Half-day Introduction to Systems Thinking and Sustainability
A half-day session introduces systems thinking, applied to sustainable development. You get the basic vocabulary, and you use design thinking tools on a subject the group picks.
Who is it for
- Business leaders
- Project managers
- Concept developers
- Freelance consultants
- Action researchers
Learning goals
- Increase your understanding of systems-based sustainability
- Expand your network and meet like-minded practitioners
- Apply design thinking and co-creation tools to a timely topic
In four hours a group takes one subject it already works on and puts it on paper as a system, with its parts, what connects to what, and where those connections lead.
After that the session works on goals, a rough vision and the start of a roadmap, made by the whole group together.
Systems vocabulary, and the eight ELSI layers
The session starts with the vocabulary: what makes something a system, why the edge you draw around it changes what you find inside, and why so many problems sit between the disciplines that own them.
The group then runs its own subject down the eight ELSI layers, which go from energy and materials at the bottom, through ecosystems and species, then culture and economy, to health and happiness at the top. Most subjects turn out to touch three or four layers that had not been counted as part of the question.
