A general framework can be applied for open investigation of systemic sustainability going beyond normal scientific frameworks. presents a common framework for integrating across scientific, policy, and ethical frameworks; each referring to the socio-ecological system that constitutes our primary object of study. As such, this diagram defines three leadership domains, in which there can be knowledge, action, and principles (the same basic trinity of the main diagram itself). These ideas can also be expressed in a five-level hierarchy, as shown in Table 1.
Domain Name Description
5th. Relation System organization (coupling 1-4)
4th. Direction Values, principles, analogies, goals, possibilities
3rd. Design Governance, potentials, attractors, intentions
2nd. Operation Dynamic laws, actions, drivers, mechanisms
1st. Condition Primary observations, states, sense objects
Table 1: Five-Domain Causal Holarchy