In thinking about the major environmental and social challenges Australia and the world face over the next decade, one can be overwhelmed by the statistics about declining environmental indicators as well as the images flashing on the screens night after night showing unprecedented climate change induced events.
Most recently the State of the Environment Report, and the heat waves and fires in Europe and Pakistan show that we are not stemming the tide of ecological collapse and social inequity. We are at a tipping point, a crossroads.
In my Master’s Degree in Social Ecology, completed in 1999, my thesis was about the role of Corporation as Activist, and I guess I have been exploring what this means ever since.
I have spent the past 22 years working in the NGO sector, being a policy advocate and engaging the business sector on being better corporate citizens and reducing their environmental footprint. Sometimes through shaming, mostly by engagement and partnership in seeking to address serious climate and sustainability challenges through the lens of corporate self-interest and better regulation whereby the corporate sector steps up to drive change.
We are not winning though, as the statistics clearly demonstrate. If we are to survive and thrive, we need a paradigm shift in the way we go about structuring our economic systems and problem solving. NGOs cannot do it alone. Government and corporates cannot do it alone either.
In reflecting on my past nine years at WWF, I have supported and initiated three programs in Australia that give me a sense of the how and what of a paradigm shift, and why bringing systems thinking into practice is important to understanding the complexity of the issues to be addressed, and what intervention points along the pathway are needed to achieve change.
The first is the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), created in 2015 in the lead up the Paris Agreement, by World Resources Institute, CDP, Global Compact and WWF.
For the first time companies are being asked to set GHG emission reduction targets based on the science of keeping within a carbon budget (of 1.5oC), across greenhouse emissions which are in their direct and indirect control. What was voluntary in 2015, has now become mainstream and in some countries mandatory with expectations also set by financial institutions.
The logic of companies not setting arbitrary targets, but having a science based approach to target setting towards a 1.5oC trajectory is genius.
A crucial element has also been around supply chains, therefore requiring companies across different supply chains to talk with one about reducing their footprint.
So far 66 Australian companies have set SBTs with 25 of them in the past six months, and 24 last year. And by having companies across different sectors speak to one another they are setting expectations and collaborating around plans and helping to solve their challenges; leading, sharing and giving one another the confidence to act.
Out of this program, came another two initiatives, the Renewable Energy Buyers Forum that became the Business Renewables Centre Australia (BRC-A) and the Materials and Embodied Carbon Leaders’ Alliance (MECLA).
Both initiatives look to solve the challenges faced by organisations to reduce their emissions, by fostering markets for large scale renewable energy and low carbon materials for building and construction.
Both look to intervene in a system by bringing different parties together to solve underlying system-wide problems, noting that none of the system participants can achieve the required changes on their own.
A few recent reports about the role of corporate sustainability at this time (Enough) and the need for systems thinking (All Systems Go) also identify this need for change and the role of systems thinking to support Australia’s response to the key climate challenges and opportunities.
Reflecting on my recent experience here are a few ideas on the ingredients of a successful radical collaboration?
- Systems thinking and mapping: We can’t solve these systems problems by looking at them through linear maps. We need systems thinking to understand the ecosystem and to find the intervention points across the ecosystem. Undertaking primary research and mapping is a good first step. Being able to refer to the research and the stakeholders consulted will prove useful. It also means we need to ensure we are asking the right questions and have begun to build the required relationships. Understanding the ecosystem enables solving multiple problems concurrently.
- Finding others who are willing to play together: Different people and organisations are at different points on the journey and engaging early adopters and bringing them together helps to understand pain points and find allies who can address barriers. Over time, we have created a community of practice with regular meetings, brought more people together by word of mouth, and reached out using our networks of friends and colleagues.
- Right timing: Sometimes timing is everything as these issues have bubbled to the surface to be resolved. If we had tried to set up MECLA earlier than we had, we would not have succeeded. Companies were asking themselves the same questions at a similar time, and a bit like the 100th monkey, it was in the ether.
- Having a vision and a purpose: Having a curious mind is one thing but having a sense of purpose and vision makes it easier to work towards something larger than oneself. The SBT framework for medium term (2030) target setting means that companies are being forced to think about the trajectory of emission reductions within this decade, rather than the long term never-never of 2050.
- Trusted partners: We’ve been very fortunate to work with Climate-KIC, RMI, Green Building Council, Infrastructure Sustainability Council, and many other people from companies and professional bodies and research institutions willing to come on board to support our work. Being values-aligned and seeing the bigger picture has been instrumental in the success of the initiatives.
- Tapping into funding to pull a team together: Having allies and ensuring the work can be well resourced is important particularly in the setting of expectations. Governments have underwritten our initial work to help build out a lean team of like-minded people and organisations, keeping it simple and nimble.
- Institutionalising an alliance model with proper governance and transparency: This means companies that are traditional competitors can collaborate in a pre-competitive environment, solving problems faced across their industry.
- Building a brand: Along with the proper governance arrangement is the need to have a brand and logo that organisations can proudly be associated with. Representatives across industry supply chains have been important for all the projects, be it companies and financiers and developers, or material manufacturers and head contractors as well as professional bodies and service providers.
- Commercial interest: These initiatives would not have succeeded without a deliberate focus on specific benefits to the companies and organisations involved through enlightened self-interest whereby companies are willing to allocate time and resources to these collaborations. It’s the right thing to do but also aligns with their business interests.
- Links to government through a government navigator: Government is complex and there are many avenues for engagement. Having a government that is committed to the success of a collaborative initiative is important when the policy framework is a key part of the eco system. A navigator can find the right people across government to help make this happen.
- Making it easy to take part through technology: What a revolution we’ve seen in participation across cities and countries with the use of remote technologies! We have been able to meet virtually and launch reports and undertake deep work and brainstorming, all with modern technologies. While seeing one another face to face is important from a relational point of view, on-line meeting tools have enabled an inclusive model of engagement and participation.
- Low barrier to entry: One needs to meet people where they are at on their journey. Some will come along to influence others, and others because they want to learn. Setting a relatively low bar to entry has meant that the people passionate about the initiatives can join without having to spend much of their political capital getting their organisations over the line on a high bar to entry, whether money or signing up to onerous commitments.
- Building skills together: Many companies I have spoken to over the last few years have made commitments to set SBTs and many have told me that they and their board do not know how they will achieve the very ambitious targets that they have set. In some cases, the technology isn’t yet available, in other cases they will have to lean heavily on their supply chain and rely on their good relationships to achieve their targets. A level of patience and trust across the company knowing that the technology is in development means that we must collectively build the skills and knowledge.
- A common language that over time helps to define best practice: It has been important to create common understanding of terminology and MECLA members contributed to the creation of a “dictionary of carbon” to allow practitioners to understand what is meant by embodied carbon. The same needed to be done for the PPA market, and over time as more projects have been developed, the concepts around what is best practice have also change to set higher expectations on developers and organisations as we better understand, for example, that it’s not just about electrons but that social licence also requires thinking about contributions to regional communities, First Nations people and biodiversity conservation.
Radical collaboration is easier said than done. It takes a whole range of ingredients to be successful and it is certainly needed to solve some of our great challenges, with people and organisations coming together to understand the problem, share perspectives and genuinely commit to resolving and finding solutions.
This takes time, trusted relationships, commitment, patience, a willingness to embrace complexity and uncertainty, and in the end, needs to be a marriage between our hearts and minds. I have had the great privilege of working with amazing people right across the NGO, industry and government sectors, deeply committed to making the world a better place. While it will be a tough decade, we know speed and scale are of the essence and there are plenty of people willing to collaborate radically for a better climate safe future.
[There are many people who have been instrumental in helping to define this Radical Collaboration playbook. You know who you and more power to you all in doing your share to make the world a better place.]
