Reporter Max Wahlter has been visiting the sustainable city of Porena to bring back insights into how to live comfortably in harmony with the environment (see earlier adventures).
He has discovered transport systems, food systems and even thought deeply about the education system. His friends, though, tend to laugh. "All that is easy, it is getting people to UNDERSTAND the situation that is hard," they say.
Preamble
Next question. You are in a community that is not acting in a sustainable way and you want to focus people onto sustainability …how do you do that? I want to talk to someone and go somewhere to find the answer to this.
How do you bring people together from diverse areas and focus on sustainability. And how do you formulate a sustainability challenge? I believe that advanced problem-solving techniques could be used if only we could formulate the assignment succinctly.
Tapescript
I see a nice polished bench in a gigantic mall, familiar from last time. A large door, like an airport entrance is in front of me. To the sides are other lifts, exits and shops.
Which way shall I go? Which lift?
Bright light shines through the entrance in front of me so I exit through that. An escalator takes me up a flight to a covered walkway. I see gardens underneath, connecting out to green areas beyond. The semicircular roof, made of glass lets in a lot of light. In itself a good invention.
Round the next corner and down an escalator I descend into a garden. A fountain coming from a Roman-urn like sculpture sends water into the pond around it. Goldfish swim under Lilly leaves floating on its surface. I look down at the small bushes surrounding the pond and out of the corner of my eye I see a park bench. I go over and sit down.
A guy turns up, wearing a red shirt, khaki pants and sandals. He is bearded and looks a bit bohemian.
'You wanted to know about something?'
'Yes I did, I need to know how to focus on sustainability.'
'Come with me.'
I follow after him into a grey lift, which descends not vertically, but at angles downwards. It opens onto a corridor. I follow down another corridor into a large underground area that looks like a control room of some kind. He invites me into a meeting room at the side.
We sit down opposite each other. I check the room out: white board, flip charts, simple chairs, nothing out of the ordinary.
'How do you focus on sustainability, how do you get people together to work on sustainability?'He looks down at his paper.
'I don't know'
'Why not?' I ask.
'You asked how you focus on sustainability,' he replies.
I ask him laconically: 'And what is that outside then?
The room monitors footprint, collects data and makes it available. The data is updated hourly. A large screen shows weather patterns, another, ozone layer status. A guy sitting at a terminal is collecting data via the Internet. Indicators as such are collected and collated.
Another operator is compiling a table of fuel use, carbon dioxiderelease. Another, population figures, and other water quality. In real time monitoring. A direct feed is available for TV stations and other media.
'Why did you bring me here, my question was about focus?' I exclaim.
He replies; 'This is one way at least; it is very easy to do, and use the data for more studies.'
As you can see the footprint of the population of the world exceeded the world's capacity in the 70s. It is that serious.
I work it out: 'But OK, my question was how do you focus on sustainability and the answer is focus on footprint. I did not ask how you focus on solving sustainability issues.'
'You didn't ask that more meaningful question, and therefore did not get an answer.'
'Anything else?' I ask.
He draws the diagram of the four circles of sustainability. Enterprises, Communities, Individuals and the Environment. He explains how all four circles affect the footprint and all need monitoring.
I have at least some answers. I thank him and take my leave.
Method notes
I can really confirm that you get what you ask for in Imagestreams. I will try to remember to state my quest succinctly in future. I will even state it into the tape recorder so I have an exact record of what it is I asked for.
More PlanetThoughts
A full description of such a sustainability model is available as a slide show below.
Max joins a community "energy decent" process. I promise you, you have never seen anything like this, a transition town on steroids. For all the consultants out there, Max is divulging powerful techniques for free. Be here next week!
Started out as a Science Teacher, went over to management training and then Program Management. Was Managing Director of a sustainable drinking water company for nearly two years. He is now offering his services as change agent and releasing his book INVENTING FOR THE SUSTAINABLE PLANET.
Some environmental credentials:
trained in internal environmental auditing at Ericsson
Worked as specialist reporter for technical magazines, covering environmental issues
Familiar with GRI reporting, ISO systems in general specifically 14000 and the work environment methodology
Attended numerous environmental seminars in Sweden including the pivotal "After the peak of oil"
One of three original founders of Oil Awareness Stockholm
Fossil Fuel
stevehinton
Focus on Sustainability
