⛺Tent 3: Creating & navigating alternatives
How to change the status quo?
If you have visited tent 2 before opening the door to tent 3, you already had a chance to learn, act and reflect on the design challenges we as humanity are facing. How can we design and contribute to a more healthy and thriving society? In order to not repeat mistakes from the past, it is important to understand first how systems change. This tent will equip you with capacities like thinking in systems, changing perspectives and telling new stories, as well as the ability to select frameworks and concepts around sustainability that are most helpful for your sustainability work.
❗After working through this tent..
you have a better sense of how systems change
you have expanded your ability to choose helpful concepts for your sustainability endeavours
you have further developed helpful competencies like systems thinking
💡Know
🍃Looking at change: How systems change
How does change happen in complex, adaptive systems, and in particular in the social systems that pose the sustainability design challenges? Here are some resources to get you started with a wider understanding on systems change.
Here 2 little stories to get you going:
🎦 A Systems Story (Systems Thinking) (4:45)
🎦 A World of Systems (9:22 min)
One of the most popular models to understand systems change is 📹the iceberg model (7:40 min). It helps us to understand how social systems are more than just the events we see on the surface, and how real change needs us to challenge our beliefs and values. The idea of 📹 leverage points (7:20 min) is directly connected to the iceberg, and helps us to understand where and how our impact can have the greatest influence (..and why so much of the change work is not making any difference).
When we don't take systemic perspectives in our change endeavours, we easily run in circles and make the situation even worse. 📹This little video (3:08 min) gives you one example of these so-called rebound effects. That's what happens when we don't include enough perspectives and try fix symptoms, rather than addressing root causes.
🗺️Maps for change - how to work with tools, concepts and frameworks for sustainability
Now that we are getting ready for change, what are the maps and tools that can actually help us on the journey? The answer: there's no easy answer, and it really depends on your context and what you want to achieve and with whom.
A wise person once said 'We create concepts to navigate our world - and some of them are more helpful than others, depending on the context." Over the past decades, the world has been swamped with different theories and concepts about sustainability and sustainable development, leaving many of us clueless about what to use when and why. What can really help us to make a difference?
How to choose and work with a framework, how will it support you on your journey? Let's explore this together, zooming into some of the models that are out there at the moment!
❗Sustainable Development frameworks & how they help us to navigate our change efforts
We brainstormed a list of tools, frameworks, concepts for sustainable development for you. They all are clearly targeted at different audiences and more or less useful on different levels. We don't ask you to get to know them all, but get a sense of the differences. How?
Pick one framework (maybe one you haven't heard about yet?)
Get informed. We added one video to get you started & do a little research on the framework. You decide how much time you want to put there. Here a little catalogue of questions:
3. Share your newly acquired knowledge with your peers: In a creative way 📷 🖌 🎧, share a short summary in the #tent3 channel on discord and look at 2–3 summaries of others.
Here's the list:
IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides assessments on climate change. Since its first report in 1990, the IPCC has issued increasingly complex follow-ups about every six years.
IDGs
Inner Development Goals (IDGs) is a blueprint of the capabilities, qualities and skills we need in order to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), focusing on the role human beings in the process
UN Human Rights
The fundamental rights of each individual on earth put down by the UN to make sure we are all treated with the same level of equality, dignity and respect
SDGs
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals are adopted by 193 countries to be achieved by 2030, utilizing 169 targets and 232 indicators to evaluate ecological, social and economical progress.
FSSD
The Framework For Strategic Sustainable Development consists of a Mental model and a Planning Framework for all types of organizations to move towards sustainability.
Earth Charter
The Earth Charter is an international declaration of fundamental values and principles that drive a global movement towards a more just, sustainable and peaceful world.
UNGC
The United Nations Global Compact is a non-binding pact of private organizations to encourage the adaptation of sustainable and socially responsible policies and to report on their implementation.
GRI
The Global Reporting Initiative is a global standard for sustainability reporting. It helps businesses, governments and other organizations understand and communicate their impacts
ESG
ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. Investors increasingly apply these non-financial factors as part of their analysis process to identify material risks and growth opportunities.
This of course is a highly limited & incomplete list of frameworks. What other concepts & frameworks do you know? Share with your fellow travellers on discord!
⭐Act
Writing and sharing the summary of your research is enough work for this tent. Embrace your achievement so far and reward yourself with a 15-minute meditation - you have been learning a lot, let it sink! :) (15 min)
🧠Reflect
Record a short private voice message to yourself and/or another oikee from the community reflecting on why & how systems change is personal
Concepts like systems thinking or the SDGs help us navigate change. Think about where in your life you've been using such concepts to navigate change.
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