Alumni Eureka Khong: Ecological Design for Regenerative Communities

Eureka came to the UnSchool during our last Fellowship in beautiful Borneo, in the city of Kuching. A creative change-maker based in India, Eureka focuses on ecological design for regenerative communities. We caught up with her to hear more about the very inspiring work that she’s up to!

Can you give us an introduction to yourself and your work?

A few years ago, when I allowed myself time to disconnect from a conventional Architect’s career goals, I found myself gravitating toward socially responsible architecture and regenerative land practices. Since 2016 I’ve been part of Project Potential, a grassroot non-profit in Bihar, India. Here we believe in investing in rural India’s human capacity and encouraging informed solutions to emerge from within. Our role as a scaffolding is to support with knowledge, skills, attitudes, networks, and resources, and toward that goal, we are creating a space in brick and mortar to explore sustainable and regenerative living practices and be involved in creative and transformational experiences, free from judgment.

This space is called eArthshala - ‘shala’ in Hindi means a house and eArthshala is thus, incrementally evolving into a physical experience of our core principle ‘eArth’. Hidden in it are three elements we believe as critical to a nurturing society: the English ‘earth’, and the Hindi ‘arth’ (अर्थ), suggesting both, economy and meaning. In other words, it is a philosophy that seeks a regenerative earth, economy, and existence (way of life). My key contribution here is in envisionsing, bringing in collaborative partners, facilitating local construction upskilling and setting up day-to-day systems and processes to actualise that vision. 

No hour is the wrong hour to engage me in action and conversations on waste management solutions (albeit while understanding that recycling also perpetuates waste) and sanitation —  no matter how graphic the details or messy the situation!

What motivates you to do the work that you do?

My key motivating factors would be: intrinsic on-ground learnings, social relevance, and our team.

Having jumped into a project that requires us to scan all that’s around us locally and out there in the world, strip every jargon and distill information and ideas that we can prioritize and implement on the ground, means it’s an everyday LEARNING BONANZA. One day I’m looking into organizational systems, and another I’m looking into behaviour design tweaks to our waste segregation systems. One day it’s fine-tuning architectural design to suit climatic conditions, and another day is about making hands-on sundried adobe bricks. 

While my focus is on campus making (with an onsite skill-training aspect), the larger organization works across the development domain of youth leadership, community awareness, healthcare and humanitarian aid. Together we are working on an “ecosystem approach” toward development action in Bihar, where we foster effective collaboration between government, civil society and private entities.

In all this, the key factor that glues all the other factors together is a team culture of inclusivity, and the intentional space for each of us to evolve and nurture individual and collective potential. Each of us are here because we’ve, in some form or another, taken the agency to bring about change in our “sphere of influence” — and that’s infectious.

How did you find out about the UnSchool, and what motivated you to come?

It’s possible that I started to follow Leyla’s work and UnSchool subsequent to stumbling across her TED talk, “Paper beats plastic? How to rethink environmental folklore”. In 2015, the talk played a key role in shaping my personal convictions toward sustainability and in questioning the sustainability myths I believe in. 

I’ve been following the UnSchool since then, but it wasn’t until last year that I felt ready for the Fellowship experience. Last year, three years after we began working and building eArthshala from scratch, at one point I began to feel that some of the systems and processes we set out were beginning to generate results! I also felt that in a way, I had implemented a major part of my skills and knowledge, and was ready to soak in new mental models and tools and bring them back to our actions on ground. The UnSchool program sounded like the right booster shot I needed to learn sustainability design tools, with the oh-so-tempting benefit that it would be a much deserved “mental spa” at Borneo with others from our global tribe!

The Kuching Fellowship group

What was your experience at the UnSchool like?

While each day was power-packed with unexpected and memorable experiences, from the Zero Waste Shopping challenge and gorgeous communal meal prep, to the exhausting 24-hour design challenge, the day we traveled to the Matang Wildlife Reserve and the subsequent events to follow probably best describes the power of the UnSchool Experience.

The visit to the reserve was unexpected for all involved, including the facilitators -- somehow none of us expected to walk into a rehabilitation center in the rainforest and be greeted by majestic orangutans, gibbons and sun bears in caged enclosures. Unfortunately, they were safer here because the alternative was to be fighting for survival against poachers and conflicts with other orangutans -- who knew that the home range of a male orangutan in the forest is around 2500 hectares (that’s just two male orangutans in the whole city of Manhattan)! 

While we understood that they were also being taken care of by an extremely dedicated and informed team, it was hard to not very quickly feel emotionally drained. Seeing our energies by the end of the trail, the facilitators decided to not opt for the trek but instead chose some down-time by the stream.

As we laid back in the deep green water, feeling consumed by the busy surround sound of the forest and shreaky calls of the gibbon, I felt as though there was another deafening sound in my head -- perhaps that of cognitive dissonance in full action. Here I lay in this pristine waters under these dense foliage, exercising a freedom that should actually be for Peter and other orangutans --- but here I am, and there they are in their enclosures with their caretakers. The swim was many things at once: a bonding session between the fellows, a much-needed alone time for those who craved it, and an intense, intimate moment with planet Earth.

It was followed up with a delicious falafel picnic (prepared by the facilitators) -- imagine frying 200 (I assume) falafel first thing in the morning in a less-than-equipped service apartment. Then a no-holds-barred hour of Q&A with our guide Dominic and X-map reflection, each of which episodes deserve their own contemplative essays!

In any other experience, we would have probably called it a day. But not here! Back in the moving bus we played RIMBA, a truly fun card game designed by Nisha and Lymun (our super hosts) that encouraged us to learn about or at least come to recognise the unique Borneo forest animals. I was sitting at the front end of the bus, so I had the front row seat (literally) to witness how Leyla “reads the room” -- suddenly, she had an idea, followed by whispering-whisperings between the hosts and lots of excitement for the brewing secret. A long bus ride later (to literary on the other side of Kuching) and just past sunset, we arrived at Kampung Panchor Hot Spring! 

Our time in the hot spring, enjoying this natural bounty at the end of such an emotionally-gutting day, was one of my most visceral moments of feeling a sense of gratitude toward our Earth.

Once again, in any other experience, we would have probably called it a day. But not here! The hour-long bus ride to our dinner involved our gamification session! So here we were, after all that the day had to offer, including 4 hours of bus rides, enthusiastically drafting out our game... in the case of our group: an app-based game for elderly people addressing a social cause!

Gosh, I’m having a tough time not extending this answer to a 3-page blog post. So, to sum up, the Fellowship experience gets a lot of things right -- how to press EVERY emotional and mental button in a short and intense span of time and still leave us wanting more is uniquely UnSchool!

What was the main take away you had from coming to the UnSchool?

The sheer breadth of experiences was inspiring! The careful mentor selection, starting with Jacky’s humorous take on our city’s history contrasted with the quieter tone of Pangrok Sulap punk rock and wood carving artworks; Carolyn’s zero waste initiatives to Welyn’s insights on indigenous knowledge systems and fair trade; Chris Perry’s journey from a fashion professional to edible park designer to Steve’s provocative questions to change the way we see the world and the language we use to express ourselves. Then to tie it all together, the primary venue Borneo Lab in itself was bursting with creative out-of-the-box expression and not to mention EVERY meal with their unique twists.

The underlying trend in all of it... that no matter what field we choose to specialize or contribute toward, we can ALWAYS use it as a tool towards social and environmental justice. This would be my main takeaway.

Tell us more about your initiative(s), and how is it all going?

In the design and construction of eArthshala, there are some key choices we’ve made to minimise our carbon footprint and maximise our positive impact. For example, passive solar design with our climate and weather patterns in mind ensures we’ll have rooms that are naturally lit and ventilated. The use of primary building materials that are renewable such as earthen walls and bamboo for roofing members means that we’ve been able to minimise the use of high-embodied energy construction material like fired bricks, steel and concrete. Other elements of regenerative landscape and sustainable sanitation systems are also being worked out -- all this while prioritizing the skilling of local artisan in building services and construction techniques.

Our work flow took a hit due to the lockdowns imposed at the start of the pandemic, but now that the government is no longer imposing blanket lockdowns, we have been able to bring back our work traction. Certainly the threat of Covid-19 looms, but if all things pan out as per current plans, our first building, the Training Hall should be all set to host you(!) in 2022 --- just in time for what we call hope would be the post-pandemic life!

Other than that, I’m personally dabbling in a few other interests like land-regenerative practices and sustainability education.

How did the UnSchool help you start/evolve it?

The entire journey of UnSchool right from the crowdfunding campaign to the actual experience at Kuching has brought about a new level of confidence in me, that perhaps came about as I began to more formally present my ideas publicly. To add to that, the Fellowship experience in itself is a great example of the power of the tools of systems thinking, sustainability and disruptive design. 

My UnSchool cohort has been especially helpful when I needed to think through (or even calculate) some aspects of my ideation. I suppose a shout out here to some of their works would be apt! Hani’s (@wastelesskch) advocacy and sharing of her triumphs and struggles with zero waste journey is especially inspiring for its brutal honesty and articulation. Lymun and Nisha (@ecocentrictransitions) hosted our Fellowship and were instrumental in getting ALL the minute details together that made it so memorable! Raghu (@govindjr.raghu) is a serial social entrepreneur and will intrigue you with the great lengths that he can go to in following his curiosity.

As my ideas for my current and upcoming initiatives take shape, our Alumni network, tools and mental models from the UnSchool will continue to play a key role in guiding my process of research, inquiry, reflection and solutions.

How have you amplified this change you do in the world?

Shortly after the Fellowship I'd gotten the opportunity to a TEDx Youth Talk titled “Self Expression for Community Transformation'', where I shared my personal journey, doubts and our vision for eArthshala and Bihar.

On the other hand, however, the struggle to motivate immediate family and friends to compost is still very real!

How can people engage with, support, or follow your work?

Happy to make time for those that reach out. You can follow my work at:

Instagram_ Project Potential -- if interested in our social activities

Instagram_ Personal -- if interested in following my personal journey

Wordpress -- for my blog and work portfolio

Hope to cross paths with you soon!

Launching Now: The UnSchool Community App!

The UnSchool Community App is Now Ready For Download!

After months of hard work and some serious challenges overcome, we are overjoyed to announce that our beautiful new UnSchool Community App is ready for you to join! 

Yes, an app — you can go search for it right now in the Google Play or Apple stores to download and start connecting! The first 30 days are on us :)

If you prefer a desktop experience, go to https://community.unschools.co/ on your computer now. No phone needed; it has all the same features as the mobile version.

We are very proud of what the UnSchool Community App has to offer, so keep reading to learn all about what you can expect when you sign up — and feel free to DM us any questions once you get into the app itself. Cheers to community, connection, and collaboration!

What is the UnSchool Community App?

The UnSchool Community App is a dedicated social connection app designed to inspire and foster collaboration amongst our growing global community of change-makers.

Whether you're just getting started or you’re more advanced along your change-maker journey, grow among a supportive international community filled with professionals and emerging leaders who share a common mission for a more sustainable and positive planet. 

As a bonus, we’ve integrated our online learning school into the app, so you can access any course that you’re enrolled in directly on your device! 

Here’s what you can look forward to (beyond the daily dose of optimism and creative inspiration coming through push notifications):

• Challenges: Monthly themed content + guided activation challenges for everyone.

• Connections: A global community community of changemakers to help you continue upskilling, collaborating and staying motivated.

• Conversations: Pop-in livestream conversations with guests like Leyla Acaroglu, UnSchool team members, alumni, certified Educators and invited guests. 

• Collaborations: Join a challenge team to hone your creative change-making skills.

• Courses: Access all of your UnSchool enrolled courses right inside the app.

• Credentials: Take what you learned and apply for skills validation badges that are blockchain encrypted and easily shareable. 

• FREE Take Action course: Advanced skill-building content to discover the fundamental principles of the Disruptive Design Method. 

• FREE content: Download free tools on systems, sustainability and design. 20% of UnSchool content is always open access — but you get special access to new content via the app.

• FREE month: Sign up now for a monthly subscription and get 30 days free exploration and participation.

• FREE annual bonus: Pay for a year subscription and get two months free (12 months for the price of 10!).

What inspired the UnSchool Community App?

Aside from the world being much more mobile these days, we are always looking for new ways to activate our growing global community of creative change-makers.

We wanted to make a destination for positive and proactive conversations, collaborations and connections for all the passionate systems-thinking change-makers like you.

We built in private rooms as well, for alumni and those of you who are on certification tracks. Online learning is GREAT, but one thing we always hear is how people miss the engagement and connection with others. So we wanted to build a space for live humans to talk to live humans as they go through the coursework or just life.

Get access to all your enrolled UnSchool Online classes, the community engagement feed, and an activation hub for monthly challenges and content!

How much does it cost?

The first 30 days are free to test drive the app, meet all the other people who have joined, participate in the challenges and conversations, and access all your courses that you’ve enrolled in.

We charge a subscription fee to help us make more change possible, to cover the creation and management costs of our community features and to ensure we can continue to build our offerings and open access programs.

We give away 20% of our content for free, so having a fee for things we offer helps others who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford the cost to access these resources.

When you pay for anything at the UnSchool, a portion of that goes to supporting the scholarships we give away. We are entirely self-funded (and proud of it!) so it is our community that helps us to decouple education from economics.

If you are unable to afford the subscription, we offer a limited number of needs-based scholarships on a discretionary basis. You can apply online here:

ARE YOU A TRACKER OR ALUMNI?

All existing Certification trackers and enrolled Masterclass participants get free access throughout their enrollment. If you don’t see the Alumni or Tracker groups when you get the app, send us an email at programs@unschools.co and we’ll get it sorted out for you.

Here are 3 reasons to start your 30-day SUBSCRIPTION today: 

1. Exclusive monthly challenges: Articles, activities, prompts, challenges, downloads and links focused on a new critical skill and knowledge area each month. The Activation Hub is your one-stop-shop for bite-sized content to help you make positive change. 

2. Social Feeds and Community Groups: Connect with like-minded people to collaborate, share, support, connect, vibe and get more positive stuff done! Don’t get bogged down in the negative mainstream social media, find your community of people who care deeply about designing a sustainable future and take action in creative, contemporary ways.

3. UnSchool course access: Be free of your laptop! Use the same email as your UnSchool Online account to access all your enrolled courses — a great way to listen to course material while out and about. Bonus: all new app signups get enrolled in a free Monthly Activation challenge!

Activate yourself to be a force for positive change by bringing knowledge, connection and motivation into your daily routine. The community will help keep you moving forward, making positive social and environmental change no matter what the world throws at us. See you there!

8 Creative Change-Maker Skills You Learn at The UnSchool

We know people like you want to help change the world. What a relief it is to know that you're not alone! The UnSchool was created for people just like you, and you can get involved by joining our blossoming community of creative change-makers from around the world who all agree that we can design a better future.  

The UnSchool’s community is made up of creative rebels, problem solvers, and activated change-makers from all walks of life. They are deeply passionate about making positive change — a  crew of people wanting to get busy unf*cking the multitude of social and environmental problems around us. Pandemic or not. 

For the last six years, we have taught thousands of people how to make positive change. We know that it’s not one person’s responsibility to save the world, but that every single one of us can change it for the better.

The suite of practical tools we share through our online courses and workshops are perfectly tuned to help you take action. 

Systems mapping at an UnSchool workshop

Just wanting to be a part of change is not always enough to evoke action. We have to contend with our brain biases that thwart our efforts (Netflix and chill overload, anyone?), even among the most committed of us. 

Making impactful, tangible change takes a specific mindset and toolset that helps hack these brain biases. Offering an applied knowledge set that anyone can use, the tools that we share at The UnSchool help you unravel complex interconnected problems and design positively disruptive interventions that leverage change. 

When you take an UnSchool offering, you can expect transformative learning that enhances your reflective, critical, and systems thinking perspectives as powerful tools required to participate in changing the world.  

We draw upon an existing knowledge bank to transfer skills to you via our Masterclasses, Online Courses or live online Workshops.

Here’s an overview of the 8 key skills you’ll gain and why they’re so crucial for any creative change-maker’s toolkit:

1. Problem Framing

Here at The UnSchool, we love love love problems and all of the brain-stretching fun that comes along with understanding what makes them tick. We’ll teach you how to love them as well (and encourage you to sleep and eat your veggies to help that brain stretching!).

You’ll learn how to write problem statements and frame your change initiatives as creative quests so you can quickly get to the heart of what it is you’re seeking to change.

Great classes that will help you gain this right now are Make Change, Research Strategies and Project Activation and Amplification.  

2. Systems Thinking

A core component of the three pillars of our philosophy (systems, sustainability and design), is the power of systems thinking. It is unmatched in creative change-making and a fundamental part of any good practice.

Everything is interconnected, and in order to leverage creativity while making change — actually, in order to do just about anything — one needs to know how to see, identify, interact with and think in systems. 

Take our very popular Systems Thinking course or get started with our Introduction to Systems Mapping. More advanced players can take our Systems Intervention course. 

3. Systems Mapping

When it comes to making change, knowledge without application isn’t very useful. So while thinking in systems is a great start, applying a systems mindset to designing interventions is where the real magic lies.

To help you put your systems thinking knowledge to work, we’ll teach you how to map systems via various tools like cluster maps and interconnected circles maps (and later, how to design sustainable interventions based on the insight you glean from those maps!). 

Get started with Introduction to Systems Mapping, or read our e-books Design Systems Change or Circular Systems Design. 

4. Life Cycle Thinking 

Similar to systems thinking, you’ll uncover the secret lives of everyday things when you begin viewing them from a life cycle perspective.

We’ll show you how to easily map the production flow and material impact of anything created, as well as show you how to access life cycle data to give you the skills to do quick, paper-based life cycle explorations for comparing products and services. 

We cover this in detail in our Sustainability in Business 101 course and in our Introduction to Life Cycle Thinking course. 

5. Theory of Change

A Theory of Change is an approach to setting actions to get outcomes that you can map. You could say it is a description, or illustration, of the approach you would take to enact change, and it can be done both for an actual intervention or for an entire philosophy on how change happens. 

We will show you how to reverse engineer your change objective by using the theory of change methodology. This is an incredible way to not only lay the pathway for change but also develop a benchmark for measuring change initiatives in the future.

Jump into the wonderful world of making change with our Make Change course, or level up your change initiatives with our Project Activation and Application course. 

6. Circular Design

We are all consumers in the current linear economy, but as we transition to one that massively reduces waste and instead promotes a variety of reuse approaches, we will each become shareholders in the delivery and cycling of goods and services throughout the economy.

The Circular Economy requires a redesign of nearly everything, so we’ll equip you with all the circular design (and redesign) tools and strategies you need to be apart of this global transformation.

Get reading with our Circular Systems Design e-book, download our FREE open-source Circular Redesign Toolkit or take our Introduction to Circular Economy Class to advance your capacity in this important skill. 

7. Gamification Design

Gamification is the use of game mechanics in non-gaming environments, and it has become the hot tool for user experience design. It is a technique of dissecting and exploring the mechanics that motivate action in non-gaming environments — and it can truly be a ‘game changer’ when it comes to making creative change (say that 3x fast!)

You will learn all about the mechanics of gamification, the different ways you can apply it to effecting change and the fascinating world of human behavioral motivators.

We have a course in Gamification and Game Theory that covers everything you need to know! If you are already into gamification, then take our Cognitive Science and Bias course to learn more about the behavioral patterns around this. 

8. Activation Planning

Pulling it all together, your activation plan is the last step before you launch your creative change idea into the world. This helps you feel confident and prepared to do what you set out to do: change the world.

We show you the tactics and practical ways of turning an idea into action and ensuring that it has sustainable, long-lasting impact.

Our Project Activation and Amplification course is the perfect place for you if you want to get your change-making ideas out into the world. We also have a 30-day activation challenge that is perfect for you if you are keen to effect change and want to learn ALL THE TOOLS!

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Many of these tools can be found outlined in our FREE toolkits. You can access them suit of them here >

If you’re ready to make it happen, join us for our first live online Masterclass of 2021, The Disruptive Design Masterclass!

Taught over the course of 1 full month, you will cover one of these toolsets via 2x weekly live sessions with a cohort of like-minded creative change-makers.

Want to know what the experience is like? Check out Alumni Milosz’s experience here. 

Alumni Rocio Rutter: Sustainable Supply Chains & Impact Enterprise

Rocio Rutter is an Industrial Engineer with a Master’s in Supply Chain Management. Born in Peru, she’s lived in Australia as a citizen for the past 12 years.

Rocio Rutter, Images supplied

Rocio recently joined our live online Masterclass in the Disruptive Design Method and Circular Economy. We caught up with her to hear more about her work in sustainable supply chains and how the UnSchool experience has helped her start Bivio, a for-impact enterprise providing circular transformation advisory services.

Can you give us an introduction to yourself and your work?

My life has always been driven by my passions, my family and my purpose of meaningful impact on everything I do.  My passion for problem-solving, connecting nodes and pragmatic action delivery have influenced my career path and work experiences. The last 18 years of working experience have centered around supply chain & operations, working across mining, resources and manufacturing industries in South America, USA, Asia and Australia. Additionally, I have worked with fantastic people whilst performing the role of Senior Manager in Tier 1 consulting firms, advising leaders in the areas of operations strategy, technology integration and program execution as part of Digital & Business Transformation initiatives. 

There was one thing I have always encountered whilst helping organisations transform to deliver a growth and financial performance agenda: change. Specifically, dealing with the complexities of our resistance to it. 

The journey towards a deeper understanding of this social problem is what led me to find the Circular Economy and its principles.

To me, the principles underpinning circular economy were the missing link I always felt existed in an organisation’s transformation journey. This is why my latest career adventure is now as a Founder and CEO of Bivio. We are a for-impact enterprise providing circular transformation advisory services focused and tailored to supply chains & operations and their challenges/objectives. 

Launching Bivio Consulting business

What motivates you to do the work that you do?

As mentioned before, my career has been driven by the purpose of meaningful impact on everything I do. The human race faces a significant challenge in stopping our current economic & growth trajectory at the expense of irreversibly damaging our planet and its diverse ecosystems within. Changing it into a regenerative and restorative model to secure our future is now critical.  The work we do is centered on helping the arms and legs of today’s economy (supply chains), and to transform their thinking and business models so we come closer to delivering on this challenge.

Facilitating a supply chain leaders workshop on the topic of Building Supply Chain Resilience (photo ASCI)

How did you find out about the UnSchool, and what motivated you to come?

Upon building a fantastic network of like-minded circular economy practitioners in Australia, someone within the network recommended the program as a fantastic approach and method to pick up systems thinking capability whilst learning from the fantastic Leyla and a group of innovators taking the course with me. 

What was your experience at the UnSchool like?

Two words. Positively overwhelming. I really enjoyed Leyla’s style to unload the significant amount of information and knowledge she has across the 10 sessions we held and tapping into adjacent topics to the methodology itself (like cognitive bias, gamification, etc). For people like me who like diversity over density, it was the perfect model. Upon concluding the course, I am now deep diving on the areas of higher interest starting with the great baseline given by the program.

What was the main take away you had from coming to the UnSchool?

To discover my own agency for meaningful change. Circular economy as a topic is so large and complex that sometimes it was hard to see how I could make a difference. Leyla has given us the perfect trajectory and tools to put ideas into action.

Tell us more about your initiative(s), and how is it all going?

Since starting my company, I have established great partnerships with digital companies, sustainability agencies and climate action innovators. We are working on integrating their technologies as accelerators of circular business model adoptions and to bridge the gaps delaying progress today. At the same time, I am currently helping local councils on their circular procurement transformation and SME companies on defining a growth roadmap, using circular principles as levers. Finally, I have ventured into writing articles and educational content for supply chain leaders to help address misguided mental models around circularity and the role it plays in operational efficiency. Our objective is to call-out to operational leaders and help them realise they need to be at the driver's seat of this transformation.

Our first public webinar on Circular Economy for Supply Chains

How did the UnSchool help you start/evolve it?

The UnSchool Program was a great process for me to map out the problem I wanted to resolve and the system it was a part of. It was a very practical way to learn systems thinking and how to apply it to the problem I was trying to solve through my business. The knowledge and insights I have gained as a result of the program are invaluable in work and life.

How have you amplified this change you do in the world?

Besides the tailored services we provide to supply chains and organisations, we have an impact plan including three areas:

• Foster awareness and circular understanding amongst SC and operation leaders - through the release of practical, knowledge-based articles and panel-focused webinars. 

• Starting the Circular Supply Chains Innovation Hub (enabled by a digital platform) - gathering SC leaders to map different value chain systems and tiers, identify industrial symbiosis opportunities, foster learning and innovation solutions for complex & systemic problems.

• Starting a supply chain pay-it-forward initiative to bring back the circular part of the chain.

How can people engage with, support, or follow your work?

Our company website is www.bivio.com.au

We will also publish all of our work and progress on Linkedin and on Medium.

Any other thoughts you want to share?

We believe that circular transformation is not about the destination but the journey. Every step we take, no matter how big or small, will help us restore and regenerate our natural systems. 

Our theory of change is that by caring about the impact footprint of what we do and who we do it with, we can focus on what matters, addressing organisational alignment and collaboration for supply chain visibility & product innovation.

This way companies will thrive through:

• An engaging positive business impact, attracting the right talent and fostering innovation.

• A changed partnership dialogue, incubating collaboration for complex problem resolution.

• A clear business “lighthouse” for meaningful & accountable digital technologies & platform investment.

Free E-book: Six Steps to Activating Sustainability in Business

To celebrate the launch of our new Sustainability in Business online learning series, we have created a free E-Book that offers six clear steps to activating sustainability in your business.

Designed to offer an engaging, inspiring and motivating snapshot of why and how to get started with Sustainability in Business, it covers how workplaces can adapt to climate change, transform toward the circular economy, and begin to invest in ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) as core motivators for starting this journey.

Once you have explored the drivers for making change, you will find three areas you can take action in:

OPERATIONS
This includes the energy, water, waste and procurement that the company consumes and produces in order to do business.

PRODUCTS
Whatever is produced by the company as part of their offering into the economy has significant supply chain and natural resource impacts that should be considered in relation to full life product stewardship. 

EXPERIENCES / SERVICES
This entails the culture and services that the organization creates and fosters both with customers and with employees.

Download the free E-book today to find out more and get started on your Sustainability in Business transformation!

What is Disruptive Design?

By Leyla Acaroglu

Disruption was asked to be banished in 2012, 2014, and 2015, yet it still is a hot, overused ‘buzzword.’ Just like many aspirational terms before it (like sustainability and innovation), popularity leads to overuse, dilution, confusion, and fatigue. Frankly, overuse sucks the meaning right out of a concept until it’s just a shell of an idea held together by ink on a page.

Disruption, like so many overused words, is intensely misunderstood. While conceptually the term means to create an interruption into something that is maintaining a status quo, colloquially it is much more about making loads of money from the newest, most ‘disruptive’ (read: newer) technology out there. It’s toppling old industries through new smart, young, and agile upstarts. In this context, it’s not about making change; it’s about winning customers, clicks, and clients.

To disrupt is to disturb or intervene. The term came to prominence in the late 90s when Clay Christensen, an MIT professor, spoke of it in relation to business activity in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma. For Christensen, his term “disruptive innovation” is the very specific act of challenging a mainstream company by creating a new parallel product that activates previously un-activated elements of the economy; thus, it creates a shift toward the new offering, poaching consumers from the main player over to the newer innovation. It has nothing to do with coolness or edginess, or even social change or sustainability. Disruptive innovation, in this context, simply has to do with new economic activity that challenges the mainstream business establishment.

Christensen has written about how Uber, often referred to as a major disrupter, is indeed not a disruptive innovator. According to his theory, Uber misses the mark because it did not enter a low-end or new foothold market; instead, it launched in San Francisco, a place where taxi rides were already in high demand and its target audience was already accustomed to using taxis. Furthermore, Christensen points out that the term disruptive is being wrongly used to describe innovation that is simply improving upon a good product that already exists - something Uber did masterfully by offering convenience for hailing a cab and paying for it via a smart app.

But, for Christensen, they missed the mark on being disruptive because the initial consumer base did not reject it and wait for its quality to improve in order to drive down market prices; instead, those already using taxis happily thrust Uber to the top of the market. So yes, Uber is transforming the taxi industry, but, according to Christiansen’s framing of disruption, their business model does not follow the basic principles to qualify it as “disruptive.”

The Case for More Disruptive Design

So, where does disruptive design come into play? And can it really be differentiated from disruptive innovation? While the concepts have similarities on face value (such as shared a word that describes change), disruptive design is very different from the concept of disruptive innovation.

Here’s how I frame it:

Design is the act of creating something new — sometimes iterative, sometimes innovative, and in rare cases, revolutionary. Designing is an intentional act of creating a product, service, or system that embodies some degree of change. First and foremost, design has to achieve function (purely aesthetic creative productions are not, in my opinion, design; they are more so in the world of art, which is incredible and valuable and all of the adjectives to describe the power of art and yes there is always a need for more of it in the world). But art can exist without function whereas design can’t, so when we talk about Disruptive Design, we are talking about creating intentionally disruptive creative interventions that are functionally imbued with the objective of challenging the status quo and making positive change.

Design is about creating something that adds to or iterates on the existing, and disruption is about creating a disturbance with the intent of changing a system. When combined, the practice of disruptive design is to create intentional interventions into a pre-existing system with the specific objective to leverage a different outcome, and more importantly, an outcome that is likely to create positive social change.

When combined, the practice of disruptive design is to create intentional interventions into a pre-existing system with the specific objective to leverage a different outcome, and more importantly, an outcome that is likely to create positive social change.

The Disruptive Design Method (DDM) is about activating sustainability principles through creative practice. It employs a series of thinking and doing tools that anyone can implement in a formulated processes of mining, landscaping, and building to develop a three-dimensional perspective to exploring, understanding, and intervening in complex hyper-local to global problems.

Mining: Deep dive into the problem, develop research approaches, explore the elements within: PROBLEM LOVING STAGE.

Landscaping: Identify the main elements in the system and map how they interact, relate and connect: SYSTEMS MAPPING STAGE.

Building: Solutions emerge from the last two stages. Explore options, viability and possibility. Test, prototype, repeat: IDEATION & INTERVENTION STAGE.

I developed the Disruptive Design Method as a way to fill a gap between knowledge and action, to forge a community of practice that facilitates purpose-driven changemakers, to activate systems thinking, to consider sustainability sciences in what we produce and to enhance creative ideation techniques as platforms for actively participating in the world around us. Really, it’s a remedy for the perpetual frustration that many of us experience, as it provides a set of mental and practical tools to help redesign the world so that it works better for all of us.

We live in a hyper-negativity-fueled media landscape where it is increasingly difficult to escape the perception that everything is fucked. But if we all opt into this restrictive mental model, then we are opting into a self-perpetuating future. In fact, the future is not defined; we co-create it as we participate in the construction of what is relevant now. Our immediate actions actually define the future scenario that we will be in, both individually and as a collective whole (there is so much amazing nerdy stuff out there ATM on this from physicists; see here, here and here).

“The best way to predict the future is to design it” — R. Buckminster Fuller

What may be most surprising about Disruptive Design is that it is not limited to designers, engineers, techies, entrepreneurs, or any other profession that’s been unconsciously linked to the word “disrupt.” Anyone can practice the Disruptive Design Method:

Here are the general prerequisites:

• Give a shit about the future of this planet

• Have a burning desire to participate in designing solutions that address hyper-local to global issues that affect humanity and the sustainability of the life-support systems that sustain the planet

• Be open to sharing, exchange, and collaboration

• Be a pioneer who is willing to fail, discover, curiously explore, and change a core part of what they do in the world

• See problems as opportunities

REthinking linear consumption

Our entire economic structure is based on the idea of producers and consumers. Whilst we know it’s a little more complex than this dichotomic bi-structure, there are very specific differences in these two approaches to living in this world. Modern lifestyles are geared toward a massive shift in production to consumption. Consumption is the act of passively absorbing the products of society, whereas a producer is an agent that forms the artifacts and elements that make up the human world. All elements of an ecosystem designed by nature are both producers and consumers.

Humans are the only species that create closed ecosystems, where one is reliant on the dictatorship of the creator. I can imagine you are reading this on a product that is created as a closed ecosystem, designed to create an addictive need for the specific products of the creator.

How does this relate to being a disruptive changemaker? It’s easy; avoid being a passive consumer, activate your agency, and become an active producer. The hard part is that it requires a rewriting of the mental codes we have all become comfortable with and are attached to for convenience and efficiency alike.

Creativity has always been about challenging the status quo. The advent of the industrial revolution came along and really helped shift the role of creativity, industrializing its role in society. When the profession of industrial design was created, it was all about customizing the user experience to overcome the mundanity that mass production had facilitated. Also, companies now needed to find new ways of getting a competitive edge, and creatives started to be the hot commodity in facilitating this need (a trend we are also seeing again on the rise now with the Internet age). Inherently, though, design, in this context, was focused on adding to the aesthetic experiences of the material world and its rapid advancement; it wholeheartedly embraced issues of planned obsolescence and the advent of the throwaway culture (there are troves of old-school reading on this; here are a few great starting points- Vance Packard’s The Waste Makers, Gils Slade’s Made to Break and The Economist’s Planned Obsolescence).

Now we have experience design (in which many jobs are filled by traditionally trained industrial designers), and it’s really about cognitive experience design (Tristan Harris, who used to be a Design Ethicist at Google, writes about this in this article). The issue here is that the designed world is often created to serve the interests of corporations as producers, to activate the latent consumer desires. Creative minds are put to work on creating the financial and neurological dependence of the average human to be addicted to the momentary emotional benefits that consumption has on us. Just take the pure emotional joy that many of us experience the moment we get a new gadget — the bliss that a well-designed UX offers us — and compare it to the pain and frustration that we experience when something does not work according to our expectations. And then as quick as it sets in, it wears off, because — here’s where the money factor comes in — so much of what is produced is designed to break, to be undesirable as quickly as it was desired!

This is where the Disruptive Design Method differs from the rest. It means actively seeking out the production of goods, services, and expenses that challenge and change the status quo so that we have more significant contributions to the narratives of where we want to end up as a species, happening from all sides of the debate. And this means corporations must be willing to experiment and create things that go against the “business-as-usual” model of take, make, use, and dispose. This is where movements like the circular economy, regenerative business, and product-service-system models are so incredibly powerful at reimagining the economic activities that sustain many of our livelihoods, but also have significant costs to the wider social and environmental ecosystems.

Activate your Agency: Learn the Disruptive Design Methodology

The Disruptive Design Methodology is a three-part process of mining, landscaping, and building for problem solving that helps people develop a three-dimensional perspective of the way the world works and provides a unique way of exploring, identifying, and creating tactical interventions that leverage systems change for positive social and environmental outcomes.

Because intervening in the status quo requires a critical and flexible thinking framework (along with a bit of rebellious flare), the Disruptive Design approach initiates change by teaching practitioners to love a problem arena, which essentially is any arena in which you wish to create positive change. Instead of avoiding or ignoring problems, the Disruptive Design method dives right into the sticky center of the issue and then looks at the ways in which complex, dynamically-evolving systems interact in order to find the opportunities for leveraging change through creative interventions.

Once you learn to be a problem lover, you use systems boundaries to define the spaces you wish to explore, and then find connection points perfect for a tactical intervention (which is often not where you would intuitively think, based on your starting knowledge in the problem arena). 

Then, because you have all this new knowledge from mining and landscaping, you can rapidly develop divergent solutions and creative approaches for change that builds on your unique individual sphere of influence, which is the space we can all curate to affect change on the people or things around us. Any problem from community concerns to massive global crises can be explored and evolved through this method; because it’s a thinking and doing practice, it can be adapted and evolved based on the problem. The core pillars of the approach are always systems, sustainability, and design.

Disruptive Design is a way for creatives and non-creatives alike to develop the mental tools to activate positive change by mining through problems, employing a divergent array of research approaches, moving through systems analysis, and then ideating opportunities for systems interventions that amplify positive impact through a given micro or macro problem arena. It enables you to gain an empowered perspective of your role in the world and get the tools to take on a proactive approach to designing change in everyday local environments and socially-motivated practices.

The entire knowledge set equips you to be a more aware and intentional agent for change. You can dive into a comprehensive overview of the Disruptive Design Methodology in this online introductory class, or you can also download this FREE toolkit for creative facilitation using the Disruptive Design Method!

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Alumni Katherine Standefer: Author on Circularity for Medical Implants

Kati Standefer is a writer and teacher with an incredible story to tell. We first met Kati when she joined our Post Disposable workshop in collaboration with KaosPilot in Denmark. When she applied to come to the workshop, she had just started working on her book and was looking for new ways to think about designing circularity into medical implants.

Her own experience with a defibrillator was the catalyst for her work. It led her to trace the whole life cycle, visiting the mines where the raw materials were sourced all the way through to examining what happens at the end of their use. It was a fascinating experience for all of us at the workshop to learn about this category of product and witness Kati’s journey to completing her book (which was published November 10th — check out the New York Times review here) over the last few years.

Read on for more details on her amazing approach and how she completed this monumental project.

Can you give us an introduction to yourself and your work?

I’m a writer based out of New Mexico. For the last eight years, I’ve been working on a book called Lightning Flowers: My Journey To Uncover the Cost of Saving A Life, which (finally!) came out on November 10. The book opens on the night in 2012 when I took three accidental shocks to the heart from my implanted cardiac defibrillator (ICD). I’d had the device implanted in 2009, after I passed out in a parking lot and was diagnosed with a genetic arrhythmia—Long QT Syndrome—that could cause the heart to quiver instead of beat, sometimes leading to cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death. 

Available to order now!

In theory, an ICD goes off when you’re unconscious, resetting the heart so it can beat normally again. But that night in 2012, mine went off while I was awake, because of an error in its settings. To take 2,000 volts to the heart is a searing, otherworldly experience, and in the moments after the shocks stopped, I found a strange question landing in my body: If the device had saved my life, and the metal inside me had come from a conflict minerals area (where women were kept as sex slaves or children were conscripted to work), was it worth it?

This is a 3-D x-ray of my ICD, two functioning lead wires, and one broken lead wire (which drives the narrative of the second half of the book). (Photo credit: The Mayo Clinic Radiology Department, June 2017)

I will never know quite why that question landed in me, but I became obsessed with it. The metal in my body suddenly felt unpredictable and foreign, the mark of my complicity in a long supply chain whose ethical questions had never been teased out in these terms. Over the years that followed, I expanded my inquiry to think about the ecological devastation of mines carved out of an endemic jungle, and the complicated ways even a conservation offset impacts indigenous people.

Conductive interviews with villagers in Ampitambe, Madagascar, outside Ambatovy nickel and cobalt mine. June 2014. Photo credit to my interpreter Olive, whose last name I no longer have.

I visited mines in Madagascar, Rwanda, and South Africa, as well as across the American West. Lightning Flowers is the story of my journey to understand whether other lives were lost to save mine—and whether, in the context of the American healthcare system, I might have been better off without my ICD.

What motivates you to do the work that you do?

As a kid growing up outside Chicago in the 1980s and ‘90s, I watched the few remaining scraps of forest and prairie in my area paved over and filled in. Subdivisions of identical McMansions exploded across the land everywhere I looked. Repeats of the same big box stores filled new strip malls. To me, a girl who loved tangled woods and spans of wetlands, who spoke to trees and animals, the built world was stifling and sad.

We talk about reality as though it exists in opposition to the sensory world. We speak as though growing up requires turning our back on other species, as though the timelines and deadlines and bottom lines of the human world are sacrosanct. We act as though it is reasonable to ignore or even exploit other humans in order to fulfill a company’s profit mandate. The journey I took to write Lightning Flowers helped me hear the voices I’d been trained to forget. It helped me understand that although all beings live by consuming resources, humans have the option of taking resources violently and brutally, or with a consciousness around what it means to receive and an ethic around giving back. Indigenous peoples have long carried knowledge around the latter, while our culture’s view of what is “normal” is much closer to the former.

In the medical portions of the book, readers repeatedly encounter the moments medical practitioners and healthcare bureaucracy fail to see me—and perhaps it is this that has made me so desperate not only to see others who are ignored and dehumanized, but to give these stories voice. Colonization and capitalism are both forms of trained blindness, and writing is one vehicle for puncturing their myths.

At the Mayo Clinic for specialty care, June of 2017. Photo Credit: self.

How did you find out about the UnSchool, and what motivated you to come?

Now this is funny. A few years ago, as an alumni volunteer, I interviewed an applicant for the college I attended. The person I interviewed grew up homeschooled in California and participated in a lot of unconventional learning programs, including a month-long writing class hosted by a program called… the UnSchool. As a writer who prefers teaching in formats outside traditional academia, I thought this would be a dream gig. I looked the organization up online and signed up for their mailing list. 

OR SO I THOUGHT! Instead, I’d signed up for this UnSchool, and before I realized what had happened, I found myself fascinated by the content I was receiving. It was meant to be. The #PostDisposable course in Aarhus, Denmark, appeared in my inbox shortly after I signed up. I felt an immediate resonance. At the time, I’d been writing the book for six years—I’d been to mines across the African continent and talked to countless experts—but I couldn’t figure out what, exactly, I should conclude. My book asked a giant question, and even though I knew it couldn’t be answered neatly, I wanted to be able to gesture more clearly toward some solutions. It seemed like the #PostDisposable program might help me do that.

In a mine shaft at Cooperative COMINYABU in Busoro, Rwanda, where tin, tantalum, and tungsten are extracted as part of a certified conflict-free program. August 2016. Photo credit unknown.

What was your experience at the UnSchool like?

Before I traveled to Denmark, I assumed I would report from inside the course (with the permission of those involved, of course), using the “journey narrative” of traveling to and attending the program as a framing to discuss related ideas in my book. Once I arrived, however, I realized I was receiving something much more subtle. Though I’d spent that spring reading about concepts like the Circular Economy, I didn’t have anyone to talk about them with. Now I was on the sixth floor of Kaospilotsterne, overlooking the red tile roofs of Aarhus with fashion designers and professors from all over the world, for the first time in conversation about design concepts. I came to understand that we could ask more of all designers—that values other than efficiency and cost could be embedded in our products. I was lit up by the quality of the conversations and the way the UnSchool’s specific brainstorming strategies could be used to explode some of the world’s most “wicked” problems. The program made me braver and more confident in my thinking.

What was the main take away you had from coming to the UnSchool?

I was deeply impacted by a writing prompt in which we were asked, “What is the dream and what is the challenge?” Here, for the first time, I allowed myself to give up the idea that I could—myself!—solve the resource issues and American healthcare system snaggles associated with the implanted cardiac defibrillator. Instead, it occurred to me that I could challenge the designers and politicians to achieve particular outcomes--truly believing that if we declared the outcomes non-negotiable and worked our way backward, change would be possible. I’m clear-eyed about the hurdles this thinking faces, and yet if I couldn’t articulate such a vision, who would? Both imagination and a stubborn determination are required for disruptive design, and we so often cut ourselves off before we even begin. 

The paragraphs I penned in the workshop appear, in revised form, in the Epilogue, and that whole chapter is deeply informed by my time in the #PostDisposable program.

Working with the group during the UnSchool workshop in Denmark

How did the UnSchool help you evolve your work?

I knew before the #PostDisposable program that there was a fledgling pacemaker recycling movement. But I hadn’t yet investigated what it looked like. During my UnSchool program—as I became more aware that the ICD was a series of design decisions, and that values were encoded in each design element—I began to wonder more fiercely whether there was a compelling reason the ICD was a single-use object, or whether this aspect of the device was simply the result of our single-use-oriented society, tangled bureaucracy, and a profit motive that drove companies to sell new high-priced technologies to patients (paid for by insurance), while incinerating used devices instead of tackling the challenges of reuse.

 About six months after #PostDisposable, I spent a long morning at brunch in Ann Arbor with the cardiologist Dr. Thomas Crawford of Project My Heart Your Heart, learning about the standardized process they’re developing for cleaning and testing devices that have enough battery life to be useful to other patients. (Pacemakers are at the front of this movement rather than ICDs because they are—to oversimplify a bit—life-sustaining rather than prophylactic in most cases.)  Because of current FDA regulations, used devices can only be implanted abroad, but a series of important studies suggest there’s no increased risk for patients with these recycled devices, other than a need for replacement sooner (due to lower battery levels at implantation). My UnSchool training encouraged me to pursue this line of research, gave me a different set of tools for approaching its possibilities, and empowered me as a writer to push where policy change might make the most difference.

Tell us more about your initiative(s), and how is it all going?

I’m still a bit stunned that the book is finally coming out; it felt like I would never finish this book, and… now it is done. I recently spent a week in the studio recording my own audiobook, and it was such a dream to feel the way all the different pieces came together—that despite how messy it felt over so many years, I have written the book I was trying to write. So far it’s been well-received—Lightning Flowers received a rave, starred Kirkus review in late September, the book was selected by Oprah Magazine as a November 2020 pick for their Reading Room, and I’ve been booked by NPR’s Fresh Air.

All this feels particularly poignant because, as the launch date approached, I was remembering that the real purpose of the book was always to hold space for conversations we wouldn’t otherwise have. In the ecosystem of a culture, it’s the job of a writer to interrogate, reframe, push back—to point to possibilities the rest of us, in our daily grind, might not have the imagination for. I’ve spent eight years asking a giant, unanswerable question with my very body, and now it is time to seed a lot of other people asking that question. We won’t know the real outcome of this book for a while yet, but I am very ready to begin a life in which I work less like a hermit and more as a public intellectual. As climate change and resource issues hit a boiling point, it’s time to take these questions very, very seriously. I hope I can be of use.

Villagers in Nahampoana, Madagascar, affected by QMM ilmenite mine. They reported being kept out of ancestral forests by guards and cameras. June 2014.

How can people engage with, support, or follow your work?

The best way is to order a copy of the book! Lightning Flowers is available anywhere books are sold, although I’ll encourage you to place your order with an independent bookstore. (In this COVID moment, they really need our support.) Folks can follow me on Twitter or Instagram at @girlmakesfire, or check out upcoming events on my website: www.KatherineStandefer.com. I’m seeking to meet with 100 book clubs virtually over the next year; if you’d like to read Lightning Flowers with some friends and zoom me in, please get in touch! (You can listen to me talk about why the book is so relevant right now in this fall media showcase; I’m on at 16:26.) Finally, I’d love to speak to university groups, NGOs, podcasters, or conferences. Lightning Flowers unfolds at the intersection of so many fields—medical technology, healthcare, mining, supply chains, conflict minerals, our cultural relationship to death—and I can’t wait to hold space for conversations that move us, however slightly, toward more equitable, nourishing, and ecologically stable ways of living.

Meeting the lemurs in Madagascar. Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, June 2014. Photo credit unknown.

REVIEWS FOR KATI’S BOOK

“An affecting, crystalline memoir.”
— O Magazine

“Lightning Flowers is both a memoir and a mystery, a riveting debut book by Katherine Standefer. She faces her own heart and the technological device that keeps it beating with the sharp eye of a journalist and the dramatic pacing of a novelist. Following the supply chain from her body to conflict minerals in the Congo, we see how the world is interconnected and interrelated. Standefer is a lyrical writer who has crafted an embodied text, understanding that our survival balances on the cliff edge of our complicity and our compassion.”
—Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion: Essays of Undoing

“A sharp examination of the ways that a heart condition affected the author’s life as well as those of strangers halfway across the world… Packed with emotion and a rare, honest assessment of the value of one’s own life, this debut book is a standout. An intensely personal and brave accounting of a medical battle and the countless hidden costs of health care.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“In her stunning debut, Katherine E. Standefer reveals how a single piece of supposedly lifesaving machinery has forever implicated her in ruinous global supply chains, how entire economies of extraction have come to reside deep within her body. With great clarity and resilience, Lightning Flowers invites us to become intimate with the moral and environmental calculus of our own lives.”
—Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River 

“In Lightning Flowers, Katherine Standefer offers a full accounting of the cost of a single life, and it is nothing short of astonishing. She travels, literally, to both the brink of death and the edge of the world to discover exactly what it means to live. Her courage is palpable, on the page and in life. This book is utterly spectacular.”
—Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises and What We’ve Lost is Nothing

“Lightning Flowers is a quest for an answer to the most basic human question: what is a life worth? For a young American woman, kept alive by a hunk of metal in her chest, the answer is to be found in the African mines that produce titanium, cobalt, nickel... the precious metals used to make our essential microelectronics, including heart defibrillators. No trial in this quest can be avoided: heartbreak and debt, culture shock and corporate empire, medical indifference and poverty, trauma and mortality. There is an alchemy of tender magic and brute force in Standefer's writing; Lightning Flowers transports us into the heart of Africa—and the heart of a woman forced to question our global, racialized economy even as she identifies the raw materials that give her life.”
—Ann Neumann, author of The Good Death

The Diagnostic Toolkit: Part 3 of Decade of Disruption: Future of the Sustainable Workplace in the Age of Covid-19 and Climate Change

When it comes to sustainable transformation, building knowledge is not enough. You need easy-to-use, impact-driven tools that can help you generate tangible outcomes within your organization.

If you’ve been following along with our journal in the past few weeks, you’ll already know about the trends and forces influencing the transition towards sustainability in the workplace, as well as the many micro transformative forces shaping the way business operate and workplaces evolve.

If you’re new here, you may want to start by downloading the full FREE report, Decade of Disruption: Future of the Sustainable Workplace in the Age of Covid-19 and Climate Change,  from which all of these insights have emerged.

So, now that you have wrapped your head around the drivers for change in this decade of disruption, you can use this Diagnostic Toolkit in Part 3 of the report to assess your current sustainability and climate-positive journey.

Once you’ve established your baseline, you can then use this simple tool to help frame the strategy you can employ to embark on or enhance your sustainability journey. 

HERE’S HOW THE TOOLKIT WORKS

1. Respond to 10 quick questions and calculate your score 

2. Use your score to diagnose where you are at currently on your journey 

3. Review your customized action pathway that walks you through what steps to take to generate real sustainable solutions in your workplace

NEXT STEPS

Congratulations! You’re on your way to forging workplace transformation that mitigates the risks of disruptors like Covid-19 and climate change and creates more equitable systems for the triple bottom line of people, profits, and planet. 

So, what’s next for you and your organization? If you’re taking some time to digest all of this and want to network with other like-minded professionals — join us in doing so on LinkedIn >

TAKE A COURSE

Maybe you’re ready to take the next step and fully immerse your business in a sustainable transformation? Sign up for a course in our brand new Sustainability in Business series >

GET THE FREE EBOOK

If you’re somewhere in between and want more information, download our new FREE e-book, Six Steps to Activating Sustainability in Business >

The Drivers of Change: Part 2 of Decade of Disruption: Future of the Sustainable Workplace in the Age of Covid-19 and Climate Change

What exactly makes 2020-2030 “the decade of disruption”? How are climate change and Covid-19 impacting workplace transformation and forcing adaptability to a sustainable future? What do businesses need to do in order to stay ahead of the curve and mitigate risk among this time of great and immediate change? 

These are some of the questions we set out to answer in our groundbreaking report, Decade of Disruption: Future of the Sustainable Workplace in the Age of Covid-19 and Climate Change, written by Leyla Acaroglu and commissioned by Unily, which you can download in full here — it’s totally free! 

Trends are driven by forces for change.  While Part 1 of the report explored the megatrends and the disruptive shifts that will define this decade, there are many micro transformative forces shaping the way businesses operate and workplaces evolve.

Here in Part 2, we show the 12 Drivers of Change identified across three categories: Climate Change and Business Strategy; Workplace Culture and Attitudes; and Technology and Infrastructure.

Based on our trend analysis, we explore how they emerged and what some pioneering organizations are already doing to adapt to these influential forces,  showing how sustainability, climate change, and the circular economy are affecting the workforce in multi-pronged ways.

If you want to join the ranks of these pioneering organizations and start your workplace sustainability journey, then take one of our Sustainability in Business Programs or week-long intensive happening in December. 

Climate Change and Business Strategy

The need to create goods and services that are designed to have a positive effect on the environment, redesign business models that promote sustainability, and set new standards for business operations is critical to the success of organizations in this decade. 

All levels of society are now demanding that companies take care of their impacts in some way. These demands are coming from workers, customers and governments. Every industry is being called to act in different ways, but overwhelming businesses need to, and in many cases already are acting on their social and environmental obligations. 

“At its essence, sustainability means ensuring prosperity and environmental protection without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A sustainable world is one where people can escape poverty and enjoy decent work without harming the earth’s essential ecosystems and resources; where people can stay healthy and get the food and water they need; where everyone can access clean energy that doesn’t contribute to climate change” - Former UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon

All aspects of business activities draw on many complex systems that, in turn, result in multi-level pollution back into the atmosphere and environment. From production and transport emissions in producing goods and delivering them to market, to the daily waste generated in office buildings, these are all contributing factors when we look at “doing work” and the effects this has on the climate crises. 

Climate Positive Change

Driven by the global societal need to decarbonize the economy, organizations will adopt a diverse array of daily practices through to entire business operational transformation to move from carbon negative to carbon positive companies.  

Proactive Leadership

The leaders of the past might have been ok with avoiding or even denying that action on environmental and social issues are important, but the leaders of the present and future are pioneering change within their organizations and reaping the benefits of this action. 

Circular Transformations

Business models go from linear to circular by design. The current linear model of ‘take, make and waste’ is transformed into closed-loop circular product service delivery models that design out waste and design closed-loop material flows. 

Business Model Redesign

Pivots toward mitigating costs due to changing structural, financial and environmental impacts, combined with maximizing new revenue streams and reduced employee and infrastructure costs offer more adaptive, flexible ways of conducting business in the face of change. 

Workplace Culture and Attitudes

Work is a crucial part of our personal and cultural identity, purpose and wellbeing. It is also the lubrication of the economy, but with 77% of greenhouse gas emissions being directly attributed to industrial activities, electricity and transportation in the US, the impact of work on the climate and the wider natural systems we all need to survive is significant and workers are realizing this which in turn is affecting the culture within organizations. 

Office buildings globally alone account for 28% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions from all the heating and cooling, ventilation, lights and equipment needed to go about business and accommodate working humans.  So the places and ways we engage in work are shifting to respond to driving forces around physical infrastructure, modes of getting to work, health and safety concerns along with lifestyle desires of the younger workforce. 

We are seeing challenges to the old hierarchical models where younger workers are demanding ethical frameworks and holding their own employers accountable for their actions. All of these forces are altering the culture within organizations. Workers look for companies that have purpose and that value their employees; similarly, customers seek out companies that are aligned with their values and see workers being treated correctly. Unless organizations are willing to respond to this shift and embrace sustainability in all its forms as a core part of their operational DNA, then they will lose quality staff and suffer customer cynicism. 

Value Aligned

Workers and customers are shifting their values and seeking out organizations that are value-aligned and meet their purpose-filled expectations, greater work-life balance when choosing a job and likeliness to work for a company with a strong sense of purpose and mission. 

Worker Activism

There are increased demands from within the workforce for organisations to be relevant, ethical and aligned with the real-world changes that are occurring, be it responding to Covid-19, social equity or climate change. Employees are setting the agenda rather than the organization, as culture is shifting toward values and ethics being an equal player in profit and innovation. 

Flexible Worklife

The demand for more work-life balance and the coinciding rise of telecommunication technologies with Covid-19 has accelerated the shift to diverse work-life scenarios customized to meet the employees’ and employers’ needs. 

Green Jobs

As the economy changes, so will the types of jobs offered and skills needed by organizations to be competitive. Roles that encompass the skills, knowledge and capabilities to develop and advance a sustainable and resource-efficient world are on the rise, with demand increasing as changes to the workplace and business operations unfold. 

Technology and Infrastructure

There is no doubt that technology is impacting all aspects of society in rapid ways, but the workplace is one area where tech-enabled change is being accelerated. Many executives are planning on redesigning their organizations to make them fit and ready for tomorrow, with many anticipating that technological transformation will continue to be a primary business disruptor (Global Trends 2020) . 

Whilst tech is enabling rapid feedback of data to facilitate real-time changes, such as reduced energy use and behavioral changes, there are still many gaps to fill and questions to be answered from the impacts of AI and the benefits or losses associated with automation. One thing is for sure though: technology is a great enabler of sustainability. The more integrated we make the systems, the more effective organizations can be at adopting the business and cultural changes needed to embrace sustainability. 

Technology is also enabling organizations to literally reconfigure the way they work, being location independent, which in turn, is affecting the size and form of the physical environments that companies design and maintain for their workforce. 

Digital Transformation

The workforce is becoming more mobile. Digital technology and innovation - the internet of things, automation, AI - all have the potential to radically increase efficiency and enable new business models across all sectors. 

Work Less But Better

As technology and science advances, we rapidly uncover new ways of working that provide more productivity through efficiency, which in turn can empower a more effective work-life balance. By working better, but less, we can reduce the impact of many aspects of workplace activities, from the size of offices to worker transport and energy use. 

Living Buildings

Office spaces are adapting in their design, size and infrastructure to incorporate nature and living elements so that work environments are cleaner, more effective and desirable for workers.

Changes to the office environments are being brought about by different forces, from the desire for more work-life balance through to talent retention, but one significant design trend is the health and well-being of the workers inside.

Bringing living things into our built world enables more human-centric spaces that save energy, respect materials and create better working environments that prioritize people and create multifunctional spaces appropriate for multiple uses, such as adapting to social distancing. 

Post Disposable

Adopting circular design strategies and ensuring that the full life of products are created to be sustainable, climate positive and socially beneficial can be achieved through the aspiration of being post disposable. To do so, businesses must ensure that, in all aspects of business, materials are valued and systems are designed to capture and reuse the materials that can’t be maintained.  Check out our free post-disposable activation toolkit.

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While this journal offers a quick summary, the full report goes into way more detail about each of these microforces, as well as offers case studies that show how pioneering organizations are adapting to these drivers of change. 

The Sustainability Status: Part 1 of Decade of Disruption: Future of the Sustainable Workplace in the Age of Covid-19 and Climate Change

Last week, we shared the exciting launch of our groundbreaking report, Decade of Disruption: Future of the Sustainable Workplace in the Age of Covid-19 and Climate Change, written by Leyla Acaroglu and commissioned by Unily.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing highlights from each of the three parts of the report, starting with Part 1, The Sustainability Status. If you’re keen to dive into the full report right now, go ahead and download it in full here — it’s totally free! And, if you are ignited to start your workplace sustainability journey, then take one of our Sustainability in Business Programs or week-long intensive. 

This opening section of the report gives you a 360 degree perspective of the trends and forces influencing the transition towards sustainability in the workplace by exploring the opportunities and actions that are currently emerging as the defining forces shaping the transition to carbon positive and sustainable workplaces.

THE DECADE OF DISRUPTION: 2020-2030

 The last two decades have seen a rise in “green” office strategies that range from assessing the energy, waste and water consumption through to sustainable procurement and behavioral change initiatives, but now we are seeing the elevation of change towards business model transformation for the circular economy. 

This decade was already set up to be one of great change even before the crises of early 2020.  Transformation of both the entire economy and social practices was accelerated by the global pandemic that swept around the world, wreaking havoc on markets, changing business operations, altering people's lives and challenging healthcare systems. The Covid-19 crisis is emerging  entirely new ways of working, living and doing business. But even before this, the foundations for massive change were already being laid out for businesses. Here we explore some of the great disruptions unfolding this decade.

INDUSTRY 4.0 

We are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution. Industry 4.0 is fueled by digital transformation, Artificial Intelligence, robotics and networked communication systems.  Exponential changes in technological development alters the way we manufacture, produce and consume goods and operate within the economy. The interconnection of devices and services so that technology communicates to enable the more efficient and seamless creation of goods, along with the rapid growth in connectivity, is creating entirely new ways of doing things. Offices, factories, cities and homes are getting ‘smarter,’ which when designed well, can lead to significant efficiency and productivity gains.  

“This manufacturing revolution will increase productivity, shift economics, foster industrial growth, and modify the profile of the workforce”.  - Industry 4.0, BCG

The Circular Economy 

In response to the waste and pollution crisis, the Circular Economy calls for a total reconstruction in the way we design, deliver and engage with the goods and services that make up the economy. This involves moving from a linear production process - whereby waste and pollution are built into production systems - to a circular one that allows for new business models, design processes and supply chains that cycles resources through a well-designed closed loop system. Products become services and entire value-chains are redesigned and managed to eliminate losses and increase the value of materials extracted from nature. 

“Adopting circular-economy principles could not only benefit Europe environmentally and socially but could also generate a net economic benefit of €1.8 trillion by 2030”. - EU Circular Economy Action Plan, Mckinsey and Company 

Climate Change

Humans have long had an obsession with tracking the weather. For much of our history, the ability to predict the weather has helped us build, feed and navigate societal development. The current and predicted changes that will occur this decade if we do not curb global greenhouse gas emissions will make reading the weather have an entirely new meaning as we see more freak weather events, longer, hotter summers, increased frequency of catastrophes and rising sea levels impact coastal regions. The degree of impact will depend on the actions taken now, and with nearly all countries in the world ratifying the 2016 Paris Agreement, there is hope that the worst will be avoided and the best brought out in our global community. 

“Ambitious climate action could generate US$26 trillion in economic benefits between now and 2030 and create 65 million jobs by 2030, while avoiding 700,000 premature deaths from air pollution” - New Climate Economy: Commission on the Economy and Climate 

2030 Global Goals

The United Nations has marked the end of this decade as the goalpost year for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a set of 17 global goals that, if achieved, will bring about a sustainable and equitable economy. Many companies are adopting the SDGs as operating guidelines for corporate activity, Despite there still being disconnects between rhetoric and action, there is a strong drive for this decade to be one where global action on sustainable development is made and successes achieved.

“Our analysis shows 72% of companies mentioned the SDGs in their reporting, but only 25% include them in their published business strategy. Furthermore, just 14% include specific SDG targets”. - Welcome to the 2020s: The 'make or break' era of sustainable development, PwC

Global Health Crises

The World Health Organization has long been calling for concern over the threat of  global health pandemics, and the Covid-19 crisis has certainly changed the way we live and work. The long term impacts are unknown, as is the potential for an increase in pandemics in the future. The crisis has drawn many parallels to the needed action in combating climate change, as the response to the Covid-19 reminded many that action to abate the negative impacts of climate change also requires collective action. The connection between the destruction of nature and the increased risk of pandemics has been raised by leading biodiversity experts. There’s a likelihood that the coronavirus pandemic will be followed by even more destructive disease outbreaks if the cause behind the continuous destruction of natural capital does not come to a halt. 

“Many of the root causes of climate change also increase the risk of pandemics. Deforestation, which occurs mostly for agricultural purposes, is the largest cause of habitat loss worldwide. Loss of habitat forces animals to migrate and potentially contact other animals or people and share germs” -Coronavirus and Climate Change, Harvard Medical School

The Green Recovery 

The Covid19 fueled economic crises will be built on a green recovery plan, especially in Europe where the European Union is driving the campaign to build back better. The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, proposed six climate-related actions to shape the recovery post Covid-19 in a call to action for governments to build more resilient, sustainable and inclusive societies. Aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050 and the protection of biodiversity, the green recovery plan outlines: 

1. Monetary recovery packages that deliver new jobs and businesses through a clean and green transition.

2. When taxpayers’ money is being used to rescue businesses, it should be tied to achieving green jobs and sustainable growth.

3. The use of fiscal firepower to drive a shift from the current grey to a green economy, empowering societies and people to be more resilient.

4. Public funds should be used to invest in the future and flow to sustainable sectors and projects that help the environment and the climate by ending fossil fuel subsidies and encouraging polluters to pay for the impacts that they create. 

5. Climate risks and opportunities are to be incorporated into the financial system at large, as well as all aspects of public policy making and infrastructure.

What else is in Part 1?

The rest of Part 1 dives into the megatrends impacting this decade of disruption. Megatrends are massive cultural shifts that unfold in real time, creating identifiable patterns that can be observed and interacted with as they emerge and evolve to affect society at large. 

We identified 8 societal level megatrends that are affecting the ways we work and the types of business models that will be successful in the future, all of which are covered in detail in the full report. The future is changed by our actions today, so these trends are a manifestation of the behaviors, desires, aspirations and actions of those operating in the workforce and business world right now. 

We also share the results of a survey of 2000 UK-based office workers, from graduate entry level jobs through to Senior Manager level, who were surveyed by Censuswide in August 2020. A range of questions relating to the impact of Covid, their perceptions of sustainability and work life changes were presented, and Part 1 captures fascinating insights from select data responses.

Launching Now! Decade of Disruption: Future of the Sustainable Workplace In the Age of Covid-19 and Climate Change — a Report for Unily, by Disrupt Design

By Leyla Acaroglu

When I was invited by Unily, an intranet development company, to research and write a report on the future of sustainability in the workplace, it was just before the global pandemic hit. Within weeks of starting the research, the world ground to a halt, and the positive and negative impacts of the Covid-19 crisis started to form, making for a fascinating time to be working on a futures report! 

Today we launch the resulting report on the forces affecting this disruptive time we are living in: Decade of Disruption: Future of the Sustainable Workplace in the Age of Covid-19 and Climate Change. I explore the macro and micro trends driving change and the impacts of massive disruptions like Covid-19 and climate change on the workplace.

Decade of Disruption: Future of the Sustainable Workplace in the Age of Covid-19 and Climate Change

I am so proud of this work. My small team and I worked solidly for 8 months during the pandemic, exploring the megatrends and emerging micro forces that will define the divers for change this decade, looking at what is already underway in bringing about a sustainable future and how this affects the workplace. From today, you can download the report for free here. 

I hope that all the creative changemakers out there who have been working tirelessly in the last 10+ years to sound the alarms on global environmental crises like climate change and plastic waste pollution can adapt the perspectives and insights explored through this report, written at such a unique time during the throws of the emerging Covid crisis — a time that has brought to the forefront of the world’s attention the need for urgent systems change in order to bring about a sustainable and regenerative future, now.  And business is critical to this transformation. This is why alongside this we have the Sustainability in Business Program series designed to support organizations make the shift to operating in sustainable and circular ways.

The Report 

Transformation of the entire economy and social practices, accelerated by the global pandemic that swept around the world, wreaked havoc on markets, rapidly changed business operations, altered people’s lives and challenged healthcare systems. As a result, the Covid-19 crisis is emerging entirely new ways of working, living and doing business. But before this, the foundations for massive disruption were already being laid out for businesses, with several forces of change playing out, this report explores these and how they will continue to drive change this decade.

Through the report, we highlight a number of case studies of leading organizations who are pioneering change, and we explore in detail 12 emerging drivers propelling a pathway towards sustainability within the workplace, starting with the cultural shifts in how and where we do business and expanding out to the operational foundations of the modern workplace. We explore how they emerged and what pioneering organizations are already doing to adapt to these influential forces, showing how Covid-19, sustainability, climate change, and the Circular Economy are affecting the workforce in multi-pronged ways.

The report is presented in three main sections: a highlight of the six relevant megatrends predicted and already emerging as a major influencer this decade; a detailed exposition of 12 micro forces driving these megatrends and how they relate to the workplace and shifts within business operations; and a diagnostic toolkit for business managers to assess where they are on their sustainability journey, with a detailed set of maps of where to go from here to stay ahead of the pack. Stay tuned for more information about each section, as we will be sharing highlights from each of the three parts over the next three weeks, here in our journal!

Through identifying trends unfurling in real-time, this trend report is designed to support business leaders in the process of adapting to this decade of disruption.  

Covid-19 and climate change are just two of the most obvious forces impacting our way of life. What we will see unfold over this decade is a great amount of collective reliance in our ability to rapidly transform the way we do everything. The demand for change is great, from workers, to customers and business leaders - the trend towards sustainability being an integral part of the modern workplace is emerging from multiple directions.

This trend report is designed to support business leaders in the process of adapting to this decade of disruption. 

Two highlights for me are the identification of the defining drivers which contribute to the megatrends and the micro transformations that will continue to drive change, and the sustainability in business self-assessment tool that helps any organization reflect and assess where they are at and helps lay a pathway for how they can leverage positive change and transform into a sustainable workplace. 

As part of the exploration, 2000 UK based office workers, from graduate entry-level jobs through to Senior Manager level, were surveyed by Censuswide in August 2020. A range of questions relating to the impact of Covid, their perceptions of sustainability and work-life changes were presented and selected data responses are shown throughout the report. It was found that there is a rising concern among workers around the impact of the companies that they are working for with 72% of respondents being concerned about environmental ethics, 83% feel that their companies aren’t doing enough and 63% want more green skills to strengthen their workforce value.

Activate + Design the Future of Your Workplace Now

Sustainability is about ensuring that decisions made today don't impede the ability for future generations to have the same, if not better quality of life as we do today, and in the context of work, it's about ensuring that workers, workplaces and business structures are ethical, equitable and economically viable.  Every organization will be at a different stage.

As the case studies throughout the report show, there are many ways to engage with sustainability and multiple opportunities to lead through these complex times. The most important thing is getting started,  and this report will support you in gaining the insights and advantages of establishing a journey towards a sustainable workplace.  

Get Our New FREE Facilitation & Creative Development Toolkit

Positively disruptive communication can be tricky not just to create, but also to engage in. But, with pressing global issues, concerned changemakers need the know-how to navigate discourse and dialogue around things that matter the most. 

This new (totally free!) toolkit, a collaboration by Disrupt Design with support from OxFam Asia’s Lab, is designed to support the creative exploration and development of digital campaigns for activating positive change using the Disruptive Design Method (DDM). 

The 60+ page illustrated toolkit includes a step-by-step guide to facilitating engaging workshops and designing creative campaigns to activate change in the digital space.

Part 1 shares a workshop process through systems thinking and creative ideation using the DDM, and Part 2 provides a set of actions to support designing and developing creative and engaging digital campaigns.

Activating Change 

By running through the content of this toolkit, you will be supported in exploring and developing exciting new opportunities for creating effective engagement campaigns that move people into action. One of the key things in designing effective campaigns that activate change is understanding the issues you are seeking to address, knowing the system it exists within and developing unique and engaging ways of communicating the desired change. This toolkit is designed to help you facilitate getting from issues to ideas to action!

Part 1: Applying the DDM

Many of you are already familiar with the DDM’s approach to problem-solving, one which helps develop a three-dimensional perspective of the way the world works and provides a unique way of exploring, identifying, and creating tactical interventions that leverage systems change for positive social and environmental outcomes. It incorporates research and problem exploration (MINING), systems thinking and modes of interventions (LANDSCAPING), and then ideation and creative development (BUILDING). 

In the context of designing positively disruptive communication, the DDM is effective because it initiates a framework for something that is very innate to us humans: creative problem solving! Many people think that they are not creative, but creativity (the ability to come up with new and unique ideas) is actually a very natural human instinct. People have been creating new and unique things forever, and each day, every one of us creates things to make our lives more effective and enjoyable. We cook, clean, write, draw, tell stories, play — these are all forms of creative expression. This toolkit helps apply the DDM in a way that feels natural and organic, as well as exciting and revelatory. 

Part 2: Creative Campaign Design

After running through the creative process of the DDM In Part 1 and getting a tangible idea that you want to develop into a creative campaign, you will need to prototype and design the final concept.  Prototyping is the technique of turning ideas into a tangible physical concept that you can share with others, get feedback on, and refine your idea into a viable solution. In this section of the toolkit, you will find a quick guide covering design approaches for digital campaign communication design. 

Design is critical to any campaign success, especially in the hyper-visual digital space. Well communicated ideas are what help change the world. The goal here is to design the right approach to engage your intended community with your ideas and provide the right motivation for taking action. Campaign design is about several key factors: tone and style, visuals, layout and language. 

It’s not just what you say; it’s also HOW you say it. 

We communicate in more ways than ever these days: verbally, through body language, social media, text, television, and also through colour, symbology, and the imagery that we choose.

It’s therefore critical to understand, respect and ethically leverage what our cultural understanding is of these subtle and not-so-subtle ways of communicating to our both own and the wider global community while minimizing unintended consequences and miscommunication.

There are now lots of useful tools to help create beautifully-designed digital communication, from social media posts to posters and videos. By following the simple steps laid out in the toolkit, anyone can come up with more beautiful and impactful campaign designs. After running through this campaign design flow, you will have stepped through the design process of exploring and deciding on the aspects of effective communication to your community — setting yourself up for success in conveying important messages in an effective, tangible way that creates positive change.

We hope you enjoy the toolkit and it helps you facilitate and activate more positive change in the world!

Why is this free?

We are committed to helping anyone, anywhere make positive change and give away a minimum of 20% of all our content for free. We have a range of free toolkits and courses you can find online here. We are only able to do this, thanks to the support of our customers and clients who pay for our classes and workshops.

The Growing Demand for More Sustainability in Business

By Leyla Acaroglu

Most people are aware that individual actions have impacts on the planet — both potentially positive or negative — but what is less considered is the impacts that our actions in business have. Many of the global environmental and social issues we face are directly attributed to the economy, and all work, in all its forms, impacts the economy in some way. From producing goods and services through to purchasing products to conduct operations, these are all aspects of the complex global supply and demand cycles that drive up ecological damage or create new markets for more sustainable outcomes. 

Sustainability in business is about integrating an approach to operating a business that meets the needs of your customers and workers without negatively impacting the planet at large into the DNA of your organization. This involves the harmonizing of these three key factors: 

• Considering the social, environmental and economic impacts so that the actions, the decisions and the outcomes of your operations do no harm; 

• Working toward offering back more than you take and contributing not just goods and services to a linear economy, but creating value that is wider than pure economic gains. 

• Understanding where in your operations and experiences (for customers and workers) you need to instigate technical and cultural change so that you continually improve working toward a carbon positive and sustainable business.

In order to achieve this transformation, all agents in the business ecosystem need to be aligned to the opportunity that sustainability offers. Leadership is crucial in this. Demands from workers are driving organizations to take action, but the most effective change happens when leaders lead the change with passion, knowledge and motivation. It's very hard to not align people to a common good when they are exposed to the facts in a way that connects to them and their lives. This is what we are seeing with climate change — people are demanding that their companies take action to show leadership.

We live in a time when the availability of information makes it hard to avoid the realities of our collective environmental and social ills; however, there are many forces of misinformation and anti-science that support a lack of action, or the intentional blocking of progressive change. 

But when you get to the core of it, all humans need nature — we all want our kids to have a positive future. And when you look at it from this perspective, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who would eventually agree that the negative impacts of a rapidly changing climate, ocean plastic waste or air pollution are positive things that we should encourage. All companies impact these areas. They take in resources and pump out pollution in the process; unless a business has assessed and thus understand these impact areas, it will continue to have a negative impact by default.

Business Impact Areas

There are three main activity areas where organizations have impacts and thus present the main opportunity to make change within: 

• Operations — through the energy, water, waste and procurement that the company consumes and produces in order to do business. 

• Products — those that are produced by the company as part of their offering into the economy. These have significant supply chain and natural resources impacts and should be considered in relation to full life product stewardship. 

• Experiential — the services and culture that the organization creates and fosters both with customers and with employees. 

Forces for Change

It’s not just common sense to introduce sustainability into any business; it’s also an increasing demand from key stakeholders, such asthe workforce. They see the issues at play and want to work for companies that align with their values.

The Purpose-Driven Workforce

The changing workforce is demanding meaning and purpose-filled work as we move from Baby Boomers being the biggest generation to Millennials. Studies done by Deloitte and McKinsey show that Gen Z and Millennials are deeply concerned about environmental issues such as climate change, and want to not only work for a company that speaks to these values but also to buy from them as well. Recent studies from Mercer 2018, WBCSD report “Complex disruptions to the Future of Work”, Harvard Business Review, and The Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2019 all demonstrate these trends in play.  

“Employers are responding to workers’—especially Millennials’—demands for better work/life balance with increased telecommuting, flextime and other accommodations. Since 1996, the percentage of organizations offering telecommuting has increased threefold (from 20 to 60 percent), and the percentage offering telecommuting on an ad hoc basis has increased from 45 percent in 2012 to 56 percent in 2016.“ (SHRM 2016) 

The Stakeholder Demand

For many years, sustainability was driven by customers, regulators and sometimes internal leaders. These stakeholders helped early adopters and pioneering organizations be first out of the gate in ensuring that their business operations and profit-building activities don’t negatively affect the planet. So of the most successful examples of this in large companies are InterFace Floor, Patagonia, and Ikea.

But now the drivers for change are coming from less-likely stakeholders, with shareholder activists, corporate governance and CEOs themselves starting to demand higher sustainability performance from their teams, seeing not only the value in a responsible company but also the realistic necessity to take action to curb climate change and ensure that natural resources are protected for future generations.

In early 2020, many things coalesced to show this significant increase in the normalization of sustainability in business. One was Microsoft announcing that they will buy back all the carbon they have ever produced. Another was the CEO of the world’s biggest investment firm, BlackRock, announcing that they would no longer invest in companies that don’t take climate action, and then in mid-2020 came good on this by divesting from several fossil fuel companies.

Even more so, the COVID-19 course has opened up an unlikely opportunity to build back an economy connected to reliance and sustainability, with the European Union, the UK, Canada and many other leading nations committing to creating a green economic recovery plan. This has opened up massive opportunities for organizations to assess and disrupt their own old way of doing business and bring in new leaner, greener and healthier work practices.

Helping you get Sustainability into Business Decision Making

Sustainability can be complex and overwhelming at times. Understanding the difference between the terminology, methods, assessment tools and then deciding what works best for your industry and scenario are all considerations that managers and senior leaders face. 

What is the circular economy and how do we participate in it? What are our operational impacts and how do we assess them? What about being carbon neutral — is that something we need to do now? These are all the kinds of questions that organizations are asking themselves, and google searching the answers isn’t cutting it.

That’s why we have an entire suite of Business Sustainability programs to support the active assessment and transition for any size company, whether you are just beginning to implement sustainability in business or you are working on becoming a carbon-positive organization.

A sample of some of the Business Sustainability online courses available at online.unschools.co

Led by Dr. Leyla Acaroglu, UNEP Champion of the Earth, Designer and Sociologist, her expertise in sustainability and tools for the circular economy allows for a rapid uptake and understanding of the core considerations that anyone working to affect change within an organization needs to know. 

The core topics in our Business Sustainability knowledge category include:

1. Sustainability in context of what it is, is not and how to do it well. Included in this is an overview of all the aspects within, from climate change to recycling and the circular economy, as well as how this affects business and workplaces and the practical actions you can take to eliminate impacts and build a more sustainable business.

2. A clear overview of all the terms and concepts that apply to sustainability, carbon positive workplaces and the circular economy. 

3. Life cycle thinking and understanding the supply chain, along with design and manufacturing of products you make and also consume. This supports base-case assessment, design changes, and also procurement choices. 

4. Material impacts and decisions around business activities, such as waste and energy services. Discover how to use environmental impact assessment in ways that support better decision making and reduce costs. 

5. The theories and approaches to making positive change within your organization. 

6. Understanding the areas of impact that any business must consider and practical approaches to reducing these.

7. Business Ethics and leadership tools for engaging your people in effective, respectful and motivating ways, with action checklists and support in writing environmental policies and reporting. 

8. How to create products and services for the circular economy. 

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JOIN AN INCREDIBLE LIVE ONLINE WORKSHOP IN ACTIVATING SUSTAINABILITY IN YOUR BUSINESS

Sustainability can be complex and overwhelming at times. Understanding the difference between the terminology, methods, assessment tools and then deciding what works best for your industry and scenario are all considerations that managers and senior leaders face.

This program lays out the core thinking and decision-making tools required to advance sustainability and the circular economy within the business environment, led by Dr. Leyla Acaroglu, UNEP Champion of the Earth, Designer and Sociologist.

Her expertise in sustainability and tools for the circular economy allows for a rapid uptake and understanding of the core considerations that anyone working to effect change within an organization needs to know.

Alumni Milosz Falinski: Tech for Good

One of the most rewarding parts of the UnSchool community is the variety of entrepreneurial approaches and creative initiatives that we learn about from the people who join us on programs.

Milosz Falinski joined us for our online Masterclass in the Disruptive Design Method in February earlier this year and shared his work around using tech for good. We caught up with him recently to find out more about his initiatives and the ways that the live online masterclass has helped him further his changemaking career. 

Milosz Falinkski

Can you give us an introduction to yourself and your work?

Thanks for having me! I’m Milosz Falinski, I run Luminous - a startup consultancy through which I work with mission-led tech entrepreneurs on achieving product-market fit. Last year I started Digital for Good, a UK-based volunteering community that connects tech professionals with charities. We have over 400 members and a bunch of active volunteering projects. I started my career out as a designer. 

What motivates you to do the work that you do?

I was always heavily involved with tech startups, and after having my business acquired at 28, I realised just how uninteresting more success and money is. I was also really uncomfortable with where we’re going with technology. For the last year, I’ve been out searching for answers to many of these questions and despite all the negativity and fear surrounding us today, I believe that both business and technology have a key role to play in solving the world's biggest challenges. We just have to rethink how we apply them as the tools that they are to the problems we’re facing. 

Co-organising the volunteer hackathon for LGBT Youth Scotland. Photo by Jane Griffin

How did you find out about the UnSchool, and what motivated you to come?

A friend mentioned the great work that Leyla is doing, and about a year later, I saw the online Disruptive Design Masterclass and just signed up. I saw it as a perfect opportunity to expand my understanding of the innovation process and learn the tools that allow us to steer it to create positive change. 

What was your experience at the UnSchool like?

It was an incredible experience to work alongside and learn from really smart people from very different backgrounds and disciplines, all with a common goal. Leyla made sure that the content was full of value and engaging, and I’ve rewatched it and referred to it many many times since. 

What was the main take away you had from coming to the UnSchool?

I came to the UnSchool pretty confident that I know all I need about the design process and may learn a few tricks, but the Masterclass provided hundreds of insights, big and small, into my process and has shaped how I work with clients and even what my plans are for the future. I developed a much deeper understanding of innovation. Seeing how Leyla and others are applying these tools outside my familiar digital context gave me a fresh outsider perspective on how I work. 

There were also many tools we rarely ever use in the tech world - like systems thinking and life-cycle assessment -  that I started experimenting with, resulting in great success. 

Tell us more about your initiative(s), and how is it all going?

Through Luminous, I am working with mission-led tech companies, basically helping them build the right product or service before they try to scale it. Together, we are shaping their vision and proposition to the point where a key group of customers really loves them. The mission-led element is key to the equation - only authentically-motivated founders are ready to do what it takes to build really great companies.  I’m also lucky to be involved with fascinating and rewarding work with my clients - from redefining vibrancy and belonging post-Covid, through building ecosystems for purpose-driven entrepreneurs, to disrupting the music creation process. The current pandemic has put focus on and accentuated many of the feelings and motivations that were 

My other initiative is Digital for Good, a community through which we connect people in technology with charities, founded at the beginning of last year. Since the beginning of 2020, we have run project cohorts where we form teams of volunteers to work with a specific charity on their top tech-related challenges. Covid had an impact on how we convene and collaborate, as we were primarily an in-person community all about building trust and relationships between tech and charity sectors. We’re still learning how to bring the full weight of that debate over to the digital context. 

Our Digital for Good volunteers ideating with YoungScot on their new chatbot. Photo by Steve Lloyd

How did the UnSchool help you start/evolve it?

Going through the Disruptive Design Masterclass has set in motion processes that expanded my vision for both the community and the consultancy. Gaining the depth of experiential understanding of the disruption process gave me an insight into how I could expand and grow my impact across both and has me set up and excited me for the future I’m building!

How have you amplified this change you do in the world?

I have more questions than answers about this myself! How can I help more entrepreneurs build the right thing and build an impactful sustainable business? How can we impact more charities and help more tech professionals contribute through volunteering? There’s only so much one person can do and I’m constantly mindful of this. I am always looking for ways to partner with and involve more people in my work. 

Getting ready for a joint event with Product Tank. Photo by Andrea Blackie

How can people engage with, support, or follow your work?

You can follow what I’m doing on miloszfalinski.com and our community on digitalforgood.uk. 

Any other thoughts you want to share?

Every year, the world’s smartest and most trusted voices keep saying we live in an unprecedented and scary time. I used to submit to this narrative, but the more people passionate about change I meet, the more of an optimist I become. 

I believe it’s on us, the changemakers, to redefine this narrative around our future, from all the evil and injustice we need to eradicate, towards what we need to build. We live in an exciting time that will see us shaping the future of humanity for better, not for worse.  And we have all the resources and people we need to build a world that works for everyone. 

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If you want to join our next online Masterclass, you can still apply now for the November program. 

Business Sustainability Activation October Training Program

MEET OUR NEW SUSTAINABILITY IN BUSINESS TRAINING PROGRAMS!

For many years we have been working with organizations of all sizes to help them identify and integrate sustainability into their processes, practices and organizational DNA, and now we are excited to share a diverse range of programs dedicated to helping advance and activate sustainability into business processes and structure!

Our new courses range from an introductory level course through to 101, 102 and 103 series of leveling up. They are designed to support organizational change and offer any sized business the tools needed to identify, design and reconfigure into a circular, sustainable and climate positive business. The series will be released over the next few months and to kick off, we have a 1-month live intensive with Dr. Leyla Acaroglu happening in October! This program is the perfect starting point for anyone who wishes to help transform their business at an operational level into one that has conscious and considered impacts. Find out more about the program, who its best suited for and our full series here in this week’s journal.

What IS the live program is all about?

This program is designed for professionals from a variety of backgrounds and industries who want to gain the full-spectrum understanding of sustainability in business operations.

This is an immersive knowledge-building program for managers, HR specialists and business development teams wanting to advance through sustainability.

This week-long immersive is divided up into 3 main live knowledge sessions and activations during the week, offering up a detailed introduction to sustainability in the workplace program.

We designed this workshop for anyone who is interested in understanding how to take action within a business context to introduce sustainable and carbon-positive actions.

The topics covered include:

• Sustainability — what it is, is not and how to do it well. Included in this is an overview of all the aspects, from climate change to recycling and the circular economy to gain a clear overview of all the terms and concepts that apply to sustainability, carbon-positive workplaces and the circular economy

• An overview of business sustainability concepts, current must-haves for engaging with this transformation and case studies of organizations taking action 

• Which forces are influencing sustainability in the workplace and the business risks associated with inaction 

• How sustainability affects business and workplaces, and the practical actions you can take to eliminate impacts and build a more sustainable business

• The trend toward workers demanding sustainability from organizations, along with theories and approaches to making positive change within your organization

• Life cycle thinking and understanding the supply chain; design and manufacturing of products you make and also consume, which supports base-case assessment, design changes, and also procurement choices

• Material impacts and decisions around business activities, such as waste and energy services, as you discover how to use environmental impact assessment in ways that support better decision-making and reduce costs

• How to write an environmental plan/policy, do a self-assessment, take action and create products and services for the circular economy

• Business ethics and leadership tools for engaging your people in effective, respectful and motivating ways, with action checklists and support in writing environmental policies and reporting

If you are an executive, manager, decision-maker, and leader who is working within an organization and are keen to start your sustainability journey, this course will help you get your head around all the policies, procedures, decisions and pitfalls of taking action for a carbon-positive future. 

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“The Disruptive Design workshop far exceeded my expectations. The content has given me a practical way to delve into complex problems, exploring thinking far beyond my normal lines of inquiry, and to surface new areas for intervention and innovative ways of designing those interventions. Everyone who is tackling systems should learn this.”

— Catriona McLagan, New Zealand Senior Policy Advisor, Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

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Why SHOULD YOU take this workshop?

This is a knowledge-building skill development program for people wanting to integrate sustainability decision making into their workplace. 

The content is designed to support the rapid uptake of core concepts, tools and approaches to integrating sustainability into decision making, facilitating the transition toward operating more sustainably, and providing the tools that enable this to happen within your organization. 

This program is specifically focused on understanding the fundamentals of what sustainability is and how it applies to your business and the workplace, along with providing very practical action kits, details on how to write environmental policies and a regulation checker. 

The goal is to provide the framework for you to get started within your organization, no matter what industry you are in or how far along your sustainability journey you already are. Its practical, actionable and easy to digest in a short period of time. 

By the time you have taken this program, we will have launched our brand new Sustainability in Business Series, along with our 12 Steps to Sustainability Challenge, all of which which offer practical roadmaps to organizational change.

Sustainability can be complex and overwhelming at times; understanding the difference between the terminology, methods and assessment tools and then deciding what works best for your industry and scenario are all considerations that managers and senior leaders face. 

The October workshop lays out the core concepts, tools and actions you can take to ensure you are activating a sustainable and ethical approach to doing business. 

Led by Dr. Leyla Acaroglu, UNEP Champion of the Earth, Designer, Sociologist and UnSchool founder, her expertise in sustainability and tools for the circular economy allows for a rapid uptake and understanding of the core considerations that anyone working to affect change within an organization needs to know. 

“Over 200 of the world’s largest firms estimated that climate change would cost them a combined total of nearly US$1 trillion in the case of nonaction. At the same time, there is broad recognition among these same firms that there are significant economic opportunities, provided the right strategies are put in place.”

— The Global Risks Report 2020

A sneak peek at the rest of the series

The Business in Sustainability Program series encompasses many aspects of integrating and transforming organizations to be sustainable and circular. From general operational impacts through to system-wide transformation, each program has been curated to support a different level organizational shift.

September will see the release of our new Sustainability in Business Series, starting off with the Introductory course.

Our introduction course helps you assess where you are and covers the basics to get yourself or team on the same page. We offer a self-assessment tool to see where you are at and identify the next steps, along with sharing inspirational case studies from a variety of industries and the growing trends around the world.

The 101 course focuses on the operational level, covering topics such as audits, inputs and outputs; 102 covers the financial aspects of sustainability in business to make the case for change and upskill in ways to do so; 103 covers the broader systems thinking for carbon and future positive workspaces, looking at the bigger pictures and establishing leadership paths forward. We will also be offering an executive-level course in the future to leverage and build leadership in the sustainability for a business context, as well as an engaging and motivational 12 Step Organizational Challenge.

INTRODUCTION PROGRAM

Basic Training

Kick off your transformation by uncovering the core concepts and approaches to sustainability in business, and be inspired by diverse industry case studies as well as map your action plan:

• Part 1: Sustainability and Circular Economy Transformation in Business 

• Part 2: Case Studies of Sustainability Initiatives in Business

• Part 3: Leadership and Activating Change

Sustainability in Business 101

Operational Training

The 101 program covers all the core aspects of operational impacts, exploring the energy, waste water and procurement aspects of general operations, as well as providing actions for upskilling in life cycle thinking and green supply chain development.

• Part 1: Sustainability and Business Operational Impacts 

• Part 2: Assessing Operational Areas of Impact 

• Part 3: Supply Chains, Carbon Emissions and Life Cycle Thinking

Sustainability in Business 102

Financial Training

The 102 program dives deeper into the economic impacts of sustainability in business, such as the financial risks, opportunities, and strategies for taking on the challenges and leadership roles in this global movement. The world is changing - fast - and positioning yourself and your organization for employability and resilience will be critical for successful and sustainable growth in the years to come.

• Part 1: Materials and Waste Streams

• Part 2: Developing Policies and Procedures

• Part 3: Corporate Governance and Financial Reporting

Sustainability in Business 103

Systems Training

The 103 program looks at the bigger picture and supports decision-making for systems level change within the workplace context. Level up with carbon and future positive initiatives, build leadership skills for internal and external momentum, understand sustainable design strategies and create products and services that fit into the circular economy.

• Part 1: Transitioning to The Circular Economy

• Part 2: Systems Thinking in Business Decision Making

• Part 3: Business Ethics, Integrity and Theory of Change

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Executive Training

The Executive Training Program is an advanced sustainability leadership track that includes deep knowledge on systems wide transformation, adaptation to circular principles and operational impact assessment. Set an example for your employees and your industry in a way that both builds your business, while also establishes the norms for a more positive, regenerative and resilient industry. Get ahead of the curve and be a leader in your space.

Team Challenges

Any individual can take on the challenge for themselves or implicate their colleagues into the challenge for a fun and interactive way to increase their impact and influence. This is a great initiative for HR managers and executives to invite their employees to take part in, incentivizing participation and encouraging everyone to come along for the ride as your organization scales up its efforts toward increasing and meeting sustainability goals.

Looking for custom content?

All our standard courses are fully customizable to your organizational needs. We offer bulk subscription discounts and can develop specific and customized content for your industry, as well as provide motivational live sessions with our lead educator Leyla Acaroglu, or executive coaching and advice services to ensure your company-wide success.

“This masterclass has definitely stretched my brain. My brain does hurt but it was absolutely worth it. My work will be less stressful now that I can sift through my messy brain. Thank you for saying it’s okay to procrastinate and that it helps, and thank you for reminding me that we need to be more compassionate because we need more people to adhere to sustainability in order to make the world better. We just can’t do it alone.”

— Group Sustainability & CSR Executive at The Lux Collective, Evita Fakun

UnSchool Birthday Celebrations and Our Latest Video!

WE ARE 6 YEARS OLD!

Hard to believe that the UnSchool has been around for six whole years! In this short time, we are so elated to have initiated programs all over the world, have supported and connected with thousands of creative changemakers from all walks of life and been at the forefront of positively disrupting the status quo to help design a sustainable and regenerative future for all!

In this week’s journal, we take a look at our programs and accomplishments, reflect on what we have collectively achieved and get excited about what positive mischief we will get up to next.

The first UnSchool Fellowship, in New York City in 2015!

The UnSchool started in New York with our very first Fellowship of 16 brave first-timers who came with us on an experiential learning adventure in the energetic city. Since then, there have been 10 incredible Fellowships, dozens of Masterclasses and workshops both in-person and online, around the world and at the CO Project Farm. We developed and grew our online learning lab, as well as created tons of resources and tools, many for free, to support creative changemakers around the world.

Every few weeks, we feature our incredible alumni in the journal, highlighting the inspiring and adventurous projects they are working on, exploring how the UnSchool has helped them move their initiatives and career forward. We don’t measure our success on activating change based on vanity metrics like social shares or likes, but instead focus on the change that our alumni are making out in the world, taking action and participating in their communities at large. We see conversations changing and communities taking action and feel proud to be a part of this global shift toward sustainability and systems change.

Being a nomadic school means we have been invited to many beautiful and inspiring places around the world, with Fellowships in New York, Mexico City, Melbourne, São Paulo, Berlin, Christchurch, San Francisco, Mumbai, Cape Town and most recently, Kuching! We have videos of all our Fellowships on the website, and we are so happy to release the newest one here!

Explore the UnSchool's Disruptive Design method and approach to experiential education through a mini doco of our 2019 fellowship in Kuching, Malasia with a ...

Throughout the years, we have had participants join us from all around the world, with a strong equity access policy of a minimum of 20% access and free content from our own projects and the ones we are commissioned to do.

So far, we have given away over 250k USD in scholarships to people in over 35 countries around the world. We have an open scholarship form where you can apply anytime, so if you want to join us but need some support, let us know! We also have an extensive free resources section you can access here.

With such a diverse alumni group, we are always looking to expand our language access, and are happy to be able to offer the Change Makers Lab Cards in bilingual Thai and English, the Design Play Cards in Spanish and English, and the Circular Classroom in Swedish, Finnish and English. It’s on our list of things to do to keep adding more translations!

WHAT’S NEXT AT THE UNSCHOOL

Like everyone, we have been rapidly adapting and changing to the post-Covid world. We are every day more grateful that we launched our online learning platform several years ago, with around 60 classes, certifications, games, toolkits, handbooks and other resources for people like you, looking to make change and gain the tools to do so.

We’ve been busy building new offerings that include a very exciting suite of Sustainability in Business programs, both live online (join us in October!) and self-paced (coming soon!!), along with a youth program (ages 12+).

We also somehow found the time to release a cookbook of all your favourite (and more!) UnSchool plant-based meals.

And… we are releasing an UnSchool App!

In other exciting new ventures, we are building an app! We have listened and heard from so many of our alumni about the desire to be able to more easily connect with other UnSchoolers (although you do seem to pop up with collaborations quite often!) and we finally have some time to make it happen.

Watch out in the near future as we beta test an app designed to connect you to each other in a non-social media way, where we can have our own space to share, take on challenges, find each other, and connect in new and exciting ways. We’ve never designed an app before, so it will be a fun and rapidly changing experiment in which we have a great group of beta volunteers to test out and help us refine to be the best experience we can make.

We are also brainstorming ways to stay connected in the time of reduced travel, so watch out for new launches, workshops, collaborations and other ways of continuing the UnSchool adventure. Stay tuned for more info!

OUR BIRTHDAY PRESENT TO YOU!

In celebration of our birthday, we are having a 48-hour flash sale on all things UnSchool!* Use the code BIRTHDAY50 for the next 48 hours to get all things UnSchool half off and celebrate another year of making change with us!

*Subscription products will have the discount applied to the first instalment

UnSchool Youth Activation 4 Week Sustainability and Make Change Sprint

To celebrate our newest online learning challenge, the Youth Activation 4 Week Sustainability and Make Change Sprint, we are sharing some highlights of the content with you in this week’s UnSchool Journal.

Designed for 12-18 year-olds wanting to gain the tools for making positive change in the world around them, the content is all about agency activation, systems thinking, sustainability sciences, cognitive science and ideation. The program is jam-packed with daily activities and brain expanding content perfect for any young changemaker.

Designed as a 4-week sprint, the format has daily content with quizzes at the end of each week to unlock the following week’s content.

Who is the program for?

This program is designed for young people interested in activating themselves to become leaders for social and environmental change. 

We believe young people are critical to designing a positive future, and we also know that much of the mainstream education system doesn't give us tools to dissect the complex systems around us all and then activate our agency in order to effect change. 

Everyone has the capacity to make a positive impact, and we are committed to helping people all over the world uncover and activate their capacity to help design a future that works better than today. 

You will get a lot out of this program if you are: 

• between the ages of 12 and 18 

• have a deep desire to be a positive force on the world around you 

• get frustrated by inaction and want to gain the tools to create change 

• want to understand how the world and the human mind works 

• love to read, learn and think differently (or want to be challenged to develop these skills!)

Parents, if you are keen to support your young changemaker, then this program is for you, too. There are lots of great learning experiences that will support you and your young person to develop tools for effecting positive change. We have made this content easy to digest, without taking away from the complexity of the world. If anything, this toolkit will help anyone discover how to love and appreciate the complex world we live in and to design creative ways of helping make it a better place. 

Overview of the Program

Week 1: Activating Your Agency and Making Change 

Here we explore how you, yes you, can find the power and tools to activate your agency, expand your sphere of influence, develop reflective and critical thinking skills, expand your mindset and be a positive force on the world around you! 

Week 2: Sustainability and Systems Thinking 

From unsustainability to the sustainable development goals, the circular economy and the tools for exploring complex systems in the world around us, this week we will dive deep into the issues and the opportunities for exploring and changing them!

Week 3: Exploring the Human Experience 

Humans can be very weird, which can make it hard to understand, empathize and effect change. So in this week's content, we cover how the human brain works, cognitive biases, social norms and the odd things that affect how we each engage with and ultimately impact the world around us. 

Week 4: Activating Change

Here we explore all the creative ways you can develop projects and initiatives that support positive impacts on the world around you! 

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A Sneak Peek at the Content

Week 1: AGENCY

Let's look at how to activate agency for ourselves and in others by working on identifying and expanding your sphere of influence. The first part of the Design Systems Change Handbook goes into this in great detail, and here is the summary version. 

Agency is the capacity of an individual to take action in a particular environment. For most of our lives, we are taught that we don't have impacts on the world around us. An agentized individual, however, is aware of their influence and the dynamic relationship they have with the world. 

Every action we take or don't take has an impact: the things we buy, the conversations we have, the air we breathe - it all has an impactful relationship with the world.

Your agency is about your capacity to act independently and make free choices. These choices are affected by your worldview and the way you see yourself, formed through your experiences with the world, society in general and the things you chose to learn. 

Social structures and circumstances have a huge impact on one's agency, and the life you are born into can increase or decrease your “given” agency. Many of these social structures and circumstances are out of our control, yet they have a huge impact on our agency. The most critical thing is how you interpret your experiences and what they do to your sense of self. Thankfully, we are also seeing seismic shifts in access to the resources that support individual agency development.

Design science pioneer Buckminster Fuller said, ”Call me trimtab,” (it’s even engraved on his tombstone) because he, like many other changemakers, identified that the smallest part of the system can make the biggest change. A trimtab is a tiny part inside the rudder at the back of a large ship. When the ship’s steering wheel is moved, the tiny trimtab shifts in direction and (re)directs the whole trajectory of the ship. Often, the smallest part of the system can move the biggest parts.

This analogy is important to consider when thinking about your personal sphere of influence and the agency that you have to make change in the world around you. Many people fall into the trap of deflecting responsibility to others or blaming the large obvious parts of the system, deferring change to elements that they have little control over. But it’s often the small inconspicuous parts that have the most power and influence over the system dynamics to affect change. Our job is to identify them and unlock their potential. 

Integrity (especially as we deploy what agency we have and develop) is the backbone of our sense of self. It is about having a moral stand that you can refer to and being “whole” or complete when you come to making decisions. As author C.S. Lewis says, integrity is "doing the right thing, even when no one is looking.”  

Expanding Your Personal Agency 

Developing agency goes hand in hand with developing a firm adherence to a set of values, honesty to yourself and the world around you. Fundamentally, it’s a code of conduct or moral compass that you use to set up your practice and govern your decisions as you grow your sphere of influence in the world. 

Individuals who have a strong sense of personal agency believe events are a result of the actions they take, and they praise or blame themselves and their own abilities. Those who see agency external to themselves will praise or blame external factors. For example, someone with a strong sense of personal agency will credit their study habits for passing a test, whereas someone else may attribute their success to the teacher or the exam. Likewise, if they don’t do well, the person with the stronger sense of personal agency will blame themselves rather than the teacher or exam (Carlson, 2007).  

reference: Carlson, N.R., Buskist, W., Heth, C.D. and Schmaltz, R., 2007. Psychology: the science of behaviour-4th Canadian ed.

Week 2: WHAT IS SYSTEMS THINKING?

Have you ever thought about how you think? Albert Einstein famously said, “We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” Truth-bomb, right? It just makes sense that when we look at solving a problem, we should employ a different level of thinking to avoid the issues that created the problem in the first place!

But what is that level of thinking... and how do you do it? We believe that Systems Thinking is the answer. Systems Thinking is a way of seeing the world as a series of interconnected and interdependent systems rather than lots of independent parts.

But before we go deeper into what systems thinking is, let’s talk about what it isn’t.

What systems are NOT

The main way we are taught to think is linear and often reductionist. We learn to break the world down into manageable chunks and see issues in isolation of their systemic roots. This dominant way of approaching the world is a product of industrialized educational norms – in one way or another, we have learned, through our 15 to 20+ years of mainstream education, and/or through socialization, that the most effective way to solve a problem is to treat the symptoms, not the causes.

Yet, when we look at the world through a systems lens, we see everything is interconnected. Problems are connected to many other elements within dynamic systems. If we just treat one symptom, the flow on effects lead to burden shifting and often unintended consequences.

Not only does systems thinking oppose the mainstream reductionist view; it replaces it with expansionism, the view that everything is part of a larger whole and that the connections between all elements are critical.

Systems are essentially networks made up of nodes or agents that are linked in varied and diverse ways. By using systems thinking, we identify and understand these relationships as part of the exploration of the larger systems at play. Everything is interconnected, every system is made up of many subsystems, and is itself a part of larger systems. Just as we are made up of atoms with molecules and quantum particles, problems are made up of problems within problems!

Every system is like a Matryoshka doll, made up of smaller and smaller parts within a larger whole. Seeing things in this way helps to create a more flexible view of the world and the way it works, and it illuminates opportunities for addressing some of its existing and evolving problem arenas.

The three key systems at play

Although the world is made up of endless large and small interconnected systems, there are three key systems that should be considered: social systems, industrial systems, and ecosystems. These three major systems keep the economy churning along, the world functioning for us humans, and our society operating in order (sort of, anyway!).

Social systems are the intangible rules and structures, created by humans, that create and maintain societal norms, rituals, and behaviors. Industrial systems refers to all of the manufactured material world, created to facilitate human needs (and all of which requires natural resources to be extracted and transformed into stuff). And the last big system, which is arguably the most important one, is the ecosystem. It provides all the natural services (such as clean air, food, fresh water, minerals, and natural resources) needed for the other two systems to exist.

Ultimately, approaching life from a systems perspective is about tackling big, messy real-world problems rather than isolating cause and effect down to a single point. In the latter case, “solutions” are often just band-aids (that may cause unintended consequences) as opposed to real and holistic systemic solutions.

Looking for the links and relationships within the bigger picture helps identify the systemic causes and lends itself to innovative, more holistic ideas and solutions.

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Participants can take the course at their own pace as well as run through it as the 4-week sprint. They get access for six months and can download lots of different activity sheets + The Design Systems Change handbook as well.

Alumni Vanina Howard: Ecopreneurs

Self portrait by Vanina

Vanina joined our San Francisco fellowship in 2017 and recently caught up with Leyla interviewing her for her new podcast series, The Ecopreneur Show.

The podcast episode comes out on Tuesday, Aug 25th, and you can listen to it here.

The UnSchool also recently caught up with Vanina to find out what she has been up to since the 2017 fellowship.

Can you give us an introduction to yourself and your work?

Hey! I’m Vanina. I’m the host of a podcast called The Ecopreneur Show where I have in-depth conversations with entrepreneurs and leaders that are creating real life solutions for a more sustainable future to inspire us to take positive action in our own lives. I also practice sustainable and low-waste living out in Portland, Oregon. 

What motivates you to do the work that you do?

There’s a lot of negative news in the world of sustainability that can make us feel discouraged and unmotivated. My mission is create a positive, actionable, and safe space for people who are passionate about sustainability to be inspired and motivated to take action. 

How did you find out about the UnSchool, and what motivated you to come?

I went to school at California College of the Arts where I majored in fashion design and had a passion for sustainable fashion. I loved listening to TED talks on sustainability when I was working late nights in the studio, and during my junior year, I discovered Leyla Acaroglu’s TED talk, Paper beats plastic? How to rethink environmental folklore. She then became someone I aspired to be like. I even created her Wikipedia page! 

Then came senior year, and right after my fashion show, I was noticed by a well-known designer in San Francisco who wanted to buy my collection. It was the fashion designer’s dream, but it wasn’t mine. 

A year later, I left my position, unsure of what to do next and I then found a book called Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Essentially, it’s all about seeing your life as design and learning to create prototypes for your life. During this time, I also was constantly following The UnSchool’s work and was hoping that at some point they would do a fellowship in my hometown, the San Francisco Bay Area.

I started prototyping various career directions, and a couple months later, I discovered that the UnSchool was doing a fellowship in my hometown! I quickly sent my application. Kept my fingers crossed. And got in. 

The UnSchool San Francisco Fellowship

What was your experience at the UnSchool like?

I mostly remembered my brain hurting so much! It was inspiring to be in a cohort of people from around the world who were much further in their careers than myself.  

Vanina and the other UnSchoolers share a moment

Mentor Antoinette Carroll and Vanina Howard

What was the main take away you had from coming to the UnSchool?

Ship the shit. Send your product or hit that publish button before you think it’s ready. A lot of times we want everything to be perfect. But the best way to get feedback on how you can improve is by releasing it and getting feedback from your audience. Progress over perfection. 

Tell us more about your initiative(s), and how is it all going?

Interview with Chloé Lepeltier, blogger of Conciscous by Chloe. Photo taken by Daniel Montgomery.

The show has been running for  9 months now, and it’s been really incredible to have intimate conversations with experts that I’ve looked up to in sustainability, such as Kathryn Kellog from Going Zero Waste, who is also the ambassador for National Geographic for plastic-free living, Andrew Lacenere from Albatross, and  Emma Rose Cohen from Final. I want to continue growing the platform to be a place to inspire ecopreneurs (entrepreneurs passionate about sustainability) to live their most vibrant and purpose-driven lives. 

Interview with Chloé Lepeltier, blogger of Conciscous by Chloe. Photo taken by Daniel Montgomery

How did the UnSchool help you start/evolve it?

So when I was at the UnSchool, I was prototyping different careers. I was teaching at my school California College of the Arts, working at an art gallery, and trying out  podcasting.

I then remembered sitting in the bus with Leyla and she asked me, “What’s your superpower?” And for me, I realized that my superpower was always being positive. And it has stayed true and has been one my core values as the host of The Ecopreneur Show. 

How have you amplified this change you do in the world?

There’s a lot  going on during the time that I am writing this — there’s the pandemic of COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and we’re in the middle of an election. It is very easy to be discouraged. That’s why I think it’s so important to focus on the things that are within our control and on the positives. 

How can people engage with, support, or follow your work?

You can listen to the show on any of your favorite podcast platforms by typing ‘The Ecopreneur Show’ or the website theecopreneurshow.com. You can connect with me on Instagram @theecopreneurshow. 

Any other thoughts you want to share?

Use your feelings of nerves as a compass that you’re pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and that you’re doing something that you care about. 

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Find out what happened at the UnSchool San FRANCISCO Fellowship, check out the beautiful video of the experience:

Earth Overshoot Day & Your Ecological Footprint

Earth Overshoot Day

Every year the Global Footprint Network marks on the calendar a date that signifies the day we have collectively used up all the resources allocated for that year. It’s called Earth Overshoot Day, and in 2020, it falls on the 22nd of August. This is actually much better than 2019’s date, which was the 29th of July. This shift in a more sustainable direction is mainly due to the economic slow down as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Adapted from Earth Overshoot Day, last year we were a month behind this year.

The Global Footprint Network combines the most reliable data available and forms a set of reasonable assumptions to assess the current resource use of humanity. They look at changes in carbon emissions, harvesting of forest products, food production and fossil fuel demand, along with other factors that have an impact on global biocapacity. The research team concluded that this year, as a result of the global pandemic, there has been a 9.3% reduction in the global Ecological Footprint compared to the same period last year, as reported on the Earth Overshoot Day website.

“The novel coronavirus pandemic has caused humanity’s ecological footprint to contract. However, true sustainability that allows all to thrive on Earth can only be achieved by design, not disaster.” - Earth Overshoot Day

The changes reported by the World Footprint Network as a result of changes to the economy from the Covid-19 pandemic

Your Ecological Footprint

Earth Overshoot Day brings awareness to one of the main issues that sustainability is seeking to address: we collectively consume more than the Earth can provide us with. Everything comes from nature, and the planet provides us with an abundance of resources, from minerals to shelter and food. 

But since the early 1980s, we started to extract and use more resources at a rate faster than the Earth can replenish them each year. This means we are eating into future generations resources and creating a deficit. Thus we need to find creative ways of meeting our human needs, living prosperous lives, but whilst maintaining and respecting the life support systems that sustain life on Earth.

The ecological footprint methodology is a tool that helps individuals, cities, countries, and the entire world understand how big an impact they have on the one planet we all share. The eco footprint method looks at many 'impact categories', which are areas of our daily lives that have impacts on the planet and then provides a calculation of how many earths would be required if everyone lived your lifestyle. So the place you live, the types of things you consume - these all impact the size of your personal ecological footprint.

In part inspired by the ecological footprint concept, last year in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme, we came up with the Anatomy of Action - a set of actions everyone, anywhere, can take to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Using the hand as a memorable reference for the actions we each take in our lives, we can opt to reduce our footprint by making more effective lifestyle choices that reduce the impact of our actions.

Move the date

Each year there is a campaign is to #movethedate for Earth Overshoot Day so we can get back in line with the Earth’s ability to sustain us. The last time this was the case was in the late 1970’s, so we need to collectively move the date back to December 31st, so that we are living within the carrying capacity of the planet.

In honor of Earth Overshoot Day, we challenge you to measure your own ecological footprint and see what kind of present impacts your lifestyle is having on the planet.

From the Earth Overshoot Day website, the lifestyle areas that we can change to help #movethedate

Did you know that currently, we need 1.6 planets to sustain the consumption and lifestyle choices of all the humans alive today!? “From 1961 to 2010, Ecological Footprint accounts indicate that human demand for renewable resources and ecological services increased by nearly 140% “ says a report on our growing ecological footprint.

This is our collective impact, but what is your individual footprint? Click on the image below to do the calculation and see! Then check out the Anatomy of Action to find ways you can reduce your impact and help design a more sustainable future.

Lets take action!

At the UnSchool we are all about agentzing people to help design a future that works better than today, we have classes, handbooks, toolkits, advanced learning tracks and masterclasses all on activating systems change for a sustainable and circular future.

As for the gift, to celebrate Earth Overshoot Day being moved back nearly a month this year, we’re having a 24-hour, 50% off Flash Sale on everything* at UnSchools Online, on this Saturday, 22 August!

Use the code MOVETHEDATE when you checkout, and get 50% off anything in our extensive online learning hub.

Help #MoveTheDate by activating your agency and contributing to making positive change with tools on sustainability, systems thinking, creative problem solving, and more at UnSchools Online!

*for certification tracks this applies to the first month only

Week 65: International Youth Day | Tools for Supporting Young Change Makers

12th August is the day the UN celebrates International Youth Day this year, and what a year to shine a spotlight on all the incredible action young people around the world are taking. This year’s theme is Youth Engagement for Global Action, and over the last year, we have seen so many amazing activations from young people, like the Fridays for Future school strikes led by the incredibly inspiring Greta Thurnberg, as well as the landmark court case Juliana v. United States, which asserted that the impacts of climate change were violating Americans’ federal rights.

So in this week’s journal, we celebrate the highlights of the last 12 months of youth action, and in celebration, we developed a youth activation kit that is on sale for half price for the rest of August!

Friday School Strikes

#FridaysForFuture started in August 2018, by then 15-year-old Greta Thunberg, when she and other young activists sat every school day for three weeks in front of the Swedish parliament protesting the lack of action on the global climate crisis. The now famous youth leader Greta posted what and why she was doing this on social media, and it soon become a viral phenomenon that has grown into a global youth movement.

By mid-2019, young people were striking on Fridays in more than 2,000 towns and cities in over 100 different countries with millions of students joining in. This year, September 25th will be a national day of action whereby hundreds of thousands of young people around the world will strike from school, demanding leaders take action on climate change (with Covid-19 precautions in place).

YOUNG PEOPLE SUE the US Government OVER CLIMATE CHANGE

Since 2015, a group of young Americans fought an inspiring battle against the US government, claiming that their constitutional rights were being neglected if the government did not take action on climate change. Sadly, in January this year, a U.S. federal appeals court threw the case out, causing a major setback to efforts to spur the U.S. government to address the issue.

The pioneering law suit was brought against the government by a group of 12-18 year olds, including Aji Piper, Levi Draheim, Journey Zephier, Jayden Foytlin, Miko Vergun, and Nathan Baring among a total of 21 plaintiffs, all whom were passionate about the planet and not willing to sit by and watch their government continue to ignore the science on climate change.

Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz, who presided over the case, said the following when providing his opinion on the ruling, saying that the young people “have made a compelling case that action is needed… Reluctantly, we conclude that such relief is beyond our constitutional power. Rather, the plaintiffs’ impressive case for redress must be presented to the political branches of government.”

All is not lost as this action has clearly inspired others. After the devastating fires that ravaged Australia in early 2020, a 23-year-old Australian student brought a class-action case against government over climate change. More and more young people are demanding action from their governments and taking action themselves to secure their future against catastrophic environmental issues.

Youth-led Action Networks

There are countless youth-led climate and environmental action networks, educational organisations, not-for-profits and campaigns set up all over the world. Here is a list of just some of the initiatives set up and run by young people:

Alliance for Climate Education

One Up Action

Zero Hour Movement

Youth Climate Leaders

UK Student Climate Network

Sunrise Movement

Indian Youth Climate Network

Future Coalition

Hip Hop Caucas

Youth for Nature

Youth Leaders

Here are some of the youth leaders and their twitter handles all using their voices to forge a pathway towards a sustainable future for all of us:

Nadia Nazar, 17 from USA @nadiabaltimore

Holly Gillibrand, 13 from Scotland @HollyWildChild

Vic Barrett from the USA @vict_barrett

Isra Hirsi, 16 from the USA @israhirsi 

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, 19 from the USA @xiuhtezcatl

Jerome Foster II, 16 from the USA @jeromefosterii

Luisa Neubauer, 23 from Germany @Luisamneubauer

John Paul Jose, 22 from India @johnpauljos

David Wicker, 14 from Italy @davidwicker_hf

Lilly Platt, 9 from the Netherlands @lillyspickup

Leah Namugerwa, 14 from Uganda @NamugerwaLeah

Saoi O’Connor, 16 from Ireland @saoi4climate

Timoci Naulusala, 12 from Fiji #timoci

Shalvi Shakshi, 10, from Fiji

Nakabuye Hilda from Uganda @NakabuyeHildaF

India Logan-Riley from Aotearoa / New Zealand @IndiMiro

Brianna Fruean, 20 from Samoa @Brianna_Fruean

Ridhima Pandey, 12 from India @ridhimapandey7

Marinel Ubaldo from The Philippines @YnelUbaldo

Winnie Asiti from Kenya @Asiti

Ayakha Melithafa, 17 from South Africa @ayakhamelithafa

Xiye Bastida, 17 from Mexico @xiyebastida

Autumn Peltier. 16 from Wiikwemkoong First Nation @StephaniePelti3

Amariyanna Copeny, 13 from the USA @LittleMissFlint

Take Action: our 4-Week Youth Activation Challenge

We have designed a 4-week learning challenge for any young person who wants to take action. With loads of UnSchool content from systems thinking to agency development and creativity, we have packed this program full of exciting and motivating content perfect to get any young mind activated and engaged.

To celebrate International Youth Day, the Program is half price for the rest of this month. Just use the code IYD2020 when signing up

Sign up here >