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Overview to our latest course "Systems Thinking for Sustainability"

"Sustainability is not the property of objects, it is the property of systems and to design truly sustainable solutions we have to look at the entire system when making these decisions or else we create sub-optimizations and new externalities that we never really wanted to make"

In this quote, Eva Gladek touches upon a key floor in much of our contemporary thinking and approach to sustainable development; that it is still grounded in a reductionist way of thinking that creates the unsustainable systems we live with and will thus not help us in systemically addressing such issues in a way needed to move forwards. More than this, our analytical way of thinking that has dominated during the modern era leads to incremental approaches to change when what is needed is something more transformative - systems change.

We indeed need a new way of thinking and looking at the world if we are to make real sustainable development, it is here that systems thinking comes in. "Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static 'snapshots'... Today systems thinking is needed more than ever because we are becoming overwhelmed by complexity." Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline.

Systems thinking helps to shift our thinking to a more holistic view that is required to avoid unintended consequences and start to develop systems that work for all, planet and people. But more than this, systems thinking also offers new insight into how to do transformative change - the new methods and tools for systems change that are much needed in many areas.

In this course, we want to help you better understand why systems thinking is so important for addressing the complex wicked challenges we face and for making the kind of transition that is needed to realize a more sustainable world.

Systems Thinking & Sustainability
In this first section, we will be covering the basics of what exactly systems thinking is and what we mean by reductionist and holistic thinking. We will talk about what sustainability is, or could mean, from a systems perspective. We explore the idea of "ecosystem thinking" and how systems thinking helps us to shift the paradigm from ego to eco-system awareness.

Systems Modeling
Systems mapping is a powerful tool that helps change agents visually represent complex systems and start to think about where and how to intervene to change them. In this section, we will learn the basics of systems mapping and how to use it to start diagnosing unintended consequences and developing circular systems.

Systems Change
Moving towards a more sustainable world will require a huge re-ordering of systems. A reframing of the values, purpose, and structure of many of the systems that support our industrialized economies. We call this kind of change "systems change" - a kind of change that is aimed at changing the structure and functioning of the systems that run our industrialized societies. In this section, we will explore what systems change is and some of its methods and tools.

Regenerative Systems
In the final section, we will talk about how systems thinking can help us better understand and develop regenerative systems. We will look at how the ideas of living systems can inspire us, what the adaptive cycle model is, what are the key aspects and features of resilience and how can we start to develop systems based upon a new set of ecosystems thinking principles.

Who is this course for?
Sustainability professionals who want to integrate systems thinking into their work.

Anyone interested in sustainable development and wishing to take a different, holistic perspective on the challenges of sustainability.

Those wishing to understand how system change approaches could be used to address wicked sustainability challenges, like climate change, the water crisis, or the energy transition.



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