Here is an end-of-summer letter from Alan AtKisson reflecting on a couple of big transitions happening in our world, and also explaining how, and why, he started Sustainable Facebook. There are also lots of useful links to recent articles, on a wide range of topics, included below.

Alan has two books coming out soon (see the end of the letter), and specially invites WaveFront readers to reserve personally signed copies if they would like them … now, read on to find out about the “end of the world …”

As the Swedish summer winds down, I start to come out of hibernation (in work terms) and re-engage with the professional world. The intense Swedish summer vacation is also a reflective, even philosophical period. One has time to think.

This summer, quite a few thoughts emerged while lying in the hammock, building a fort for my daughter, and walking the beaches of Gotland, a Swedish island. On Gotland, you can reach down and casually pick up a 400 million-year-old fossil, evidence of an ancient, teeming sea. It’s a contradiction: that sea is gone, but it’s still here.

Here is another contradiction: The world is about to end … and the world is just starting.

Let’s start with the part of the world that is just starting: social media.

In a few short years, our world has suddenly found ways to wire a billion of us up together, via social networking websites. We are no longer limited to “electronic mail.” We can share thoughts instantly, with hundreds or thousands of people we know, via social media. These thought-sharing technologies currently go under brand names like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. They are very primitive. And they are certainly just the beginning of something truly revolutionary, a massive change in how humans relate to each other. What that change is, I don’t know, but I’m reading everything I can to try to understand what’s coming.

To learn more directly, I have started spending more time in social media. I was slow to realize that these “virtual spaces” are real communities. People live there. So, like any community, they could do with some serious  reflection, analysis, and action on sustainability.

Once I realized that, I started Sustainable Facebook. [My assistant reminded me that not everyone reading this uses Facebook, or even knows what it is, so: "Sustainable Facebook" is an open group on the world's most popular social networking site. Anyone can join to discuss and comment on issues, online. The purpose of the group is to explore and discuss the sustainability of Facebook itself.]

Amazingly, until a few days ago, there was no group — real or online — that called itself Sustainable Facebook. So I created one. To get things started, I invited a few dozen of my Facebook “friends” to join.

And just 24 hours later, that group had over 500 people in it, from all over the world. And it’s still growing, of course.

It’s an open group, so you can join too. We’re trying to cover all the usual Compass dimensions: examples of topics so far include the carbon footprints of FB users (Nature), the launch of gambling on FB (Wellbeing), the competition among social media firms on sustainability (Economy), what other sustainability groups are doing on FB (Society), etc. We’re also looking at other services, like LinkedIn. And basically, all these new social media companies appear to be serious laggards in the sustainability department, receiving failing grades from sites like rankabrand.org.

So, I’ve learned a lot already. Plus, doing sustainability on Facebook, instead of just looking at people’s silly cat pictures, feels worthwhile: after all, over 900 million people use that service, it is claimed. Maybe we can have a little influence on a few of them, and maybe even on the company itself. Doing the kind of work I care about there, in that community (and doing something very similar to what we did with Sustainable Seattle years ago) helps me feel more at home as well.

And these days, we need to enjoy that feeling of home, real or virtual, because the world is about to end. Maybe.

By “the world,” I mean of course the stability or even viability of market-based economies in the industrialized parts of the world. And by “end,” I mean plunge deeper into a serious period of disruption and transition, caused by peak oil, peak everything else, and the falling-off-a-cliff effect that overshoot-and-collapse in our use of resources and ecosystems is causing. We are doomed by the dynamics of exponential growth to unleash havoc upon the human race.

Or maybe not. The thing is, we really don’t know what is going to happen. Certainly I don’t know. But quite a number of people are pretty sure they do know. And they appear to divide equally, between wildly opposite views.

One group is proclaiming a new era of abundance, including even the end of worries about Peak Oil, because of new breakthroughs in technology. If you want a very optimistic view, consider this Time Magazine article about oil’s new abundance, or this TED talk by the founder of the X Prize. (He is also one of the people behind the new multi-billion-dollar plan to go hunting for metals in space and to mine near-Earth asteroids. Seriously.)

On the pessimistic, glass-half-empty-and-falling-fast side, I just went through (at the request of a friend) the transcript of a very scary video about how exponential growth dynamics are leading inevitably to financial, ecological, and every other kind of global collapse. Of course, I was a little annoyed when I got to the end and discovered that this trio of internationally known experts was actually selling investment advice. The video, with all its frightening exponential growth curves, was their infomercial. (Okay, there is some useful information in that video transcript, including trend curves on the increasing amoung of energy it takes to get new energy out of the ground … but don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Extremes of future optimism and pessimism aside, something serious is of course happening in this world, today. Fish are really and truly in danger, for example, and we just continue scraping them out of the sea. (Some people still prefer to look on the bright side, but the overall global trend is clear, says the UN.) The global financial system seems to be held together with spit and chewing gum. The Arctic ice keeps melting — shockingly fast, says the most recent satellite data. Even some global warming skeptics are doing about-faces. (Did you see Richard Muller’s recent piece in the New York Times? That was a major turning point: a scientific skeptic, partly financed by the far-right Koch brothers and Heartland Institute, was convinced by his own data that humans are causing global warming.) [Note: requires logging in.]

So … is the “Great Collapse” coming, or not? To my mind, this is the wrong question.

The more interesting question is:  are we ready for whatever happens?

And: will we be able to see what is actually happening, when it happens? Or will we each be so convinced by our own beliefs about the future — global collapse, universal abundance, or something else — that we fail to notice the true and complex shape of reality, when it arrives?

I’ve been a social media skeptic, but hey, Facebook is reality — or at least, one aspect of it. So I’ve dived in. Also, I have long preached (and even sung) the dangers of exponential growth. But hey, we really don’t know where this rocket ship of accelerating growth and change is ultimately taking us. So I did not click “Like” on the scary video about the end of civilization.

For me, sustainability work today means at least two things:  continuing to move as fast as possible to change the course of that exponential growth rocket, to avoid or reduce as much collapse as possible, indeed create something better …

But we also need to be preparing for, and engaging in — from a whole-system, sustainability perspective — the world that actually is emerging.

Whatever that world is.

P.S. I’ve got a lot of new stuff coming out this Fall, including two new books. One place to track this is (of course) at my public page on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/AlanAtKissonPublic
But you can read more about the new sustainability book, “Because We Believe in the Future,” and a reserve a personal signed copy, at my blog:
http://alanatkisson.com
… or my company website:
http://www.AtKisson.com/
Please share, like, link, etc.!

That’s it for WaveFront this time! The Northern hemisphere summer is a slow period, especially in Europe … which we think is very healthy and sustainable. But we’ll send another WaveFront out soon with more info on Fall activities, and on what’s happening in sustainability more generally, with a special look at the aftermath of the Rio+20 summit. Stay tuned!

AtKisson Group releases Pyramid 2012 Report on eve of Rio+20 summit

This special edition of WaveFront celebrates the launch, on June 18, 2012, of our Pyramid 2012 report. Here is the longer-version Press Release, and if you want the one-pager — or if you want to download the 14-page report — please click here to visit the campaign website.

“Global Workshop Campaign” Sows Seeds of Action for Sustainability Around the World

The AtKisson Group released today a new report detailing the results of a “global workshop campaign” designed to raise awareness about sustainability thinking, collaboration, and action. The voluntary initiative, called “Pyramid 2012,” was timed to support the United Nations “Rio+20” global summit on sustainable development. More than one thousand people in over 20 countries participated in the Pyramid 2012 campaign during February and March 2012, generating dozens of policy proposals, recommendations, and new commitments to pursue local projects.

Pyramid 2012 engaged at least 65 groups in 20 countries — including,for example, city planners in Germany, small farmers in Colombia, water specialists in southern Africa, graduate students in Iceland, and many others — in one-day workshops based on the AtKisson “Building the Pyramid” group learning and planning tool. A simplified version of this tool, “Pyramid Lite,” was made freely available on the Internet. Volunteers who signed up to organize a workshop in their area using Pyramid Lite were asked to report on their results.

The Pyramid 2012 global report, Building the Future We Want, summarizes these results, as well as the key messages that emerged from the workshops. Cristina Apetrei, the campaign’s coordinator, noted that “there seems to be a shared understanding around the world that many actions, taken at the local level, can add up to the global transformation we call sustainable development. People do want to get active, and they really can make a difference.”

Specific results from the 65 documented Pyramid 2012 workshops included:

• A campus clean-up and waste reduction program for a college in Zimbabwe
• Plans to create new bicycle parking areas for a university in Gdansk, Poland
• An initiative to raise awareness about the plight of sea turtles in Trinidad and Tobago
• An action program supporting peasant farmers in Colombia to manage scarce water resources
• A new technical and process solution for reducing detergent run-off from an industrial plant in Germany

… and many others. Campaign coordinators were so pleased with the results that they immediately launched a process of consultation to consider whether, and how, to scale it up. “The enthusiastic reactions we received, as well as the quality of the workshop outcomes, exceeded our modest expectations by a lot, especially considering that we had one part-time coordinator and no marketing or communication budget,” said Cristina Apetrei. “We cannot but wonder now, what would happen if we got the resources to do a program like this at a much larger scale?”

A Pyramid Lite workshop guides groups through a five-step process of thinking and discussion, focused on a “Central Challenge” related to sustainability, whether global or local. Participants explore what the trends are, how they link together, and try to identify the root causes of the problems they have identified. Then they brainstorm creative new solutions, and strategize how to get those solutions accepted and implemented. The process helps them build consensus, which can then lead to a commitment to act.

“As consultants, we’ve done successful Pyramid workshops for senior government officials, university faculty, inter-governmental programs, and businesses, as well as many student groups, for over ten years” said campaign initiator Alan AtKisson, president of AtKisson Group. “With Pyramid 2012, we wanted to put a version of this tool freely into the hands of volunteers, and bring some more positive attention to the practice of sustainable development. Everybody has been focusing on how difficult the negotiations around sustainability issues have been at the global level. We wanted to show what was possible at the local level.”

Alan AtKisson noted: “Pyramid 2012 actually fulfills a dream I had fifteen years ago. I fell in love with the idea of groups of people, all over the world, building something interesting and creative together — something that reflected their insights and aspirations for sustainable development. With the help of my colleagues, that dream turned into the Pyramid workshop.”

But AtKisson’s dream of a large global event focused on Pyramid went dormant for more than a decade. “Then last year Tom Mclean, a teacher at the International School of Manila, wrote and invited me to keynote an international conference of students” (called Global Issues Network, an annual event sponsored by the East Asian Regional Council of Schools, EARCOS). “Tom described how 400 high school students were going to do 20 parallel Pyramid workshops, on different sustainability issues, all at the same time. Of course, I sent him an enthusiastic yes … and then I thought, why not expand this? Why not multiply it, by inviting groups of all kinds, in many other places, to join in … and build their own Pyramids?”

The resulting Pyramid 2012 campaign officially kicked off at “GIN Manila,”in the Philippines, on 17 February 2012. Those 20 parallel student workshops used Pyramid to explore solutions to a wide range of global problems, including deforestation, loss of habitat, climate change, water scarcity, and digital divide. Meanwhile, other groups — invited to participate through a wide variety of email lists and websites — downloaded the “Pyramid Lite” manual and began convening around the world. As they completed their workshops, they sent photos and reports. “Some of these Pyramids turned out to be beautiful, too,” said AtKisson

He was especially impressed with a group of architecture students at a university in Bangladesh. “Their workshop produced recommendations for improving urban mobility in Dhaka. That was great, but their Pyramid was amazing. It looked like it was made of illuminated stained glass.”

The 14-page Pyramid 2012 report is available for download at the campaign website, http://Pyramid2012.net. There, readers can also find detailed reports from the workshop groups and links to photos as well as videos from around the world. If you want to write about the Pyramid 2012 campaign and wish to interview Alan AtKisson or Cristina Apetrei, please contact AtKisson Group associate Dana Kapitulčinová (based in Copenhagen):  Dana.Kapitulcinova[at]AtKisson.com.

a letter from Alan AtKisson

It seems like Planet Earth is on the ropes lately. What I mean is that prospects for a sustainable future — the kind of future we’re trying to create, with enough renewable energy, water, food, education, opportunity, and even cool electronic stuff (like smart phones and data tablets) for everybody — are decidedly bleaker. At least, “bleak” is how things are looking to many scientists these days. And that’s partly why I decided to create a “Pyramid Scheme for the Planet.”

This newsletter is half glum, half giddy with excitement. If you want to skip the glum update on science and sustainability, and just find out about the pyramid scheme, then click and go straight to the www.Pyramid2012.net website. Then come back to this newsletter and skip to the last few paragraphs.

The (Not So Fun) Science News

Here’s glum part:  scientists seem to be just about ready to give up on us. Take the winners of the Blue Planet Prize, often called the “environmental Nobel Prize.” Eighteen winners, and they truly are an amazing group, met in London last week and issued one of the gloomier state-of-the-planet pronouncements I’ve ever seen. They likened our situation to “a perfect storm of problems.” Here is the unified voice of Gro Harlem Brundtland, Robert Watson, James Hansen, Nick Stern, and many others whose names you would (or should) certainly recognize:

Unfortunately, humanity’s behavior remains utterly inappropriate for dealing with the potentially lethal fallout from a combination of increasingly rapid technological evolution matched with very slow ethical-social evolution. The human ability to do has vastly outstripped the ability to understand. As a result civilization is faced with a perfect storm of problems driven by overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich, the use of environmentally malign technologies, and gross inequalities.

You can read the full paper here. It’s an amazing synthesis of everything that each of those winners thinks, and does, and it is not all glum. Mostly, as usual, it is a “call to action.” Indeed, phrases like “act now” and “accelerate action” appear even more often than usual for such a document.

But acting on the advice of scientists appears to be getting harder, rather than easier. The new president of the AAAS (the largest science organization in the world), Nina Federoff, told that body’s annual meeting that she was “scared to death” of the rising tide of anti-science activism and propaganda, and warned that “We are sliding back into a dark era, and there seems little we can do about it. I am profoundly depressed at just how difficult it has become merely to get a realistic conversation started on issues such as climate change or genetically modified organisms.” (Click here to read the full article.)

That news, as well as the warning issued by the Blue Planet prize-winners, was quickly drowned out by yet another climate science scandal — only this time, the cause of the scandal really was a scientist, rather than an anti-science right-wing activist. Famed water and climate expert Peter Gleick tricked a right-wing think-tank into sending him some of their internal documents about how they planned to do more of what Federoff was scared to death about, and who was paying for it. The information he gleaned — unethically, as everyone quickly described it, including Gleick himself — held no surprises for anyone following the increasingly polarized action in the United States, where Republican presidential candidates argue about which of them was the first to declare global warming a “hoax.” But a major scientist engaged in skull-duggery to outwit the muck-diggers … that was big news, and it will certainly add fuel to a very dangerous and distracting fire. (Click here to read the full article.)

Considering all the above, it is little wonder that one of the original authors of The Limits to Growth, systems scientist Dennis Meadows, is preparing to give a speech with the title, “It is too late for sustainable development.” Meadows will kick off a live-streamed seminar at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC on March 1, starting at 9 am Eastern time. Other speakers, some of them likely to be equally gloomy about our future prospects, include famed trend-watcher Lester Brown and Limits co-author Jørgen Randers of Norway. You can watch the live stream here:  http://www.si.edu/consortia/limitstogrowth2012

Birth of a Pyramid Scheme

Perhaps now you can see why I like the idea of “pyramid schemes” — you know, those very fast-replicating scams by which one person convinces ten people to convince ten more people to do something that, while not seeming illegal, somehow results in a massive flow of money to the first person. When they work, pyramid schemes grow like wildfire, and involve many thousands of people, quickly.

I thought, what if you took money and personal wealth accumulation out of the picture, and put in sustainability action and improving life on planet Earth instead? What if you took the scam element out of the pyramid scheme, and put in a whole lot of caring for our fellow humans, our fellow species, and all our descendants?

Strangely enough, I already had a Pyramid, all ready to use. Readers of my books etc. will know about Pyramid already:  it is a workshop that brings groups together to think about sustainability issues, how they link together in systems, what kinds of innovations could change things for the better, and how to implement those improvements. We’ve done hundreds of these workshops around the world, in dozens of countries.

So when the Global Issues Network decided to organize their whole annual conference around the Pyramid process — with hundreds of students from all over East Asia building 20 simultaneous Pyramids as part of their learning workshop — I thought, why not?

Why not create a “Pyramid Scheme for the Planet”?

Introducing Pyramid 2012

Of course, I didn’t call it that; I called it Pyramid 2012. And thanks to the GIN conference organizers in Manila, and many other friends in the AtKisson Group, the Balaton Group, former students from my workshop, and lots of folks I don’t know, Pyramid 2012 is a reality, right now.

In dozens of places around the planet, groups are getting together to think about what sustainability means, and about how to do it. In Ireland, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Indonesia, and many other countries, they are using a new, simple-to-learn form of our workshop, called “Pyramid Lite.” They are exploring water problems, small-scale farming, community development climate change …

“What’s the catch?” you may be thinking. “What is the “scheme” in this particular Pyramid scheme?” And I am happy to tell you. Here it is:

Anybody can do it.

It’s totally free.

And it’s fun!

This is an all-volunteer, do-it-yourself affair. No catch! You can get a few friends together … or gather your neighbors or co-workers … or use this as an activity in the university course you are teaching … or try it out with a client group … whatever works for you.

Okay, ready to try buidling your own Pyramid? Ready to spread the word, spawn some new Pyramids, which will in turn energize more people, to take more action? Just go to the website, download the Pyramid Lite manual … and do it. No strings attached. (We just hope you’ll tell us about it … and tell others, too. Spread the word!)

Getting Inspired to Act

I am under no personal illusions that this one push to create a “global workshop for sustainability” is going to reverse the momentum in the global system that the Blue Planet Prize-winners write so elegantly, and glumly, about. But I am convinced that every bit of action makes a difference. In fact, we’re going to gather the results of all these workshops and make a report out of it, to the United Nations. (I think the people trying to negotiate a stronger sustainability deal need all the inspiration they can get.)

And I am also just personally inspired by what I see happening. Students, especially, inspire me:  Even though the young people I interact with are super-smart, and “get” just how serious this is and what kind of knotty future they are inheriting, they are just going to work. They are inspiring each other with music, and action, and passionate speeches, and work sessions in tough places that need a lot of love.  (That’s what I saw at the GIN Manila 2012 conference, which was also the kick-off event for Pyramid 2012. The student blog is really fun, too.)

Fortunately it’s not just the students, either. It’s their teachers. It’s an investor in Moscow. It’s a community organizer in Colombia. It’s a corporate consultant in Hofheim, Germany. It’s a professor in New York. It’s …

There are so many people working now on sustainable development. We need to be more … and more and more. That’s why we need a Pyramid Scheme. That’s why we need not just you … but as many of your friends and colleagues as you can recruit.

So, join in, and be part of Pyramid 2012 … it is *never* too late for sustainable development.

Warmly,

Alan

Alan AtKisson
President, AtKisson Group & ISIS Academy
and Pyramid Scheme Creator

(… plus, get an invitation to our “Master Class” in Germany, Nov 16-18, as well info on other ISIS Academy workshops)

The junior minister from a small country in Africa, sitting across the dinner table from me in a crowded Asian airport, was surprisingly upbeat. “I come from an NGO background,” he said. “So I actually know how to get things done, with few resources.” Then he described what he was getting done … and I was amazed. By grabbing talented interns, finding strategic openings, and figuring out just how hard he could “shake the tree” without actually falling out himself, change was happening.

But was it happening fast enough? “People are waiting,” he said, referring to the general population, most of whom still lack the most basic services that we in the “developed world” take for granted. “I hope that they are not kept waiting too long.”

Like many people I meet, it was clear that he felt a bit lonely. Not totally alone:  there were plenty of others in his government who, like him, were aiming to be models of integrity and effectiveness. And “at least a few” of his staff were there for more than just the steady paycheck, with benefits.

His road to change, however, was clearly uphill, and he felt that moments of true compatriotship on that road were rare. What inspired me was the good humor and positive attitude he seemed to radiate, anyway — despite reciting a long list of serious institutional and human obstacles. He was not naive, at all, and he expressed plenty of irony and frustration. It was clear that he had many hard stories in his past. But it was also clear that he was committed to making a difference, and to bringing as much of the good changes we call “sustainable development” to his country as humanly possible.

Meeting people like him is part of what keeps me going. When I’m faced with an executive who is just a little too cautious to change course (or even downright greedy for a still-higher income) … or an institution whose bureaucratic systems seem designed by the devil himself to prevent good people from doing good things … or power-games where someone’s ego-needs threaten to undermine a the progress of a whole organization … well, it’s easy to get despondent.

But then I remember all the people like the junior minister that I have had the privilege to meet and to work with in my life. Real change agents don’t stop trying to make change. They understand the obstacles, they understand the odds … but they also understand that the only thing that could possibly make hope real is for them, and everyone like them, to keep trying.

The “army of change agents for sustainability” has grown so much in recent years. I am sure we number in the millions now. But that is still, compared the obstacles and opposition we face, a relatively small number.

Which means we need each other. We need to inspire each other, inform each other, help each other, keep building our skills. If one of us stumbles, the others need to pick him or her up.

Ray Anderson, the extraordinary champion of change who died recently (see below), called what we’re doing “climbing Mount Sustainability.” We’re all approaching the summit from different directions — from business, education, government, community work, NGOs, research and more — but it’s the same mountain. And the only way to get to the top is to keep climbing.

No matter what.

Alan AtKisson
P.S. Interested in our upcoming ISIS Academy trainings?
Please scroll down …

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New: Master Class in Sustainability and Change
16-18 November, 2011, in Wuppertal, Germany
in partnership with the UNEP / Wuppertal Institute Joint Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (cscp)

Presented by

Axel Klimek & Alan AtKisson

We are pleased to announce this new, shorter-from Master Class, designed for people with some level of previous experience in sustainability and change who want to quickly upgrade their skills and tools, while also having a chance to reflect and to connect with other people. We have divided our 5-day course into two, stand-alone parts. Part 1 will be offered with our partners at UNEP/Wuppertal Institute this November, and Early Bird registration is open now … please write to us to receive a personal invitation and brochure, and tell us something about your background so we know that the Master Class is a good fit for you.

Here’s the link:
Click to send an email and request info on the Master Class.

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Other Upcoming ISIS Academy Training Opportunities
If you live in SE Asia (or would like to go there!), you can learn the ISIS Accelerator tools by attending Sr. Associate Robert Steele’s intensive workshop, on 25-27 November 2011, in Bangkok. For more info and to download the flyer, click here to visit the ISIS Academy website.

For information on upcoming ISIS Academy workshops in the United States, visit www.ISISAcademyUSA.com.

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Remembering Ray Anderson, the first sustainable business “mountaineer”

Ray Anderson, in the title of his last book, called himself a “radical industrialist.” The two words neatly summarized his professional identity: he was a hard-nosed businessman who was at the same time obsessed with driving transformative change for sustainability, not just in his own global company (a maker of commercial carpeting), but in the world of business generally.

Since Ray died, on 8 August of this year, there has been an enormous outpouring of appreciation and remembrance about him. Ray was not only admired, he was also much loved:  he had a warmth and genuineness that set him apart. If you had never met him or seen him speak live, you can at least get a sense of that love in the memorial website set up by his company, Interface, here:  http://raycandersonblog.com/.

I saw Ray several times really disarm a crowd of tough people, not just by charming them with stories of business change, hardship, and triumph … but by getting them to turn to the person next to them and “give them a hug.” Only a top-level CEO with sweet Georgia drawl could probably get away with something like that. It made some people uncomfortable, of course … but it also changed the atmosphere in the conference room.

Hugging aside, Ray’s contributions to the advance of sustainability in busienss were so numerous that I won’t try to list them. I’ll just note that he was not just an effective leader who set high standards and pushed people to meet them; he was also a keen systems thinker, who turned his company’s website into one of the best “primers” on sustainability in business that I, at the time of its launch, had ever seen. (It’s still very good:  link.)

Finally, I remember Ray personally as someone with whom I connected very early in my sustainability career (when he was co-chairing the US President’s Council on Sustainable Development, in the mid-1990s). I was new, young, green … but he noticed me and was kind, gracious, and encouraging in response to my fairly naive questions. As time went by, we would run into each other every couple of years at some meeting or conference. We were never close friends, but even the short conference-lunch conversations we sometimes shared were always inspiring, candid, informative, and real. I remain deeply grateful.
- Alan AtKisson

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Noted while riding the wave …

“… A man is going off of a very high cliff in his [early, home-made] airplane, with the wings flapping, and the guys flapping the wings and the wind is in his face, and this poor fool thinks he’s flying. But, in fact, he’s in free fall, and he just doesn’t know it yet because the ground is so far away. But, of course, the craft is doomed to crash.

That’s the way our civilization is. The very high cliff represents the virtually unlimited resources we seem to have when we began this journey. The craft isn’t flying because it’s not built according to the laws of aerodynamics, and it’s subject to the law of gravity.”

- Ray Anderson, quoted in the documentary film “The Corporation”

See you next month! Please write to us with any questions, ideas, etc.

… plus an interview with Axel Klimek, CEO, ISIS Academy, and other updates from around the AtKisson Group

This issue of WaveFront is a little different. First, my intro will be very short, because I want you to read the interview with Axel Klimek, CEO of the ISIS Academy, which starts below. Axel, in addition to being my good friend and business partner, has a wonderful perspective on sustainability and change resulting from many years of working first as a psychologist, and then as a top management consultant. What’s the secret to good sustainability work? Listen …

For my own summer reflections on sustainability and the absurdity of trying to change the world — but the necessity of continuing to do so anyway — please click over to my personal blog, here.

Finally, be sure to read through the rest of this newsletter, which includes news and updates from AtKisson Group colleagues around the world (gathered by Michael O’Brien, who runs FWRGroup, our Affiliate in Brisbane, Australia). This is really an extraordinary network of people, and I think you’ll really be inspired by their dedication to sustainability, and the intelligence with which they go about this unusual business of trying to change the world.

There’s also a little fun thing at the end:  a free MP3 download, one my songs from the middle 1990s, called “Trying to be Happy in a Crazy World.”

Enjoy … and enjoy the summer (or if you happen to be Down Under with Michael, the winter) ..

Alan AtKisson

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Axel Klimek: “Sustainability is a natural process …”

Axel Klimek is the co-founder and managing director of the ISIS Academy GmbH (www.ISISAcademy.com). For many years he has been working as a senior management consultant and coach with high-level experience in Europe, Asia, and Africa, helping leaders, organizations and development programs manage complex change processes and improve performance. His clients have included the African Union Commission, Canon Europe, Ernst & Young, GTZ, Lufthansa, Unilever and T-Systems. Axel was interviewed for web publication earlier this year by Francesca Migliorini.

FM: Axel, could you tell us in your opinion what is the core of sustainability? What makes a company sustainable?

AK: Every human being and also every organisation is driven to sustain itself — which means living a long time. Only ill and malfunctioning systems don’t focus on that.  So why do we make such a fuss over sustainability, when in reality it is such a natural process?

You have to look for the answer on a different level. In order to sustain what we have now, we make compromises. For example, in order to sustain my feeling good in a specific moment, I might smoke a cigarette, drink too much wine or eat junk food. I do something now without taking future consequences or side effects into account.

This is also true for companies and even societies. In order to be able to sustain the current status quo, resources oftentimes get exploited, unhealthy working conditions are created, poverty and violence are accepted.

Isn’t it absurd to see that the core of unsustainability lies in the aspiration to sustain what we have now? The real problem is that we often build our desire to sustain what we have now on the backs of others, or with loans from the future, which the next generations will have to pay back.

So the challenge we human beings are facing now is to create an intelligent way of living that embraces our wish to sustain our quality of life, but that that also takes into account everybody else’s need for a sustainable quality of life. And not just for this generation, but also future ones. It is a complicated question, and In order to create an intelligent answer, we need to look very deeply into a wide range of issues.

We actually need to come up with answers to two different questions:

1) What does a sustainable present and future look like?

2) How do we induce the mental and behavioral change that creates a sustainable present and future?

FM: You partnered up with Alan AtKisson to establish ISIS Academy as a new, separate company. That’s a pretty big step to take. What motivated you to do that?

AK: Alan is one of the best known experts in the field of sustainability and sustainable change. A couple of years ago he invited me to co-facilitate the first Master Class for Sustainable Change Agentry. The participant feedback and also our own evaluation of that Master Class was extremely positive. We realized that if we brought our talents together, we could create something that would really benefit change agents, leaders, managers and consultants in charge of sustainability projects.

In the last few years I have seen so many great sustainability experts and champions getting frustrated because they saw that the necessary changes were not happening as fast as needed. Many predictions from the 1970s about the limits to growth were proven to be true; nevertheless human beings continued to act as if they were not.

When it comes to human change, people running change projects still tend to be trapped in an old paradigm built on “Cogito Ergo Sum (I think so I am)”. They believe that rational logic will lead to human change.

But change on the level of individual behaviour, mental models, and organizational culture is a science in itself. In order to create a sustainable future we need to marry the knowledge of compelling sustainability targets with the deep understanding of human change.

In 30 years of professional life, both Alan and I have had the chance to develop some knowledge and experience in the dynamics of human change, with a focus on sustainable development. We feel it is our obligation to offer what we’ve learned  to those leaders, decision makers, and change agents who are trying to come up with compelling answers to the demanding problems we humans are facing, and working to make those answers a reality.

FM: In a profit-oriented economy, how can sustainability win? Does sustainability create better economic prospects for companies?

AK: I would not want us to use the idea of winning here. We would immediately create a mindset that builds on division.

The basic idea driving almost every company and every entrepreneur is aligned to the concept of sustainability. Companies and entrepreneurs are offering services or producing goods in order to serve customers’ wishes and needs. They want to serve those customers for a long time. When CEOs and entrepreneurs keep that fundamental understanding in mind, when they have a long-term focus and truly take all the different interdependencies into account, then they will think and act in a sustainable way.

On the other hand your question reflects a lot of the current reality. Many companies only seem to be focusing on short-term interests, or mainly on the financial aspects of entrepreneurship. If the focus of decision-making is built on a neo-Darwinist approach, the idea that only the fittest and best survives, than that creates an organisational culture where the companies’ interest are placed higher than the interests of the whole.

FM: You have a background as psychotherapist and in 1999 you wrote a book called “Liebe und werde der du bist (Love and become who you are)”. How do you find a bridge between this part of your life and your work with companies and sustainability?

AK: The bridge is very easy for me. As a psychotherapist and as a management consultant I work with change.  My focus as a psychotherapist was not clinical; I was more focused on the so-called “human potential movement.” The aim behind that approach was to help human beings use their full potentials. This is very close to the modern concept of coaching, which is wide-spread today. So I can say that I have been coaching people for more than 30 years, since a long time before the idea of coaching became a standard in the management field.

If you look at the reality within an organisation, you can easily see how people’s potential is not used efficiently. Simply ask employees about their performance, collaboration, managers’ communication skills, about the company’s meeting culture, how they deal with conflicts and face changes, or about difficult leadership challenges. There is so much room for development.

Speaking about my book: When I am talking about love, I am not referring to the feeling of romantic love that happens between two people. Love in this context is more the ability to embrace what is, and the power to unite. I have worked a lot with conflict resolution in my professional life. A good conflict resolution process always runs through two stages. In the beginning both sides are convinced that they are right and the other party is wrong – this may sound a little oversimplifed, but I have never come across a conflict where the parties started off by taking responsibility for their own behaviour or their own perception.

So the first quality of love is to build the capacity to open up for the other side’s arguments, reasons and needs – to embrace them as a reality. If both sides allow the other’s perspective to exist as one true part of reality, then an important shift might happen, often unexpectedly. A new idea or solution emerges that transforms both positions into a new option. Before this can happen though,  it is necessary to do some work, to make a shift. That shift, which suddenly emerges beyond the positions of the conflicting parties, is the second quality of love.

If you take a closer look at how we humans often treat other creatures, the planet, competitors, people with different worldviews, and sometimes even ourselves, you can get the impression that we are rather living according to a concept of war instead of love. Sustainability shares a similar understanding and goal as the definition of love I’m using here – living as part of the world, in respect with other (human) beings and nature, to allow the best possible options for all to emerge.

FM: Was there an event in your life which made you shift career path from psychotherapy to business consultancy?

AK: Not an event as such. One strong motivator was curiosity. I had the impression, as I gained some understanding and expertise on how individuals change, that change is not at all easy or trivial. I wanted to understand whether change in complex human systems follows similar “laws” as individual change.

FM: So does it follow similar laws or not? How do you use this understanding in your profession as sustainability consultant?

AK: For me there is no fundamental difference. If you look at individuals or organisations through the focus of systems thinking, you can see many similarities. There are parts, and dynamics between the parts. There are obvious issues, and there are hidden patterns. Individual and organisational change can only be successful if:
1.  the benefits to the system of staying the same (that is, the advantages of not changing) are understood and addressed
2. an intrinsic motivation to change builds up — a drive to shift
3. a smart way to deal with the forces of resistance is found, and
4. support systems are established for the system, so that change can continue, even if the system wants to give up

FM: Gandhi said, “be the change you want to see in the world.” So how do you practice sustainability in your everyday life?

AK: There is a short American-Indian story that illustrates my own path.

A young boy complained to his granddad, the chief of their tribe:  “Granddad, some of my friends are sometimes very friendly and nice to me, and at other times they say horrible words or refuse to play with me.” This made the boy very sad and irritated, and he wanted to know why his friends behaved like that. The chief replied: “My son, within us live two wolves. One is black and one is white. The black one is selfish and full of bad feelings. The white one is loving and caring. These two wolves are constantly fighting to win.” The little boy thought thoroughly for some time and then asked, “Granddad, which one of them will win?” “The one you feed,” answered the old man with a deep smile.

I can find both “wolves” in me. Sometimes I feel that I am living pretty sustainably, because I have installed solar panels for energy and heating on the roof, or because I buy organic food and live on a vegetarian diet. On the other hand, there are still too many compromises I make.

Personally, I believe that one of the biggest things that gets in the way of more sustainable living is dogmatism. We live in a time of huge human transformation, where we can only guess how the future will look like and what is going to be appropriate and what is not. So I try to feed the white wolf as much as possible, knowing that the black one is there too.

FM: What are the biggest challenges for an organisation, which tries to become sustainable? Is it doable overnight, or does it take a long time? Is it just a matter of a new business plan, or does it require something else?

AK: Sustainability is not a certificate, which a company gets as a result of some actions. Sustainability is an understanding and a frame of reference, which arises if we look at reality as it is. Everything we do has an effect. We can’t behave like a 5-year-old kid and hope that a bad behaviour will not be noticed or at least not punished. If we face reality as grown-ups, there is no reason to live unsustainably.

It is hard for me to imagine a sane, intelligent manager telling me, that for him it is ok to (1) use child labour, (2) create working conditions that cause health problems and death among their workers, (3) put toxic waste unfiltered into the air etc. There are managers who do these things, but I would not call them sane and mature people.

Once we have understood the general dynamics and logic of sustainability and decided to use them as a frame for business, there still is a lot to do. Many actions in our daily life might not have a direct harmful effect. My car’s CO2 emissions alone do not have a direct influence on polar caps melting. But if we put billions of cars together, this contributes to global warming.

The big challenge for an organisation is to integrate several kinds reasoning, some of which might not appear directly connected to its core business, but which will ultimately influence its overall market. Leaders and managers need to be trained to see that bigger picture and take it into account when making decisions. Besides, finding sustainable behaviours within this greater complexity could be the source for new creative ideas and innovations.

FM: Actually, since you spoke about it, would not it be good to have a certificate that attests to the level of sustainable choices a company is undertaking?

AK: Yes, I agree. It would be helpful. Actually, that is one of the services we provide, at least in the form of an internal assessment given to companies. But making change is something else.

FM: Some managers believe their mission is to create value for some people, for some time, in some places, not everyone everywhere and forever. They believe, for example, that a multinational company — by creating jobs in an area of the world — will definitely make some happy and others unhappy, therefore it’s impossible for everybody to win. How do you convince those managers that we can all benefit from sustainable choices?

AK: Sorry, but I don’t want to convince them. There are so many managers and leaders around who are already convinced. They feel the need for a big change, but don’t have the time, the resources or the knowledge for designing and running an effective change process. I would like to concentrate on helping them first.

We all know how difficult it is to change even when you are convinced about its importance. Trying to convince somebody who doesn’t even see the need for greater sustainability is impossible. On the other hand, social research has shown that if you get about 15% of the population starting to do something new, then many of the rest will follow.

FM: Is it possible from an economic point of view to counter the higher costs of making sustainable choices with direct/indirect benefits (more efficiency, waste reduction, etc.)? Could you offer any examples?

AK: This is a tricky subject. There are some indicators of sustainability where you can easily measure the return on investment. It is pretty easy to reduce the energy consumption by investing in efficiency. In this case, it is a simple matter to calculate how long it takes to make money on your investment.

It is more complicated if the relation between things is not singular. Professional investors use complex sustainability indices to calculate possible risks. If a company’s supplier has poor labour or environmental standards for example, than the risk of future reputation damage might be too high to justify an investment in that company. Yet it is hard to put this into clear measurable data.

Our society is used to measuring everything in money. The whole GDP is based on that. Many aspects of sustainability instead go beyond money. How can you monetize the extinction of, let’s say, the polar bear in its natural environment? How do you want to measure the unfair treatment of women to access good jobs within certain industries and/or regions? How do you take into account, with numbers, that some people need to walk greater distances to get drinking water, because a certain industry has used most of the surface water in a region for industrial purposes? How do you judge if a job creates meaning? Is happiness and well-being a good measure, and how do you measure it?

FM: Speaking about the ISIS Academy, how do you create awareness of sustainability issues for the general public and your corporate clients? Do you have any social platform where people can get news from?

AK: Alan is a talented communicator who is invited to many events as a keynote speaker. This is very important to make the ISIS Academy known. For myself, I have noticed that what is most helpful is to talk directly to decision makers. So I try to schedule as many meetings with those people in as possible.

But we are not missionaries or activists who put on their banners for a better and greener world. We are, in our hearts, change agents who can help others to reach their targets. First we need to listen to our clients. We need to make sure that we understand the way in which our ISIS approach will be most valuable for them. Then we can offer either training programs or strategic consultancy services.

The most important first step is listening.

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Updates from our Global Network

More and more in the sustainability world, we hear the word “collaboration” — and this new, or perhaps renewed, focus on collaboration is also a recurring them in the initiatives being undertaken globally by AtKisson Group Affiliates and Associates.

Here’s a global roundup …

Roberta Fernandez, Leslie Laney, ISIS Academy USA

The key focus of ISIS Academy USA is sustainability education, framed around the AtKisson ISIS toolkit (Compass, Pyramid, Amoeba & Stratesphere). In the true spirit of collaboration, ISIS Academy USA has been establishing a number of strategic partnerships to facilitate delivery of these sustainability education programs.

Working with the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and the University of Florida (Gainesville) TREEO center, the ISIS methodology is now being introduced to current and future leaders in business. Further, Roberta and her team are also building strategic partnerships with a leading provider of MBA programs, ensuring that the “top shelf” of business practitioners in the the US are introduced to systems thinking and sustainability frameworks as a key objective of business in the 21st Century.

Robert Steele, Systainability Asia, Thailand

Long time Affiliate Robert Steele has been working in both philanthropic and commercial endeavours, helping to advance sustainability in the SE Asia region. Robert’s list of projects using the Compass or other ISIS Accelerator tools since March 2011 is nothing short of impressive in its depth and scope of influence, including the following highlights.

March 2011: Robert facilitated two 3-day Sustainability and Project Development workshops for the Singapore National Environment Agency’s (NEA) Youth Environmental Envoy Programme (YEEP), which is in its 7th year. Students were exposed to the whole slate of Accelerator tools through out this workshop.  Currently over 430 YEEs have gone through this training.

Also in March 2011: in conjunction with the Asia-Pacific Compass Education team (all volunteers education experts from international schools and NGOs), Robert’s team successfully ran the 4^th ‘Becoming a Compass School’ workshop for Asia Pacific, hosted by Phuket International Academy Day School, with 19 participants coming from NGOs, international schools, universities and the private sector from China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

March/April 2011: UNESCO organised a National ESD workshop for Philippines (70 teachers, teacher educators, and administrators). Robert facilitated workshops on integrating both environmental literacy (UNESCO terms Env. protection) and climate change into formal school curriculum.  Introduced and used the Compass to facilitate this process.

April 2011: Systainabillity facilitated a 1-day “Compass for Teaching and Learning” workshop, for 32 teachers from the New International School of Thailand (NIST) in Bangkok, with a very positive response, and the result of those teachers now having the skills and knowledge to embed sustainability and systems into their own curriculum for their students.

May 2011: Robert provided a “Training and Action Planning ISIS Accelerator Workshop” with the Auburn University Office of Sustainability, conducting a 3-day Accelerator workshop for 24 university stakeholders to develop  ideas and strategies for accelerating the integration of ‘sustainability’ into campus life,  teaching and curriculum, and administrative decision making. (Alan AtKisson made a surprise guest appearance by Skype.)

June 2011: Systainability facilitated the UNEP-Tongji University Asia Pacific Leadership Programme on Environment and Sustainable Development.  Highlights included providing training in “Systems Thinking for Leaders”, framed around the ISIS methodology, and also a “Pyramid Lite” training session for the 25 participating leaders from Asia Pacific Region, with positive outcomes and enthusiastic participants.

Also in June: for PowerSeraya , Singapore’s 2nd largest Electricity generating private sector power company, Robert conducted a 4-day workshop for their Renewable Energy Advocate Programme (REAP) with University students (28 students). The workshop used Compass and ISIS to assist them participants in developing project ideas and strategies for their implementation.

July 2011: In cooperation with our Indonesian Affiliate Trisakti University in Jakarta, Robert is teaching a 3 day short course for the Masters in Management in CSR (MM-CSR) students on CSR tools, with special focus on the ISIS Accelerator suite of tools, including ISIS, Compass, Pyramid, Amoeba and StrateSphere.  This course is an ongoing permanent part of the MM-CSR curriculum now for the past three years. (Alan AtKisson made a surprise guest appearance by Skype here, too.)

François Raguenot, Cabinet Espere, France

François has been working with Afnor, France’s leading certification organization, on the implementation of ISO 26000 in certain industrial sectors. He’s also been working with AtKisson Associate Marie-Anaïs Berline and Alan AtKisson on developing a strategic partnership that will bring ISIS Academy trainings to the French market … more on this in the next issue!

Michael O’Brien, FWR Group, Australia

Michael O’Brien and the team at FWR Group were extremely lucky to come through unscathed by the major floods which struck Brisbane (and much of the state of Queensland) in early 2011. However, the process of rebuilding has increased our consideration and exploration of rebuilding more resilient, sustainable communities.

In March 2011, Michael was invited to facilitate the inaugural “Build It Back Green” workshop, initiated by Green Cross Australia in partnership with the Queensland Department of Environment & Resource Management (DERM), a long time Atkisson Group client.

Following up on the theme of rebuilding resilient communities in the flood aftermath, DERM again invited FWR Group to both prepare and facilitate a “sustainability hypothetical” held as part of the Brisbane Ideas festival (May 2011). The hypothetical brought together a panel of six recognised industry practitioners in sustainability, architecture, engineering, communities, and systems thinking, to consider the rebuilding of West End, an iconic inner-Brisbane community that was hard hit during the floods.

With the workshop synopsis prepared by FWR Group, and the workshop facilitated by FWR Group partner Luke Whistler, the panel was asked to explore options for rebuilding both resilience and community spirit in West End, focussing on the important interlinked issues of community based food initiatives, sustainable architecture, and systems thinking. With an audience of some 60 Brisbane residents, in a cafe setting, the discussion was enthusiastic, and the solutions proposed were many, painting a genuine picture of the possibilities for sustainable communities.

For the past 12 months, FWR Group has been very fortunate to be able to host industrial placement students from the University of Queensland Bachelor of Environmental Management (Sustainable Development). From March to July 2011, we had Jasmin Lightbody working with us, who was exceptional in her efforts. In partnership with the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) EnviroDevelopment (ED) Program, Jasmin authored an article looking at development industry experiences of sustainability.

Jasmin’s article was published in the June 2011 edition of the UDIA’s Urban Developer Magazine, with the dual benefits of real world practical experience for Jasmin, and national exposure for FWR Group, continuing our long existing collaborative role with the UDIA’s EnviroDevelopment Program.

With FWR Group having a long association with the UDIA ED Program through both prior and current projects, they have now gained certification as UDIA ED Professionals, and have been appinted to the ED Marketing and Communications Committee. EnviroDevelopment provides the Australian urban development sector with industry recognised accreditation across 6 themes of sustainability. Easily understood by both industry profesionals and home buyers/investors, ED is rapidly becoming a leading system for assessing and rating Australian developments. FWR Group is very happy to be building on ourt reputation and exposure in collaboration with the UDIA ED team.

Axel Klimek, ISIS Academy, Germany

With its initial roots in the training programs provided by Alan AtKisson and others since 1992, ISIS Academy has now been spun off and established as a separate business entity, ready to deliver world class education for sustainability change agentry. These classes are framed around the ISIS methodology developed by Alan AtKisson over the last 20 years, combined with Axel’s long experience in developing the personal and methodological competences a change agent needs in the demanding field of sustainable development.

Axel Klimek, as head of ISIS Academy GmbH (Germany), has been working to establish a number of key partnerships, including a training in co-opearation with B.A.U.M. e.V. and HLP Connex in Frankfurt. B.A.U.M. e.V. is a leading sustainable business association in Germany with very prominent members like Lufthansa and others. HLP Connex on the other hand is management consultancy and training device with a great reputation in German companies.
Besides those great new co-opearations Axel and colleagues are exploring further ones in France, Germany and Turkey. These are still to be finally negotiated and hopefully at the next WaveFront we will be able to share more details on those.

CEMUS – Uppsala University (Sweden)

Our partners in Uppsala University in Sweden have been extremely busy in their education (for sustainability) endeavours. A new summer course has been implemented at the Centre for Environment and Development Studies, CEMUS (www.cemus.uu.se). Titled Urban Agriculture – Permaculture and Local Food Systems, this new International summer course is being given for the first time this year, with enrollments for approximately 40 students with different academic, professional and cultural backgrounds. The course takes systems thinking to a very practical/hands-on level, through lectures, workshops, excursions/study visits, design-projects etc.

As is the case with all other Cemus-courses, there are no “teachers” running the course, with all lectures instead to be given by invited guest lecturers. Several of the invited lecturers became so interested in the course that they started coming to other lectures and some even enrolled in the course! – Course syllabus and course info is available at http://www.uu.se/en/node697?kKod=1MV027&lasar=11%2F12&typ=1

CEMUS is a keen collaborator in sustainable development, facilitating shared learning and engagement between academia, community, civil society, business and the public. CEMUS hosted “Sustainability Month” in May 2011 in Uppsala. A month of activities and events focused on issues of sustainable development, culminating in the CEMUS conference held 23-25 May 2011 (see www.challeninginguncertainties.se – Conference videos and documentation will soon be posted to the website). More information on “Sustainability Month” can be found at www.sustainabilitycalendar.se.

Ongoing Course Development at CEMUS continues through to Septembter 2011, in collaboration with students, researchers, university staff and members of society. Key outcomes include greater knowledge and understanding of how to involve a large number of people in brainstorming activities around the types and form of education that responds to students’ increasing interest in sustainability, and what is needed to equip students with knowledge and experience to respond to current trends and events in the world.

(Note: Alan AtKisson is a Senior Fellow at CEMUS’s host institution, the Center for Sustainable Development, and a frequent lecturer at CEMUS courses.)

Alan AtKisson, AtKisson Europe, Stockholm and
AtKisson Sustainability, USA (www.AtKisson.com)

Alan has maintained his usual busy schedule of speaking and consulting, including keynote speeches at three major international conferences: Resilience 2011, The World Renewable Energy Congress 2011, and the UNEP/Wuppertal Institute “Unconference” on the Future of Sustainable Lifestyles and Entrepreneurship. He also gave the opening talk for the new Institute for the Study of Happiness, Economy, and Society, based in Tokyo (founded by AtKisson Group partner Junko Edahiro of e’s, Japan for Sustainability, and Change Agent, Inc.).

Alan is currently working with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development, on the development of a global program for SD promotion and capacity development which will be announced later this year. He and Senior Associates Hal Kane and Lee Hatcher have also been doing corporate work with a large US-based firm; and Alan (as well as Hal) continues to provide frequent advice and input to Levi Strauss on its global sustainability and social responsibility strategy.

And readers of his books (Believing Cassandra and The Sustainability Transformation) will know that every year Alan participates in the Balaton Group Meeting (www.balatongroup.org), where he serves as Co-President on a volunteer basis. The upcoming meeting in September 2011 in Hungary is the Group’s 30th, so that is also occupying his time.

… and there is a lot more going on, more than we could report! Please contact us if we can help you with sustainability consulting, training, research and communication.

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Noted while riding the wave …

Seems like history
could be a practical joke
that ends with the planet
goin’ up in smoke

Slippin’ and sllidin’
it’s a banana-peel dance
Are we just the victims
of global circumstance?

Or are we …

Tryin’ to be happy in a crazy world …

- Alan AtKisson, from the musical album “Believing Cassandra,” 1999

For a free download of this song in MP3 format, please visit this link:
http://www.atkisson.com/resources/2011/07/21/crazyworld/

See you next month! Please write to us with any questions, ideas, etc.

Never a dull moment in the sustainability business.

Right about now, I should have been finishing a report on a “Green Transformation Strategy” for the Egyptian economy, for ultimate delivery to the Egyptian Prime Minister. That project is obviously on indefinite hold. A report on happiness and economics for a new Japanese institute is also delayed, for obvious reasons (though it will be finished in a few weeks). And I have just discovered that my “environmentally friendly” car has become an environmental enemy. (See the P.S.)

These, among many other tumultuous things, at scales both small and breathtakingly large, are part of 2011′s “Sustainability Whirlwind.”

The last few months have been truly astonishing, heartbreaking, mesmerizing times for anyone working in sustainability. During this period, I have had a difficult time separating out issues that are global, personal, and business-related … because all these dimensions seem to blend together.

The revolutionary upheaval in the Middle East I personally find very exciting, but I am alternately moved, frightened, inspired, and worried, depending on the day, and depending on the emails I receive from friends and clients in the region. Some are in ecstasy over new-found freedoms; others are facing uncertain personal and career futures. Since the region is a global geo-political fulcrum, I find myself watching it like a hawk. But I also have to rethink some of my company’s business planning, since we had several projects in the region that are seriously affected by events there now.

Meanwhile, we are working on a report for the newly created, Tokyo-based Institute for Studies in Happiness, Economy, and Society (which I wrote about in the last WaveFront). The Sendai Earthquake struck Japan just days after my visit there. I sat in shock in front of the TV in my hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona — I was there to keynote Resilience 2011, an international science conference — and I called up in my mind’s eye the places I had been in Tokyo, just days before. I imagined those places shaking violently. It was all too easy to see the faces of my friends in Japan, trying to control panic, scrambling to safety. Now they are trying to cope with the aftermath of the first nuclear accident since Chernobyl to receive a rating of “7” on the nuclear catastrophe scale, as I heard just this morning via Swedish radio.  (This rating works like the earthquake Richter scale, meaning that a “7” is actually 100 times worse than a “5” — which was the official rating of the Japanese government previously.)

Needless to say, these events certainly have their impact on how to frame, for a Japanese audience, the current upsurge in interest in “Gross National Happiness” — which has emerged as a complement, though not a replacement, to the Gross Domestic Product. The governments of China, the UK, France, and Japan have all been studying this idea, first popularized by the Kind Bhutan. In March, China formally incorporated a reduction in GDP growth, and an increase in focus on happiness and wellbeing, into its newly announced 5-Year Plan. Japan had been struggling with stagnant economic growth; it made sense to start talking about maximizing happiness, rather than maximizing GDP. But the earthquake/tsunami is a mega-event whose long-term impact on Japan’s economy is impossible to predict. The weird thing about the GDP is that Japan’s might actually rise significantly (after falling), starting  next year, as the country recovers and rebuilds.

This is not the first time my company’s work on sustainability has been impacted by what systems people call “nonlinear events” — unpredictable shifts in how a system is working, “shocks to the system,” caused by some combination of external events and internal thresholds of stability being crossed. We were working in New Orleans, and witnessing some amazing successes there for sustainability, just when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 (see my book The Sustainability Transformation for the story). One of our regional ISIS Academy training workshops had to be canceled when Bangkok erupted in violent protests a couple of years ago. Events like these directly impact our bottom line as a business — but obviously, we don’t spend too much time thinking about that. The other impacts, from global political shifts to the vast scale of human suffering, are what one thinks about (and feels about).

Events like these are hard lessons for the world in sustainability and its sister concept, resilience. Japan’s earthquake would have been a catastrophe in any case; but that natural disaster’s “interaction” (if we can call it that) with human technologies like vulnerable nuclear power plants multiplied the damage by several orders of magnitude. Japan will recover, and it has shown remarkable resilience as a nation during this time; but core economic processes are still disrupted. And in some ways, the nation will never be the same.

In Egypt, some sort of “nonlinear event” in the politics of that country seemed inevitable to many observers, because of the social, economic, and resource pressures that were building up — just as the tectonic plates had been building pressure off the coast of Japan. Egypt is, everyone hopes, gaining something profoundly important in this revolutionary shift to a new form of government. But Egypt is also losing time. Egypt is in a very serious race against time, particularly on issues of food, water, and energy security. The race is driven by demographic and physical processes that are not slowing down. One hopes that the “new Egypt” will be better able to respond to these emerging challenges than the old one, and quickly; but at the moment, the “nonlinear event” of the revolution has stalled the other “necessary revolution” (as Peter Senge calls the shift to sustainability). It has also sidelined, distracted, or thoroughly disempowered some of Egypt’s own leaders who were best able to lead that other revolution (anyone associated with the previous government is suspect).

As I say, never a dull moment in the sustainability business, which has sometimes given me an observation post on the world that feels uncomfortably close to dramatic, historic events. While most of the reflections above are analytical, I spend equal amounts of time, it seems, processing the powerful emotions that witnessing such things can stir up — and trying to send messages of hope and encouragement to the people I know whose lives are directly and personally affected by what the world reads in the newspapers.

But meanwhile, out of the glare of these attention-grabbing global events, lots of other things are happening, including in our business. We are watching more and more schools and universities adopt our “Compass Education” approach — a very exciting development, for the Compass provides them with a unifying symbol and tool for both learning and institutional management. We are developing new courses for professional development through ISIS Academy that seem to be taking root even faster than we were hoping (more on this below). And we are watching our corporate clients make great strides forward in sustainability management as well … and these are stories I look forward to telling in a future edition of WaveFront.

For now, I close with yet another message of hope, encouragement, worry, support, and, yes, love for all my friends and colleagues who are struggling with the aftermath of these “nonlinear events” in their nations and in their lives. May you — may we all — persevere in the pursuit of a sustainable future.

No matter what.

Alan AtKisson

PS:  About my car: I just learned that Sweden has started importing corn-based ethanol from the US, to make up for the fact that Brazil is not exporting sugarcane-based ethanol to us anymore. This makes that our ethanol car — which was a fantastic carbon dioxide reducer when we bought it nearly ten years ago, and it was running on Swedish forest-based ethanol — has become a worse polluter than a similar petrol-powered car. Good thing it’s biking season now.

PPS: About WaveFront: This is the second time I have considered changing the name of this newsletter because of worries that “WaveFront” might raise uncomfortable associations with tsunamis. After the 2004 tsunami in Asia, we dropped the name WaveFront for a few years. This time, we will keep it. There are good waves, and bad waves, and WaveFront celebrates the wave of change for sustainability that is also sweeping over our world, through governments, companies, communities, schools, indeed, nearly everywhere.
/AA

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Online Training on the ISIS Method with Alan AtKisson

On four Mondays in May 2011, Alan AtKisson will be teaching his popular online course, “Practical Tools and Methods for Change Agents,” a joint production of the International Society of Sustainability Professionals (ISSP) and The ISIS Academy. Alan walks you through the ISIS Method and Accelerator tools in four live, interactive webinars. Participants also do exercises using a case study of their choice to put the method into practice. Many people have used this course as a springboard to accelerating their practice, including both internal sustainability managers, and external consultants. (A few graduates have gone on to become AtKisson Group associates as well.)

Readers of WaveFront can get a special discount to this course. By the combining the “WaveFront” and “Early Bird” discounts, the price is only US $ 325.  Space is limited, so please, sign up right away! Go to this website:

http://ow.ly/4tNSc

… and use this codewhen you register:  atkisson0511

See you online!

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ISIS Academy Master Classes in “Transformational Coaching” and “Designing Change Projects”

The ISIS Academy is offering two new Master Classes in 2011. “Master Classes” are intensive, 4-6 day immersion experiences that help you greatly accelerate your professional development as a sustainability practitioner. The new courses are targeted at key skills for managers and leaders in sustainability:

Transformational Coaching in Sustainability Change Processes will help you master the interpersonal skills necessary to move change forward in any organizational setting. Coaching skills are a “must-have” for leaders generally, and they become particularly important in the context of sustainability work, with its multiple challenges and stakeholders. Course leader Axel Klimek (who is also CEO of ISIS Academy) is a master coach and management consultant who has trained both coaches and psychotherapists during his distinguished career. He currently trains top executives in major companies on how to coach effectively. Don’t miss this chance to learn this crucial skill, and advance your personal and professional development, led by one of the best in the business.
Course information and registration:

http://www.isisacademy.com/classes/master-class-2/

Designing, Planning, and Steering Sustainability Change Processes with Success is for leaders and managers who want to take a step back from their work or from their current project, and learn a fresh approach. This course will guide you in the specifics of implementating the ISIS Method for planning and management, as well as deepen your mastery of the overall ISIS Academy Approach — which integrates the technical planning skills with personal-professional skills for working effectively with people and increasing your impact. Led jointly by Axel Klimek and Alan AtKisson, this course is for serious practitioners in business, insitutions, or development programs who are ready to take their work to the next level.

Course information and registration:

http://www.isisacademy.com/classes/master-class-3/

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ISIS Academy Core Classes in the United States, 2011-2012

We are pleased to announce the establishment of our first two formal ISIS Academy locations in the United States, with courses led by Senior Associate Roberta Fernandez and other ISIS Academy trainers. We are pleased to be working with the University of Florida, and with the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce in the “Twin Cities” region of Minneapolis, in offering these courses.

Core Classes introduce you to the ISIS Method and ISIS Accelerator tools like Compass (orientation and indicators), Pyramid (collaborative systems learning and planning), and Amoeba (strategic change agentry). These are high-energy, highly interactive 1-3 day workshops, specially designed to meet the needs of sustainability managers, practitioners, and teachers for quick acquisition of new skills and tools.

For more information on these courses (which lead to certfication as a trained ISIS Method practitioner) and schedule of classes, please visit the new US website:  www.isisacademyusa.com

And congratulations to Roberta Fernandez and colleagues for this exciting new development!

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Noted while riding the wave …

“Be prepared to joke at every pain.”
- E.F. Schumacher

Schumacher’s 1973 book Small is Beautiful and ideas about ecological economics and happiness have been enjoying a revival in the UK … thanks to the interest of Prime Minister David Cameron.

Source:  Article in the Guardian, 27 March 2011

See you next month! Please write to us with any questions, ideas, etc.