The Essence of Inner Transformation for Sustainability and the Inner Development Goals: A Conversation Between Prof. Christine Wamsler and Tomas Björkman

This article presents a dialogue between Professor Christine Wamsler (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies) and Tomas Björkman (author and founder of the Ekskäret Foundation and the Inner Development Goals initiative) on the scientific foundations of inner transformation for sustainability and their implications for the Inner Development Goals (IDGs). The conversation draws on Wamsler's peer-reviewed research to articulate what she calls the essence of the emerging field of Inner Transformation for Sustainability: that today's interconnected crises reflect a deeper inner human crisis rooted in a paradigm of separation — from self, others, nature, and the sacred — embedded not only in individual mindsets but in behaviours, cultures, and institutions. The dialogue explores why this paradigm persists despite robust scientific evidence for interconnectedness (the limits of the knowledge-deficit model), why inner development is structurally necessary — not supplementary — to systems transformation, and what it would mean to apply the IDG Guide in a way that is grounded in this broader scientific and civilisational context. The conversation also develops several conceptual clarifications of wider relevance to the field: the distinction between polycrisis (interconnected external crises) and metacrisis (the underlying condition of separation from which they arise); the analysis of the paradigm of separation as a sacred canopy — a structure of meaning and identity — rather than a factual error awaiting correction; the ontological risk of treating collective transformation as the sum of individual transformations, which risks reinstating the individualist social ontology the field seeks to dissolve; and the distinction between horizontal interconnection (interbeing as relational web) and the vertical register of depth (ground prior to the distinction between relata and relations), which some of Wamsler's research participants appear to reach. The article is intended for researchers, practitioners, and policy actors working at the interface of inner development, sustainability science, and systems transformation.