Fostering a Culture of Sustainability Douglas Worts and Glenn Sutter WorldViews Consulting October, 2007 Presented To: Saskatchewan Regional Centre of Expertise UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
Jan 31, 2016
Fostering a Culture of Sustainability
Douglas Worts and Glenn SutterWorldViews Consulting
October, 2007
Presented To: Saskatchewan Regional Centre of Expertise
UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
Workshop Outline
- identify pressing issues- clarify the role of culture in our lives- discuss how our culture adapts- identify our current cultural needs- choosing pathways to our future- assessing if we are on a sustainable path
What are the most pressing issues we face globally?
What are the most pressing issues we face locally?
What are the most pressing issues that you are facing
personally?
Sustainability, (and unsustainability)
is a cultural matter
• Our values• Our behaviours• Our attitudes• Our priorities• Our systems
Rooted in:
But what do we mean by ‘culture’?
Culture
“a basic pattern of assumptions invented, discovered or developed
by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and
internal integration”Edgar Shein
A Definition of Culture….the sum total of all values, collective
memory, history, beliefs, mythology, rituals, symbolic objects and built heritage which reflect the manner in which a people relate to both those aspects of life which:
a) they can know and control; as well as,
b) those they cannot fully understand or control, but to which they need to have a conscious relationship.
Culture isRelationships
Family
Community
Society
Global humanity
Environment
Self
The Unknown
<--Past <--Present --> Future-->
How is our culture lived and perpetuated?:
- Individually &
- Collectively
Consciously & Unconsciously
Sustainability and Adaptation
- changes in personal relationships- changes in career- moving from country to city (or vice-versa)
Personal Level, e.g:
Collective Level, e.g:
- migration => monocultures become pluralistic=> urbanization
Organization
Experiments, Creativity & Surprises
Exploitation
Stronger Connections & Increasing Potential for Change
Conservation
High Levels of Complexity Rigidity, & Resilience
Release
A Rapid Collapse
The Adaptive Renewal Cycle
Holling (2004)
Two Traps
Holling (2004)
The Rigidity
Trap
The Poverty
Trap
Sustainability
Maintaining the capacity for adaptation.
Partly due to resilience, a property that varies through the adaptive renewal cycle.
“…the amount of disturbance that can be sustained before a change in system control and structure occurs.”
Cross-scale Interactions
Cycles of Different Sizes form a “Panarchy”
How does culture respond and contribute
to adaptive renewal cycles?
Cultural Needs of Civil SocietyPersonal:• Empowerment• Empathy and Sympathy• Connection to place, people, the past, the future• Safety• Personal meaning• Spiritual connection• Creativity• Stewardship• Consciousness of relationships to people and nature• etc.
Describe how you have experienced these needs (or others)in adapting to global, local and personal issues.
Collective:• Rights• Responsibilities• Justice (social, economic)• Stewardship• Participatory democracy• etc.
How do we want to live?
Preferred
Probable
How will we get to Preferred Future?
FeedbackYou can’t live without it!
Probable vs. Preferred Future
Community
Institutional
Personal
Culture of Sustainability
Critical Assessment Framework
Criteria for assessing initiatives aimed at 3 levels of cultural adaptation:
• Individual• Community• Global
Working Group on Museums and Sustainable Communities
Individual Level
• Encourages personal reflection
• Captures imagination, stimulates curiosity
• Affirms, challenges, deepens identity
• Enhances ability to think critically & creatively
• Provides opportunity to examine & clarify values
• Helps deal with complexity and uncertainty
• Increases responsible action
Working Group on Museums and Sustainable Communities
Community Level
• Addresses vital & relevant needs/issues• Engages a diverse public• Encourages social interactions and debate• Links existing community groups to one another
Working Group on Museums and Sustainable Communities
Global Level
Working Group on Museums and Sustainable Communities
• consciousness of global impacts of local choices• foster global ecosystem health• reduce global ecological footprint• enhance global social justice and equity
Getting the right indicators
“Development divorced from its human or cultural context is growth without a
soul.”
‘Our Creative Diversity’, UNESCO, 1995
Where is our culture headed?
Contacts
Glenn SutterRegina, SK
Douglas WortsToronto, ON
<[email protected]>www.geocities.com/dcworts