Sustainable Development

The newly established Department for Sustainable Development is dedicated to researching and communicating the contributions of anthroposophy to sustainable development. Although this is considered a transdisciplinary field, it is currently integrated into the Section for Agriculture. This is because biodynamic agriculture has, for over 100 years, been a pioneer of sustainable development—not only ecologically, but also socially, economically, and culturally.

We do not define sustainable development as a “nice to have” or a “reporting obligation,” but rather as the backbone of postmodern society. At the center lies the question of how Earth and humanity can walk a shared path of development. The goal is to explore an “appropriate” or “constructive anthropocentrism”: creating a narrative in which the human being is not seen solely as a destructive force, but as a potential co-creator of a living Earth.

Key Questions and Goals of the Department:

• Research and communicate the contributions of anthroposophy to sustainable development.

• Build bridges between the anthroposophical movement and the professional as well as academic discourse on sustainable development.

• Foster collaboration across the various disciplines within the anthroposophical movement (agriculture, medicine, inclusive social development, education, etc.).

• Connect partner organizations and individuals who are also engaged with this topic in research, practice, or education.

The department was founded in 2023 and is led by Johannes Kronenberg.

Johannes Kronenberg is a research associate in the Section for Agriculture at the Goetheanum – School of Spiritual Science in Dornach, Switzerland. His current work focuses on the intersection of sustainable development and anthroposophy’s contributions to this field. He is also involved in several initiatives, including with the Iona Stichting in Amsterdam, which supports social and ecological transformation through project funding and capacity-building for grassroots initiatives.

At the Goetheanum – the center of the General Anthroposophical Society and the School of Spiritual Science – he is also involved in organizational and global development processes, supporting a membership of 41,000 people in 78 countries across all continents.

Born in 1991 in the Netherlands, he first completed a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts at ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem. He then earned a Master of Science in Sustainable Development at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden and pursued further studies in sustainable development at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He is the father of Noa and Feliks and is married to Gaia.

Projects 2026:

• Start of the dissertation “Appropriate Anthropocentrism – Contributions of Anthroposophy to Sustainable Development” by Johannes Kronenberg within Critical Sustainability Studies and the Centre for Development and Environment at the University of Bern (August 2026–2030).
• Further development of a “New Narrative of Sustainable Development.”
• Founding of a colloquium and the “Council for Integral Sustainable Development.”
• From September 2026 onward, the Department of Sustainable Development will be integrated into the Section for Social Sciences at the Goetheanum.

Previous Projects:

• 2025: Publication of the book "On the Earth We Want to Live. Anthroposophy’s Contributions to Sustainable Development"

• 2025: World Goetheanum Forum 2025 in Sekem on the topic sustainable development

• 2024: Interview “In Our Encounters, the Future Is Decided” on sustainable development in the weekly Das Goetheanum.
  https://dasgoetheanum.com/in-unseren-begegnungen-entscheidet-sich-die-zukunft/

• 2023: Socio-ecological production of a special edition of the Thonet S 33 Goetheanum cantilever chair.
  More information (in German):
  • Thonet website: https://www.thonet.de/de/magazin/geschichte-marke/detail/goetheanum
  • Trailer: YouTube
  • Article: Contribution to Development 
  • Article: Many Thanks Mart Stam

• 2023: Article “The Goetheanum in the Storm of the Environmental Crisis”
  https://www.sektion-landwirtschaft.org/forschung/ea-1/das-goetheanum-im-sturm-der-umweltkrise

• 2022: Publication for COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh:
  “Breathing with the Climate Crisis” (with Lin Bautze and Ueli Hurter)
  PDF and information: https://www.sektion-landwirtschaft.org/en/living-farms/breathing-with-the-climate-crisis

• 2021: Climate conference “Breathing with the Climate Crisis” at the Goetheanum, jointly organized by the Section for Agriculture and the Youth Section.

• 2020: Article “The Earth as a Mirror of the Human Being” in the weekly Das Goetheanum
  https://dasgoetheanum.com/die-erde-als-spiegel-des-menschen/