yao Xinzhong, PhD, is an expert in Asian philosophies, currently Honorary President of the Confucian Academy in Hong Kong and Professor of Ethics at Renmin University of China and formerly serving as Dean of its School of Philosophy and Director of the China Institute at King’s College London. 

Yan Zhu, PhD, is an ecologist at Yale University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences whose research focuses on biodiversity, species coexistence, and forest ecosystem services, working to bridge local ecological wisdom with global scientific dialogue and advancing culture- and nature-based approaches that support China’s aspirations for an Ecological Civilization. 

Stephen Posner, PhD, is the former Director of the Pathways to Planetary Health initiative at the Garrison Institute, where he built cross-sector collaborations that unite evidence, values, and practice to strengthen planetary health.

 

Additional Resources 

Climate, Mind and Behavior, Featured Forum, Get Inspired, Pathways to Planetary Health, Read

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