I am writing newsletter of #weeknotes about starting the Atelier of What’s Next (What’s needed, What’s ready? What can we do? What next?) on Substack (this one here on Fri 30 June). I’m publishing here under Cory Doctorow’s “write once, syndicate everywhere”. To get regular updates on the Atelier as I write them do subscribe on Substack here.
This week:
- My broad take on ‘What’s needed?’.
- State of Sustainable Shipping: exploring a possible partnership.
- EIRIS Foundation Board meeting.
My broad take on ‘What’s needed?’
Step: 0/DETECTING – 1/DESCRIBING. Theme: Transforming systems. Climate. Policy.
Later this month, I am going to a 4-day event on the ‘Race to Regulation’, collaborating to accelerate the inevitable policy response to the Climate Era. It is convened by the very brilliant Paul Dickinson (co-founder of CDP) and held at Findhorn. If it is like past similar events, it will be intense, rich, regenerative and stimulating, with an amazing group of people. (More here.)
We were asked to give our response to the deeply difficult question in 300 words or less. I used my recent talk at UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources as the starting point. This is broadly my answer to ‘What’s needed?’.
QUESTION: ‘Given the current state of the climate and the climate community ecosystem, what do you think should be our collective response to the conclusion of the Global Stocktake at COP28?’
MY RESPONSE:
We are living in a climate era, which a predicament to be lived through, rather a problem that can be solved. The ambition loop (where government targets lead to business investment, then more pressure and then to more ambitious regulation) needs to be pushed harder, but most of the action there is in national politics rather than in UN negotiations. But we face more decades of increasing disruption and dislocation.
The following recommendations are wrong, but hopefully useful.
- People will be fearful and looking for certainty. Therefore, we need to develop an overarching direction of ‘security for all through renewal’. The alternative is ‘security through protection’, which leads to authoritarian responses or fascism.
- We need PILLARS of activity:
- Out with the old (aka ‘degrowth’). The managed decline of destructive industries and disrupting rent-seeking investors and incumbents.
- In with the new (aka ‘growth’). Industrial strategies for mitigation and adaptation, using missions, nurturing niches, and driving diffusion of ready innovations.
- Multi-layered resilience. Making our societies anti-fragile at supra-national, national and sub-national levels.
- The FOUNDATIONS, or principles, for those pillars include:
- Effectiveness over efficiency: contribution to multi-dimensional long-term goals more important than narrow measures of volume of activity.
- Exploring over navigating: learning from experimentation, not just improving the status quo.
- Creating inclusive ‘imagined communities’, so there is collective meaning-making and sense of belonging.
- Shifting governance toward: procedural justice, democratic pluralism, and mechanisms against institutional capture (seeing as the role of the state is going to grow).
- Accepting a pluriverse, a patchwork quilt of different kinds of political economies which can exist together, rather than one hegemon.
WHAT NEXT
- At the Findhorn event, engaging oters on whether there are things to work on along these themes.
- In general, use this ‘strategy house’ to direct my work. Also explain it a lot better. I need to write up that talk!
State of Sustainable Shipping: exploring a possible partnership
Step: 4/DEVELOP. Themes: Catalysing sectoral transformation; Scanning.
This week had some next steps on the State of Sustainable Shipping (‘SoSS’), where I am working for the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (‘SSI’). (Background on the project in an earlier WeekNotes here.)
The main event this week: a day exploring partnership with [redacted]. The day went well, and I think that on-going partnership is likely. But it is still a bit too sensitive to say out loud, for now.
WHAT’S NEXT
- Writing the Open Protocol (the step-by-step method for doing the scanning that we want to pilot later this year).
EIRIS Foundation Board meeting
STEP: 7/Drive. Theme: Organisational strategy. Systems transformation.
Monday started with a board meeting of the EIRIS Foundation. I was chair for 6 or so years, until the end of April. Over that time the charity transformed. It started near-dormant, purusing its mission through owning ESG rating company EIRIS company charity. But a series of transactions meant the company became part of Moody’s (via Vigeo), and the charity had cash in the bank.
As chair, I guided the CEO and board through that transformation. There’s lots to it (and I owe EIRIS Foundation a blog about it!). But where the Foundation ended up was a new articulation of its mission (building on the past, but responding the the present):
“Pioneering the next steps for sustainable finance.”
The insight was that there were many, many NGOs working on specifics. But there was too little attention going upstream, on creating the next wave of initiatives that will be needed in the coming years, if finance is to play a positive role in creating a better future. (The parallels between this and the need in shipping was important in the gestation of the Atelier — more here.)
We had some great news in April. EIRIS Foundation won a big grant for a new initiative, as explained in the latest newsletter:
We are delighted that Laudes Foundation has decided to make a three year grant to support us in launching a new initiative which will assess to what extent companies and their trade associations are lobbying for and/or against social legislation focussed on human rights due diligence and labour standards. This approach will seek to replicate Influence Map’s success in raising the topic of climate lobbying amongst responsible investors and other stakeholders.
This was a ‘proof of concept’ for the strategy. Funders can trust the Foundation to take a bare concept, and develop it into a new initiative, using the charity’s key capabilities:
- “A pioneering spirit: we seek out under-served topics or gaps that need to be bridged;
- Independence: we don’t have to focus on members, clients or those we research;
- Catalysing coalitions: we use a wide network of long-standing connections to bring together broad collaborations to increase impact;
- Supporting innovations: deploying them ourselves or recognizing great innovations from others;
- Quality of methods and outputs. Our research findings are known for their independence and high standards.”
The mode now shifts, from exploring widely of ‘what strategy shall we have?’, into ‘how shall we keep improving through delivering the strategy we have crafted?’. So, a great time to hand over being Chair.
The board meeting earlier this week was very much in the new mode: driving forward with the strategy overall, and the component parts in particular. Obviously, can’t say more than that here, but lots of exciting things on the horizon.
On a personal level, I was having to re-learn to be a Trustee, and not a chair. A different frontier!
WHAT NEXT
- Write my blog on being chair of EIRIS Foundation while it was transforming.
- Keeping pushing EIRIS Foundation to drive its strategy forward, including learning how to do it better.
David Bent 