Creative and cultural industries have the power to shape society, change global behaviours, and recreate social and cultural values. Faced with unprecedented climate change and resultant environmental degradation, global creative and cultural industries are responding by challenging each of the failing systems within the perfect storm paradigm: fossil-based industries, international finance systems, and unsustainable consumerist ‘growth’ economies. The effects of human failures and the threats they pose to future quality of life have produced an explosion of next-generation solutions from within the creative and scientific industries. Western Balkan countries and localities have a place in this revolution.
In the Western Balkans, the rapid transition and development over recent years has had profound effects on local cultural, economic and political life. As growth and development are increasingly putting pressure on resources and lifestyles, there is a growing need to mobilize sustainability efforts that are already underway. We need to join together and push the sustainability agenda forward with collective force, inviting other sectors in society to join us, as we do this year with business, academia and science.
