change | Wayne Visser

April 23, 2024

Let It Begin

I’m thinking it’s not too late, that our fate is not sealed,
That the race of life is far from run; we’re not done,
For we wield the wand of choice, we have a voice,
We can speak for the Earth, and not let her perish,
Take care of her creatures and all that we cherish,
For we’re not ready to give up, or stand idly by
And watch our mother die.

Let it begin, with protecting more, then let’s restore
The land and sea, let’s win back what we’ve lost,
Before the cost becomes too high, because the sky’s
The limit and fortune favours those who try.

I’m dreaming of a new world, of nature unfurled
In swirls of blue and curls of green, in bursts of yellow
And swathes of pink, each time I blink another species
Comes back from the brink, another habitat is restored
To health, and the wealth of ecosystems returns,
Emerging from the gloom of the womb to give birth
To a revitalised Earth.

Let it begin, with the wolves and whales, as we tip the scales
Of trophic cascades, and as our fear fades we realise
That hunter and prey are performing a dance, a rhyme
That gives us a chance to reanimate the world, given time.

I’m learning that nature is resilient, that it’s brilliant
At bouncing back, if only we give it space, the lack
Of bugs and birds, of fish and trees can be reversed
In a burst of recovery, as the great extinction turns
Into a great flourishing, a nourishing of roots and shoots,
As biota and biomes, cycles and food webs are repaired
And their bounty is shared.

Let it begin, with the factories and farms, turning harms
Into new ways of making and growing, of showing
How waste can be nutrients, and soils be alive,
For life coils like a spring, forever poised to thrive.

I’m turning dreams into action, and gaining traction
As solutions take hold and scale, as we dare to be bold
And fail, while tales of our success spreads, like bees
From flower to flower, the power is in our hands,
To clean up the oceans, and heal our lands,
And so I’m choosing to detox, to reseed and rewild,
For the hopes of a child.

Let it begin.

Book

Seize the Day: Favourite Inspirational Poems

This unique collection brings together poems for positive action by poet and writer, Wayne Visser, providing inspiration for all those who a striving to change the world for the better. The anthology includes perennial favourites such as Be An Optimist, A Place to Thrive, Think on Business, To Lead, Giving Up, It’s Time, A Swirling Story, Because I Care, and, of course, Change the World (Parts 1 and 2), as well as more recent poems like A Butterfly Appeared, The Great Outdoors, and Letter to Earth. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

April 23, 2024April 23, 2024

Book of Changes

Part 1.

This is the time of transition
The rhyme of revision
On the cusp
Between dying and being reborn
The dawn of new light
The fight of contraction and deep breathing
Of conviction and deep grieving
On the cusp
Between pain and promise
The rhyme of rain and conflagration
This is the time of expectation

This is the moment of madness
The low point of sadness
On the fringe
Between chaos and new order
The border of old crumbling ways
The maze of fear and deep division
Of hollow cheer and deep schism
On the fringe
Between lies and false prophets
The low point of political scoring
This is the moment of tribes warring

This is the song of soul searching
The long night of mind lurching
On the frontier
Between dogma and new paradigms
The bell chimes of dire warning
The yawning questions of deep reflection
Of poignant lessons for deep inflection
On the frontier
Between scouting and getting lost
The long night of struggling to cope
This is the song of faith and hope

Part 2.

This is the chasm of creation
The spasm of revelation
On the margin
Between black space and star-bursts
The universe like petals unfolding
The moulding of myths and deep reality
Of rippling riffs of deep gravity
On the margin
Between the void and seminal sparks
The spasm of pregnant desires
This is the chasm of forging fires

This is the time of transformation
The mime of mesmerisation
On the brink
Between cursing and spell invoking
The stoking of existential rage
The age of collapse and deep adaptation
Of relapse and deep restoration
On the brink
Between falling and rising together
The mime of the river’s flow
This is the time of letting go

This is the book of changes
The look of strangers
On the fulcrum
Between inertia and tipping points
The slipping joints of bridges built
The guilt of ignorance and deep knowledge
Of silence and deep homage
On the fulcrum
Between clues and complex ciphers
The look of unlocked mysteries
This is the book of histories

Part 3.

This is the song of shapeshifting
The throng of masks lifting
On the lip
Between captive and running wild
The inner child of selfish choices
The voices of instinct and deep hunger
Of eyes blinked and deep wonder
On the lip
Between hunting and invisible trails
The throng of shadows under the moon
This is the song without a tune

This is the moment of metamorphosis
The atonement for a life of bliss
On the edge
Between sleep and fresh awakening
The breaking in of unworn shoes
The blues of change and deep dreaming
Of sinister and deep scheming
On the edge
Between destruction and recreation
The atonement shedding of old skin
This is the moment for new life to begin

This is the time of transition
The crime of indecision
On the rim
Between breakdowns and breakthroughs
The fake news of puppets in power
The hour of crisis and deep meaning
Of thrown dices and deep greening
On the rim
Between extinction and regeneration
The prime of life’s vital virility
This is the time of possibility

Book

Seize the Day: Favourite Inspirational Poems

November 21, 2018December 5, 2023

Change the World

Let’s change the world, let’s shift it
Let’s shake and remake it
Let’s rearrange the pieces
The patterns in the maze
The reason for our days
In ways that make it better
In shades that make it brighter
That make the burden lighter
Because it’s shared, because we dared
To dream and then to sweat it
To make our mark and not regret it
Let’s plant a seed and humbly say:
I changed the world today!

Let’s change the world, let’s lift it
Let’s take it and awake it
Let’s challenge every leader
The citadels of power
The prisoners in the tower
The hour of need’s upon us
It’s time to raise our voices
To stand up for our choices
Because it’s right, because we fight
For all that’s just and fair
For a planet we can share
Let’s join the cause and boldly say:
We’ll change the world today!

Let’s change the world, let’s love it
Let’s hold it and unfold it
Let’s redesign the future
The fate of earth and sky
The existential why
Let’s fly to where there’s hope
To where the world is greener
Where air and water’s cleaner
Because it’s smart to make a start
To fix what we have broken
Our children’s wish unspoken
Let’s be the ones who rise and say:
We changed the world today!

Book

Change the World: Poems for Positive Action

This unique collection brings together poems for positive action by poet and writer, Wayne Visser, providing inspiration and motivation for all those who are striving to change the world for the better. The anthology includes perennial favourites such as Be An Optimist, A Place to Thrive, Think on Business, To Lead, Giving Up, It’s Time, A Swirling Story, Because I Care, and, of course, Change the World (Parts 1 and 2), as well as more recent poems like A Butterfly Appeared, The Great Outdoors, and Letter to Earth. Buy the paper book / Buy the e-book.

November 9, 2016November 9, 2016

Mind the Gap: Seven Reasons Why We Pursue Self-Destruction by Failing to Act on Sustainability

Article by Wayne Visser

First published on Huffington Post

I recently watched two sustainability documentaries – Cowspiracy, about the devastating environmental impacts of the agricultural industry and our meat-and-dairy intensive diets, and Before the Flood, Leonard Di Caprio’s impassioned plea for us to realise the seriousness of climate change and take urgent action.

Both films got me thinking about why we as human beings are so bad at acting on sustainability, when failure to do so threatens our own wellbeing, not to mention the lives of billions of other people and species. We truly are living in ‘The Age of Stupid’ (as another sustainability documentary put it), but why?

We are not stupid. We are incredibly smart and we can be amazingly compassionate. What’s more, we are more knowledgeable, connected and empowered than ever before. So why do we act as if we are dumb? Why are we consciously speeding our own demise and the sixth mass extinction?

Mind the Gap

On reflection, I believe that our inaction in the face of sustainability threats is due to a breakdown between causes and effects. Evolution has hardwired us to understand the impact of our actions –fight or flight in the face of danger is a case in point – but sometimes this survival instinct fails. And as far as I can tell, it fails for one of seven reasons:

1. The Time Gap

Our actions now may only have impacts in the future.

So there is a lag or delay between cause and effect. And we would rather choose certain pleasure now, even if it means possible pain from the impacts later. For example, we may choose to smoke or eat an unhealthy diet of fast foods or processed foods today, even though it will most likely cause cancer, obesity, heart disease, diabetes or a stroke later in life.

2. The Distance Gap

Our local actions may only have impacts somewhere else.

Or our actions may impact someone else who we don’t care about. So there is a physical dislocation or an emotional disconnect between cause and effect. For example, we are quite willing to buy a cheap T-shirt from our favourite discount store, even though it probably means it was manufactured under sweatshop conditions in Asia.

3. The Scale Gap

Our individual actions may be fairly benign but still have collectively destructive impacts.

Or we may not believe that changing our individual actions will result in any significant change to our collective impacts. For example, consuming palm-oil (in one-in-ten of the products we buy) does not seem individually irresponsible, even though it is causing tropical rainforest deforestation at a catastrophic scale in Indonesia and Malaysia.

4. The Cost-Benefit Gap

The perceived benefit of our actions may exceed the perceived cost of our impacts (for ourselves or others).

We may also believe we can avoid or isolate ourselves from the impacts of our actions, or mitigate against their effects. For example, the convenience of driving a petrol (gasoline) car seems to far outweigh the effort of cycling, taking a train or the investment cost of buying an electric car, let alone the nebulous future impact of air pollution or climate change.

5. The Causal Gap

The link between our actions and impacts may be unclear, ambiguous or unconvincing.

So the evidence for causality between cause and effect is weak or confused by contradictory opinions. For example, people may wonder: is my consumption of fossil fuel energy really linked to the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes across the world? Maybe that’s just from El Niño or El Niña. Besides, we just had a cold winter. And wasn’t there some manipulation of the climate data anyway?

6. The Incentive Gap

There may be a lack of incentives to be accountable for the impacts of our actions.

Or there may even be perverse incentives, which nudge us in the wrong direction. So we are not being rewarded or punished appropriately. For example, why should I pay more for sustainable products and green electricity, while the government is subsidising the agro-industrial and fossil fuel companies? And how can I be expected to make long-term decisions for the planet when my shareholders are only looking at the next quarter?

7. The Belief Gap

Accepting the impacts of our actions may contradict our ideological beliefs or vested interests.

So there is a paradigm conflict between cause and effect, resulting in an ‘inconvenient truth’. For example, people may reason: why should we welcome refugees if we believe they are a threat to our security, jobs and culture? Or why become vegetarian or vegan when eating meat is so much a part of our lifestyle and cultural identity?

Bridging the Gap

These seven cause-and-effect gaps are the keys to changing humanity’s kamikaze-like death spiral of self-destruction. For it is only by acknowledging each of these psychological drivers – and finding ways to bridge the gaps they represent – that will stand any chance of overcoming our present failure to act decisively on sustainability. So what might bridging strategies look like? Here are a few ideas to get the ball rolling:

The Time Gap – Appeal to intergenerational responsibility, since people do care about whether their actions will harm their children and grandchildren’s future. Also, make likely future impacts as visual and visceral as possible, using multi-media.
The Distance Gap – Encourage educational travel and emphasise our common humanity. Show that someone living in China or South Africa or the United States is really not that different to us; they feel the same emotions and they share similar struggles and aspirations.
The Scale Gap – Focus on individual responsibility (Gandhi’s ‘be the change you want to see in the world’) and explain how tipping points work, namely that large-scale change can happen when a significant minority changes (research on flocking suggests as little as 10%).
The Cost–Benefit Gap – Work hard to make the full costs and full benefits clear. This means improving not only the business case for sustainability, but also the personal case and the moral case. We need to get better at ‘selling’ the upside of sustainable living.
The Causal Gap – Improve the traceability of products and materials and tell the story of products, including their journey across the full life cycle, as Patagonia did with their Footprint Chronicles. Communicate the evidence of causal links between consumption and sustainability impacts.
The Incentive Gap – Lobby governments to correct perverse incentives, tax unsustainable or irresponsible economic activity and subsidise clean, green and ethical technologies and products. Also, find ways to reward customers for making more sustainable choices.
The Belief Gap – Expose the vested interests of companies, politicians and the media and challenge inconsistencies between the actions of groups and their professed values. Also, give people a positive alternative belief system. We need a compelling mythology (meta-narrative) of sustainability.

Together, we need to figure out the best strategies for bridging each of these seven gaps and so I welcome your thoughts and suggestions. What have you found works best in engaging people to take action on sustainability? And what doesn’t work? If we learn from each other, we can turn the Age of Stupid into the Age of Inspiration!

Download

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Related websites

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Cite this article

Visser, W. (2016) Mind the Gap: Seven Reasons Why We Pursue Self-Destruction by Failing to Act on Sustainability, Huffington Post, 8 Nov.

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July 24, 2016July 24, 2016

Book Quotations – From “Sustainable Frontiers”

Sustainable Frontiers

Book Title: Sustainable Frontiers: Unlocking Change Through Business, Leadership and Innovation

Authors: Wayne Visser

Publication details: Greenleaf Publishing, 2015

For more information: See the Book Profile

Quotations

So much of making a successful transition to a more sustainable future depends on letting go
We must find ways to let go of an industrial system that has served us well, but is no longer fit for purpose
We have to let go of old styles of leadership & outdated models of business, high-impact lifestyles & selfish values
We must learn to let go of cherished ideologies that are causing destruction
We must learn to let go of beliefs about ways to tackle problems that are failing to resolve crises
We are scared to let go, because we are comfortable clinging to our consumptive habits & selfish behaviours
The future is uncertain – and our greatest fear as humans is a fear of the unknown
We would rather trust (and fight to protect) the present we know than gamble on the future we don’t know
Civilizations that fail to change are civilizations that ultimately fall
The decline of civilizations starts with the failure to open the public and political mind to new possibilities
People become trapped in a paradigm – a pattern of thinking – and are closed to a different, emergent world-view
If we are to reach sustainable frontiers, it must begin with changing our collective minds
First, we must change our collective minds – and only then will we change our collective behaviour
We will all have to let go of cherished beliefs and strategies that are not working
Sustainability I’ve discovered to be many things, but not an effective strategy for change – at least, not yet
The essential idea of sustainability is about as exciting as watching lettuce wilt under the midday sun
Sustainability has won many battles, but has lost the war for the hearts and minds of the people
Sustainability has been warning of scarcity & survival, when what people want is prosperity & thriving
The sustainability movement has failed to understand what it means to be human
As human beings, our lives are all about change – about growth & development & making things better
Sustainability “wonks” believe that they are all about Progress with a capital P. The world remains unconvinced
Sustainability is like a geeky, pimply teenager who has come to our party & turned off the music
Sustainability folks keep telling us that we would really be much happier if we stopped having so much darn fun!
The key to having a good time, declares the sustainability mantra, is to practice a lot more self-restraint
All those on board the sustainability austerity train, say “Hell, yeah!” … What, no one?
If we are to survive (let alone thrive), the world is going to have to change – dramatically, radically & irreversibly
When change does turn our lives upside down (as it will), how can we become more resilient?
Change is all about connection. In other words, connectivity is the underlying catalyst for change
Learning only happens when synapses are formed: they connect the neurons to each other
Scaling the number of networked relationships is at the heart of change, including biological & social evolution
If we want to save the sustainability movement, we will have to get much smarter about change
We desperately need transformational leadership in order to advance the frontier of sustainability
Calamitous leadership led us all, Pied Piper-like, into the 2008 global financial crisis
The global financial crisis was ushered in while leading companies happily chanted “greed is good” in unison
To survive in the sustainability era, companies will have to move beyond their aggressive tendencies
Companies need to become genuinely concerned about the perspectives & wellbeing of all their stakeholders
Stakeholders, if maltreated, can bite bite back – & even the most macho multinationals can bleed
Too many companies have grown used to speaking to stakeholders only on a ‘need to know’ basis
There is no shortage of companies that mistake ‘telling’ for ‘dialogue’ & get backchat from angry stakeholders
Our incumbent global cadre of executive leadership is being forced to shapeshift, like it or not
Those that have the foresight to change fundamentally are more likely to survive and thrive
When it comes to sustainability, we are actually talking about changing a vastly complex system
It takes a complex mix of different players to bring about lasting change for sustainability
The bottom line is that we are gambling with our climate future, but we can still spread our bets
If we want real transformation in society, our best chance is to keep spinning the wheel of systems change
If there is one reason why organisational change fails, it is because we underestimate resistance to change
Resistance to change comes from inertia – and inertia happens because change is like an iceberg
Shifting our habits, attitudes, beliefs and values is the real secret to making change happen
Changing a leader’s world-view is the first step to changing an organisation
Sustainability reports are practically burping with all the ‘low hanging fruit’ companies have gorged on
As humans, we are always ‘chasing the blue’ – so we have to be convinced that where we are going is sunnier
Most people in most parts of the world don’t believe a sustainable future is necessarily a better future
A blue skies strategy means being willing to take a risk as a leader & to set big hairy audacious goals
Blue-sky leaders know that we are only inspired by reaching for an impossible dream
We desperately need more Apollo-like sustainability missions that the public can get genuinely excited about
Impacts that are far away, or in the future, are like smoldering fires in the distance: not action-worthy
People need to feel the heat: directly, personally, here and now. That might mean lighting a few fires
If you’re trying to make change happen, use burning platforms to create the urgency for change
Use blue skies to create the reasons to change, baby steps for momentum & big beliefs to sustain energy
Unlocking change is not only about what you do, but also whether you are tapped into your own power
There are deep psychological – even existential – reasons why we “do” sustainability
Sustainability allows us to feel that our work is aligned to our personal values
Sustainability is a bit like chess – it is complex, dynamic & challenging, like an earth-puzzle that needs solving
There are four sustainability leader archetypes – experts, facilitators, catalysts & activists
Experts, facilitators, catalysts & activists each represent a different kind of sustainability change agent
In the world of sustainability superheroes, you should know which cape and tights fits you best
Aligning with your inner superhero allows you to be more professionally effective and purpose-inspired
For change to be sustained and transformational, we need the joint efforts of the sustainability Fantastic Four
The sustainability Fantastic Four superhero powers are knowledge, collaboration, imagination & compassion
The first step to overcoming short-termism is to challenge the prevailing wisdom
Sustainability must be recast as being fundamentally about the way a company does business
We must keep identifying & promoting actions that question shareholder supremacy & financial speculation
Trust comes from investing in long-term relations, rather than attempting to buy positive opinions
Companies lose the trust of stakeholders because they over-promise and under-deliver
Only if there is a genuine strategic commitment to sustainability from the top will we see meaningful change
Stakeholders remain skeptical of companies’ motives & commitment to societal improvement – & rightly so
To overcome stakeholder skepticism, companies must commit to bold strategic social & environmental goals
To succeed, sustainability has to be translated into the language of the business or sector or functional area
Unless sustainability is built into the company’s compensation schemes, middle managers will not align
We need sustainability leaders to be consistent role models & to put their money where their mouths are
When employees feel proud of their organization’s sustainability efforts, they become its biggest champion
Unless the C-suite is on board with sustainability, all other efforts are bound to fail
Sustainability leaders are able to think systemically, to see interconnections & to bridge silos
Sustainability leaders will always find a way to put their values to work, no matter what industry they’re in
We all share responsibility for inspiring & supporting each other to create a better world
Revolutionary change is more often the result of new ways of thinking than new ways of doing
CSR & triple bottom line efforts have been criticised as little more than window dressing & corporate spin
Employees believe they work for great organisations when they trust the people they work for
We must create work environments that support women who do not want to trade-off their career & family
Creating a family-friendly enterprise requires a shift in leadership perceptions & organizational culture
Let’s celebrate workplaces that support not only you & your job, but also your family & your quality of life
Promoting cycling among employees is not only good for personal health, but also good for the planet
It is a popular myth that CSR is not relevant, too expensive or not incentivized for SMEs
Implicit CSR includes informal ethical practices that are not dependent on size or financial muscle
I look forward to the day when “small is beautiful” applies as much to sustainable business as economic activity
Understanding virtual water – embedded in the things we trade – is critical as our global water crisis increases
To get us through the day, it takes about a hundred times our own weight in water [in industrialised economies]
We all have footprints. But we can lighten the tread & ensure they are heading in a more sustainable direction
Research shows that businesses with more women on their board of directors bring a string of sustainability benefits
The circular economy – where closed-loop production brings us closer to zero waste – is a real business opportunity
Our economy is so inefficient that less than 1% of the resources we extract still exist as products 6 months after sale
Scaling up the circular economy requires concrete measures to meet mult-stakeholder sustainability targets
The circular economy represents an annual $380-630 bn material cost saving opportunity in the EU
If we fail to achieve a sustainable technology revolution, we will face “overshoot and collapse” as a civilization
Not only is technological innovation booming, but it is rapidly shifting twoards sustainable solutions
Many of the World Economic Forum’s top 10 most promising technologies have a clear enviornmental & social focus
The market for clean energy technologies is projected to grow from $248 bn in 2013 to $398 bn in 2023
More patents have been filed in the past 5 years than the previous 30 for climate change mitigation technologies
Contrary to what some may think, emerging markets cannot be assumed to lag on sustainable technological innovation
What does the future hold? The sustainable technology innovation wave is only just building
According to McKinsey & Co., resource productivity opportunities could save us $2.9 trillion by 2030
The challenges of the 21st century will stretch our collective capacity for innovation like never before
To ensure food security, we need to find 175-220 million hectares of additional cropland by 2030
To ensure food security, we need to increase total food production by about 70% by 2030
We have to tackle the problem of 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted every year – a third of all food produced
Resource productivity opportunities show that reducing food waste could return $252 bn in savings by 2030
Creating a sustainable “cold chain” in the developing world could eliminate 25-50% of food wastage
The sustainability revolution is as much about changing perceptions, attitudes & behaviours as changing technology
Agricultural demand will require a 140% increase in water supply over the next 20 years compared with the past 20
It is estimated that the global biofuels market could double to $185.3 bn by 2021
We are all, with our modern lifestyles, hooked on chemicals, for energy, colourants, food, health & beauty
The WHO estimates that the chemical industry causes around a million deaths globally every year
Chemicals are harming people, yet because of their benefits & the world’s addiction, they cannot be eliminated
The cost to the global economy of chemical pollution has been estimated at $546 bn, rising to $1.9 tn by 2050
Can the chemicals ever be sustainable? The answer is maybe. The big leap forward is green chemistry
The “green” label has been so abused over the past few decades that it is wise to suspect PR spin or greenwashing
The green chemistry market is set to grow from $2.8 bn in 2011 to $98.5 bn by 2020, saving the industry $65.5 bn
The top benefits from implementing sustainable technology are resource productivity & economic development
The top barriers to sustainable technology adoption are the local of local qualified workers & institutional capacity
The marketing benefits of demonstrating sustainable technologies in developing countries can be significant
Major reductions in the environmental impacts of the chemicals industry can be achieved by adopting best practices
Resource scarcity & human rights issues surrounding metals extraction mean the industry is facing some tough realities
People living in extreme poverty could drop from 1.2 billion in 2010 to under 100 million by 2050
An environmental disaster scenario could mean 3.1 billion more people living in extreme poverty by 2050
Unless the world’s booming economies can lighten the weighty anchor of resource consumption, we will all sink
The largest metals & mining companies have environmental external costs of $220 billion, 77% relating to carbon
The picture that emerges is of a metals sector under seige, an industry that is soon to be the victim of its own success
Iron & steel energy efficiency & end-use steel efficiency could deliver $278 billion in resource savings by 2030
The sustainability impacts of the extractive sector are serious – sometimes even tragic & catastrophic
Technology, the source of so much destruction in the mining & metals industry, can also be its saviour
Today, less than a third of 60 metals analysed have an end-of-life recycling rate above 50% & 34 are below 1%
The best available sustainable technology is not always the most applicable, especially in developing countries
Technology can help to rescue the high-impact extractives sector from its siege by the forces of sustainability
Extractives companies need to recast themselves as resource stewardship companies
Extractives companies must become experts at circular production and post-consumer “mining”
Customers & governments need to give up their compulsive throw-away habits & embrace the take-back economy
Necessity, rather than an unexpected attack on conscience, will drive the transition to a circular economy
Sustainable technologies are transforming our outdated industrial model, which is no longer fit for purpose
Without innovation, we are unlikely solve many of global social & environmental problems
Eco-innovation is the next evolution beyond eco-efficiency, to strategically transform the whole business model
When it comes to reinventing capitalism, eco-innovation is one of the next waves business will want to surf
Technology presents citizens with far greater opportunities to engage with sustainability issues than ever before
Hyper-connectivity makes responsiveness more possible – and less likely
Value-action gaps make stakeholder feedback more collectable – and less valuable
The wisdom of the crowd can – without validation – also become the tragedy of the commons
The proliferation of sustainability standards has led to market confusion for investors & consumers
What is missing across the sustainability standards arena is greater clarity & more co-ordination
It is inevitable that advances in “big data” analytics will start to be applied to sustainability databases
Sustainability data structuring, searchability & signposting will become at least as important as a qualitative narrative
What really matters for the fututre of transparency is how sustainability data is organised & made accessible
Sustainability reporting is only one face of the transparency coin; on the other side is sustainability ratings

August 2, 2015

Entrepreneurs for Change Interview (Podcast)

How Business Can Ensure Our Survival In a Volatile World

Interview by Lorna Lee from Entrepreneurs for a Change in 2014

August 2, 2015

8 Keys to Unlocking Change (Video)

Presentation to Gordon Institute for Business Science, South Africa, in 2015

January 8, 2014August 2, 2015

To survive in a volatile world businesses must build in resilience

Article by Wayne Visser

Part of the Unlocking Change series for The Guardian.

In a changing world it is not the fittest who will survive; it is the most adaptable.

If you have landed on this page wearing your superhero outfit – and I admit, I may be partly to blame – I’m going to have to ask you to remove your mask, cape and tights now. Don’t get me wrong, when the world needs saving and I’m done paying off my mortgage and carrying out the trash, I’ll be the first one to dial-a-superhero. But in the meantime …

You see, the world has this nasty habit of changing without our permission; in fact, without us having so much as poked it in the eye. And so we – as individuals, organisations or whole nations – often find that we are no longer the agents of change, but rather its victims. Change happens! And we are left somewhere between mildly irritated and battling for our very survival.

According to Business Week, the average life expectancy of a Fortune 500 company is between 40 and 50 years. One-third of the Fortune 500 companies in existence in 1970 had vanished by 1983 – acquired, merged, or broken to pieces. Looking across the full spectrum of companies, large and small, the average life of companies may be as low as 12.5 years.

Can we really afford to talk about long-term sustainability, when short-term survival is so hard to achieve? The sobering fact is that we face a future in which saving the world may have to wait, while we save ourselves first. Chances are, we will even have to give up the smooth and swanky practice of sustainability, while we get down and dirty in the trenches of rough, rude resilience.

The bad news is that our silky green spandex outfits are probably not going to survive the trip. The good news is that resilience can be learned and planned for in advance. In a world of increasingly volatile sustainability challenges, there are five strategies for resilience that can dramatically increase our chances of survival when the waves of disruptive change come crashing in. They are to: defend, diversify, decentralise, dematerialise and define.

A defensive strategy can take on many forms, the most obvious of which is to insure against catastrophe, whatever form that may take. This only works if the crash is not systemic, but it is a good start. Other tactics include having a crack-squad of trouble-shooters trained to respond in times of crisis, and building up reserves for the proverbial rainy day, which may turn out to be a tsunami.

A diversification strategy applies to people, products and markets. For example, if you bet your corporate life on being a fossil fuel company, rather than an energy company, or if you are locked into a local market without any global investments, you are highly vulnerable. Likewise, if you hire an army of clones, your lack of diversity will leave you brittle in the face of change.

A decentralisation strategy is based on the same rationale that inspired the Internet. By decentralising information and building in redundancy on local servers, the internet is far less vulnerable to being taken out in a single hit. In the same way, by decentralising operations, infrastructure and solutions – as with decentralised energy for example – we can be better prepared to cope with disruption.

A dematerialisation strategy means moving to an industrial model that reduces dependency on resources. The only viable way to do this in the long term is to shift to renewable energy and to optimise the circular economy. Hence, anything we can do to decouple economic growth from environmental impacts is a step in the direction of greater resilience.

A defining strategy is about giving people a purpose to believe in. Victor Frankl, survivor of four Nazi concentration camps and psychiatric author of Man’s Search for Meaning, gives compelling evidence that our resilience under extreme circumstances often comes down to having an existential belief about something worth living for. Can sustainability offer us this compelling cause?

By pursing these five resilience strategies, individuals, organisations and even countries will be much better placed to endure the creative destruction to come. However, preparing for change is not the same thing as surviving it. Resilience is not a strategy, but an ability – one which is shaped and tempered in the fire of extreme experience.

At its heart, this ability to be resilient is about adapting when everything around us is changing – like an aspen tree. Aspen forests are able to survive frequent avalanches that literally flatten them. The trees survive and spring back up because they have an interconnected network of underground roots and their trunks and branches are highly pliable.

This brings us back full circle to the message of my first article on unlocking change, namely that the secret to transformational change in the world is connectivity – to which we can now add that dexterity is also absolutely critical. After all, Darwin never claimed that the fittest would survive, only the most adaptable.