How To Unlock Sustainability Solutions With Systems Thinking
An alarming report from the UN states that in order for us to avoid the rapidly accelerating destruction of the natural environment, humanity needs to go through a fundamental, system-wide reorganisation across technological, economic and social factors.
Never before have we been faced with such a complex set of systemic challenges to solve. Our transport, energy, agricultural and economic systems all need to be updated.
Industry experts and leaders from all around the world are using systems thinking to help unlock more effective sustainability solutions to these problems.
Systems thinking needs to become second nature if you want to play an effective role in generating solutions to the most important social, economic and environmental issues of our time.
WHAT IS A SYSTEM?
Whether it’s the economic system, the recycling system or your digestive system, they all have things in common.
The digestive system, recycling system and ecosystem are all made up of many different parts. Each part works together and shares a relationship with other parts within the system.
For example, your teeth and saliva are parts of your digestive system. They are great for breaking up food into smaller pieces and covering it with a coating to help pass it on to the next part of the digestive system. Via a tube connecting your mouth to your stomach (the oesophagus), you’re able to transfer food that’s been broken down in one part of the system (your mouth), to the next part of the system (your stomach), where it’s broken down even further.
The mouth and stomach are different parts of your digestive system but share an important relationship with one another. Chewing food makes it easier for the stomach to do its job; forming an interdependent relationship between the two parts.
Similarly, when you put products you consume into the recycling bin, you are part of the recycling system. You are preparing things for the recycling system in much the same way chewing prepares food for your stomach.
Just as your oesophagus connects your mouth to your stomach, a truck connects your recycling bin to the recycling facility. All the material that’s fed into the recycling facility is broken down into smaller, more digestible pieces just as your stomach breaks down food, preparing it for the next part of the system.
SYSTEMS ARE DYNAMIC
Another similarity found across different systems is how they adapt to change.
Change in one part of a system has a flow on effect to other parts of the system. If your neighbourhood gets a new recycling facility that can recycle 4 new types of plastic, this impacts the rest of the system. Now instead of throwing those items in the trash, you begin feeding these new types of plastic into the recycling system. To take care of the additional load, the amount of trucks on your recycling route may need to be increased too.
Things within a system rarely sit still. You’ll often hear people say things like “the one constant is change” or “if you don’t change you’ll get left behind”. Businesses know this all too well and that’s why they are constantly changing.
Changes to one part of a system will have a flow on effect to other parts of the system. These flow on effects will influence different parts of the system in different ways and may trigger a chain reaction of further changes.
When viewing a system in this way, it’s almost as if the system you’re looking at were alive.
It can become difficult to predict how a solution to a problem will manifest throughout a system when different, but related parts respond in this way.
Systems thinking helps you identify the different parts within a system and the relationships between them to help you design more effective solutions.
WHAT IS SYSTEMS THINKING?
Systems thinking is a tool for helping people view problems from a much broader perspective, taking into account the overall structures, patterns and cycles that exist within a system in order to generate more effective solutions to problems.
If you think about solutions to the problem of your plastic waste, recycling plastics appears to be an immediate solution to the problem.
But, as you begin to view your behaviour within the recycling system, you soon discover that choosing to consume less plastics and using reusable packages when you can, are good solutions to the problem too.
Through applying systems thinking in this example you are able to think beyond the immediate solution “I need to put my plastics in the recycling bin”. Instead, we find that a more holistic solution “I need to put my plastics in the recycling bin and reduce the amount of plastics I consume while using reusable packaging wherever possible” is more effective at solving the problem of plastic waste.
This systemic view enables you to take a broader perspective and come up with more effective solutions to the plastic waste problem.
SYSTEMS THINKING NEEDS BOUNDARIES
Where does the system stop? If we’re talking about the recycling system more broadly, should it extend to include the companies designing the recyclable packages that you buy?
What about the manufacturers who produce virgin plastics that feed the packaging system?
Systems thinking is expansionist and it encourages you to think beyond what lies in front of you. For this reason, it helps to define boundaries.
Boundaries keep your thinking focussed and can be set individually or in groups using tools for systems thinking.
HOW TO UNLOCK SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS TO PLASTIC PACKAGING WITH SYSTEMS THINKING
If you were to look for solutions to the food packaging system, you may decide to include food manufacturers, packaging companies, regulators and those producing virgin plastic materials within your analysis of the food packaging system.
Food manufacturers compete with others to supply their products in cost effective and safe packages. They don’t necessarily need their packages to be made from plastic but they are bound by what products are available in the market.
The food manufacturers are influenced by the economic system, pushing them towards making price sensitive decisions.
And legally, nothing in the regulatory system stops them from using plastic in their packaging. So that’s what they do.
You being the systems thinking entrepreneur that you are, spot an opportunity to provide an alternative to plastic that’s renewable and can be used by food manufacturers to package their products safely and cost effectively. Your new material is compostable and alleviates pressures on plastic waste, eliminating it from the entire supply chain. So you get to work.
Applying systems thinking to expand your analysis beyond the problem that lies in front of you, enables you to find innovative new ways for effectively solving sustainability problems like plastic packaging waste.
This is quite different to the type of thinking that we’re doing most of the time.
WHAT IS LINEAR THINKING?
Linear thinking is a logical, straight line type of thinking that we do most of the time. With linear thinking, we break problems down into smaller manageable chunks.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. If someone gave you 2 Oranges and 3 Apples then asked how many pieces of fruit you have, you don’t need to think about the interrelated systems (the fruit growers, the supply chain logistics and shop) which got the fruit to you, the answer is 5.
It’s not a ‘one size fits all’ type of scenario. Linear thinking and systems thinking are just different tools that should be used for solving different problems.
HOW WOULD LINEAR THINKING SOLVE THE PLASTIC WASTE PROBLEM?
With linear thinking you would look at the plastic waste problem and see that recycling your plastic waste is the solution.
You wouldn’t consider changing your consumption habits to consume less plastic nor would you have bothered using reusable containers.
All the plastic you consume goes into the recycling bin, problem solved.
If you were using linear thinking to solve problems with the food packaging system, you would see that a lack of recycling infrastructure like recycling bins, trucks and recycling facilities is the problem.
Here the solution would be to build more infrastructure so that everyone can continue using plastics and recycling them through a more comprehensive system. The pieces of plastic that escape the system are just a fact of life, and we move on.
In this example you are able to address the symptoms of plastic waste without actually addressing the root cause.
HOW TO UNLOCK SUSTAINABILITY SOLUTIONS WITH SYSTEMS THINKING
All the big environmental problems we need to solve like plastic pollution, climate change, deforestation and many others are all systems problems.
Linear thinking often leads us to solutions which address the symptoms of the problem and not the root cause.
Let’s take your private vehicle use as an example and explore how the decisions you make could influence your contribution to climate change.
Using linear thinking you may decide that owning a fuel efficient vehicle and driving less will solve the problem. While it’s a step in the right direction, you’re still emitting CO2.
Applying systems thinking you soon realise that using less fuel is addressing the symptom and not the root cause. To get at the root cause of Climate Change you realise you need to get off fossil fuels, so you decide to own an electric vehicle. Assuming the electricity used to charge the vehicle is clean and renewable, it’s a great solution for climate change.
But, systems thinking is expansionist so you continue thinking about the systems used to produce the electric vehicle. Because the electric vehicle was produced within a fossil fuel system, the more electric vehicles the system produces the more CO2 it emits.
Applying systems thinking to solve this problem you decide to address the idea of vehicle ownership itself.
Using a car share programme means you only use a vehicle when you need it. This frees the vehicle up to be used by others when you’re not using it. This reduces the total number of vehicles produced and reduces the amount of CO2 emitted.
You’re pleased with yourself because you have found a way to unlock climate change solutions, but you decide to go one step further. Systems thinking is meant to unlock sustainability solutions and not just climate change solutions after all.
You start to think about the electric vehicle supply chain and realise that we have shifted the problem from producing CO2 emitting vehicles to extracting earth’s rare metals to produce batteries.
You think to yourself “Wow, a change in one part of the system really does have an impact on other parts of the system in very meaningful ways.”
You decide the systems are in fact alive and the idea of achieving a truly sustainable system is a stimulating thought...
IS THERE SUCH THING AS A TRULY SUSTAINABLE SYSTEM?
Nature as a system has been sustainable for billions of years, evolving as required through time.
Even if we all disappeared from earth tomorrow, nature would carry on without us.
Take the water system as an example. Water comes down from the clouds as rain and evaporates back into the air to form new clouds and back down as rain again.
This natural system is sustainable and will carry on whether we are here or not.
Natural systems provide us with great insights into the secrets of sustainable systems. Not only is the water system sustainable, it supports life in other systems too. The systems of plants, animals, insects and humans all rely on a functioning water system for their survival.
In order for humans to solve the sustainability problems we’re now facing, we need to apply systems thinking to observe the secrets of sustainability that have been hiding within natural systems for billions of years.
We’ve taken this approach to identify companies which are building more sustainable alternatives to existing products and services and curated job listings from these organisations to try and help you transition into a more environmental sustainable career. See findgreen.jobs to find out more.
