Low-carbon synergy and social intelligence - the internal logic of a transition pathway?
| Dates: | 26 February 2014 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Sustainable Consumption Institute |
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| How much: | Free |
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| Speaker: | Dr Joe Ravetz |
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ABSTRACT
While remote villages in India are destroyed by aluminium ore mining, used cans pollute our streets and communities. But in a free-market society, disposable ‘stuff’ seems to be a human right for producers and consumers. And the drink supply chain is just one small part of a giant industrial system, with an existential problem known as climate change. What can be done?
We could try supply-demand chain integration, behavioral psychology, ecosystems markets, stronger regulation, or technical innovation. Better still would be a creative combination of all these, an integrated ‘transition pathway’. But this seems very challenging. There are many uncertainties, risks and opportunities: and also, the wider ‘supply-demand-value’ chain isn’t just a rational technical system, but a human one.
So to realize a transition pathway involves not only technical ‘linear’ thinking, but a more human kind of ‘synergistic’ thinking. This looks for wider systems of collaboration: business opportunities for integration of supply chains: social opportunities for integration of health and education: or ecological integration of waste and resources. Putting these together, combined ‘transition pathways’ can emerge, as processes of shared learning, collaboration building and ‘social intelligence’: with less policy intervention and more effect.
This seminar looks at current developments in methods and tools: particularly the ‘synergistic mapping’ of complex cognitive systems: and ‘synergistic design’ of responses. The example on the table is the challenge of a ‘One Planet’ transition pathway for the UK economy: where policy mixes, intelligent finance and collaborative business models can start to join the dots.
Speaker
Dr Joe Ravetz
Role: Co-Director
Organisation: Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy
Biography: Joe Ravetz is Co-Director of the Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy at Manchester, and leads on sustainable cities and regions. His main books include ‘City-Region 2020’: and the forthcoming ‘Urban 3.0: creative synergy and shared intelligence’. He is on the editorial board of Foresight Journal; coordinator of the Greater Manchester Policy Exchange; Principal at SAMI Consulting; and delivers training, seminars, consultancy, keynotes, reviews and also graphic facilitation in many countries.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
10.05
Harold Hankins Building
