How to evaluate an EFSD program?

After understanding and learning the process of engaging people in sustainability and also understanding sustainable development itself, we as future practitioners, should be able to design an educational program but also to evaluate its benefits for the social environmental and economical context. The process of bringing about the change for sustainability is a cyclical and continuous process of learning, so the educational programs have to be evaluated and improved on the same context on continuity.
But why should we evaluate educational programs? The department of environment and conservation (NSW) has developed a special guideline on how practitioners could evaluate their own programs and others and also describes the importance of an evaluation process to foster improvements and learning outcomes, it states:

"When you evaluate a program, you can

learn from your experiences and adjust

your program for the future, where needed."

Evaluation also builds clarifications and transparency between practitioners and stakeholders creating trust and ownership from everyone involved in the process.  

The effectiveness of a program depends on three important factors:

1. Impacts
2. Outcomes
3. Outputs

Impact

An impact is an actual or intended change in human development as measured by people’s well-being. An

impact generally captures change in people’s lives. 

Outcome

An outcome is an actual or intended change in development conditions that interventions are seeking to

support. It usually relates to changes in an institution’s ability to work better and fulfil its mandate.

Output

An output is a short-term development result produced by project and non-project activities. It relates to the

completion (rather than the conduct) of activities and is a product and/or service that make achievement of

outcomes possible. 

It also depends if the program has embedded minimum criterias of the Education for Sustainable development steps:

1. Creating a common vision - Envisioning process
2. Critical thinking and reflection
3. Participation in decision making
4. Formation of new partnerships
5. Systemic thinking

And I would also like to add to those factors a really important criteria which will guarantee the long term success of the program: Capacity Building, "the measurement of capacity and specifically the capture of change in capacity are critical to understanding the success of the capacity development process" (UNDP 2008), therefore measuring and analysing the capacity building created by a specific program is essential to evaluate its efficiency and success.
A personal framework will be presented in order to demonstrate our understanding and key ideas about EFSD and also will allow us to create our own vision of a successful educational program.

Now what? Conclusion

Watch Malnutrition, a silent epidemic on PBS. See more from Need To Know.

After all and after watching this video about malnutrition in countries such as Africa, India, Bangladesh and Mexico I came to a conclusion that Environmental awareness and sustainability is something that has to start from within.  We have seen along the years NGOs trying to "instigate" guiltiness around the world in order to make other people who don't suffer from malnutrition (example) to feel responsible for those who does. In my opinion, that method only look at the end result of a problem, in this case poverty. It does not educate individuals in order to empower than to make better decisions in the first place to contribute in a more positive and conscious way to such problems. I always feel overwhelmed when I see videos or documentaries such "A silent epidemic", but is something (unfortunately) that after a while disappears and that is because it might be something really impressive but it is not something that we see in our everyday life. 

Fortunately for me and for a bunch of bright people at Uni, we are having the opportunity to understand the real causes of such a problem and a whole other problems involving the environment, our society and economy. But we have not just been exposed to the results, we have had the chance to see what causes those issues, who are responsible for them and how we can perhaps make a difference to solve those issues.

For the past couple of decades, Education for sustainable development has been playing an important role in the international agenda of organizations such as United nations, IUCN, UNESCO to name a few. Government leaders and private sector recognized the importance of the creation of partnerships in order to bring about the change in countries suffering with poverty, food security, climate change and so forth.

It has been recognized that Education is the only way to raise human beings from being exploited, poverty and inequality.

"While we can draw upon experiences of the

past to solve the problems of today and tomorrow,

the reality is that citizens of the world will

have the task of learning their way towards

sustainability. Education is therefore central

to learning and to a more sustainable future".

(UNESCO, 2012)   

UNESCO and UN in partnership with governments have created important strategic frameworks such as the Decade of Education for Sustainable development in order to promote the vision of a more sustainable and educated community through different forms of education, public awareness and training activities. It highlights the critical role of education and life skills programmes in enabling communities to create sustainable local solutions to problems related to poverty and vulnerability (UNESCO 2012). 
Nowadays, with the advance of technology and Internet, sustainability issues can be easily disseminated through the whole world. Globalization has made great improvement on the way individuals see and relate to global problems. Who could imagine that one day we were be talking about the impacts that our consumerism patterns could make in someone else life living on the other side of the world? Information and education is the most valuable asset that a human being could have on his/her entire life and only through that we can really connect to the problems faced by the humanity.
Through education for sustainable development I was able to really connect myself and understand about the major problems embedded in our society, and not just economical problems but all other social and environmental issues that I wasn't aware of. EFSD helped to develop my ability to create my own process of embedding sustainability into my everyday life. Being able to imagine where I would like the world to be on the next 20 30 or 50 years and at the same time knowing that I can be part of the transformation through being a facilitator or I would say being part of the solution of our next challenges.
Having the opportunity to design this reflective learning journal through a digital platform made me realize the importance of these new revolution of social media to Sustainable development. Having the access of all different websites, videos (you tube), online reports and so forth has shifted the way we learn and also the way we build individuals capacity. I hope that this journey is only the beginning of my learning curve towards sustainability and perhaps it will help me to become a agent of change within my organization, community and environment.

Thanks 

Resources

ARIES. (2005). Framework for Sustainabiity. Sydney: Macquarie University.

ARIES. (2006). Shifiting Towards Sustainability: Six insights into successful organizational change for sustainability. Sydney.

Balch, O. (2011, October 10). Puma's environmental profit and loss – does it live up to the hype? Retrieved from The guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/blog/puma-enviromental-profit-loss-hype?intcmp=239

Baltemus, P. (2003). The concepts and strategies of Sustainability. Taylor & Francis.

Brown, J., & Isaacs, D. (2001, June/July). The World Cafe: Living knowledge through conversations that matter. Systems Thinkers: Building Shared understanding, p. 5.
Department of Environment and Conservation (NSW). (n.d.). Does your project make a difference? A guide to evaluating environmental education projects and programs. Sydney: Department of Environment and Conservation (NSW).

Doppelt, B. (2012, May 18). Business leaders need systemic thinking for sustainability. Retrieved from The guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/blog/business-leaders-systems-thinking-sustainability

Ecoliteracy. (2012, September 24). System thinking: Ecoliteracy. Retrieved from Center for Ecoliteracy: http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/systems-thinking
GreenCom. (n.d.). El Salvador: Making Environmental Issues a National Priority. New York: USAID.

IFC Videos Casts. (2012, April 18). Private Sector Matters for Development: Water. Retrieved from YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2zKD7FI0IO4

Johnson, S. (2010, September 17). Where good ideas come from. Retrieved from YOU TUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NugRZGDbPFU

Lappe, F. M. (n.d.). Ecomind: Changing the way we think, to create the world we want. Philapelphia: Nation Books.

Millenium Development Goals. (2009, June 7). Millenium Development Goals for 2015. Retrieved from YOU TUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v3p2VLTowAA

PUMA. (2011). Clever Little Report: Annual and Sustainability Report. Germany: PUMA.

Stone, M. K., & Barlow, Z. (2012, September 24). Seven Lessons for leaders in systems change: Ecoliteracy. Retrieved from Center for Ecoliteracy: http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/seven-lessons-leaders-systems-change

Story about stuff. (2010, March 17). The Story of Bottled Water. Retrieved from YOU TUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Se12y9hSOM0

TEDtalksDirector. (2012, August 9). How we can eat our landscapes. Retrieved from YOU TUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4KmKoj4RSZw

TEDxMacquarieUniversity. (2012, May 27). Educating and Empowering Women. Retrieved from YOU TUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5zbBgwEj7hI

Tilbury, D., & Wortman, D. (2004). Engaging People in Sustainability. Cambridge: IUCN Publications Services Unit.

UN - Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2001). Indicators for sustainable development: Framework and methodologies. New York: UN.

UN. (2012). Report of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development - Rio de Janeiro. New York: UN.

UN. (2012). The Milllenium Development Report 2012. New York: UN.

UNDP. (2008). Capacity Development: Measuring Capacity. UNDP.

UNDP. (2012). Assesment of development results: evaluation of UNDP contribution Sri Lanka. United States of America: UNDP.

UNESCO. (2006). Capacity building framework. Ethiopia: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

UNESCO. (2012). Shaping the Education of Tomorrow: 2012 UN report of Decade for Sustainable Development. Paris: UNESCO.

VALE. (2012). Vale Sustainability Report 2012. Sao Paulo: VALE.
Whitfield, R., & Hemmati, M. (2003). Sustainable Development Partnerships in the Follow-up to Johannesburg. London: Stakeholder Forum.

WWF Scotland. (2005). Linking Thinking. Aberfeldy: WWF UK.

Good strategies could change the World!

Having a good strategy means having a set of options than just a fixed plan. It works as parameters for programs and action plans, "A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a specific goal. Strategy is all about gaining (or being prepared to gain) a position of advantage over adversaries or best exploiting emerging possibilities" (Wikipedia 2012), strategies are a series of trade-offs between goals and values within changing socio-economic conditions. It most of the times sets goals for a long term plan in order to promote a synergy between all the stakeholders involved in the process of change, strategies promote partnerships, participation and a shared vision created "for the good" of all. Thus, strategies for sustainable development are not always successful, it needs a continuous process of measurement in order to guarantee its success.

A number of strategies have been playing an important role within the international context of implementation of  sustainable development. For instance, United Nations has developed Agenda 21 "to provide the bricks and mortar with which to build a more sustainable future" (Baltemus, 2003), the agenda set a number of principles to guide and help governments across the world to embed sustainability into their country's priorities. The principles are as per below:

1. Social and economic assumptions
2. Conservations and management of resources for development
3. Strengthening the role of major groups 
4. Means of implementation

Agenda 21 principles aim to instigate governments to create new policies and strategies integrating environment and development as a cross-cutting issue into education at all levels. It works as a tool for consolidating ideas and communicating a rationale or vision for activities. The Agenda 21 and The United Nations decade of education for sustainable development are good examples of world wide strategies used by government agencies to coordinate their own efforts and increase effectiveness of their programs.
Since Rio 92 earth Summit, all  countries around the world started to develop their own framework in order to embed education for sustainability into formal and informal education. Some of those frameworks were a response of international pressures from UN and UNESCO and they have also been created in response to specific outcomes required by national sustainability strategies (Tilbury and Cooke 2005).
For the past two decades. education has been put into the center of the discussions about sustainable development. After The Earth summit in 2002, the United nations and UNESCO created the Decade of education for sustainable development promoting a more sustainable world through different forms of education, training and public awareness (UNESCO 2012). To attend the objectives of the DESD, governments created their own strategic framework to foster sustainable development through education and learning to create a society capable of changes towards sustainable development. Different governments developed their framework targeting different areas of sustainability such as conservation, poverty or natural resources.
National Strategic framework sets objectives to be achieved in a long term within a country or state. With the formation of a multi-stakeholder committee states and local councils are able to develop action plans that suits their specific needs in a specific area. The Australian government, back in 2000, developed their National DESD strategy to adequate and incentivize the introduction of sustainability issues into their national education curricula. They started with the creation of programs such as Sustainable schools, where teachers had to introduce sustainability into their agenda and also into their teaching skills. The focus will be on achieving a culture of sustainability in which education for sustainability is reinforced by continuous improvement in the sustainability of campus management (Australian national plan 2009). The national action plan divides its major strategies into 5 core objectives:

1. Demonstrating Australian Government leadership
2. Reorienting education systems to sustainability
3. Fostering sustainability in business and industry
4. Harnessing community spirit to act 

It is clear that the government is creating a guideline of implementation of education for sustainability into all levels of society. Government plays an important leadership role working as an example through the change of its own policies, it also promotes the cultural change within higher education programs to foster sustainability into learning and teaching and also continuous improvement in sustainability on campus management. Creating a partnership with the private sector has also an important part within the National action plan, the objective is to foster capacity building in business and industry to plan for sustainability. Last, the government incentives the harnessing of community spirit with means the emphasis of collaboration with the many diverse providers of education for sustainability to help improve community and practitioners’ access to knowledge and tools. The government also act as a funding agency to many educational programs across Australia in order to promote participation and development of informal education.

Other countries such as Canada has developed a national strategic framework based on education for sustainable development focusing on a strategic vision to support the efforts of education practitioners and the need to empower those responsible for the implementation of that vision.

I think the most important part of the elaboration of an strategy is how and who is going to measure the result and impacts of it. If we take in consideration the private sector, large corporations are developing strategic frameworks to embed sustainability at their core business but at the same time they produce annually reports to measure and improve the impact of their business. Leader companies such as PUMA has been introducing a series of environmental, social and economical practices into their business strategy in order to guarantee their growth in a long term. The same process of conceptualization of a strategic framework could be used as a guideline process to introduce sustainability to an organization:

• Creation of a common vision: providing an overall strategic vision motivates stakeholders to incorporate learning for sustainability into their daily activities. It also provides direction and motivation for coordinated and committed action.
• Participation: Embrace the diversity of learning opportunities.
• Critical thinking: helping to develop a deeper understanding of interests behind the individuals.
• Systemic thinking: Integrative approaches, looking at sustainability issues in a broader, interdisciplinary and more relational way.  

Karl Schutte, who works as a broker for green projects and is a graduated student from MQU, did a presentation about strategies to bring about the change. He talked about five case studies where strategic framework was used in a direct and indirect way in order to bring about the change. The key point was that all 5 case studies had in common education for sustainability being embedded as a driver to change individuals mind set about the problem in context. One of the case studies that caught my attention was "Morro do Diabo" state park in Brazil where a conservation area of the remnant Atlantic forest was threatened by settlement of landless peasant. The ICR (institute for ecological research) which had been working to preserve the area wanted to find a way to accommodate the peasant and at the same time preserve the forest. The challenge was to create a program where ICR would help the homeless peasant to develop and build their capacity about the environmental impacts that their agricultural activities could cause to the forest, so to do that ICR developed an educational program in order to educate the families about conservation and agricultural techniques. The educational program constantly reinforce the c complementary and mutually dependant nature of human interests and human needs. What I really have absorbed from this case study was the power of education to change individual's behaviour and at the same time empower them to make wiser and better decisions towards the environment. It had a short term objective to preserve the forest and accommodate the homeless people but it had exceptional impact on the long term conservation plan with the creation of the largest reforestation corridor in Brazil and also created a auto suficiente community who understands the importance of the nature and its preservation. 

Partnerships for life...

  

"If we get the essence of partnership right we will really make a difference" (IFC 2011). The video above really show us a way to address one of the biggest problems the whole world is facing today and if nothing is done will become even worse in the future. Clean water availability, in many cases, is a "luxury" not available to all of us, according to researchers in this sector, 1 billion people has no access to clean water around the world and that is because different sectors of our society has privilege of the use and access of clean water. Agriculture is the sector which has the highest level water usage in the whole world because its process demand a high use, however if technologies and process are improved and maximized the water usage could drop dramatically and other people around the world would have a fairer access of this so important resource. The reason I am using "water" as an example is because most of this deregulation comes from a non communication between private sector, public sector and the community. The formation of partnership to solve problems like this is seen by UN and UNESCO as the answer for long term results, The earth summit held in South Africa back in 2002 says, "It has been pointed out numerous times that partnerships are but one strategy, one part of the effort of implementing sustainable development, based, everytime on careful analysis of the problems and strategic options at hand". Since Rio+5, United Nations has pointed that the formation of partnerships is essential  to achieve implementation and results of sustainable practices not achievable by governments or private organizations alone.
Partnerships can be found on our everyday life at home with our family, at our workplace and within our community. They are often used with the purpose of solving problems with solutions that are common for all differents parts involved on a certain issue, not different from that definition, partnerships are going to be used as an agreement between one or more partners to work together to achieve common aims.
The United Nations has classified levels of partnership as Type I and Type II.

• Type I is referred to formal government partnerships in order to fulfill agreed commitments, such partnerships can be exemplified with the commitment of every country to eradicate poverty as a matter of urgency. (UNCSD 2012)

• Type II is referred to voluntary partnerships which can be integrated by governments, international organizations or major groups. These partnerships translate political commitments into actions and shared ownership. They can be exemplified with NGO's programs and private sector involvement on social and environmental issues.   

Since the 2002 world summit on sustainable development over 290 Type II partnerships have been formed targeting themes relevant to sustainability, from health to consumption and poverty (IUCN 2004).
Partnership creation is all about the creation of a new level of stakeholders participation in order to break hierarchy levels, power institutions and promote synergy among partners. It also creates a shared vision between the partners facilitating and inspiring them to work together towards sustainability.
During the last convention for sustainable development held in Rio de Janeiro June this year, partnership played an important role during their discussions with great emphasis on a bigger participation of the public sector in order to promote and implement sustainability practices.
"We acknowledge that the implementation of sustainable development will depend on the active engagement of both the public and the private sectors. We recognize that the active participation of the private sector can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, including through the important tool of public-private partnerships" (UNCSD 2012), that important participation is regulated by a framework called United Nations global compact which measures business practices and also work as a guide for the private sector.

The video above was extracted from UNDP.org and represents a grreat example of the commitment and importance of formations of partnerships across the world.
Partnerships made by NGOs and government are usually on times of extremely need or catastrophe where NGOs come to help the country get back to its feet. During one of our workshops we had to study a case from El Salvador where the participation of an NGO was essential for the reconstructions of a country just after the devastation of a civil war held for more than 10 years. The NGO involved in that case was USAID with the support of GreenCom, the program was called "making environmental issues a national priority" because after the war problems with water supply, sanitation and agriculture were major issues in El Salvador. The program was divided into two phases, first phase was called "communication and education" focusing specially to create a capacity building program for teachers from secondary and high school and also to ensure the coverage of environmental issues at the schools. Second phase was called "Community mobilization on water" focusing on raising awareness about water consumption and preservations with local farmers and population. The big lesson learnt from that partnership was the high level of engagement of a multi-level stakeholder in order to achieve immediate and long terms objectives. Multi stakeholders is another tool introduced by the United Nations in 2002 which consists in evolving a range of significant actors in a given area of work, involving partners in a early stage but also be open to others to join.
Though to attach the workshop activity so you can all have an idea of the program.

Where every action counts...

We perhaps have lost faith in each other, or maybe some of us have created this barrier not to see what is happening out there. Thankfully many of us still have the faith and believe that we are capable of bringing about the change and together we can minimize our impact at home and at work. The picture above shows  great initiative from ABC channel trying to reduce their waste by promoting the reuse of  cups at their internal cafeteria. 

The initiative not just reduce their waste generation but also makes us think about all the materials and resources that could possible go into our everyday cup of coffee. Things like that really instigates individuals to start asking question about the product they consume and also about the organizations who provides those products.

“Think globally, act locally.”

Where good ideas come from? Systems thinking

In order to achieve Sustainability individuals, government private sector and community have to start to look at problems as a whole. Breaking problems into pieces just give us simple answers to problems that we make look easier. The video above "where good ideas come from" shows us how powerful a good and innovative idea could be into our complex problems. 

The challenges faced by humanity is no longer a responsibility of just one person one country or one organization. Our actions within our local community has a reflection on other living on the other side of the world. Through my learning journey trying to understand the root causes of our environmental social and economical problems has brought me a special way of looking at small situations and to understand their consequences into our and future generations. At this stage, education is the answer for a huge part of our challenges and certainly will help our future generation to make wiser decisions than we have made. UNESCO (2012) contributes to this affirmation as per following:

"It is becoming clear that the search for sustainability

cannot be limited to classrooms, the corporate

boardroom, a local environmental education centre

or a regional government authority, all operating

in isolation. Instead, learning in the context

of sustainability requires cooperation and synergy

between multiple actors in society and the blending

of formal, non-formal and informal education.

Opportunities for this type of cross-boundary

learning expand with increased permeability between

units, disciplines, generations, cultures, institutions,

sectors and so on".

This story is about ourselves...

Knowing about ourselves might not be a easy task to achieve, it might not take a couple of hours or even a couple of days, but it is the only way to guide us towards sustainability. This video is about rediscovering, putting things in different perspectives, trying to find a reason of our existence or even making a difference. For more information about Chantelle  Baxter and her project in Sierra Leoa, One girl, please visit http://www.onegirl.org.au/.

It is about creating a connection with each other, a connection with nature. As UNESCO (2012) points out, "The values and attitudes we live by affect how we relate to other people and to all our activities in the environment, and so are a major influence on our prospects for achieving a sustainable future".

One of our activities in class was to put in perceptive our own values and then make a comparison with the values from The Earth Charter (http://www.earthcharterinaction.org/content/). The purpose of the activity was to make a cross over with what we really value and the principles of The Earth Charter. By doing that comparison we are able to create a shared and more holistic view about the problems our world is facing and also provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community.The principles are:

"1. Respect and care for the community of life"  

This principle resumes our roles within the society and why we have to work "in it not on it". It is all about interconnection and preservation.

"2. Ecological integrity"

This principle resumes how we see and act upon our natural resources. Conservation and shift of old productions models are key topics.

"3. Social and economic justice"

This principle resumes the individual and organization participation in problems such as poverty and human development. It also gives a good framework for organizations where sustainable development is going to be implemented.

"4. Democracy, non-violence and peace"

The fourth principle resumes the relation between individuals and the government. It proposes that every government has to be accountable and provide transparency in decision making. Highlights the importance of education, it looks at the respect and consideration amongst each other.

I strongly agree that the Earth charter can definitely set a bar to help organizations and individuals make a commitment to the world and to themselves. It can be used as a guide of good practices as well. Taking the Chantelle Baxter as an example. we can see her whole process of values changing or discovering. From a suburban girl from Melbourne into alcohol drugs and clubbing to a person who cares about others, a new spirit of human solidarity. The Earth charter says that "the emergence of a global civil society is creating new opportunities to build a democratic and human world", and that was exactly what she did. Chantelle went to Sierra Leoa trying to find a meaningful life and found people and experience that she really identified with. She created her own "universal responsibility" by help and understanding a completely different community and out of her comfort zone.

The earth charter activity really make me think on what do I really care about? Do I really make an effort to make a difference on others life? Do I really value nature and what It provides? It also makes me think if the organization that I work for really care about long term sustainability, and how could I show them the importance of it? It is a tipping point for me where I need to embed those concepts into my life or I will never be able to be a effective educator.

Two principles really caught my attention and I may show them here and perhaps I will be able to understand them and give some examples on how some individuals or organizations are already making use o them.
1 - Require multinational corporations and international financial organizations to act transparently in the public good, and hold them accountable for the consequences of their activities.
This principle is the new challenge faced by not only large organizations but any Small or medium business where they are held accountable for the consequences of their activities. It not just improve their long term development but it is extremely important for the success and message that their brand communicates to its costumers and stakeholders. Puma again is the firs organization to create a report where their measure in dollar value their impact in the environment and society, this report is a great step and example for other organizations to adequate themselves to the new necessities of the the World.
2 - Empower every human being with the education and resources to secure a sustainable lively hood, and provide social security and safety nets for those who are unable to support themselves.
This is exactly what EFSD is all about, the role of education is to support and empower individuals in order to make them provide for themselves social security and be able to cooperate with nature preservation.

As all the previous tools or steps, clarifying our own values and beliefs is part of the development towards a more sustainable world. Individuals, private sector and the government are more than ever trying to embed such practices into their everyday tasks. There is no one more important than the other, they are all part of the shift in our old way of thinking, consuming and behaving.

Promoting self reflection and values clarification enable us to understand how our backgrounds and experiences have influenced how we think towards the environment and our society. This can be applied either for an individual or for an entire organization. How can an individual work in a community garden if he/she doesn’t believe in community participation? Or if his/her values about people’s diversity don’t match with the ones promoted by the program? Or how can employees, from an organization who doesn’t care about their impacts in the environment and society, are able to develop their own awareness? So first of all the individual and the organization have to organize and map the values that underpin their efforts upon the environment.

On an organization level, one of the major challenges is to implement their policies at the same rate of growth as the company. On the other hand, individuals major challenge is adequate their values and beliefs towards sustainability to a new level where each one of them understand and take ownership of their impacts in a global scale.

Values clarification helps us to clarify our values in order to understand how they are expressed into our society and also underpins our responsibilities as citizens within our society.

Systems thinking: Shifting from the parts to the whole

I believe that the best way to understand systems thinking would be doing a parallel comparison with the construction of our workshop about sustainable development. Let’s start with the definition of systems thinking provided by “the Shaping the new education - UNESCO report 2012”:

“Looking for connections, relationships and interdependencies to see the whole system and recognize it as more than the sum of its parts; and to understand an intervention in one part affects other parts and the entire system”.

The definition above states that we have to shift our linear way of thinking – where we focus on quick fix and short term return – to a Systems perspective that brings thought and behaviour into line with the natural laws of sustainability. When we develop the ability to better understand and manage complex situations within and external to your organization we are able to make long term, successful change for sustainability. Using the definition, our project is based on a community garden where different members of a community are urged to participate and collaborate towards a more sustainable community. The aim of the project is to raise awareness about climate change (related to food waste), food security (shortage on global production and price rises) and also that sense of building partnerships within your local community. So, to solve problems such as climate change and food security, there is no other way but to find a holistic solution for it and underpin all the other hidden problems related to it. Sometimes complex problems need complex solutions and our traditional problem solving techniques analyse and “deconstruct” situations to make it looks simpler than they really are, this means that simple solutions will not fix the root cause of the problem, it might only solve the results temporary but will not impact on a long-term change.

Systems thinking approach aim for a long term solution trying to tackle issues from its root cause and work its way through the impacts of the problem. “Our lesson that nature teaches is that everything in the world is connected to other things” (Ecoliteracy.org), taking the nature as an example, we can come to the conclusion that a system is any collection of things that have some influence together, it is a pretty straight forward concept. However the shift on problem solving technique is one of the biggest challenges of individuals, government and private sector. System thinking is a way to provide meaningful context to achieve sustainability, individuals need to understand that their local actions have a global impact.

So the work shop about community garden does not look at single problems such as food waste on its own, but it does try to identify the ways households dispose their waste, how or if their re-use it and also the consequences of that waste on landfill and climate change. It tries to educate households on why is important for their health and their long term benefit the importance of growing their food locally instead of buying from big supply chains where a lot of other “environmental” costs are added to the produce they buy and consume every day. We also believe the environment awareness is a much bigger topic than it apparently is, it is not just about knowing facts, but is a state of mind, a way of thinking about sustainable development in a holistic way, Sterling on WWF – Linkingthinking report says:

“I am environmentally aware because:

• I am aware of the underlying causes of environmental degradation.

• I am aware of the global effects arising from these causes.

• I recognise my own responsibility for environmental problems.

• I am dimly aware of how we might go about solving these problems”

So if we look at environment awareness conceptualizations I would say that it is a combination of:

1.      Environmental Sensitivity: more than aware, in touch in every way with subtleties and symptoms of surroundings.

2.      Environment Literacy: ability to read the signs and subtle changes.

3.      Environment Contextualization: able to adapt/adjust to conditions and make sense of apply ES, EL and EA in different settings in order to adapt cope and survive.

4.      Environment competency: Sum of total that result in environment awareness.

 System thinking is an important shift of mind set because it gives us a holistic view of the problems the earth is facing. This new way of thinking helps individuals to set their own sustainability plan in order to start that sense of what is really important for them personally and how that plan will impact on the environment as a whole. This process leads us to value clarification which will be discussed on our next post.

Incredible video featuring Pam Warhurst co-founder of Incredible Edible, an initiative in Todmorden, England dedicated to growing food locally by planting on unused land throughout the community.

Strong capacity-building through participation

Nowadays, individuals are manipulated by media, government and organizations to make decisions without even realising. Most of us don’t know or don’t want to know about the problems and challenges the world, as a whole, is facing. With the globalization, my actions attitudes and behaviour will probably affect people in all different parts of the globe. Just think about the shoes or clothes that you wearing just now, where are they made? Where do the raw materials come from? How does it get to stores and them you can buy it? In order for Individuals to full fill their consumerism patterns, it is apparent that not many consumers care about all these questions. “It is just a shirt” they would say, or “why should I care, at least whoever is making it has a job”.

The question is, how could we make these people aware that their choices will make a big impact on someone’s life who they don’t even know? One of the answers is through a development of critical thinking explored on the previous post but another way is to build people’s capacity in order to make wiser decision towards the environment and other individuals. Capacity building is defined as “Human resource development, the process of equipping individuals with the understanding, skills and access to information, knowledge and training that enables them to perform effectively” (Wikipedia, capacity building). Capacity is crucial for individuals at any level of society to carry out functions and achieve their development objectives. It is not just about skills and knowledge but also to relationships, values and attitudes.

Sustainable development is a changing process that requires people to be able to adapt in a changing environment where we live today. So how can we build capacity within individuals and organizations? One of the tools is through participation, and why participation? Because it is the only way individuals can really share their experiences, necessities and knowledge and at the same time being able to act together and build a common capacity as a group and as individuals. Participation engages people and empowers them to participate on the process of decision making and feel part of the change, it gives a sense of importance to participants where everyone can give their insights to develop for example a community garden, a community action plan or even a policy. It would be impossible to roll out any project or plan about sustainability without the participation of the community, organizations and government. However the right level of engagement needs to be implemented for an effective participation. Meaningful participation is not easy to achieve, participants most of the times don’t have the same access to power and influence as others participants, but by putting the decision making process and leadership in the hands of the participants you can break hierarchies and create a more deeper and permanent change within the group and/or organization.

During our workshop some of the tools or methods to create participation were shown to us in order to facilitate our own level of participation within us students and with the lecture. One the really got my attention was “The world Café” which consists in a “informal” meeting style where people can share their knowledge about a critical issues but at the same time create a new common knowledge throughout the collaboration of the group. This kind of meeting are held in a more informal way at cafes or even at places where organization creates the whole café experience in order to promote the natural creation and sharing of knowledge. The process encourages individuals to contribute with their opinions in order to generate consensus knowledge. It works in rounds of conversations with a number of small groups organized in tables where all of them are discussing about the same topic and them after a while some participants travel between tables adding their insights to other tables. This process of sharing and participation creates capacity in its participants, it shares the decision making process, it brakes hierarchies and create that connection between individuals.

Just would like to feature a great work done by one of the sports gear industry leader PUMA who is the first company in the world to create an environmental profit and loss report where they measure the organization’s impact in the environment and society but not only that they put a price on their impact within all levels of their operations. For more info on the report please visit http://safe.puma.com/us/en/2008/11/puma%E2%80%99s-capacity-building-programs/.

This report is a great example of the two topics discussed in this post. The first one is capacity building, where PUMA runs projects in parallel with their suppliers in different parts of the world in order to improve their ability to make improvements within their operations on their own. The second is the level of participation and engagement promoted by PUMA through their whole tier of suppliers, employees, community and costumers embedding sustainability in all levels of its operations.

Is Education the answer?

I would like to start just mentioning once more about the Linkedin discussions that I have mentioned on the last post. I was going through my workshop notes and noticed that we had the same discussions in the workshops as the discussions on linkedin, how cool is that? Seriously, I thought I had learnt so much from the workshops and all of sudden I had completely different views about the same subject.

From our literature we see “education” not just as formal or high education but a new learning approach that build skills that enable change and also emphasises the creation of relationships, collaborative learning. It is a completely shift from old styles of education such as seeing people as problems, teacher behaving as experts not facilitators or even trying to teach people values and attitude other them make them reflect and clarify their own. Considering those assumptions, I had a great example of other forms of education where high and formal education is really inaccessible and hard to achieve, so please read as per below:

“Hello there, here in Africa, people have just started educating girls, so this means some of us (old women) are not highly educated. [I] Am a good Example, I recycle used straws so a to make a living, but this has led me to be recognized both nationally and internationally but  am not highly educated and this is called sustainability”(BENEDICTA, linkedin Jul/12)”

Benedicta believes from her perspective, and she is right, that sustainability and education for sustainability can be achieved through an activity that she created even though she is not “highly” educated. She already understands that paradigm shift from old ways to delivery education, she is aware that theory is meaningless without practical applicability. Not even to mention that she is applying a lot of other key components of ESD such as partnerships (consumer entrepreneurs and the women in Uganda) Participation (even member of the community is part of the production) Critical reflection (ways they could improve their income and at the same time contributing to the environment). If you would like to see more about Benedicta and her community work please visit http://www.strawbags.org.

It is fascinating how people around the globe can and are introducing sustainability practices into their everyday life and don’t even realize. Now looking at the role of education, we see people not so sure about its effectiveness and so some of them don’t believe that the education is the answer. UNESCO says that education might not be the answer for all our problems but it will create new relations among people and it will foster greater respect for the needs of the environment. So educations is a long term answer, a more understand and responsible approaches to the root of problems not to its causes.

Some people believe that educations shouldn’t be “FOR” something, it might sound an oxymoron (ie. No development is ecologically sustainable) and have a very anthropocentric-economic position in order to perpetuate the status quo (ie "accelerated economic development" UN, 1992 etc). Learning should be based on a “Sustainable education” where people really get to connect with nature, community practices and have a deep understand of ecological principles. New research is coming out exploring the question of "what actually changes people's behaviours and values towards the environment" and the vast majority of answers are that "time spent in 'wild' nature" (e.g. woods, rivers, ponds, nature) and "time spent in 'domesticated' nature" (e.g. gardens, parks, backyards) makes the biggest difference - way more than formal "environmental education."

How deep do we need to go?

I know it has been a while since my last post…and yes I know there is so much to cover that I don’t really know where to start! Believe or not, this is the right way to learn about sustainable development or sustainability…there is no start or end, write or wrong…Sustainability is a continuous process of learning, kind of a “live” process that changes our way of living and interacting. It is not simple, it is not something easy to define and it is not an easy and calm sailing trip with a straight line to follow. As we have seen previously, we have to create our own definition, what sustainability really means to us, into our activities, social behaviour and the way we dream about our future.

Sustainability is a concept that sees things in different ways, dealing with problems and difficulties with different perspective. Asking yourself why every little action counts and how important is to understand that we are all part of the process.  As Tilbury and Cooke (2005) mention, “Sustainability depends on fundamental changes in lifestyles and the choices people make day-to-day”. Yes, that is right, changing lifestyle, how we perceive the world and others human being. And it is exactly about this deep changing, deep self understanding and deep transformations that I am going to talk about in this post. The beginning is  essential part of the learning for sustainability, the questioning process that can take place any time of your day, other watching TV or listening to the radio or at work at Uni or even talking to your friends and family. That questioning process is defined as Critical thinking, “Uncovering the layers of assumptions that inform our thinking and actions, much like peeling back the layers of an onion” (Tilbury and Cooke, 2005), by underpinning those underlined assumptions and influences, individuals can build and create their own knowledge and really understand the real meaning of systems working around them. “Peeling” the problems and looking at questions deeply might be a confronting process for some people because it really uncovers personal values, culture and beliefs. Thus, knowing better yourself and your cultural background will help to understand many of the complex issues about sustainability.       

We are everyday bombarded with thousands of information and messages trying to catch our attention and make us to behave on a certain way. Critical thinking helps us to ask questions such as, what is the reality behind that message? What does that advert really mean? What are they trying to sell? The media is realising an election poll, but are they passing the right message or are they trying to manipulate us? What is behind the products and services that we buy every day? Such critical questions lead individuals to causes of problems, builds capacity for learning and change towards sustainability.

Critical thinking empowers the individual to separate the causes and effects of a problem. Most of the time organizations and individuals try to solve problems by tackling the results, but they forget that the problems may happen again if they don’t solve the root causes of the issue, so looking at situations on different perspectives is a result of critical thinking.

Thinking itself is already a very hard and time consuming task, imagine in addition to that we have to critical think? It can be a rewarding and empowering process because it gives us meaning and purpose to what we are trying to achieve. It helps groups to find the motivation for their fight, in this case sustainability, to really understand that our decisions today will reflect upon our and others future tomorrow. Sometimes, after going through all the process of critical thinking, I feel like a stranger amongst other people because of the power that this tool provides, it feels like you can see what others can't see and understand what others can’t. 

During our lecture we were asked to look through what a specific advertising was trying to say behind its picture. The advert was just a little hamburger box in the middle of a jungle saying “I think I am going to stay here for the rest of my life”. All sorts of views came about trying to really underpin the causes of a box being in the middle of a jungle, or what sort of materials was the box made of? Who would have thrown that box there? Or even the box asking itself why “she” was there. That activity proves to me that there are a lot more behind the things we consume on our everyday life than we imagine. Organizations are trying really hard to mislead us with false ads selling experiences and sensations that their products “supposably” provide. The box “in” the jungle is just a great example to instigate individuals to make better decisions when buying products on the market place.  What about the bottled water (how is the bottle produced? Where does that water come from? Is that really better than tap water? Where does the empty bottle go? Will that be recycled?), or the vegetables we eat, the coffee we drink or the electronics we are so dependant.

Sustainable development needs that shift on the way we perceive the world, the way we consume, the way we utilize our natural and human resources. Organizations and leaders use critical thinking as a tool to bring about the change with its employees, the process helps individuals to reflect upon themselves and their role within the organization. Digging problems deeply make employees address their real concerns about sustainability enabling the company to access those issues more accurately. The process of critical thinking creates a skilled population who makes informed decisions in their home, community and working lives and their leisure activities (UK department of environment).

I am part of a group on Linkedin (online social media) about Sustainability professionals, and around a week ago I started a discussion with the question “Is education an important path to achieve a more sustainable world?” and surprisingly a lot of the participants think that education itself is not the answer for that problem. Some of the comments are as per below:

“I don’t think education will really work, consumers around the world appear to be little concerned about sustainability. Nothing appears to work..(Venkatasamy Linkedin Jul/12)”

“Consumers appear to have never known their power over organizations. They appear to be totally influenced by adverts….I wonder who are those skilled population?”(Venkatasamy Linkedin Jul/12)
   

“Sustainability may involve education, but at a much more fundamental level, it seems to involve qualities like awareness, integrity and respect” (Beth Ann Lederer Linkedin Jul/12)

Annie founded the non-profit Story of Stuff Project in 2008 to respond to tens of thousands of viewer requests for more information and ways to get involved. We create short, easily shareable online movies that explore some of the key features of our relationship with Stuff—including how we can make things better; we provide high quality educational resources and programs to everyone from teachers and people of faith to business and community leaders; and we support the learning and action of the over 350,000 members of the Story of Stuff community. (http://www.storyofstuff.org/about/about-the-project/)

These comments are real people trying to understand deeply the real meaning of EFSD and thinking critically upon concepts already in books, theses and journals. Critical thinking stem from basic understandings of self/self identity/self wellness. To achieve sustainability we need to go through a COMBINATION of changes, and surely start to think critically is one of the most important.

Will leave that one up to all of you...Enjoy!

Envisioning: The first step of the process

   After realising I was getting  more and more confused about the general topic Sustainable development, last Sunday we had our first session of Research for Sustainable development. Interestingly a contemporary issue arose that most of us would be familiar with, the over consumption of alcohol and violence in Kings Cross. For those who don't know Kings Cross, is a section of the city in Sydney full of night clubs and famous for large congregations  of young people (not under 18 off course) having a good time and many of them with the aid of alcohol. However, just like in most social aspects of society, there are always those few individuals that do not know their limits and end up getting in trouble or even worse getting others in trouble. After all the past incidents surrounding Kings Cross, including the death of a male teenager, Sydney authorities are attempting to reduce the opening hours of Clubs, Pubs and Bottle shops across Kings Cross in a attempt to curve the violence and social issues surrounding the area. A similar action has taken place in Newcastle, another coastal city in NSW where the levels of violence involving young people related to alcohol were the highest in the state. Numbers show that 37% of the incidents have reduced but no one knows if the consumption of alcohol by teenagers has reduced as well. The point I am trying to make here is simple, we are trying to learn that education is the only way possible to empower individuals to change their behaviour and attitudes towards a common goal, a better future. 
Now what if we just start pressing charges against everyone that doesn't eat organic vegetables or doesn't drink certified coffee or even don’t have a hybrid car? Do we think that they will change their perceptions and mind set about their impacts on the environment? Or they are just going to pay a fine and keep the old cars and eating the same cheap vegetables? At the moment we are only fixing problems after the damage has been done. We are not trying to understand the causes of the problem. Why do we have so many teenagers at Kings Cross consuming alcohol until late? Or isn’t that maybe a problem where we should raise the age limit for alcohol consumption? We may see the numbers being reduced in that area but we don’t see the increase on house parties and the increase of violence within the other neighbourhoods. It seems to me that all we care about are the numbers, and not causes of the problems in the first place. I am learning new mind blowing concepts every day in class, I am reading more and more cases where through education communities, individuals and countries have changed their future. So why are the government and authorities are still trying to impose on how we should live our lives? Isn’t that common sense? Tilbury and Cooke (2005) say, “learning for sustainability does not rely on experts to determine how people should behave or how they should think, rather it promotes the learner’s active engagement in decision making and developing policy”, so as per the Kings Cross case, to learn how to not just fix the problems after the damage is done, we should take ownership of our decisions, commitment to the action chosen and be aware of the impact that we create.

Parts of the process of the learning or education for sustainable development are future thinking and envisioning. They are both pivotal components of sustainability and act as a transformation tool where individuals change the way they relate with their future through the way they act today. The individual process of “envisioning” a better future is the same as an organization trying to define its vision and mission. It is, in a way, where and how people want to live in 10 or 20 years, it is what a organization wants to achieve in short medium and long term. It is about a process of engaging people to share their aspirations and dreams and possibly make them come through. Future thinking is a tool to get people actively involved in imaging a sustainable future, “People need a direction, they need a vision they can aim for” (Amanda Keogh, 2005).

To exemplify, at the workshop, our facilitator asked us to close our eyes and imagine a world where we would like to leave in the next 5 or 10 years, then we had to draw a scenario of exactly what we thought and outline five key values that we based our vision on. That exercise is used to empower and motivate people to change. It makes people start to understand what values underpin their vision for a better future. This process is also a great way to uncover the real values that drive our lives such as adaptive, resilience, flexible, respect, tolerance, unity, equity or justice to name a few. It was fascinating to see how many different kinds and perceptions of future people had. Some looked at the integration and relation between individuals around the world, others looked at how the use of renewable energy could change our future and even others looked at how we could introduce more green to our busy cities. I guess that is the first step where you start to share your ideas and dreams with others and you really get to start to think that some people out there have similar, or the same visions and perceptions and values as you, and you both share the same dreams that motivate you towards taking action on those dreams.  We all know that if a company does not have a clear vision of where it’s going, what it wants to achieve and who they are, their business is doomed before it has even started. So how can we work towards a more sustainable world if we don’t even know what kind of world we want? To make things easier I drew my dream world (I know it doesn’t look that great LOL).

  

            

           My vision was based on a “new world” where everyone would have to get in through a door of a new beginning for a better future. This new world would be full of new ideas integrating rural areas, metropolitan areas our homes and how we generate our energy. Maybe I was trying to express this feeling of “we are all part of one ecosystem”, so my key words were integration, participation, sustainable, renewable and equity. I found out two things after doing this exercise, first I am a terrible drawer, and second, I had this invisible barrier about the way in which I see the world. In undertaking that exercise of sharing experience and expectations I was able to better communicate with myself and find a common goal similar to that of  my colleagues.

            Reading through the literature, I found many other ways to facilitate an envisioning process such as:

·   Future trees, which allow people to consider in depth possible future impacts of a particular change;

·        Timelines, where people construct individuals or communities timeline of important past events up to the present.

·        Change Cards;

·        Future wheels; (Tilbury and Wortman 2004)

Future = Imagination it is a process of:

Vision                           Choice                    Plan                     Action

               "Vision" process creates something concrete/desirable, 
         "Choice" is an alternative of sticking unsustainable practices or moving towards sustainable practices. 
              "Plan" is the measurement tool, setting goals, achievement, targets of short and long term.  
            "Action" is your attitudes based on the values that you clarified and discovered about yourself while envisioning what would be a more sustainable world. Actions can be on a personal or group level.

        So this process of future thinking and Envisioning offer us the opportunity of take ownership of our own visions towards change. It creates an atmosphere of sharing and participation. It clarifies what is really important to us and what and why we value certain things. And finally last but not least it starts to create a sense of critical thinking challenging us to question what we really want for our future.

     I Just thought I would share with you guys this image because it really caught my attention on the same day of the workshop about visioning. That is an Ad from Warringah council trying to urge the community awareness to create a holistic view of a new strategic plan and vision of the council.   Thanks