Transitioning towards Water Smart Communities
Exploring the boundary of the EWSC project, how we might support future transitions and longer-term system change.
Words by Arup | published in Transitions to EWSC
System transitions take place as a result of complementary actions happening at across all three levels of system complexity — individual, network and system. Achieving this can seem daunting to systems innovators and might lead them to revert to using traditional problem-solving approaches, producing “pseudo solutions” that address symptoms instead of root causes.
However, the impetus for successful system innovation does not rely on a single organisation nor individual. The basic unit for systems change needs to be larger even than a team: it has to be a creative community driven by a shared purpose to instigate change. This includes not only sector specific actors, but also local stakeholders, such as community organisations, local business, schools and service customers, everyone affected by the problems we are trying to solve need to be part of its solutions.
In order to seed and catalyse change in complex systems and resolve wicked problems, multiple interventions, at multiple levels of scale, over multiple time horizons will be required.
The key for an effective systems change lies in adopting the idea that existing and new projects and initiatives form an ecosystem of change, where each of them represents a step along the transition pathway towards a co-envisioned future. Even small actions, such as developing shared definitions or providing open access to project challenges and learnings can contribute to systems-level change when they are tied to a larger vision and systems strategy.
Embracing this holistic perspective allows systems innovators to:
- Break down long-term visions into mid- and short-term vision, which in turn helps to formulate tangible objectives and actions that near-term project can steer toward
- Coordinate and streamline efforts across different areas of action and levels
- Conserve resources and build a wider base of support, generating greater leverage
- Foster resilience by emphasising that each initiative contributes to the overall transformation, even if it encounters obstacles.
- Respond to changes within the ecosystem, adjust projects accordingly, and pivot when necessary. This adaptability is vital for staying relevant and effective in a dynamic environment.
2. Transition pathway
The EWSC project sees itself situated within a larger network of projects and initiatives that aim to catalyse the transition towards climate resilient communities and thus to a more sustainable and equitable future by enabling WSC.
It forms part of a wider ecosystem of change, whereby each existing and new project acts as a step along the transition pathway towards a co-envisioned future.
The idea that linked projects are steps along transition pathways toward co-envisioned futures also applies at a smaller scale, at an individual project level.
By defining a shared long-term ambition and then back-casting to the present, systems innovator can agree on tangible mid-term objectives for a single project and plan their actions accordingly. This allows us to develop ‘smaller’ transition pathways that help to steer the project into the right direction in line with the wider long-term vision.
Using the EWSC Framework as a visioning device to identify different actions for change across multiple scale, the EWSC discovery is proposing to link the ‘enabling actions’ together and develop several ‘smaller’ EWSC transition pathways that can be tested within the pilot and demonstrators in our delivery scenarios. This vision can be further informed by the outputs of the Change Points workshop (Foggitt, E., et. al. 2023).
Each enabling action is a step in a mid- and long-term, multi-phased process for change.
This article is written by Arup, a collective of designers, architects, engineering and sustainability consultants, and experts dedicated to sustainable development. Arup contributed public innovation and strategic design expertise, beginning the transition design process.
As Discovery research lead and series editor, Arup’s Transformation & Design Studio led the multi-partner research effort by applying their public innovation and strategic design expertise.
This is one of a series of insight articles produced as part of the EWSC innovation programme, exploring how integrated water management can be delivered through innovative housing and stewardship models. For an overview of the project, latest news or to get in touch visit https://www.ewsc.org.uk/.
