Click to watch on YouTube

Alan AtKisson’s opening keynote at the Global Issues Network conference also served as the kick-off to the Pyramid 2012 campaign. It provides a mind-expanding definition of sustainability, an introduction to the Sustainability Compass, and an inspirational orientation to five levels of the Pyramid:  what’s happening, why, what we can do it about it, how, and commitment to act. (This is also known as the “ISIS Method,” but Alan skips the words Indicators, Systems, Innovation, and Strategy in this speech.) Includes a couple of his trademark songs, of course …

Alan’s speech begins at about minute 26 … but the student speeches etc. that precede the speech are excellent. And be sure to notice the cool Pyramid t-shirt design!

Before we begin the latest issue of WaveFront, here is a request: please spread the word about our ISIS Academy training courses, and our Pyramid 2012 volunteer campaign to support the Rio+20 summit. More information below….

But this month, we have to start with some bad news — or rather, we start with the topic of Bad News itself. But this is not just a bad-news story, so keep reading …

You can also skip straight to our ISISAcademy.com website for information on our next Master Class (July 4-7) and Intensives, or go to Pyramid2012.org to track the progress of our campaign. It’s not too late to join Pyramid 2012! Now, off we go on the WaveFront …

If your job is to help make the transition to sustainability, then your job inevitably requires staying up to speed on a continuous stream of bad news about the state of the planet.

It’s no fun; but as you know all too well, it is your responsibility.

Actually, it’s everyone’s responsibility, but a relatively small percentage of people seem to have the stomach for staying updated on climate change, species extinction and the like. As a neighbor commented once (and this really did happen), “I’m so glad you are involved in trying to solve all these global problems, so that I don’t have to.”

To be fair, we don’t really know how bad things are for the planet; after all, had there been no mass extinctions in the past, we would not be here to know about them. But we know that these problems are bad news for Nature-as-we-know it … and for us.

But there’s also this fact: not all the news is bad, especially from a human perspective. The United Nations recently announced, for example, that the world’s Millennium Development Goal for providing safe drinking water to most of the world’s people had already been reached … several years early. Over two billion more people now have access to water, people who did not have that access twenty years ago.

Human economic development is truly bringing benefits — but it is also bringing costs. And thanks to those costs, the environmental news is simply bad, and getting worse.

Consider the recent statement put out by the winners of the prestigious Blue Planet Prize, a kind of Nobel for global environmental science. The list of winners is truly impressive. Their statement is truly depressing. “The current system is broken,” they say, meaning the whole human social-economic system and its interactions with the global environment. They detail the problems, as well as the solutions, amid a stew of sad reflections like these:

“… humanity’s behavior remains utterly inappropriate”
“… civilization is faced with a perfect storm of problems”
“… changes in the environment … likely to have even more severe consequences”
“… society has no choice but to take dramatic action …”

Their joint paper, available by clicking here, is entitled “The Imperative to Act,” and phrases like “we must act” show up in every second paragraph — implying that we have not acted.

Of course, we have been acting. Most of us working in this business we call sustainability have been working double overtime, for many years. And fortunately, there are many more of us to do the work now, compared with twenty years ago. The problem is still the scale of the problems, and the speed of their growth, compared to the speed of our growth, and the speed at which the solutions we are trying to promote are adopted and implemented.

Readers of my books will be familiar with the “Hope Graph,” the subject of Chapter 1 in the Sustainability Transformation. The graph (pictured below) shows this “Race Against Time” as two growth curves. The solutions curve lags the problems curve … but it eventually catches up, just before the problems curve crashes down, carrying civilizations with it.

Here’s a question:  do think the Hope Curve curve is accurate?  Click here to answer our two-question poll on this topic.

Regardless of whether you are an optimist or a pessimist about the Hope Graph, if you are engaged on sustainability, you are engaged with news like the melting of the Arctic ice cap, the steady decline of amphibians around the world, the gigantic gyre of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, and more.

How do you deal with it?

I once heard someone ask famed global researcher Lester Brown, in a small seminar setting, how he maintained his optimism, considering all the bad news he spent his time studying and communicating. “I have a one-word answer for that,” he said. “Bourbon.”

Lester’s joke (his real strategy is to work double overtime to promote solutions) says something important:  we do have to deal with the emotion and even pain caused by reflecting on the state of the world. Yes, working on solutions, and staying informed about the astonishing pace of change (the rapid spread of renewable energy, the exploding numbers of young people wanting to work on sustainability, etc. etc. etc.), is a serious source of hope. And having hope, working for hope, is what makes the Hope Graph possible in the first place.

But as I first wrote in Believing Cassandra years ago, you also have to give your mind, or soul, or whatever you like to call it, the time and space to just feel what it feels, and think what it thinks. For many, this process is linked with creativity:  this is why I never stopped being a songwriter and occasional poet. I need those times when I’m composing a song or a poem, just as much as I take pleasure in them.

For others (and for me as well), just talking to a friend over coffee — or, yes, something stronger — is also an important outlet. Or spending time in nature, or listening to music, or cooking and enjoying a nice meal …

So, no poll now, and no sustainability strategy either.  Just a question:  are you taking care of yourself? You know you have to listen to the bad news. Are you making sure that you have outlets for dealing with the impact of that news, on your very own heart and soul?

I hope so. Because we need you not to get discouraged, burned out, exhausted … either from overwork, or being overly burdened with too much difficult information. We need all of us, and more of us, all the time.

The race against time is winnable, because we’ve won it in the past — and here I really wish to honor the memory of F. Sherwood Rowland, who died recently, and who helped save the world from ozone depletion, and got us to act “just in time”.

If one scientist, working with one partner (Mario Molina), managed to save the world from a serious, deadly, global environmental threat, just think what all of us — the millions of us, the ones who are willing to know what’s going on, and willing to work together to address it  — can accomplish.

As the poet Rilke wrote, when confronted with the enormity of it all … “Just keep going …”

Warm regards,

Alan AtKisson

Upcoming Trainings and Workshops

AtKisson Group and ISIS Academy training events are a great way to refresh your knowledge and your inspiration, and to increase your capacity for making sustainability a reality. Here are three upcoming opportunities for general, advanced, or education-related change agents …

Practical Tools and Methods for Change Agents (Learning the ISIS Method), April 2012

This popular online course, across four Thursdays in April, is jointly offered by ISIS Academy and ISSP. Alan AtKisson will guide practitioners through the jungle of sustainability techniques and change processes, and help you learn when and how to apply them successfully. Using the ISIS Method (Indicators | Systems | Innovation | Strategy) as a guiding structure and sequence, you will deepen your understanding of these general methodological categories, as well as specific sustainability tools, with AtKisson’s ISIS Accelerator tools in focus.
More info and registration link:  click here

Master Class in Change and Sustainability, 4-7 July 2012

ISIS Academy is pleased to announce our next short-form Master Class:  two and a half days designed to empower and inspire sustainability change agents. Registration is now open for this invitational event, to be held in Wuppertal, Germany, on 4 -7 July 2012. To receive your invitation, please write an email to ISIS Academy briefly describing your background:  info@isisacademy.com

This Master Class is presented in partnership with the UNEP/Wuppertal Instititute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Production and Consumption. We are pleased to be working with this world-leading centre of research and learning on sustainability to offer this special Master Class!
More info and brochure:  click here

Becoming a Compass School:  Workshop on Bali, 6-9 April 2012

The AtKisson Group’s ‘Becoming a Compass School’ workshop brings years of sustainability learning and practice into sharp focus, over an engaging 4-­day period, in a unique environment. During the four days you will experience the Compass School tools and methods, specifically focusing on how the Compass and ISIS Pyramid tools can be used to broaden students’ perspectives and strengthen big picture, systemic thinking. Workshop participants will also experience how the Compass and ISIS Accelerator tools can support whole school sustainability assessment, strategic planning and initiatives.
More info and brochure:  click here

Noted while riding the wave …

“If we are to achieve our dream, the time to act at scale is now, given the inertia in the socio- economic system, and that the adverse effects of climate change and loss of biodiversity cannot be reversed for centuries or are irreversible (e.g., species loss). Failure to act will impoverish current and future generations.”

— Robert Watkins et al. (the Blue Planet Prize Winners), “The Imperative to Act,” 20 Feb 2012. Complete paper available here:
http://www.af-info.or.jp/en/bpplaureates/index.html

The AtKisson Group’s ‘Becoming a Compass School’ workshop brings years of sustainability learning and practice into sharp focus, over an engaging 4-­day period, in a unique environment. During the four days you will experience the Compass School tools and methods, specifically focusing on how the Compass and ISIS Pyramid tools can be used to broaden students’ perspectives and strengthen big picture, systemic thinking. Workshop participants will also experience how the Compass and ISIS Accelerator tools can support whole school sustainability assessment, strategic planning and initiatives.

That’s the introductory text of the latest Compass Education workshop flyer, which you can download by clicking here (or on the image to the right). The Sustainability Compass is spreading quickly among schools, universities, and even companies as simple-yet-effective way to introduce people of all ages to sustainability thinking … and then integrate it into their daily lesson plans, activities, or even management decisions.

For a more detailed explanation of the Compass Education philosophy and practice, you can also click here to download the background paper. Join Robert Steele and friends in Bali on 6-9 April 2012, at the extraordinary Green School, for a fun and rewarding workshop day!

For more information, write to our Affiliate in Thailand, Systainability Ltd., c/o Khun Watkana, nonglala@gmail.com

http://www.sustainabilityprofessionals.org/voices-world%E2%80%94europe

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

http://csid.asu.edu/resilience-2011/invited-speakers/videos/alan-atkisson/

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 …

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.

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

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

“… 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.

This Asia-based Intensive will be focused on the practical question, “How do you mainstream and implement a successful integrated CSR/Sustainability programme?” In the three days you will be presented with a set of highly effective and proven practical tools, methods and strategies (the ISIS Accelerator Toolkit) for mainstreaming sustainability practice as an integrative strategy, whether you are a company, an NGO, an education institution, municipality or small local government.

For the information flyer, click here or on the image to the right.  For the registration form, click here.