In Warsaw, Poland, the Pyramid method was employed as a way to apply concepts from sustainable development to the strategic decisions of a small architecture studio. The problems that they were facing had to do with the negative impact of architecture solutions on the environment, unreliable contractors, lack of private customers, low trust in the local government, fatigue and lack of efficiency among employees.

In the analysis process the participants enumerated 4 key targets for the development of an enterprise in the construction sector:

1. Nature – high quality of local environment;
2. Economy – profit;
3. Society – positive relations with the stakeholders;
4. Well-being – satisfaction.

To meet those tagrets the company should concentrate on:

1. Nature – investment in intellectual capital and know-how of employees in the field of sustainable methods of construction to turn the company into a local leader in this field. It will allow to increase the market advantage while improving the state of local environment;
2. Economy – networking done by employers and employees to gain new customers and improve relations with the existing ones;
3. Society – the level of trust in the business surrounding of the company is low. In order to increase it the company will elaborate an ethics code;
4. Well-being – in order to avoid working overtime the company strives to improve efficiency of work of its employees, it will enable them to work flexi time.

Overall this was a success, while the atmosphere was “relaxed, but focused on the main topics of the workshop”.

Habsut International is an NGO that “advocates Sustainable Habitat & Sustainability with a practical approach in context of the ultimate environment surrounding us.” Coordinator Vineet Chhatria has been traveling around South Asia for weeks now, doing Pyramid 2012 workshops seemingly wherever he goes — and usually creating several of them in the process, as this photo from Kathmandu illustrates.

The Habsut Pyramid 2012 workshops — in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh — are exploring a wide range of issues, including the Rise of Urbanization, Education in India, Health & Sanitation, and other topics of importance to South Asian youth. They also managed to get their series of Pyramid workshops featured on the UN-HABITAT sponsored website “I’m a City-Changer” (http://www.imacitychanger.org/).

The Habsut Facebook page is also lively:  http://www.facebook.com/HabsutInternational.

We are not really sure here at Pyramid 2012 campaign headquarters, exactly how many Pyramids Vineet and his team have done now as part of Pyramid 2012 … but they seem to have done the most so far! Congratulations to Habsut!

However, nearly two weeks later, we are still receiving reports, uploading stories on our website, and learning about completed Pyramids that we hadn’t even expected, or new ones that are planned for the end of April. We have been overwhelmed, and so gratified, by the response so far! To all of you who dedicated your time and energy to make Pyramid 2012 a reality, THANK YOU!

The question now is: Do we stop? Or do we go on?

In a newsletter we sent out today to our subscribers we explain in more detail the aspirations we had when Pyramid 2012 was launched, and how – inspired by your support – a new vision was shaped. You can read the full content of this newsletter here: http://t.co/i02whVTm. 

Very briefly, we are now thinking about:

•    Extending and expanding Pyramid 2012 campaign into a longer-term program
•    Developing partnerships for communications and funding, and really working to spread the idea of doing Pyramid Lite workshops as a fun, engaging, powerful way to learn, and do, sustainability
•    Trying to turn Pyramid 2012 into a kind of “self-replicating social movement,” as people teach each other to use it, and spread the idea … creating a volunteer-driven “pyramid of Pyramids”

Do you think this is worthwhile? Would you like to volunteer a little bit of your time to take these ideas further … and build something together?

We need your feedback! Please take 2 minutes to fill in this short survey (4 questions), or just send us an e-mail with your thoughts: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dE8wSURqaWlhUTEzTGVaSUV3WlZNckE6MQ

If you would like to know more details about this proposition and the arguments behind it, please continue reading…

Fragment from the Pyramid Newsletter of April 11th, 2012

The arguments for continuing: Reviewing what happened during the last few months

Steady growth in numbers:In two months’ time the number of fans of our Facebook page doubled (we are now at 75), we reached 57 followers on Twitter and the community of subscribers to our Newsletter grew to 111 people. In absolute terms, these are not big numbers. But they matter a lot when you put things into perspective: Pyramid 2012 was created by a two-person “team” (or 1.5 people, if you consider that Cristina only started to help Alan in January), with no funding, with a time commitment of not even 10 hours/week, and no marketing campaign. We are still a cozy group, yet we are growing, without putting a lot of effort into it.

Great diversity in both the groups and the content: Pyramid 2012 and Pyramid Lite have proven that the Pyramid method — which used to be limited to one or two-day events, in professional environments — can be used by anyone, on a truly wide array of sustainability issues. The groups participating included high school students, university students, professional consultants, government officials, subsistence farmers, and ordinary folks in their living rooms. Some groups used Pyramid as a learning tool, others took it a step further and transformed it into action projects (we will detail all of these in the report). Pyramid can travel!

Self-generating diffusion:  There were several group coordinators who joined Pyramid 2012 without knowing any of the people involved in organizing it, or ever having done a Pyramid before. We think there is a chance that with a more focused effort, Pyramid could go “viral” and spread more and more quickly, as people see more and more evidence that something is happening, that it works, that it’s fun! There is a chance to create a “reinforcing feedback loop” that could generate a lot more activity to promote a more sustainable world.

Why now?

Pyramid 2012 was conceived as a way to raise some awareness and make a contribution to the upcoming Rio+20 meeting, which marks 20 years since the launch of the modern sustainable development movement at the 1992 Earth Summit.

But as that meeting approaches, we are hearing more and more voices — from science, from leading political figures, and from ordinary people — saying that change is still far, far too slow. We are running up against the famous “Limits to Growth” that scientists warned us about 40 years ago. Unfortunately, problems like climate change, water and other resource scarcity, stresses in the global food system, and biodiversity loss are showing up right on schedule.

As a world, we need to do everything we can to increase people’s engagement in the process of making sustainability a reality. There are many ways to do that, of course … and Pyramid seems to be a pretty good one, a way that is worth spreading. Can you imagine more and more people being invited to “Pyramid Parties,” where they get the chance to learn, talk, and dream up actions together? What about more and more teachers doing it in the classroom? People doing it at work? Civic groups organizing day-long events to re-energize their sustainability programs?

And as a result … more and more people would be inspired to do something. Not everyone, of course … but more people than would otherwise have been doing something … and they would, in turn, inspire others to learn more, and do something more …

This is how we see Pyramid contributing to the global sustainability movement. This is our vision.

How would this program be set up?

First of all, Pyramid Lite would continue to be distributed free, promoted by a community of dedicated people, and supported by a widening array of online resources — short videos, testimonials, stories, manuals in different languages. Different versions of the Pyramid Lite manual could also be developed, to fit with people’s other programs:  Pyramid is very versatile, can be easily adapted. For people who don’t like to read, video instructions or podcasts would talk them through the process.

Imagine, then, that as people participate more and in this, they earn recognition … especially when they recruit other people to participate. Imagine a “Pyramid scheme of Pyramids,” where no money is involved … but where the people, the engagement, and the action are multiplying.

A rebuilt Pyramid 2012 website would keep track of it all, but the website would not be the only way to keep Pyramid spreading. Simple, short documents would show people how to do it, and would be easy to replicate.

Why Pyramid?

Pyramid was designed so that groups could come together and do “systems thinking” together … regardless of whether they understood what a system was. It then leads them through a logical thinking process, that can be matched up with their capacity:  more advanced groups can do more advanced Pyramids. The process helps harvest the input of many different perspectives, many different disciplines. And it generates ideas that can lead to agreements — consensus agreements to take concrete action.

It’s the structure of Pyramid that carries the message of sustainable development … even if the phrase “sustainable development” is hard for some people to digest. With Pyramid Lite, they don’t have to understand any technical words and concepts to do a successful workshop. Doing Pyramid Lite is a way to do sustainability.

People seem to walk away from Pyramid with a few very important key lessons about sustainability. Pyramid helps them to understand that sustainable development involves …

1.       Multiple perspectives:  Understanding that there are always different ways of looking at the same problem, and that sometimes you have to look at problems from several different perspectives, if you are going to find a good, innovative solution.

2.       Balance:   In a complex world, you can’t just sacrifice nature to the economy, or the economy to nature, or either one of those to rights and wellbeing of people.  The four sides of the Pyramid (which we often label as the Sustainability Compass) help to remind us that everything needs to be kept in some kind of stable balance.

3.       Action:  There is no sustainable development, and no possibility for a sustainable world, if we do not take concrete action and implement concrete projects. The “point” of the Pyramid, the “Capstone Agreement” at the top, helps to make that link between talk and action very clear.

“Who knew sea turtles were so connected? We tend to look at local issues affecting the turtles when they are on our beach – overharvesting, beach erosion, lack of enforcement of laws etc. We sometimes forget that saving that nesting beach is just one part of the turtles’ story, and of ours.”

From Charlotteville, Tobago, where a group of representatives of environmental NGOs and eco-tourism businesses met to discuss sea turtle conservation, we received a very detailed and interesting account of the Pyramid workshop, that we would like to present here in full.

“The main outcome of our workshop was to see sea turtle conservation as a ‘capstone’ at the top of a wider environmental pyramid of sustainability issues in our country. The Pyramid process provided additional justification for ongoing projects and has inspired us to consider several new projects in our respective organisations.”

Level 1

“As wide-ranging animals that use both terrestrial and marine environments, sea turtles are influenced by local, regional and global trends from all four Compass points, for better and for worse. Our discussion ranged just as widely but we eventually settled on a series of trends that we loosely assigned to the four Compass points.

On the society face of the pyramid, we identified recent legislation that was passed to ban the hunting of turtles in Trinidad and Tobago, an increase in marine traffic, international trawling, and continuing local exploitation of turtles (including laying turtles, nests and turtles in the sea) as important influences. Our evidence for these is a combination of empirical, anecdotal and direct observations.

In the nature category, the most important trend is obviously the decrease in sea turtle numbers, globally and locally, both nesting and in the water. There was some discussion as to the strength of the empirical evidence for this trend locally but we agreed that there is observational and anecdotal evidence. Other trends we identified in the nature category were beach erosion and the changing nature of coastal substrate (from sand to less suitable nesting substrate such as pebbles or rocks), and global changes in ocean currents and temperatures and magnetic signals all of which will influence the range of sea turtles in ways that are hard to predict.

On the economy side, we discussed the price of turtle meat and its consumption locally. We agreed, based on observational and anecdotal evidence that both of these have remained pretty stable and will probably continue, in spite of the recent change in legislation. We also discussed how increased coastal development affects nesting habitat by taking up beach space, increasing lights on beaches, and increasing human traffic on beaches at night. Lastly, we discussed the importance of increased international fishing pressure in Trinidad and Tobago waters. Our evidence for the latter two points draws on some quantitative data, but is largely observational and anecdotal.”

Level 2

“We split into two groups (ladies and gentlemen) to tackle this level of the pyramid. We did not have time to follow up on each of the trends from Level 1, so each group selected several trends they felt were important.

In both groups, asking ‘why’ launched interesting discussions. The ladies used a more structured approach, beginning with the central challenge and moving backwards by listing several trends, then several further trends that could explain those trends, and so on. They also ‘drilled down’ by looking at effects and impacts. Many themes emerged from their discussion but we’ve selected two to focus on. The first was the emotional reaction that turtles can inspire in those who encounter them (in response both to their beauty in the water or laying eggs, and their suffering when encountered dead or dying). The second was the complacency and heritage traditions that condone unregulated harvesting and destructive international fishing practices. The flip-chart sheet diagramming their discussion was sensible, organised, and colourful.

The gentlemen used a less structured approach to discuss the causes and impacts of first, the 2011 change in national legislation and second, the emotional impact living turtles can have. Both discussions identified financial incentives as an important driving trend and also illustrated the highly networked nature of both sea turtles themselves, and their plight. For example, the central challenge connects to an international demand (from the Asian market) for fish, and to local pride in cultural traditions. Unfortunately, the gentlemen’s diagrams were neither as coherent, nor as colourful as those of the ladies.

On reassembling, we settled on a series of important drivers for the central challenge. These included the emotional impact of living turtles, nostalgia and traditions, the influence of international fisheries, coastal development and beach erosion, financial incentives and advocacy.”

Level 3

“Members of our group are already taking part in projects to address the central challenge, however, based on the discussion at levels 1 and 2, we came up with even more ideas.

We agreed that advocacy is important. Active advocacy at the national level contributed to the change in legislation and we feel that such advocacy should continue. Eco-tourism is often looked to as an alternative, sustainable way for locals to benefit financially from sea turtles. This addresses both the need for financial incentives and the emotional impact living turtles can have on us (both of which were discussed at level 2). There are excellent precedents in Trinidad and Tobago and some of our group members are already involved in just such a project.

We discussed several other ideas. A turtle festival at either the beginning or the end of the laying season could welcome sea turtles to our shores, or wish them well in their travels. The festival would emphasise the story of sea turtles and how they represent the health of, and threats to, the coastal and ocean environments that we all share and rely on. We discussed the possibility of an ‘adopt a turtle’ programme which has been used to good effect elsewhere, using a GPS tracking device to follow a turtle on its journey. Lastly, we talked about a documentary that would use sea turtles to tell the ‘whole’ story of the threatened environments we share (beaches, coastal waters and open ocean). “

Level 4

“We agreed that the Turtle Festival and a documentary would be the best choices to proceed with. We did not have time to discuss the details of how these projects would be implemented, however, given that a monitoring, awareness and eco-tourism project is already being implemented, and that the individuals in our group represent many of the more dynamic implementing organisations in the area, we all feel confident that we have a few exciting new seeds to plant, and some good soil in which they could very well grow.”

Level 5

Our capstone agreement is to promote our two chosen ideas in our various organisations and networks.

Conclusions

“The atmosphere during our workshop was fun. Many of the group members have worked together before, and we had a good time sharing ideas and jokes (more of the former than the latter fortunately). The pyramid itself helped give a focus to the discussion and the process. We were impressed that such a potentially confusing and complicated process could proceed so ‘naturally’.

The physical pyramid helped us focus the discussion and the process. With an experienced group of practitioners who have been through many workshops, the pyramid helped us keep the discussion alive and interesting. We (the organisers) knew it would be useful, but we were surprised to see just HOW helpful a physical three-dimensional model was for clarifying both the process and the ideas.

We had some difficulty moving smoothly from Level 2 (why is it happening) to Level 3 (what can we do). Although it sounds quite straightforward, we, as a group, struggled to identify points of action that did not seem trivial relative to our wide-ranging discussions at levels 1 and 2. This transition was eased by the genuine ‘ah ha’ moment that some of us had when the pyramid process brought home just how connected our central challenge is to wider environmental issues in our country, and just how fantastic an ambassador sea turtles could be. Put simply, sea turtle conservation isn’t just about sea turtles.

We would like to thank our group members for taking time from their busy schedules to join us and to share their ideas and talents. We all struggle with overwhelming challenges (turtles disappearing, clean water running out) and it’s easy to get down. But as frightening or disheartening as the challenge may be, the up side (and it’s a big one) is working with caring, committed and passionate people. We’d also like to thank the organisers of Pyramid 2012 for making this tool available to the world. It is much appreciated.”

From our side, thank you to the organizers for making this possible!

Click here for the full photo album »

“What are the first steps that need to be taken in order to make our city more sustainable?” Students from the Faculty of Management and the Faculty of Biology and Environmental protection in the Polish city of Łódź addressed this question by building not one, but two Pyramids!

As always, first they looked at the current problems: bad infrastructure, obsolete technologies, high use of water and resources, low ecological awareness, unemployment. Bureaucratic barriers and old patterns of behaviour were some of the underlying causes that they named. Envisioning what needs to be done was a pleasant part of the exercises and many ideas where vehiculated, from involving the residents into defining the future of their city, to stronger cooperation between businesses and academia. However, in the end they had to choose the most urgent solution: “facilitating entrepreneurship development and promotion of the city, both by public authorities and NGOs, students and residents themselves.”

A positive experience, overall, as “students were highly involved in the discussion and the process of pyramid building”. Thank you, Lodz!

After the positive experience with their first Pyramid workshop in New Delhi, Gene Campaign decided to organize a second one with a different group. Here is what they report:

“Seven exciting and enthusiastic students came together to address the issue of hunger in the country from various Universities and Institutes in Delhi, India. The group had a discussion covering long term trends and interlinking and interdependent causes on both at micro and macro scale respectively. Such as wastage of food by people in restaurants or in parties, farmers giving up agriculture and migrating to city as a labour force, influx of refugees adding burden to as it highly populated country.

Everyone keenly noted down the misplaced policies of government which have aggravated the situation of hunger in India like inefficient land use pattern, public distribution system, irrigation system, storage system and implementation of policies, role of corrupt middlemen who swallows maximum benefits giving farmers the minimum and vicious spiral of rising food prices. Exciting ideas and solutions were brought on the table and they chalked out methods on taking the discussion in wider platform through bottom-up approach.

At the end a ‘Capstone agreement’ was reached to engage in further discussion on a wider stage which will be held again by the end of March to mobilize the ‘will’ of spreading awareness at broader level for public awareness, as communication and interaction is the powerful tool and driving force to recognize and identify mutual platform to share, reflect and take actions. We have stayed posted on our facebook page ever since.”

Thank you for your energy and this positive account and we hope that you will continue to find Pyramid a useful tool for your projects!

Continuing the series of reports from the International School Manila, the Philippines, we will now briefly share the story of a group that tackled the topic of “Biodiversity and Ecosystems Loss”

They started by defining some visions for each side of the sustainability compass. Next the group defined indicators and tried to create a behaviour graph for each of these, in order to reveal the underlying trends. For instance, they plotted the past and present situation, as well as their future projections for deforestation (see more details here.

Once the analysis was completed, they gradually moved through the other levels of the Pyramid and discussed ways to assess different project ideas. Methodology was most important for these students, as they wanted to make sure that they would first master the right tools. That is why, before moving to the most important part, the project itself, they decided they needed to learn more. Their capstone agreement involved keeping in touch with the person that they delegated to take part in an online course on how to make ideas concrete. They created a Facebook group to this purpose and, in the light of newly acquired knowledge, they pledge to eventually transform their visions into concrete actionsin their hometowns.

We wish them good luck and really hope that these are just the first steps on a long-life path of being commitment to sustainability!

In India, Gene Campaign recognized the problem of hunger in the country and decided to organise the Pyramid workshop on the theme of ‘Sustainable Solutions to the Problem of Hunger’. Despite Government’s efforts and policy interventions to eradicate hunger from the country, India has some of the highest rates of malnutrition and stunting in the world. To bring attention to this subject there is an urgent need to come with a sustainable approach to the problem of Hunger.

We decided to work with youth and announced our first workshop of building Sustainability Pyramid. A young group of 15 students from various colleges and institutes across Delhi, India came forward to be a part of the discussion.

The group explored the long term trends, indicators and causes of hunger. Most of them identified that hunger and poverty are closely associated along with other causes such as inefficient food distribution, corruption, declining land area for farming, climate change etc. The discussion reflected that the awareness about the problem of hunger is a concern for not only the sufferers but also to the society.

Most of the proposed solutions were related to taking the cause to a larger population by creating and spreading awareness. Collectively everyone recognized the potential available space of social media as a powerful vehicle to reach out to maximum number of people to spread the awareness about Hunger issues of the country. A Capstone agreement was made to build an ‘Online Community Group’ to create awareness, to interact and to exchange and share ideas and actions.

The group has successfully started the online community group on Facebook called as H.U.N.G.R.Y. (Hunger Unites Network for Grouped Response by the Youth). The link for the group is https://www.facebook.com/groups/wehungry/

After a thorough analysis of the situation, they concluded that there was a general lack of awareness regarding water management issues, which in turn led to systemic problems, as illustrated by the recent floods in Bangkok. In order to address this problem, the participants decided to set-up a high-profile collaborative project and use their local networks to generate interest. Their Capstone Agreement was “to work together and meet once per month (minimum) to advance the project and achieve the desired objective”.

And that’s exactly what they have been doing ever since. Here is a recent update on their progress:

“We discussed a few specific projects in general terms, but agreed to meet again to refine the project and focus on a more specific issue. We had or 2nd meeting on 24 March and have scheduled a 3rd meeting for 31 March for another discussion.

Before our next meeting we will be reaching out in our local networks to develop interested in collaboration on a water resource management issue. At this point we are considering a project related to the impact of buildings on water resources. We have considered a drinking water filter installation project for a condominium, a water catchment project for a commercial or residential building. However, in the next meeting we will agree on a specific project and start planning for execution.

The “Thailand Environment Monitor, Integrated Water Resource Management: A Way Forward” report by The World Bank (published in June 2011) was distributed to increase awareness and stimulate thought about potential water management and awareness related projects.

The strategy will be to execute a hands-on project that will have a material impact and generate publicity to increase awareness of the criticality of water resource management locally, regionally, and globally.”

Although they reported some difficulties running the workshop with 4 people, we must say that we are extremely impressed with their outcomes and commitment. As the saying goes: perhaps sometimes… “Less is more”.

Good luck further and may your project be an inspiration to many others around the world!

In the small village La Holanda, in Cuernavaca, Colombia, farmers met to build a Pyramid around their local water problems. The workshop was organized at the initiative of Julia Andrea Osorio Henao as part of her doctoral research work on integrated peasant water management technologies.

Water use in the region of Cuernavaca is monopolized by companies that need this resource for the irrigation of sugarcane crops, water bottling and hydroelectric power generation. This results into water shortages for the local community which often cause health problems or lead to social conflicts.

As concluded by the group, the root causes of these problems are threefold: from the administrative side, there are dysfunctions in the monitoring of environmental impacts; the community lacks knowledge and cohesion to claim their water rights; and the private sector has no incentive to give up short-term thinking or adopt technologies for water cleaning and reuse.

The solutions envisioned ranged from running awareness projects to setting up village committees for environmental advocacy. But one thing is certain, the participating farmers and NGO representatives have made a Capstone agreement to take action: “We will develop our own program of Integrated Cuernavaca Peasant Water Management!!!”

As the organizer describes it, the Pyramid workshop “began a process of change in the paradigm of water management. The water was conceived as something external to the peasant who acted passively for access.” This is now shifting to a view where water access is conceived as a right and responsibility, hence the name “peasant water”.

A few other tangible outcomes:

• “We identified the challenges in integrated water management to carry out the peasant life project, by the methodology SWOT;
• We identified the critical points to start the way around the integrated and community-based water management of Cuernavaca;
• It will involve the component PEASANT WATER in the formulation of 21 municipal development plans that are currently in the process of development (impact on public policy);
• Strengthened the network of labor between the Universidad del Valle (public university), the NGO VallenPaz (a recognized NGO that has strong socio-economic impacts in areas with conflict), the municipal development council and rural community associations;
• It is designing the program INTEGRATED PEASANT WATER MANAGEMENT for the continued momentum of food and the life quality in Cuernavaca – Padilla – Cauca, focusing on the local situation and the ideal life project of each participating farmer.”

Overall – a wonderful start, we hope, for changing the situation of the villagers of La Holanda!

Would you be interested in the details of this research, let us know and we will put you in contact with the author.

Another group at the International School Manila chose to discuss the problem of digital divide. This refers to the gap between people with access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all. Those in the first category are considered to have an advantage in almost every aspect of their life, from learning new information, to getting a job, while the latter will lag behind in terms of knowledge, opportunities, thus being trapped in their current situation. As formulated by the organizers: “This divide enables developed nations to continue developing the technology they possess, but further hindering the underdeveloped or undeveloped nations, creating a cycle that ultimately affects the world economy and inhibits the world from solving issues such as poverty.”

At first, participants lacked research and knowledge about the problem at hand and they found it difficult to understand how it affects other people. However, “after watching some videos regarding the topic at hand and getting to know each other’s thoughts on the issue, the discussions started going smoothly.”, it is reported.

Each compass point team made proposals for solutions, though they found feasibility to be problematic: “It was difficult to come up with a solution that didn’t just focus on awareness since Digital Divide is a fairly new issue and is hard to solve. We didn’t necessarily overcome them, but we tried thinking of different ways to get help to solve the issue such as through talking to different organizations that are currently helping to mitigate this issue.”

Despite all the challenges, they felt that “the workshop worked out quite well in the end, enabling all the people in the group to think about what they can do to make an impact and how to consider the different facets of coming up with a solution such as economy, nature, wellbeing and society.”

The final outcome? “After the conference, we chose one person that we thought was most engaged throughout the whole workshop and was also most likely to implement the plan that the group came up with. This person was then given the chance to participate in an e-course called the Sprout Program led by Michael Furdyk, one of the co-founders of TakingITglobal, and truly an inspiration to all of us. Since we were all high school students, we decided that to keep in contact with each other, we will continue sending e-mails, posting messages on our Facebook group, and even leaving comments on our blog.”

As you might already know, 20 simultaneous workshops were run at the launch of Pyramid 2012 in Manila. Here is what happened in Group A, which consisted of international students between the 9th and the 12th grade and the founder of Global Climate Action, a local NGO.

The topic tackled: global warming. The participants quickly identified the rise in demand for resources, over-extraction and overproduction as being the main underlying factors causing it. This might already sound familiar, but the novelty lies in the solutions, because that is where each group can fully express its creativity! In brief, here are some of the ideas they came up with:

• Increase usage of public transport to reduce CO2 emissions by initiating bus programs at schools and local establishments;
• Stop over-logging to reverse the effects of deforestation of a national-scale, by establishing green companies that would use recycled materials in the production of, e.g. paper;
• Increase awareness of global warming through social campaigns in order to raise public support for the integration of eco-friendly materials in the production process of everyday objects;
• Reduce the stress level associated with the future of the world and combat people’s fear of global warming by giving out free hugs.

As for the Capstone Agreement, the group reports: “The ultimate solution was awarded to the Nature group with the plan of initiating bus programs at a national scale and the SPROUT program was awarded to the NGO (founder, Ed.) of the group, Lawrence Lin from Tianjin International School. With the initiative that he has already taken, it was appropriate for him to further his ideas into reality.”

The atmosphere was “very loud, with ideas being said from every person in the room”, but also “very productive” and respectful. Just what you would expect from a group of enthusiastic young people determined to change the world!

More about the workshop, on their blog »

A rapid-4 hour-Pyramid session took place at the University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Goerlitz in the context of lectures given by sustainability expert and consultant Markus Will. The group of motivated students from the Universities “Ecology and Environmental Protection” Bachelors program worked in teams in order to identify innovative options to enhance the sustainability performance of an industrial plant. The case study here was a production plant of washing and cleaning detergents.

Following a life cycle approach the students identified indicators and innovations in order to improve the product qualities itself, i.e. reduction of anionic tensides, phosphor loads, bio-degradable or easy-to-recycle packaging or the production processes, i.e. use of renewable energies or more efficient transport logistics. Well-Being and social aspects are touched by occupational health and safety issues, as well as actions to improve organizational culture and working atmosphere. Most of the proposed issues were related to enhanced research and development, changing of organization patterns and processes. Special attention was payed to systems mapping.

As often when running a Pyramid session the participants benefit from a “heureka!”-effect. A brilliant sustainability idea was born by the teams spirit. It combines production of the detergent, packing, transport and recycling issues. Are you curios about it? Watch out for news! Students are going to qualify the idea.

Urban sustainability pioneer Per Berg, originator of the “Citylands” concept of regional planning and integration, teaches a course on Interdisciplinary Methods, and this course was a perfect fit for the first Swedish contribution to the Pyramid 2012 campaign.

About 40 students from 20 countries are taking the course as part of their Master’s Degree studies, and their motivations to participate range from “frustration” at the pace of change in social conditions in Kenya, to “curiosity” about how to understand complex systems. The students work in teams to study eight different “Citylands” — that is, metropolitan areas and their surrounding rural zones — around the world, and the Pyramid process helped them quickly develop a more systemic sense of what they were learning.

This was one of the fastest Pyramids Alan had facilitated:  students glued sticks into triangle shapes during the morning lecture on global sustainability trends, produced trends for each of their cities over lunch, and then rapidly developed systems maps showing leverage points for their Cityland systems in the afternoon. They generated ideas for advancing sustainability, voted on the best one … and the winner was, “Urban De-Growth.”

In some of the cities they are studying, such as Chicago, whole sections of the city housing stock is emptying out. What to do? The winning student proposed embracing the trend and demolishing the unnecessary (and outmoded) housing, returning it to green space, agriculture, or other uses.

The physical Pyramid did not quite get fully built during this rapid, 3-hour, lecture+workshop. But Alan awarded the Pyramid kit to the winning student, and suggested that the class find a suitable way to top off the Pyramid at a later date. But for the purposes of Pyramid 2012, and generating ideas to forward to the Rio+20 summit … Pyramid accomplished in Uppsala, Sweden!

Almost 40.000 people live in Hofheim am Taunus, a beautiful little city close to Frankfurt am Main and Wiesbaden.  As Hofheim is the headquarter of the ISIS Academy GmbH, it was an obvious choice to run the first German Pyramid 2012 Workshop there. For initiator Axel Klimek, it was also pretty easy to find competent co-sponsors in the town for this event – the Hofheim Local Agenda 21 and the municipality of Hofheim.

Early in the evening of March 13 the 2^nd city counsellor opened the event by welcoming more than 30 residents of Hofheim and asking them to create challenging and good ideas for a sustainable Hofheim. Later that evening we also had the pleasure to welcome the Hofheim mayor, Mrs. Gisela Stang, who joined the workshop after finishing another important meeting and also offered something to eat for everybody.

The Hofheim Local Agenda 21 (HLA 21) presented their results of the NAX – a sustainability index for Hofheim. The HLA 21 was founded in 1998 as a result of the first RIO conference and has been politically active since than. In 2007, HLA 21 started to define goals and measures for a sustainable Hofheim and collect data. All these data flow into the NAX with 4 dimensions, 28 goals and 58 indicators. In the beginning of 2012 the second NAX Report was presented to the public.

With all these very well defined data the participants had a very fruitful discussion, along the ISIS (Indicator, System, Innovation, Strategy) Process to come up with their ideas about a sustainable future for Hofheim.

Here are some indicators, which were discussed as corner stones for a sustainable future of Hofheim:

• Ÿ  Life quality for elder people
• Ÿ  Healthy living
• Ÿ  Cultural diversity
• Ÿ  Low emission & waste
  • Renewable energy
• Good neighbourhood & living together – being there for each other and supporting each other
• Regional supply of goods
• Environmental protection
  • Through companies
  • Through household
• Good chances for education
• Security
  • Housing
  • Violence
  • Enough food
  • Enough energy
  • Waste reduction

On the levels of systems many mutual connections between indicators were made. Especially on the level of “good neighbourhood”  and “environmental protection”, “security” and “good neighbourhood” and many others.

As mobility is very important for a city like Hofheim, which is located close to Frankfurt, the use of low carbon transportation was discussed very much on the levels of innovation and strategy. How could Hofheim support electrical cars and cars with little fuel usage? Ideas came up like reserving best parking spaces for low cab cars and electrical cars.

For most participants this was a very interesting evening, and the time just flew by. At the end many said that it was a very good start and they would have appreciated to have more time for discussions and dialogues.

But also the idea came up to use such an approach to sustainability in the further development of Hofheim — not just a single teaser workshop, but in form of an integrated process.

So let’s see what the future will bring, or what kind of future we will create together in Hofheim – for the benefit of its citizens, but also for the benefit of all people on this planet.

Click here for the full photo album »

On the 11th of February a Pyramid workshop took place at a local secondary school in Śrem (near Poznan) during the conference “Thinking about the future”.  Students aged 17 to 19 years old discussed the issue of global climate change.

Among the first subjects debated were the possibility of reversing the unfavourable trend of climate change and the ability of individuals to contribute to environmental protection by making small changes into their daily routines.

Although the group had never come across the issue of sustainable development before, they quickly identified not only the obvious factors that contributed to the problem, but also some that go beyond the surface, such as: a “profit matters” attitude, gaps in regulation, personal behaviours, society and state rivalry, diversity of opinions.

Many solutions were proposed, ranging from the more structural ones – e.g. transitioning to alternative energy sources – to small initiatives that could be implemented locally, such as collecting cans and bottles in a school to raise funds for planting new trees.

In the end, they chose to focus on action they could themselves take immediately. As presented in their report: “The Capstone was solemnly placed with all participants during the workshop graduation ceremony. The result of this meeting was 58 declarations of our upcoming action for sustainable development.”

As for the process, “the atmosphere during the workshop was extremely warm and friendly” and the participants considered the potential of the Pyramid tool to support problem solving as being one of the most positive learning aspects of the meeting.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and commitment!

In the UK, a Pyramid workshop was run during the Cambridge Climate and Sustainability Forum, with a diverse group that included students, faculty members and community members from a nearby town.

The central challenge: making Cambridge carbon neutral. As described by the participants, the main question here is whether the benefits that stem from promoting sustainability ideas off-set the carbon emissions that come along with it, an issue that they named “brain-print”. A leading research institution, Cambridge surely contributes to fostering knowledge on a whole range of topics, but its activities also revolve around a carbon-intense conference industry, a paper-heavy culture, tourism and, generally, a lot of international business and personal travel.

Click here for the full photo album »

The following is a report summary written by Adrian: 

“Sustainable development at AGH – sharing ideas” – that was the name of the workshop organized within the global  happening Pyramid 2012, which gathered a group of 12 students and lecturers from AGH University of Science and Technology in Cracow on March 8^th.

Based on the assumption that every modern university should implement principles of sustainable development into its own organizational structures, participants attempted to analyze the current state and propose positive changes to their Alma Mater. The event was patronized by the Rector of AGH and supported by the Sendzimir Foundation.

The workshop began with a short speech of prof. Jan W. Dobrowolski, who presented a Polish input into sustainable development theory with a reference to the pioneering concepts of Walery Goetel, a former AGH’s Rector between 1945 to 1951.

The working part of the workshop was a friendly exchange of thoughts carried out according to ISIS methodology. Both the situation at the University and at the Student’s Campus were taken into account.

Although the overall status quo was found to be good,  following areas that need improvement the most were identified:

• uneconomical and unsustainable energy consumption and municipal waste disposal at the students’ campus
• inefficient way of exchanging information and operating the administrative issues at the University

The range of discussed factors was very broad. Even the biodiversity in academic areas was not passed over. What’s interesting,  it turned out that the at the AGH you can find many species of birds.

Generated ideas and innovations will be presented to the authorities of the University. They include:

1. Campaign “Benefit from being sustainable” – competition between dormitories and between faculties or departments based on:
   • electricity and energy savings
   • quantities of wastes collected selectively

   The winners could get discounts for accommodation in dormitories, free sport activities tickets, additional grants.

   Expected results: Increasing the amount of waste collected selectively, reducing energy consumption, improving the image of the University and its campus to be more modern, greater environmental awareness

 

2. To create a unit within the University responsible for offering the students to companies (and vice versa) to conduct researches and finance them (mainly for the purpose of diploma thesis)
   Expected results: increasing cooperation with industry, making graduates more attractive to employers.

 

3. Students ID cards could be used as passes for a gym and swimming pool – every student has a monthly free assets to use (proportional to grades)
   Expected results: increasing physical activity of students

 

4. Implement finally the virtual dean’s office – a portal which will save much time for both students and University’s workers – used for efficient information sharing (announcement, results in studies, getting a promotion, registration etc.)
   Expected results: obtaining an efficient and modern way of exchanging information, saving time

There were much more practical ideas, not included here. Participants jointly agreed with the statement that it is worth attempting to improve the surrounding reality under the far-reaching postulates of sustainable development.

The Department of Water Affairs in Botswana has been involved in a significant restructuring of its work in recent years, and I had the good fortune to visit them last week — in the middle of the Pyramid 2012 campaign — and run a workshop that used Pyramid at its heart.

Botswana is a fast-developing nation, and water is a scarce commodity. Working with a group of about 18 water officials in the country, as part of a longer training organized by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), we explored the long-term trends in the country using the ‘Compass’ framework, and the groups then selected out key trends to explore in detail, using systems mapping.

Then developed a set of ideas (Innovations) that could be new additions to their current strategic planning process. The remainder of the workshop focused on how to implement new ideas most effectively — especially considering that not everyone likes new ideas! — and we kept with the Pyramid structure and process as we did that.

Our workshop ended on a high note, as participants used the last level to capture their own strategic insights … and then we capped it off. For me, this was a joy:  the first Pyramid in Botswana, my first time in that beautiful country, and a chance to get to know some of the people that are working to make sustainable development (water is so crucial to SD!) into a reality. - Alan AtKisson

Many thanks to Ana Cascao and SIWI, as well as the Department of Water Affairs of Botswana, for making this Pyramid possible!

In Jakarta, Indonesia, a Pyramid workshop was run with the employees of a sustainability consultancy firm. They collectively decided to reflect on sustainability in general, within the national context.

After a brief analysis conducted in groups, they concluded that most of the issues that their country faced stemmed from the same cause: a lack of human resource quality. Many actions were proposed, such as: awareness raising, workshop and training, coaching, evaluation, improvement plan, training for government officers, setting up an apprentice program, having collaboration with educational institutions, volunteering at school, encouraging companies to channel their CSR budgets for educational programs.

But what could they do right away? They chose to focus their efforts on raising awareness and everyone committed to get involved in the development of a website and an online community where “the members could get information, as well as share their concern and ideas on sustainability in Indonesia, in popular and informal style”.

There are also a few practical tips for running a workshop that we gathered from their report:

• emphasize from the beginning that the purpose of the workshop is to find grounds for mutual understanding and collaboration;
• use games and tell a brief story about the tools, in order to engage your audience

All in all, “the participants looked excited”. And that’s exactly how we feel about their ambitious project. Good luck with the implementation and we are looking forward to your further updates!

What does it take to make a university campus more sustainable? Especially when you look at this question with the eye of an architect/urban planner? This was the central challenge addressed by master students at the Gdańsk University of Technology in Poland. And so, a new Pyramid was born.

Many issues were brought to the table, from the untapped potential of available space to the fact that environmental awareness doesn’t translate into practice. One of the solutions lies in the creation of “places” that would encourage cooperation, innovation, interdepartmental exchanges and actions, that would “make some life”, as the participants framed it. Space – both in a physical and social sense – becomes thus a tool that can shape human interactions. In practical terms, the participants agreed that the transformation of the campus needs to begin with the community itself, so they proposed that volunteering opportunities be created, recurring events – established, competitions, workshops, interdisciplinary projects and personal initiatives – encouraged.

Click here to see the full photo album »

The Capstone Agreement is their first step towards reclaiming the Campus, as they are going to create the first bicycle parking: ”We can’t wait for some changes – they won’t occur if we don’t take some action!”

As for the Pyramid workshop itself, here is the opinion of one of the participants, A. Czerwińska: “[it] will be remembered by me as one of the few activities / meetings / events at the Technical University of Gdansk which sought to broaden students’ awareness of the environmentally conscious design. The idea of Sustainable Development is often invoked at Gdańsk University of Technology, but there are no exercises that actually teach students how to implement this idea into life. I’m a participant who has been interested in eco-friendly architecture for several years and those workshops were particularly valuable to me. I could confront my knowledge with the knowledge of other participants, share views and ideas and put myself into a role of the person who’s responsible of public spaces’ design. First of all, I learned that sustainable development isn’t only about using less water or producing less waste but also about the economic policies, which strongly affect the society and the places we live in. This workshop was also a good opportunity to discuss our local «problems» associated with public spaces of campus and excessive bureaucracy at the university. Building the four walls of the pyramid has led us all to a common conclusions. The administration of campus should give the spaces between buildings back to students (those spaces are currently dominated by cars) and have a bit of more confidence in the society of students. It is necessary to do those steps in order to make Gdańsk University of Technology a school which fits into sustainability «movement»”.

Thank you, Gdansk, may this be indeed just the beginning of a new movement!

How can Russia tackle the exhaustion of nonrenewable resources? A few students of chemical technology from the D. Mendeleyev University in Moscow found a way to get this started. While analyzing the problem they realized that, within the local context, one of the main issues was the insufficient information available to executives, stemming from a rather old-fashioned model of education within universities.

As a consequence, the solutions proposed were targeted to the academic environment where a mentoring system and practical projects in the field of sustainability would need to be implemented: ”Education is one of the main leverage points in the problem “Resource Exhaustion”, because especially in Russia, there is no such information in education process at schools and universities”, the group concluded.

If you ever considered advancing sustainability education in your own country, you could draw some inspiration from this step-by-step action plan prepared by the Russian team:

1. Choose a team of like-minded people
2. Letter to Dean and other stakeholders.
3. Letter to the Department of Environment in Moscow Mayor’s office.
4. Evaluate technical and investment approach with reasonable gains and control points
5. Financial budget (1000-3000 USD)
6. Calendar plan (in development)

The workshop also entailed a lesson for the organizers: that it takes a group of very motivated people in order to find solutions to big global issues. They surely were motivated enough to take one first step at the local level and, in the end, they all had “a really great time”.

In New York, second year Bard College students came together to figure out how to get the local Solar Jobs Act to pass the legislature. Divided in four groups, one for each of the sides of the Sustainability Compass, they worked their way through the different levels of the Pyramid during a two-day workshop.

The solutions they proposed included: creating YouTube videos and outreach campaigns, a training program in NY community colleges and vocational schools, a public-private partnership program with grocery retailers called “Solar Produce,” and two solar installation competition programs (“Solar Up!” and “Power by the People”). “Solar Up!” was the idea that gathered the most votes within the group.

Melissa P., one of the participants, reports: “At the end of the second day, as we all stood in a circle reflecting on everything that we had learned and experienced together, there were multiple mentions of appreciation for the new set of tools, new perspective for how to tackle work and life problems, and acknowledgment of how much easier this process was for us, coming from the same education and similar values, than it might be in a different context.”

Read the full account of this event on the Bard College blog »

Organizer: J.F. Fillaut

The first known Pyramid workshop in West Africa was organized by Cabinet Espere, an Affiliate of AtKisson Group. Cabinet Espere has been working with colleagues in Sénégal these past few years to develop a variety of very creative programs. For this Pyramid, they focused on the question of waste management in African cities, with a special focus on plastic. Participants were “stakeholders involved in urban waste management in African cities: city, county, government, local communities, recyclers, university, financial partners, NGOs, international cooperation officials.”

JF Fillaut reports:  “The capstone agreement was : environmental education !!! In Africa, people do not care about waste and their consequences related to health, environment… At the end of the Pyramid process, we agreed to spread environmental education, everyone with his/her own power of leverage.”

UPDATE: Pyramid group photo

On 17 February, the global Pyramid 2012 campaign was officially launched with Alan AtKisson’s keynote address at the annual conference of the Global Issues Network in Manila, the Philippines. Over 400 students worked in 20 parallel groups, using Pyramid to explore solutions to 10 global sustainability issues. For a slideshow of student photos, see:  GIN Manila Photo Album

GIN is a program that links together international schools and students in East Asia who are concerned with global challenges. While Pyramid 2012 is for everyone and anyone, starting with high school students “was a perfect way to kick off this campaign,” said AtKisson, lead developer of the Pyramid workshop. “Students are the future, and these students are exceptional. They already taking a serious role in making that future more sustainable.”

Students were also the workshop facilitators, and they prepared intensively for the conference, including by making a set of instructional videos on the Pyramid process for participants to view in advance. The topics they covered included global infectious diseases, natural disaster prevention and mitigation, biodiversity and ecosystems losses, deforestation, global warming, digital divide, education for all, fisheries depletion, international labour and migration rules, and water deficits (two workshops for each topic).

For more more information on the GIN Manila 2012 conference, hosted by International School Manila, visit this website (scroll down to see links to the student blog and other resources):  http://earcos-global-issues-network.org/

Alan AtKisson’s keynote was streamed live on the web and will be available later for archival viewing.