UNLEASH: Co-creating change with grace
“Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.” — Joanna Macy
That we now live in a new geological age, the Anthropocene, terrifies me. We are part of an epoch where our earth system processes (such as geologic, hydrologic, atmospheric) are being altered and influenced by humans.
As we continue on a trajectory towards 8.5 billion people on earth by 2030, the pressure we put on our world will only increase. We need to change systems we’ve created and our relationship with the world before we reach irreversible tipping points, where environmental change will create greater inequality, social instability and destroy our life support system. To flourish we must transition from today’s capitalist, consumer driven society, to a new paradigm that works in partnership with our planet.
“The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological- social-psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not; as if it were divisible, separable, simple and infinite. Our persistent, intractable global problems arise directly from this mismatch.” — Donella Meadows
Donella Meadows’ words remind me how important it is to strive to change the current model in which business and society functions.
I recently watched deep ecologist, Joanna Macy’s short film The Great Turning. I was struck by how perfectly she describes a feeling of momentum towards a new paradigm. She explains how more than ever, we are living on the edge of uncertainty, and how we are waking up to realise that if we continue on our current trajectory life might not continue. The uncertainty makes us come alive, it gives us a momentum to move away from an ‘industrial growth society’, towards a ‘life sustaining society’.
The human race has created and witnessed the agricultural and industrial eras to emerge over the course of centuries. It is time we shape a new one. This time we have to make the transition faster if we are to sustain life, let alone flourish. I wholeheartedly agree with her when she says we are lucky to be living in this time where we can make a difference.
UNLEASH’s momentum and mission
Out of this momentum comes UNLEASH, a 9 day program, platform and lab, providing opportunities to make this difference. Its mission is to accelerate disruptive ideas and create the next generation of solutions around the Sustainable Development Goals, an agenda of 17 goals and 169 targets set out by the UN in 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all, all by 2030.
To succeed, it is estimated that the world will need to invest between $5 trillion and $7 trillion per year (roughly 7%-10% of global annual GDP). To put that into perspective — according to UNLEASH — the total investment into the Apollo Space Program (1963–72) to put a man on the moon was approximately $150 billion at present value.
In 1 week I will be jumping on a plane to Copenhagen (shamefully contributing to the atmosphere’s carbon content) to join 999 other eager, excited, determined and driven human beings from the corners of our world. We will pool our knowledge, develop our emerging ideas, prototype our solutions. I can’t wait to see what we co-create, and how these ideas, as well as our new connections and shared experience will live on when we return home.
Systems thinking and consumers
As the date draws ever closer I’m thinking more about how my experience might play its role in UNLEASH and beyond.
I’ve just reached the end of the first ever Basecamp course from The School of System Change, run by Forum for the Future, that aims to equip a global community of change agents with the capabilities to lead system change initiatives, as a means of accelerating a sustainable future. Among so many other things it has expanded my worldview to understand the complexity and interdependence of everything, the importance of the bigger picture view, different perspectives and how change happens.The grounding it has given me in systemic thinking and practice form a part of what I hope to bring to UNLEASH and how we might design solutions that create the conditions for change.
Prior to the School of System Change, I spent 5 years working as a researcher/consultant in foresight, consumer insight & brand strategy at The Future Laboratory. This period of time that has really shaped another element of insight and thinking around consumers and brands that I hope to bring to Denmark, and particularly to the ‘sustainable production and consumption’ track, which I will be part of during the program. An understanding of consumer attitudes, behaviours and values is crucial if we need to ask them to change consumption habits. Tapping into the shifting and emerging trends in culture and society will help us to shape brands and business; they are so ingrained in our culture today — they not only have the opportunity to play a powerful role in this transition, but need to act on it if they are to survive.
Establishing the UNLEASH community
The past few months, through The School of System Change and IO Collective (a group of passionate people exploring and re-inventing how we live, work and learn in the 21st century) — I’ve been thinking a lot about communities and their strength and power to act.
Oxford dictionary defines ‘community’ as ‘A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.’
The UNLEASH community currently exists spread around the world — currently a community in the sense we share a strong desire and determination to act and make the world a better place. Social media and technology have already brought us together in a digital space — Slack, Whatsapp, Facebook — I’ve never made so many ‘friends’ in such a short amount of time. This drive has even spurred pre-UNLEASH gatherings in some cities, London included, where the atmosphere was buzzing with a sense of potential, curiosity and eagerness.
The strength that we will embody when our will, desire and determination come together when we are all in the same city, truly coexisting and co-creating and breathing together in Denmark is yet to be seen and felt, but I have a feeling the energy will rival that of a volcano ready to erupt.
It’s been fascinating to observe and see how the UNLEASH community has already gathered online, I hope this provides a strong foundation for the community spirit to live on beyond the program in 2017 and continue to make a difference in our world. From experience something not easily maintained when distance between community members increases.
Potential challenges
As utterly fantastic as the concept of UNLEASH is, and as great as the potential it has to disrupt, I have also found myself questioning how effective it will be. There are challenges I think we need to take into consideration and find ways to overcome as a community as we go through our process.
I will be interested to see how these play out, and what we can do to alleviate and remedy these concerns.
1 — Diversity
We might all come from different countries around the world, but we are all English speakers, well educated, fairly privileged high achievers. These are not negative things and yes together as well educated high achievers I know we will do great things.
But for me, to create real change we should also be involving those more marginalised people. We are talking about huge topics that affect everyone, and those who are less advantaged are at risk of suffer more than those who are better off.
2 — Silos
‘The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realise that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.’ — Fritjof Capra
This is a challenge that I believe applies to the Sustainable Development Goals as a set, not just UNLEASH. Our world is infinitely complex and interdependent, so to me, to define our world’s problems under 17 themes feels reductionist, limiting to ourselves and more importantly, to potential solutions. It is important to consider where SDG boundaries cross. The image from The Stockholm Resilience Centre at the top of this piece takes a systemic view of the SDGs. It shows the intertwined nature of social-ecological systems, and therefore the complexity of the integration of every SDG designed to effect the progress within these systems.
For UNLEASH, we will be split to work on 7 different themes, Water, Food, Education and ITC, Health and Wellbeing, Sustainable Production and Consumption, Urban Sustainability and Energy. It isn’t difficult to see the connection between Sustainable Production and Consumption and Food, Water and Energy. I also personally believe that Education must play a huge role in changing the world, changing people’s behaviour — as consumers, as citizens, as employees, as leaders — in relation to all of these themes as well as the full set of Sustainable Development Goals.
On one hand the themes and boundaries provide structure and spaces to start to be able to find solutions. On another, perhaps the most powerful ideas could come from the overlaps between the themes.
These challenges have left me pondering some questions which I bring eagerly to the UNLEASH dinner table:
How might we take into account everybody that problems and solutions effect?
How might we bring these people into the process of design, ideally now, and certainly in the future?
How might we cross pollinate between the themes?
I would love to explore these challenges further with anyone else interested, pre, during or post UNLEASH - (An invitation to all both in and outside of the program)
Creating change with grace
I can’t wait to be alongside a group of such intriguing, passionate, motivated, inspiring people and to learn from everyone through the process. I am intrigued to learn more about myself, and how I will behave in such an inspiring and challenging environment. I will be interested to experience how a program of such scale is facilitated and comes together and what we can achieve together.
‘If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.’ — Kurt Lewin
UNLEASH is a chance to strengthen a loop of change. It is an opportunity for us to explore and experiment and start to co-create the change that we want to see, as much as a journey to understanding our planet and society on a deeper level, which will enable us to create something more powerful and lasting.
When I dream about the impact this could have I go straight back to those beautiful words from Joanna Macey ‘Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.’
I hope that the change we instigate through UNLEASH Denmark 2017 will set a new standard of grace for our planet and it’s people.
Fellow Unleashers, I’d love to connect pre, during or post UNLEASH.
To others who might be interested in discussing anything I’ve written about here — I always enjoy good conversation and meeting ace new people — I’d love to hear from you.
You can reach me here: el.elosborne@gmail.com
If you’re really interested and have a few minutes to spare — you can also read some more of my musings as I enter a world of system change here: Metamorphosis-matters
