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Fostering a Culture of Sustainability

Fostering a Culture of Sustainability. Presented To: Saskatchewan Regional Centre of Expertise UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Douglas Worts and Glenn Sutter WorldViews Consulting October, 2007. Workshop Outline. identify pressing issues

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Fostering a Culture of Sustainability

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  1. Fostering a Culture of Sustainability Presented To: Saskatchewan Regional Centre of Expertise UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development Douglas Worts and Glenn Sutter WorldViews Consulting October, 2007

  2. 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

  3. What are the most pressing issues we face globally?

  4. What are the most pressing issues we face locally?

  5. What are the most pressing issues that you are facing personally?

  6. Sustainability, (and unsustainability) is a cultural matter Rooted in: • Our values • Our behaviours • Our attitudes • Our priorities • Our systems

  7. But what do we mean by ‘culture’?

  8. 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

  9. 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.

  10. Culture isRelationships The Unknown Environment Global humanity Society Community Family Self <--Past Future--> <--Present -->

  11. How is our culture lived and perpetuated?: • Individually • & - Collectively Consciously & Unconsciously

  12. Sustainability and Adaptation Personal Level, e.g: • - changes in personal relationships • changes in career • moving from country to city (or vice-versa) Collective Level, e.g: - migration => monocultures become pluralistic => urbanization

  13. Organization Experiments, Creativity & Surprises

  14. Exploitation Stronger Connections & Increasing Potential for Change

  15. Conservation High Levels of Complexity Rigidity, & Resilience

  16. Release A Rapid Collapse

  17. The Adaptive Renewal Cycle Holling (2004)

  18. The Rigidity Trap Two Traps The Poverty Trap Holling (2004)

  19. 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.”

  20. Cross-scale Interactions Cycles of Different Sizes form a “Panarchy”

  21. How does culture respond and contribute to adaptive renewal cycles?

  22. Cultural Needs of Civil Society • Personal: • 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. • Collective: • Rights • Responsibilities • Justice (social, economic) • Stewardship • Participatory democracy • etc. Describe how you have experienced these needs (or others) in adapting to global, local and personal issues.

  23. Preferred Probable How do we want to live? How will we get to Preferred Future?

  24. Feedback You can’t live without it!

  25. Community Institutional Personal Culture of Sustainability Probable vs. Preferred Future

  26. Critical Assessment Framework Criteria for assessing initiatives aimed at 3 levels of cultural adaptation: • Individual • Community • Global Working Group on Museums and Sustainable Communities

  27. 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

  28. 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

  29. Global Level • consciousness of global impacts of local choices • foster global ecosystem health • reduce global ecological footprint • enhance global social justice and equity Working Group on Museums and Sustainable Communities

  30. Getting the right indicators

  31. “Development divorced from its human or cultural context is growth without a soul.” ‘Our Creative Diversity’, UNESCO, 1995

  32. Where is our culture headed?

  33. Contacts Glenn Sutter Regina, SK <gcsutter@yahoo.ca> Douglas Worts Toronto, ON <douglas_worts@rogers.com> www.geocities.com/dcworts

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