Sustainable Community Development: A Brief Introduction to the Multi-Modal Systems Method

There is still no agreement on the concept of sustainable development but, what was initially only seen as an equation of economic growth and protection of environment resources, has now began to include several other dimensions, such as the social, cultural, ethical, legal and political. However, this requires a scientific perspective capable of dealing with ethical and normative questions. The Multi-Modal Systems Method intends to tackle the sustainable issue in a total manner, based on a trans-disciplinary approach and on a method that makes possible practical applications in empirical contexts. This article presents an introduction to this method in the context of the sustainable development of communities.