Tag: sweden

Categories
economics innovation oil politics social-ecological transformation

Transforming industrial society

Staffan Laestadius

If you take climate change seriously, you also have to discuss how to transform society, not just industry but also
transforming life in society so that it will keep providing welfare.

Samuel Mann with Staffan Laestadius [ 59:13 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Staffan Laestadius is Professor of Industrial Dynamics. He says his work starts where Climate Change research finishes. He tells us how industrial and societal transformation are inextricably linked. He also tells us that such transformation is possible – a path to emission reduction without miracles.

Talking points

Silent Spring, for me, and many of my generation…that was the first step into sustainability.

Limits to Growth…widely discussed, heavily criticised not least by economists, but also by people who thought this book was something that was telling the the rest of the world now the northern part of the world have got their lifestyle, there is no time, no space for the others to catch up. I think that was the wrong conclusion – I think the Limits to Growth book got too bad a reputation, but many of the forecasts have turned out to be relatively true now.

Industrial transformation…how analyse and understand processes of industrial change.

It isn’t enough to put new fuels in old cars.

The energy transformation required is huge…the elephant in the room, so huge, dramatic and challenging we don’t want to talk about it

We don’t want to talk about what do we have to do to take climate change seriously..but I try to do that.

I try to show it is possible to change

Industrial processes and social change

In Northern Europe we have developed a welfare state, a process modality, people believe that they have got all their welfare, their technology, their cars, and you will not convince people to leave all that to leave all that to go into a stone age economy just to preserve the climate.

You have to show that instead of man as master of nature…to a more circular system that provides a similar or comparable standard of living..that it is the challenge.

Show it is possible without decline in welfare….welfare based on a new sustainability based industrial system

The standard reaction…new technological solutions but from old thinking, linear thinking.

We could have fixed it with these old solutions 50 years ago, but now those solutions are not there any more, we have to be more humble and look to more sustainable solutions.

Now it needs a new way of thinking

There are limits to what we can do

Accepting the planetary boundaries work, my contribution is “What are the consequences for industrial and social transformation?”.

You can’t get people to accept transformation promising that everything will be worse – whether you continue on the same path or accept a sustainable path – so you must find a path of achieving transformation that can provide welfare for society – that is sustainable.

It is easy to fall back to “we’re too small, nothing I do matters”…but a message is the snowball effect – somebody has to go ahead.

We have to show that is possible to transform, increase competitiveness and welfare

To show it is possible we have to break down the enormous task…4 dimensions. 1 half of reductions…2. you should reduce activity levels first, then efficiency…3. it is possible to start, you don’t have to do everything now…4. 4% per year as long as we have growth, intensity is of no interest to nature…so absolute reductions.

We should focus first on doing less of carbon intensive processes

It is possible, but it is tough, because time is running out.

Reduce activity, increase efficiency, then substitution. This is the logical order, but of course they can be worked on together.

This is not a technology revolution…technology is there already…

For the coming years – at least until 2030 we have the technology, it is a political problem to calibrate the system so it becomes politically and socially attractive to join the solution.

Fossil fuels have been so successful, so cheap because externalities ignored

The basic training of economists, externalities so small we don’t have to worry about them. But now we see the basic problem is externalities.

We need to leave 2/3rd of fossil fuel in the ground

Sometimes when I go to sleep I think this is too tough but I think it is worth fighting for

We need to find a pricing model that makes it rational to transform

We need to transform the economy but also to keep the welfare model

(Will the transformation come anyhow?) Stakeholders in old regime…people know more, we have to get politicians to coordinate.
Political leadership is not just doing what they believe the electorate wants, they have to lead in the right direction…climate change a real challenge to traditional left wing/right wing…..we have to find political alliances

(a gentle revolution?) I think this may be necessary in a few years as the climate situation gets worse.

(New book Triple Challenges for Europe) Triple challenges…climate change, economic development, governance.

End austerity politics with investment in green solutions

(Success) not sucess or failure…returning to the synthesis of sustainability in my personal view and work… integrating industrial and social change…a coherent view

Instead of narrowing focus on details of technical transformation, widening scope go more into debate and how to get impact and work with transformation

(Activist) The third task for academics – societal influence – mine is impact on transforming our industrial society. Not an activist. Was when young, but basically I’m an academic.

I wouldn’t say that I’m an activist, but I would say I’m not scared to take a position that is solidly based.

If you take climate change seriously, then you have to work with a transformation…this is the magnitude of the challenge
(Motivation) – I still think I have a lot to do

I have a broader interest…too many things…I work with social, industrial and technology…it keeps me engaged in the debate

(Challenges) Swedish government could agree on transformation of our carbon dependence, way to achieve 4% per annum, and show the world that it is possible.

It will get worse before it gets better.

Maybe we have to face some more disasters and then we can mobilise a transformation

I think it is possible for all of us on an individual level to make the first half…it is possible…the rest will be dificult

I have reduced my car travel to less than half without any problem at all.

I have to do more, and we all have to do more in future, but it is possible to reduce by half with no suffering.

Categories
social-ecological transformation transition towns values

Values-based change agent

Pella Thiel

When you appeal to the rational economic man, you strengthen those values, prime those values, and the intrinsic ones become weaker. If I tell you that installing these solar panels will be cheaper, then you become less interested in unity with nature, social justice – a beautiful world. And what we know is that a beautiful world, thinking and action for a sustainable future rests on those intrinsic values.

Samuel Mann with Pella Thiel [ 59:04 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Pella Thiel an ecologist and change agent who chairs the board of the Transition Network Sweden, Omställningsnätverket, and is also working with values for transition within the Common Cause network. She is also facilitating End Ecocide Sweden.

Pella works to create meeting places that build the trust in the possibility of the big changes necessary for a sustainable, just and meaningful world.

Talking points

Addressing ecocide is a prerequisite – we can’t have thriving local communities if we don’t put an end to the destruction being done as an everyday thing.

Our current system…we think it’s OK to destroy living systems

What makes a success is when people devote time to themselves – how they are, how they work, how they interact with each other. If you can create a healthy group where people actually want to be there becasue it is fun and people support each other, that is a success factor.

Be welcoming of lots of different actors, a space holder for change to happen.

Being positive without closing eyes to severity of the situation we are in.

Transition, most horrible things and most beautiful things happen at the same time….when we actually say this has to change. if you are an addict, it is not until you realise I can be alive and I can be dead, and this is the choice I have to make.

Do we have to convince everybody? This is a stress – “we have to reach everybody, we have to be palatable enough for the middle class, everybody needs to be in this change”, which is true to a certain degree, but from what we know about big shifts in complex systems, they don’t happen that way – that suddenly many people do something different, on the contrary, they happen because a small amount of individuals do things from a very different logic. Maybe 5%, maybe even less because we are so interconnected – if a few people can spread a message that many other people resonate with…maybe even fewer than 5% to tip the system.

This path we are on is not going to take us any further, so we get to choose the path we want. So then the question is options for change – mostly the transition message that we can deal with this together.

We can deal with this together, if we do it together it’s not that scary, it can be fun, meaningful and connecting.

We have invested heavily in the current picture, and it will be difficult to leave…but we can make money frmo other things, and that money will be serving us better. Serving the complex we live in much better, much healthier, less stressful and less lonely than we are today.

Ecocide is mass damage and destruction of ecosystems where people and other organisms live. And what we’re working on…international law against ecocide.

The movement is to have Ecocide recognised by the Rome Statute…the most severe crimes – crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes…they are tried in the international court.

This will have to be a process as we find out together, what do we accept and not accept. Today as a society we do accept mass damage of nature – and we know where that is taking us, we’re well into the 6th mass extinction.

Our collective actions are taking us to a place that doesn’t benefit any of us. We have to change that, and that’s not easy, but if we don’t begin…

Common Cause…the role of values in how we act and think, and how that relates to sustainability. Values provide guiding principles, that tell us what’s desirable, what’s normal and what’s important.

Values change and shift all the time. If we what change, we need to be conscious of values.

Values influence everything we do, but we are usually unaware of them. We don’t usually notice societal values, what values are strengthened in our society – what is perceived as desirable, normal and important in a society

Extrinsic values: if you get a reward for what you do, how people see you, material wealth, status, power…and then there are intrinsic values- they are more related to the context you are in: relationship to nature, friends and family, social justice, equality, and things such as creativity.

For us to be able to act on bigger than self issues, we have to act on intrinsic values – so they have to be the strong ones.

I caution against good and bad values, but its normative in the way that if want to move in the direction that is more collective – and just people, but also taking into account the interests of other beings, even landscapes, then we have to be focussing on the intrinsic values. –

Selfish, rational economic man…that’s really strange thinking, that we could build a society that is good for all based on the interests of individuals that don’t care about that whole society. That’s a sad picture of people being very very small – and we aren’t that small. We’re big, we have big hearts if we can believe in those big hearts.

When you appeal to the rational economic man, you strengthen those values, prime those values, and the intrinsic ones become weaker. If I tell you that installing these solar panels will be cheaper, then you become less interested in unity with nature, social justice – a beautiful world. And what we know is that a beautiful world, thinking and action for a sustainable future rests on those intrinsic values.

Transition needs a whole shift in thinking, and by appealing to your economic gain from that, you will undermine and cause collateral damage to those intrinsic values and weaken your ability to participate in the transition.

We need to go even deeper than an overthrow of capitalism. Using money as a measurement is really shallow.

We measure money, but that’s not the interesting stuff – people are interested in healthy relationships with politicians, neighbours, their children’s teachers, healthy food, beautiful setting – those are the things we should strive for.

The best things in life, money can’t buy. We know that, so why do we keep focussing on money?

How can we strengthen each other by sharing the strengths we have?

In an ecosystem it is many relationships that builds resilience and it is the same in our communities.

We can’t sustain the system we are living in now, and I don’t think that we should, so sustainability is not really very interesting, what is interesting is transition to resilience, perhaps a regenerative sustainability.

We shouldn’t have sustainable business, we should aim to have regenerative business.

If you work with values, and talk about the values you want to strengthen, then you do a lot of good, even if you don’t explain things very much. People don’t act on information, people act on values.

We need to give people a reason to act based on values.

(Success) The awareness of Ecocide law.

(Activist) Yes. I actively do things for something I believe in.

(Motivation) How important these things are to me – the living systems of the earth, the future of my children, it hit my heart how much I care for those things, and it goes a long way

(Challenges) Microscale…on the farm where I live, a healthy community, that trusts and cooperates to provide our food.

(Miracle) That all people started to believe in their own power to create good communities for themselves and for others, that they would believe in their own roles as change agents.

(Advice) Believe in your own power to create the change that you want to see in the world. And take some time to reflect on what is important to you, then manifest that in some way – draw it, write it down, tell someone else.

This interview was recorded in early September 2015.

Categories
Framework for Strategic Sustainable

Strategic Sustainable Development

Karl-Henrik Robert

On one hand I saw how wonderful people are when they gather to save patients with cancer – which was my job – and on the other hand that same species was destroying their own habitat, making doctors like me helpless if this was allowed to go on.

Dr Karl-Henrik Robèrt is the passion and the wisdom behind the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (see “also), and the The Natural Step Framework. In this conversation we look at the framework laying out the system conditions for sustainability was developed from his work in cancer treatment and research. We canvass at how the framework is being used now, and explore what’s next for a sustainable future.

Dr Robèrt is an Adjunct Professor at Blekinge Institute of Technology where he teaches on the Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) Programme and researches the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. You can listen to conversations with some of his colleagues here, including Merlina Missimer who recently defended her doctoral thesis on the social aspects of the framework.

Talking points

I was interested in humans destroying their habitat. We are completely dependent on natural cycles and biodiversity.

On one hand I saw how wonderful people are when they gather to save patients with cancer – which was my job – and on the other hand that same species was destroying their own habitat, making doctors like me helpless if this was allowed to go on. I just couldn’t make those two images merge into one.

What we needed to do, from the scientific community was to present the sustainability issue as something of inherent interest for strategists, company owners, executives in politics and business.

The human body is a complex system, indeed each cell is a cosmos of complex life relationships. When and one cell gets sick, a cancer, it might eventually threaten this huge complex system – just like unsustainability is threatening the large system we are all dependent on. We needed the same kind of overriding systems principles to cure unsustainability that we use in cancer treatment. We didn’t have boundary conditions to help us cure unsustainability – so I set out to find them.

Mother Earth, our civilisation is gradually dying from the deadly disease of unsustainability.

We have outlined the basic mechanisms of destruction. Rockstrom has begun to calculate for how long we can violate those principles until the point of no-return. It is a bit like we have deduced the principle of avoiding obesity – don’t eat more than you expend in energy – Rockstrom has worked out how fat you become be until you die. Both of those things are of interest if you want to avoid dying of obesity.

Why would you design a vision for your company that cannot be?

If we backcast from a sustainable world, it is obvious that we have got there in incremental steps, so we must stepwise make whole sectors converge towards complying with the basis principles of sustainability. But on the other hand, if by incremental change you mean change that happens without the end game in sight, that will not carry us to sustainability.

Incremental change without the end game in sight is the tyranny of small steps.

Circular economy…fails to recognise that some things can’t move in cycles and should be phased out.

(Activist) Yes, absolutely, very much. If we don’t change there will be no more civilisation – and I will be as harmed as anyone. I chose the way of an activist to respond to “what’s in it for me”, to get people to think about that in a deeper way, and then how to do it.

The selfish stuff can be managed by enlightened self-interest.

(Motivation) Why do I continue to do this? Why would anyone want to learn his living by saving the planet? It’s obvious, right. But it is also fascinating. I’ve always felt confusion a challenge to overcome, I like comprehension.

(Challenges) Scaling up, using modern tools to spread the awareness of the framework.

(Miracle) What we have developed is nothing less than an operating system for sustainability…and we have developed app after app to apply the framework…a miracle would be Bill Gates phoning up to say “why don’t we put this operating system into Windows?”. So that this language for managing the greatest challenge to civilisation is made part of the operating system of our computers. That would crack the problems of how do we scale up the dissemination.

(Advice) Look up (the Framework for Strategic Sustainability), try to live accordingly, support organisations (WWF, Greenpeace), look at how you vote – this is the most important issue of all you shouldn’t vote just by tradition, you should think about which parties in parliament take sustainability the most seriously .

Categories
education geography urban

Technology as a tempting narrative

Josefin Wangel

There’s a strong technical solution bias – ICT is the new technical fix that will allow us to not change our lifestyles in order to achieve sustainability – and of course that’s hard to say no to, it’s very tempting to believe in such a narrative.

Josefin Wangel [ 56:34 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dr Josefin Wangel is Associate Professor in sustainable urban development at the Division of Environmental Strategies Research at KTH in Sweden. Her focus is on how sustainability is understood and put to practice in urban planning and policy making. She uses futures studies (mainly backcasting and design fictions), systems analysis (including target formulation and sustainability assessments), stakeholder analysis and discourse analysis.

Talking points

I knew wanted to try to save the world through environmental engagement of some sort.

I studied sciences because I thought that if I knew the sciences then people would listen to me – today I can see that that was a naïve understanding of the workings of society.

As an 18 year old, my understanding of a lack sustainability was that it was a lack of knowledge that makes society unsustainable.

I quickly realised that people knew, that it was bad for the environment to drive a car, for example, but still they drove a car -and that is when I realised that my natural science based education wasn’t really apt for answering the questions that I had.

Today if I had to choose, I would place myself more in the social sciences than the natural sciences.

Why aren’t we behaving in the way we should be behaving in order to save the planet?

The discrepancy between our stated intention and what we actually do can be found at all layers of society from the individual, through the community to the planners and politicians. I think this is where we can find leverage points to actually start doing sustainability.

Environmental effects are disconnected in time and space. If I eat chocolate I know the effects on me, but if I drive the car everyday then the effects are somewhere else, ten years from now – these effects are harder to grasp.

Sustainability issues are the result of collective action, or collective inaction. I don’t gain weight when my partner eats chocolate.

Sustainability is more than the functioning of ecosystems, the other dimension is social issues. However, I don’t think sustainability is the right word for social issues, it should be social justice or social desirabilities – for me sustainability – the ability to sustain is very much connected to the ecosystems.

Three step model: Brundtland…pillars interact. Then de-construct…a discursive perspective, talking of multiple sustainabilities, that our understanding of the world is always socially constructed…then students have to make up their own construction…that links to their own discipline.

It is important to dare to be very serious about the threats implied by surpassing the planetary boundaries.

The trick is to get them to realise at the bottom of their hearts what sustainability is about, and how deeply unsustainable and unfair the world is today. And then provide them with the tools for doing something about that.

If want sustainability to last…then people have to care at a personal level,

“Sustainable” urban development areas in Stockholm…show window for Swedish sustainability and ecotechnologies…however none of these areas are actually sustainable if by sustainable you have an understanding of absolute levels of pressure that the ecosystem – if you look at resource use, these areas aren’t sustainable, and if you look at resource use in terms of the global population it becomes obvious these areas aren’t socially just either.

This does come very close to greenwash.

There’s a strong technical solution bias – ICT is the new technical fix that will allow us to not change our lifestyles in order to achieve sustainability – and of course that’s hard to say no to, it’s very tempting to believe in such a narrative.

We in Sweden have wonderful life, but that is only possible because people in other parts of the world have lousy working conditions and suffer environmental degradation that the production of consumption good sold in Sweden results in.

For us, the status quo looks like the best option, but at the global scale, and taking social justice into consideration, then it isn’t sustainable.

As an individual it is hard, sometimes impossible, to see the consequences of collective actions and take responsibility for it.

(is sustainability a luxury?) You choose what to invest funds in, you can choose to invest in highways, or you can choose to invest in railways.

Do it yourself urbanism: people having opportunity to influence built environments themselves.

(Success) Interview in a big daily newspaper, I was able to start a national discussion about alternative discourses of sustainability.

(Activist) I used to be.

(Your teaching and research is normative) if you have a title with the word sustainability in it, then you are, at least if you are doing what your title says you are.

(Motivatation) I really love my work. I get to work on something I find super interesting and important.

(Challenges) Getting married. I was just appointed of director of collaboration and impact.

(Miracle) That everyone would realise the two dimensions ecological sustainability and social justice – and that economy is just a part of the social. The wedding cake, but with only two layers.

Categories
business design systems

Strategic sustainable products

Sophie Hallstedt

The trick is to make a business out of being more sustainable.

Sophie Hallstedt [ 53:08 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dr Sophie Hallstedt is a researcher and lecturer at in the Department of Strategic Sustainable Development at
Blekinge Institute of Technology. Her research interest is sustainable product development and the question of how a strategic sustainability perspective can be integrated and implemented into product innovation process with focus on the early phases.

This conversation is one of a series of four recorded at Blekinge Institute of Technology Department of Strategic Sustainable Development in September 2014.

Talking points

Strategic sustainable development means you you take a strategic approach to the success ladder.

Supporting companies to consider sustainability as part of everything they do.

If you talk to individuals in an organisation, many are concerned about the unsustainable society that we live in, and they want to contribute…but as part of a bigger organisation it’s not always so easy to do that – to put that on the agenda when there are other issues that are putting pressure on the company.

You need to have a long term perspective. If you only look at today, you might have one choice, but if you look 10-15 years ahead, what would be the best alternative if you could then choose for today. It may be best to invest in the thing that is more expensive today but will in the long term be more beneficial.

We are developing support for including the long term in decision making. This is tricky because you don’t know what is going to happen. So we use scenarios.

We have a tool for visualising scenarios.

There’s a danger of reducing to economic terms if you do it too soon. You need to keep it as transparent as possible and also have a qualitative assessment. You need a dialogue around the results. This can be supported by the visualisation of the quantitative results.

It is harder for engineers to accept qualitative results…it helps to visualise it…but the qualitative story is needed.

(Can human rights, human suffering – less tangibles – be represented in a format that makes them equivalent to the numerical values in a decision support system?) You can’t. You can’t put a figure on some sustainability aspects.

But if you are going to support product developers, to support them in their decisions, their designs, then it may be important to help them go from the larger picture to something they can translate and compare.

To make a more sustainable product it is important to collaborate with your partners in its value chain.

Can a product be sustainable?) It depends on how you manage it for the whole lifecycle. It is very difficult to say something is sustainable. You might be able to say more, or less sustainable.

What is strategic sustainable development? What is a sustainable society?

(Role of ecology in engineering degree?) I would think it very useful, to see how everything is connected.

Everything is connected. Even a small change can have catastrophic consequences.

(Consumers). A big impact is to use with care so it lasts longer.

(Decision to buy, are we getting better at supporting through product design the decision not to buy) You have to take responsibility as a consumer, but yes, you will see more of that.

(Is there a sweetspot as a consumer?) A mix. There is a need for companies to make products that enable consumers to choose between alternatives.

To some extent we (as consumers) need to trust the producers that they have taken their responsibility seriously to make their product more sustainable, or as sustainable as it can be at the moment and have a road map.

(but we have to wade through a swamp of greenwash). yes, as consumer, your responsibility is to be aware of that. It’s quite hard, that’s why we have labeling schemes. These aren’t perfect, but they are better than nothing.

You should be aware of the labelling schemes, but you still have to take your own responsibility when you chose your product.

Issues such as ecological issues, production issues and so on are harder for the consumer to see, so these values have to be in the company – what is good for society is also good for us.

(On planned obsolescence) I hope and think there is another way to do products design, so they have a value for lasting a long time, maybe a modular system where you replace parts of the system.

3D printing may cause a new sustainability problem itself if overused.

(Activist?) I wouldn’t call myself an activist – I’m trying to inspire. I want to try to inspire and grow and have a seed to take a direct responsibility to continue to work.

(Challenges) Having companies taking a more active role in bringing in a sustainability perspective in business strategies. I working on describing more good examples so they can see it does have a value.

(Motivation) Trying to contribute, To inspire other people to work with it.

(Miracle) My wishlist would be to have more resources in companies to prioritise this area.

(Advice) Everyone can contribute in their field to a more sustainable society and you should do that – both as a person and in your profession

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Categories
business design engineering systems

Strategic sustainable development

Goran Broman

You would be very unlikely to win a game of chess without knowing the principled definition of checkmate. Reaching a sustainable society without any idea of the principles that define that situation would also be very unlikely.

Goran Broman [ 1:10:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Prof Göran Broman heads the Department of Strategic Sustainable Development at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden.

This conversation is one of a series of four recorded at Blekinge Institute of Technology Department of Strategic Sustainable Development in September 2014.

Talking points

Developing tools to support strategic sustainable thinking

It is important that we develop tools with the community, the type of people who will be using them or they will be useless.

How organisations can support the whole of society towards sustainability, and how can they do that in a way that strengthens their own organisation – that is the being strategic.

If an organisation does something for sustainability of society, that is good, but if the company goes bankrupt doing that then it’s not that good because they can’t continue to contribute, and they become a bad example…then other companies will be hesitant to work proactively with sustainability and that will slow down the progress of society towards sustainability.

It is really important that organisations that work towards sustainability are successful in the short term, because that will help the transition.

Strategic sustainability is about developing methodologies to help organisations bring together those seemingly hard to match aspects – the short term with the long term, the small scale perspective with the big perspective, the self interest profitability with ethics, and so on.

A framework for strategic sustainability, tools supporting the whole of society in a way that strengthens your own organisation.

Having a long term perspective, a vision of where you want to far into the future when the whole of society is sustainable, how is your organisation supporting that, fulfilling the needs or the wants of the customers within the frame of a sustainable society in the future. From that, look back to today’s situation, how does that differ? What are you doing today that contributes to unsustainability?

Once the companies have created that vision, we put that vision inside the frame of the definition of sustainability – because is is really stupid to have a vision that cannot exist in the future.

In what way is the company today contributing to sustainability and unsustainability.

It is possible to avoid the apparent contribution of short term profitability and long term societal sustainability.

It is difficult to describe a product, a person, a company today is sustainable since the whole of society is unsustainable, or on an unsustainable track, whatever you do contributes to that unsustainability. But you can say that a product can be designed, or a company can be run in a way that contributes to sustainability – contributes to the transition from today’s unsustainable situation to the sustainable situation, that you can say.

Only when we have reached the situation when the whole of society is sustainable, and everything within it…then you can say a company or product is sustainable, but today you can not. We are unfortunately very far from that situation.

It’s impossible, or at least very hard, and not very wise, to define in detail what a sustainable society should look like. We won’t get everyone to agree on detail…another reason is that so many things will change during the transition that we cannot predict… So we have been trying to find a principled definition of sustainability.

The principled definition of strategic sustainability can be described using a chess metaphor. In chess you also have a principled definition of the goal, how do you define success – you put your opponent in checkmate. Checkmate is not defined in a detailed way…it is a principled definition – it says that the king must be threatened, the king must not be able to move away from the threat, you should not be able to put a piece in front of the king to protect him and you should not be able to strike out the threat. If those principles are fulfilled then it’s checkmate. It can look in an almost infinite number of ways…when you start to play a game of chess you don’t know exactly how it will end. That definition is used all the time by the chess player…first you learn the basic rules and how to play the game (the A step)…then he or she assesses the current situation, where are my pieces, my opponents pieces and so on (the B step), then work up a number of ways you can move ahead (the C step) and there are huge amount of possibilities, and the (D step) what smart early moves should I start with? And you assess those moves through the lens of the definition of checkmate because that’s what you want to reach. Once you’ve made a couple of moves you reassess the situation, because the opponent has moved his or her pieces in a way you could not predict in detail. You move and reassess. All the time the player has the definition of checkmate.

You would be very unlikely to win a game of chess without knowing the principled definition of checkmate. Reaching a sustainable society without any idea of the principles that define that situation would also be very unlikely.

We are defining and continually refining strategic sustainability principles that correspond to checkmate.

Our principles are based on defining an ecological and socially sustainable society…people ask why not economics? …but that is not included in the goal, because economics is not the goal – it is means for reaching the goal.

We have a systematic increase of fossil carbon, captured in carbon dioxide, that is increasing. That cannot continue, we cannot have higher and higher concentrations all the time, because eventually we will reach a tipping point, or critical limit where the system will collapse. We don’t know exactly where that limit is, but we don’t need to know exactly.

If we run the society the way that we will have as an unavoidable outcome a systematic increase of substances, then it is unsustainable. We don’t have to know exactly when it collapses, but it will, and the design as such is unsustainable.

Of course it is of value to try to find out the critical limits of substances, but it is also hard, so we should not put all of our efforts in society, in research to find where exactly where those critical limits are, it’s hard and we’ll never succeed…when we know that if society is designed in such a way that will result in us approaching those limits, it’s unsustainable.

In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to increases in systematic degradation by physical means – mismanagement of land, capacity of ecosystem….

We are currently working on elaborating the social dimension.

(chess metaphor, not overlord) importance of self benefit of companies…society is on a non-sustainable route…it is becoming more and more difficult for companies to do things that continue to contribute to unsustainability.

We need to change the system we have from within, we have no other option. People that have realised where we need to be on a principled level need to strike that balance, by moving ahead as fast as fast as possible, not faster or slower. This being strategic and is not easy. It’s not easy to play chess just because you know the definition of checkmate.

(But do we know the know the rules of sustainability?) We know some rules, we know the scientific laws for example, they apply regardless of politics. Then there are rules that might change – politically decided laws and regulations might change during the process. So we have a mix of rules.

(can we see the whole board? some things are unseeable, there are things we don’t understand and won’t understand) We can see the whole board depending on resolution, in a very concrete term the first astronauts saw the earth from outside. Then at a more refined level of resolution, a single organisation might not see it everyday, but they can relate to that full picture.

All the things I have done in sustainability come from childhood. When I was kid, my parents were engaged in sustainability. Especially my father, he was chairman of a local environmental association.

I chose…engineering so I could design a problem out of a system.

We see sustainability as a design problem. Society is designed in a way that is not sustainable, and operated on a basic level that is not sustainable.

I decided to go for engineering as my formal education…I thought it would be easier to change the system if I had that credibility.

(Activist?) Yes. I act to create change.

(Challenges) Huge challenge in academia of compartmentalisation. People doing research and people doing academic education are divided into disciplines – which is not bad in itself and we need more and more detailed knowledge in specific fields – but not if we do that instead, or only. If we don’t have some people doing a structured overview. How can you bring together all that wonderful knowledge?

How can you combine all that knowledge in the best way relation to the sustainability challenge that we have? That is, by nature, interdisciplinary academic research. That is problematic, because when academic groups are evaluated, they are evaluated from the disciplinary point of view. It is hard for interdisciplinary groups to get fair evaluations.

(Miracle) One of the first things would be to have every person in the world be knowledgeable about how to reach strategic sustainability.

We have the physical resources, we have energy coming from the sun that would be sufficient to keep all of humanity in very good living standards, if we do it in the right way we have enough food, and so on…so it’s about managing this in a sustainable way, and that takes knowledge and competence.

(Advice) Try learn about those things and try to do what you can. Many people think “this is so daunting, so huge, so what I do as a little person is meaningless if I do something the system is so big and unsustainable it will collapse anyhow” but it’s not, try to do what you can. If every person does what he or she can, then we are a good part of the way.

Don’t be scared off, do what you can do. If every person does what he or she can do, then we will move our position forward, and then it will be apparent to those people that we can change things.

Categories
computing democracy development

Democracy = sustainability?

Somya Joshi

There is a sense of double standards, sustainability should be a global concept, it shouldn’t be hypocritical in the sense that you have one set of standards that apply to the developed world and another to the developing.

Somya Joshi [ 54:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dr. Somya Joshi is with the eGovernance Lab within the Department of Computer Science at the University of Stockholm. She specialises in technological innovation, particularly in how it translates into transparency in governance, education, & environmental conservation within the developing world. She has worked extensively in the field where policy making and citizen participation intersect. She is currently working on analyzing the impact of new social media tools that enable citizens to participate in democratic processes, both in Africa in Europe.

Some terms you might not be familiar with: HCI Human Computer Interaction, ICT4D Information and Communication Technology for Developement, ICT4S ICT for Sustainability.

We ask if does openness = democracy? and does democracy = sustainable? and what is the role of information technology in this?

Talking points

Quite early on I was fascinated by how our own relationships with our world are changing, and changing because of technology mediation.

Is sustainability part of the philosophy of people (in India)? I would argue that it used to be, up to a time when everything got scaled up. Now with enormous populations, Sustainability always takes a back seat. The rhetoric of development is all about economic progress, and environmental sustainability is just such a low priority

A fear of being left behind. Having a lifestyle your parents or grandparents couldn’t. Why should we make a sacrifice when people in the West haven’t? It feels patronising getting told about sustainability from a European or North American who haven’t followed what they are preaching now.

It’s a short term perspective versus a long term, in the short term sustainability doesn’t feature anywhere because its all about how quickly you can enjoy a lifestyle which others are. But in the long term perspective, countries like India are actually hurting themselves…they are depleting their own resources at rate that is unprecedented.

But on an individual, family level, why shouldn’t we have car when that is not even questioned in the US?

The economy is based on certain resources that are taken for granted now, but your children will not have time to enjoy them.

When I think of Sustainability and education in a place like India, it’s not just about environmental sustainability, it’s also social sustainability, where certain very basic things need to be taught about equality.

We often see technology as a one stop solution. We get technology physically to children but there is often no real though about what happens next – about behavioural change.

The lack of political will to change the power dynamic – you’ll find in Europe as much as in Africa. The difference is Europe has a longer tradition politicians needing to make decisions transparent – up to a point of course.

Greater transparency does not always equal greater accountability.

To be on equal footing with politicians and hold them accountable, citizens need the capability to participate in the dialogue. To come into the space as an equal…

Participation can become quite tokenistic, ticking a box ‘we consulted people’. You have to have a plan…bring everybody to as much the same capability as you can…

The first stage is building capability, so that people can participate in a meaningful way

Technology should be able to give meaningful choices to people, not restrict choices

In the developing world there is a feeling that sustainability is an elitist concept, that people who can afford to talk about sustainability are the ones with their bellies full.

There is a sense of double standards, sustainability should be a global concept, it shouldn’t be hypocritical in the sense that you have one set of standards that apply to the developed world and another to the developing.

A focus on human behavioural change will have the most impact in bring about any long term meaningful change

We’ve seen innovative ways of using technical solutions – they are great and a must – but we shouldn’t limit ourselves to thoats say “right, our consumption is going to carry on the way it is” and we won’t ever put ourselves out of comfort zone, we’ll just find a technical solution to fix it.

Sustainability should be about getting out of your comfort zone, chnaging your own patterns and behaviour to put less pressure on the planet. (which is hard if you’re not in the comfort zone). Exactly, and the first world has been in that comfort zone a long time, and they’re in no mood to let go of that.

The best initiatives leapfrog barriers.

Collaborative technologies…the arduino revolution

The focus is always how to design a technology then how to find a problem to fit around it. There’s a lot less critical discussion on how behavioural practices can be changed. Technical parameters are easy to define, human ones not so much.

Sustainability has to have meaning for that audience, it is not something imposed from above. If it is participative, if it has meaning for that community, then it has greater impact and outcome.

Voluntourism is OK if there to engage, and not paternalistic.

Motivation: nature not exotic thing, it is part of our everyday lives, we are totally dependent on it.

Activist: Yes, extreme (my colleagues think I’m), willing to get off plane of theoretical understanding and applying it in your everyday life, and being consistent with that. We have so many inconsistencies, we can be strongly motivated by sustainability, but our everyday life choices decisions and life practices don’t support that. It becomes about practicing that and supporting that at every level of your life. It is inconvenient, it is about getting out our your comfort zone, but we’re at a stage where we can’t not do that.

Challenges: making more political, why people have differential access.

A lot of the disrespect that exists today for nature and ecological factors is that people are so removed from it. There is a lot of taking for granted, overuse and abuse of the environment because people are so removed and disconnected from it.

Resources:
We talk about the work of Dr Andy Williamson (previous interview), and John Mann’s work in Cambodia (previous interview, EducatingCambodia.com).

SustainableLens apologises for the concrete mixer that appeared outside the window near the start of this interview. It goes away after a few minutes although returns right at the end.

Categories
education game design gaming

Talking about a game for talking about sustainability

Patrik Larsson

  I thought the solution should be something to inspire the generation that are coming after us.

Patrik Larsson [ 59:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Patrik Larrson is creator of GaSuCo “Gaming in Sustainability through Communication”. We talk about his motivations and the role of discussion in sustainability. This conversation was recorded after we talked after we played the game with Elina Eriksson and Daniel Pargman‘s Masters course in Sustainable Media Technology at KTH in Stockholm (flickr set).

Talking points

The game focuses on interaction between players

Not only do you get to talk about the things you feel are important, you also get to listen to other people’s thoughts on the same subject

I was challenged (in my Masters) to think what is the next big thing? I thought the solution shouldn’t be to invent something for the future, I thought the solution should be something to inspire the generation that are coming after us.

Interaction and discussion is a much better way of sharing knowledge than just looking something up.

The questions are designed for discussion…both viewpoints are correct..there are no right or wrong answers.

The questions are designed to be tough and hard and difficult, but however you approach a subject it is still correct.

Your lack of knowledge might be someone else’s chance to talk about a subject, what they feel is important about that subject…then next time you can relate to what that other student said

You bring other peoples’ knowledge with you – to create your own base of knowledge.

The questions are written in a way that they are supposed to be challenging.  It’s no fun if you always know what the answer is.

If you always know the answer, you don’t progress, you don’t get challenged in your way of thinking.

When discussing things with no actual answers you get all different kinds of viewpoints.

You don’t have to agree, you just have to talk about it.  In the process of talking you get to hear so many different kinds of unexpected  (and expected) aspects of subjects that are so important but too easily forgotten

There’s a discussion question “Is it OK to buy second hand Christmas gifts?” and this can be followed in the discussion with “…and do you?”.  There is a difference between acting and saying, we also highlight that,. it is easy to have a viewpoint of the correct thing, but when you discuss it these differences become clear.

You’re entitled to your opinion, but you have to motivate your answer.  You have to be able to stand up for what you think.  As long as you can do that, you’re entitled to whatever opinion you want.  I’m not here to change anybody to think what I think, I just want to engage people in talking about it.

I cannot force someone to think what I think.  But this is a way of helping them discuss it, and understanding themselves that we cannot continue business as usual.

Wealth is not only based on economic growth

The main thing is that people play the game and understand that there are different ways of looking at how we are living, and talk about it.

People have this feeling that someone, somewhere is going to make a change.    That itself has to change.

Motivation: understanding that we are all different but cannot continue what we’ve been doing, this is my way of contributing to that change.

Activist: I’m just a regular guy trying to make education more fun.

Challenges: High school, and then try for a computer version without losing the core of interaction.

Categories
policy urban

Sustainability at scale

Thomas Bergendorff

The first step is getting the people in the room, and then you have to get something done

Thomas Bergendorff [ 1:00:48 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Thomas Bergendorff is coordinator at Stockholm Royal Seaport Innovation. Thomas is goal is finding innovative sustainable solutions on a large scale. He does this by bringing together companies, academics and the City of Stockholm, working across sectoral boundaries to work towards delivering upon ambitious environmental and sustainability targets for a large scale sustainable urban development.

Talking points

The first step is getting the people in the room, and then you have to get something done

We have to change the world

We have to do something, we can’t just point finger and hope that someone else will fix it for us

I have got the best job in the world.

We have to keep working, knowing a miracle isn’t going to happen, we have to keep working at it bit by bit.

Transformation depends on what timescale you are looking at, incremental change looked at over a longer time scale – we can look back and realise that was a transformation.

Short term thinking is part of the problem, that’s what got us here. Thinking like little kids.

We need a transformational change, that’s a lot of incremental changes to get us there. But it’s not all linear, those incremental changes are getting us to the window of opportunity – an institutional, political, financial, right-people-at-the-right-time window. You do incremental change until you get to the window of opportunity, and then you go with a big, real transformation.

(Activist) Not really, a facilitator that enables other people to be activists, much as I would like to be an activist, because it’s much more romantic to be an activist. I’m doing the necessary work so that other people will be the activists.

I’m a generalist with a wide ranging programme. But how do I prioritse, am I doing the right thing today?

How do we do as much as possible? What are the optimal processes and tools?

My goal has to be to get as many things off the ground as possible. We need tools and processes to do that.

Don’t worry too much, just follow your heart and work hard.