Diapositive 1

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Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability
Synergies and Practice
David Waldron waldron.dave_at_gmail.com.
At Building SustainAble Communities, 2007
Kelowna, B.C
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Tonight
Red threads

• Background
• Two Big Themes
• Strategic Sustainable Development (TNS
  Framework)
• Leadership for Transformational Change
• Synergy Strategic Leadership towards
  Sustainability
• An emerging discipline?

Big ideas
Searching for basics
Local examples
Dialogue creativity within constraints
Emerging qualities
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Background
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2003-02-21
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Whistler 1994 - 2003

• Early dialogues
• Whistler 2002 Charting a Course for the Future
• Whistler Environmental Strategy
• Whistler. Its Our Nature (early adopters of TNS
  Framework)
• Whistler2020 Comprehensive Sustainability Plan
• National/International Awards

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The Natural Step

• International NGO
• Scientific Consensus
• Strategic Planning Framework
• Advice Education
• Role models

Contact Jacques LeCavalier, TNS Associate,
Kelowna jlecavalier_at_naturalstep.ca
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Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability Inte
rnational Masters Programme at Blekinge
Institute of Technology Karlskrona, Sweden
www.bth.se/msls
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Is it possible to have a Masters Level Education
for S.D. for early to mid-career
professionals......that is scientifically
strict regarding sustainability, carefully
structured and ethically grounded......that
also promotes creativity and innovation?
...for any sector, organization, or business?
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Brasov
Dunkerque
Basel
Basel
Frieberg
Barcelona
www.energie-cites.eu
Hannover
A peer network of about 500 municipalities from
25 EU countries. 2007 Chair Heidelberg
Vaxjo
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A quick story of innovation insight
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Green Zone Eco-Industrial Park, Umeå, Sweden

• Innovation
• Electrical consump. down 60
• 100 renewable energy (solar panels coastal
  windmills)
• 100 materials re-use/recycling
• 90 reduction in fresh water use
• 100 of nutritive substances are used/composted
• Building can be dissassembled for re-use
  (bolted)

www.greenzone.nu
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Insight Much of the technical knowledge
already exists what we haven't learned is how to
get short-sighted economic and political systems
to liberate the powers that could expedite the
transition to long-term sustainable development.
It's more a mental challenge than a matter of
technology and finance. Per Carstedt,
GreenZone www.greenzone.nu
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On Leading Sustainability Initiatives
1. Why?
2. What?
3. How?
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Strategic Leadership towards
Sustainability
strategic sustainable development
time
transformational leadership
Contradiction or Synergy? Any Examples?
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Emerging transdisciplinarity
Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability
Strategic Sustainable Development
Transformational leadership
?
Synergy Continuum for SSD and Transformational
Leadership
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2003-02-21
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Temperature and CO2
?
Last 650 000 years
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Great Weather and Flood Catastrophes Losses in
Billions of US Dollars
Billions of US Dollars
Source Munich Re, Swiss Re. 2005 sigma Figures
as of 12/20/05
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Interconnected socio-economic-ecological issues...
The Storm After the Storm Intl Herald Tribune
Sept 2, 2005
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Sustainability Issues, Trends, Solutions...
Deteriorating social determinants of health WHO).

• Climate change

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All communities are in a global funnel of
declining options unsustainability

Systematic Climate change Soil
degradation Species extinction Resource
depletion Population growth Polarization Stories
of meaning
time
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Denial the illusion of the cylinder

e.g. Environmental and social Impacts come and
gowe should minimize our impacts thats life!
time
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Forecasting alone...
Realistic Practical, Balanced (by
todays measures)?
...based on trends, looking towards what might
happen, correcting problems...
?
?
?
time
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Backcasting... (i.e. what do we want?)
Sustainable future ?
(What are some basics?)
Strategies and actions ?
current reality
time
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What are the constraints?
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What are the constraints?
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Earths Cycles
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Earths Cycles (i.e. life support system)
Closed System with respect to matter
1) Nothing disappears
Photosynthesis is the net producer of structure
and order! (I.e. it pays the bills)
2) Everything disperses
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Basic Mechanisms of Unsustainability
Slow geological cycles materials from the
Earths crust
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System Conditions - principles as
constraints In a sustainable society, nature is
not subject to a systematic increase in...
concentrations of substances extracted from the
Earths crust (e.g. fossil fuels)
concentrations of substances produced by society
(e.g. CFCs)
degradation by physical means (e.g.
deforestation, top soil depletion)
and, in that society,
people are not subject to conditions that
systematically undermine their capacity to meet
their needs
Also, TNS SCs, Adapted from Holmberg and
Robert 2000, Ny et al. 2006
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Translation to Local Scale The sustainable
community, does not contribute to




Adapted from Holmberg and Robert 2000, Ny et al.
2006
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Basic human needs
from Human Scale Development (Max-Neef)
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Attractive, sustainable community ?
Sustainability principles as constraints...
current reality
Strategies and actions ?
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U n d e r s t a n d i n g y o u r c o n s t
r a i n t s ...
frees you to create!
Peter Senge
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What actions can we take?local EU examples,
relatively progressive steps, but still far from
sustainability
Brasov
Dunkerque
Basel
Basel
Barcelona
Vaxjo
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Basel a city with a vision
44 of households car-free "2000 watt society
Basel pilot region
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Avoiding the trends Nantes public transport to
improve quality of life
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Passive / Zero Energy houses, promoted by German
Feed-in Tariffs
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Vauban District, Tram serviced, passive and net
energy producing homes Freiburg
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Thermal solar for new and retrofitted buildings
Barcelona
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Odense Population 185,000 35 milion cycle trips
in 4 years (30)
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More biomass and more rural jobs, eastern France
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IMAGINE Campaign invitation

• IMAGINE the desired energy future of your
  territory in one generation (and beyond), then...
• look back to today and, from this
  perspective,...
• create your strategies and actions,...
• and become a pilot local authority in Europe...

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How can each action be part of a strategic
pathway towards sustainability?
Attractive, sustainable community
Strategic pathways
Principles as constraints...
current reality

• Direction toward desired future?
• Principles, and
• Unique, attractive sustainable community
• Flexible platforms? (then what...?)
• Return (i.e. ROI consider social, financial,
  political capital)?
• Other criteria...?

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Categories of Actionse.g Whistler2020 Actions
in 17 Strategy Areas
www.whistler.ca
Food!
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District Heating in Sweden infrastructure for
renewables
Heat market
Geothermal energy
From Ola Altera, Secretary of State, Swedish
Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications
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Heating in Domestic and Service sector, Sweden
19702002
From Ola Altera, Secretary of State, Swedish
Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications
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Summary Strategic Sustainable Development
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Summary Framework for Strategic Sustainable
Development (TNS Framework)
a socio-ecological system (community in society,
etc)
1. Systems
Desired future sustainability principles and
community co-creation
2. Success
Backcasting from success finding strategic
pathways (dirn? flexible? return? other?)
3. Strategy
All strategic steps capacity building (e.g.
green buildings, mixed-use development, education
programs, incentives,...)
4. Actions
e.g. management systems, monitoring, indicators,
guidebooks, matrices, on-line tools,...
5. Tools
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Strategic Leadership towards
Sustainability
strategic sustainable development
time
Leadership for transformational change
Contradiction or Synergy?
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How do we lead transformational change
in complex networks?
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• What if leadership for transformational change is
  less about deciding convincing...

...and more about inviting, co-learning and
co-creating (within basic constraints)?
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How do we make transformational change real?
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Transformational Change
Let loose, take actions, change the game! with
shared purpose long term constraints
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Fossil Fuel Free Växjö
Luckily, we did not ask whether this was
realistic or not! Bo Frank, Mayor of Växjö
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Växjö Actions

• Co-generation bio-fuel power plant
• District heating system expansion
• Conversion of electric to district heating
• Pellets boiler at airport
• Solar panels at the swimming hall
• Municipal subsidies for installation of
  small-scale biomass boilers or home solar panels
• District cooling

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Results Energy for heating 1993 and 2006
1993 (736 GWh)
2006 (877 GWh)
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Other Benefits

• Timber-based industries and university research
• Timber frame high rise building innovations
• Biofuel, co-generation research development
  for district heating
• Biofuel research for vehicle use

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Transformational Change
Let loose, take actions, change the game! with
shared purpose long term constraints
Co-create our highest collective potential
Generative, purposeful dialogue across
departments, sectors, disciplines,
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Debate and Dialogue

• Our most honored Western style of conversation is
  debate. Debate is about knowning, about having
  answers, about having the best answer, about
  persuading or defeating others. It is about
  power, winning and losing. Debate reduces our
  options.
• Dialogue is question led. It is about opening
  ourselves to the points of view of others. It is
  about respecting, or even revering, others
  points of view. Dialogue accepts that there may
  be many valid positions, many possible answers.
  It is about inquiring together. It surfaces
  additional options.
• Goran Carstedt

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On creativity

• and it dawned on me that I might have to change
  my inner thought patterns
• that I would have to start believing in
  possibilities that I wouldnt have allowed
  before, that I had been closing my creativity
  down to a very narrow, controllable scale
• that things had become too familiar and I might
  have to disorientate myself

Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One
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Transformational Change!
Let loose, take action, change the game! with
shared purpose long term constraints
Co-create our highest collective potential
Generative, purposeful dialogue across
departments, sectors, disciplines
Understand ourselves each others intent, build
relationships through dialogue
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Växjö and The Swedish Society for Nature
Conservation (1995)

• Concern with lake quality, new projects, and
• dialogue with
• the idea of a Fossil Fuel Free Växjö
• unanimous political decision (1996)

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Dialogue

• dia logos
• meaning flowing through

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Four Levels of Listening...

• Downloading
• reacting, defending
• Object-focused listening (reframing)
• facts and arguments
• Empathetic Listening (re-designing)
• reflecting, re-considering
• Generative Listening (presencing)
• dialogue for co-creating new realities

Observe, observe...
Act Quickly!
Reflect, Co-create
Adapted from Scharmers Theory U, M.I.T. (2006)
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Very Important Group busy senior middle
managers

• Empower and provide resources!
• Move from management to management and
  leadership
• Open up, loosen control knowing (with safety
  nets)!
• Institutionalize rewards for risk
  taking/innovation (by groups)
• Celebrate successes!

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What is our best future potential for citizen
engagement co-creating a sustainable future?
Is it mainly consult on plans? control the
process? debate? leaders (
followers)? prescriptive bylaws regs.?
Or, is it mainly invite, co-create? let go
(with meaningful purpose outer
constraints)? dialogue new options? participat
ory leadership, trust building? energized
partnerships, co-creations?
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Emerging transdisciplinarity
Synergy Continuum for SSD and Transformational
Leadership
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Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability

• Emerging qualities?

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Emerging qualities1 of 2 are we ready?
From primarily
To primarily
Backcasting from basic principles Transformational
change, strategic pathways Dialogue, co-creation
of new reality Leaders, meaningful purpose
optimistic intent Citizen engagement mutual
respect Invitation, meaningful purpose,
co-creation within basic constraints Serving,
trust-building,

• Doing less harm
• Incremental change, trade-offs
• Debate, negotiation, compromise
• Leaders and followers
• Community consultation
• Command control prescriptions regulations
• Knowing, face-saving

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Emerging qualities 2 of 2 are we ready?
From primarily.
To primarily
Making necessary steps realistic Social fabric,
community network, whole system
sustainability Dialogue, letting go,
co-creation learning from the past and the
emerging future Transdisciplinary, shared
purpose New questions

• Taking realistic steps
• Hierarchy departmental silos, sector-by-sector
  optimization
• Debate, negotiation, compromise
• learning from the past (e.g. best practices)
• Multi, Inter-disciplinary
• Old questions

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waldron.dave_at_gmail.com
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Acknowledgements
Dr. Manfred Max-Neef, Chile Jeremy Dean Troels
Andersen, Odense, Denmark Dr. Eckart Wüzner, Lord
Mayor, Heidelberg, Germany Tony Thompson,
USA/Sweden Dr. John Robinson, UBC Jacques
LeCavalier, TNS Associate, Kelowna Per Carstedt,
Biofuel Region, Sweden Roland Stulz, 2000 Watt
Society, Switzerland Joanne de Vries, Fresh
Outlook Foundation, Kelowna
Dr. Karl-Henrik Robert, TNS International/ BTH,
Sweden Dr. Göran Carstedt, C40Cities (Clinton
Fdn.), Sweden Gerard Magnin, Blandine Pidoux
Kinga Kovacs, Energie-Cites, France Bo Frank,
Mayor Carl-Olof Bengtsson, Vice-Mayor Sarah
Nilsson, Vaxjö, Sweden Jim Godfrey, Tim Wake,
Esther Speck Shannon Gordon, Whistler Dr. Bill
Rees, UBC, Maryke van Staden, ICLEI, Germany