Sustainability-as-the-World-Needs (SWoN) Approach

Derived in opposition to sustainability-as-usual (current mainstream corporate sustainability practice), SWoN is a novel approach to corporate sustainability, recalibrated to make the discipline aligned with the objective of attaining real-world sustainability outcomes. The SWoN Approach combines four necessary facets:

• Alignment with science
• Alignment with ethics
• Applying a systemic perspective
• Applying strategic business acumen

The approach guides us through translating real-world sustainability imperatives into corporate sustainability agendas and business strategy imperatives. Its application enables authentically integrating real-world sustainability and business strategy, closing the hitherto gap between the two.

Corporate Sustainability-as-the-World-Needs (SWoN) Agenda

Informed by the SWoN approach, a SWoN agenda or ambition level for corporate sustainability is the answer to “how sustainable is sustainable enough”. It centres around actively driving two critical imperatives:

• Attaining the state of all business globally being zero harm business by 2030 - and further business transformation towards fully regenerative business models and system value creation afterwards.
• Achieving an interim transitional system in place, a precondition for the above, by 2030, and further system transformation towards a fully regenerative system in the subsequent decades, until a sustainable society is achieved.

Therefore, a Corporate SWoN Agenda is radically different from our current notions of “each business doing their part” within their operational or value chain boundaries through incremental change.

SWoN Training Series

The objective of the SWoN Series is to train sustainability champions, consultants and business generalists in sensitising and mobilising business leaders towards the 2 critical imperatives of the Corporate SWoN Agenda, ultimately delivering a large enough cohort of first mover business leaders towards radical transformation and corporate systemic leadership.

In doing so, the Series relies on the findings of, and actively applies and teaches the application of, the SWoN approach.

Polycris

A protruded period of multiple highly unfavourable macro trends unfolding simultaneously as a result of human activity, with extreme, violent and/or catastrophic events occurring frequently and/or simultaneously in many places, with simultaneous and increasing severe degradation of the natural environment, social cohesion, and human-made systems.

Meta-disruption

the effects of the polycrisis as they will be experienced by business in the late 2020s and 2030s - with global supply chains increasingly unviable, the costs of energy and raw materials skyrocketing, middle class purchasing power plummeting, multiple industry-wide bubbles bursting, the financial system crushing, rising political instability and so forth. For more, follow arkH3 content on Overshoot.

Prosocial Behaviuor

Prosocial Behaviuor - is a form of positive psychology that focuses on how people help each other out and do things for the greater good. We use the term in the context of the excellent book - Prosocial - Using Evolutionary Science to Build Productive, Equitable, and Collaborative Groups (Atkins, Sloan Wilson, & Hayes) says: “Prosocial behaviour is generally understood as the act of getting along and cooperating with others. It is about benefiting others or Society as a whole. Prosocial behavior includes altruism, which includes self-sacrifice, but we don't limit our definition to helping others at a cost to oneself. Indeed we are more interested in creating win-win situations in which everyone gains.” It aims to answer questions such as “What could we do together that we cannot do alone”, and “How can we support ourselves in order to act together in such a way that satisfies our own interests, the interests of our group, and the interests of the larger systems of which our group is part?”

Systems Interventions

We use the term to refer to interventions at any of multiple scales and leverage points in a system in a similar way to that described by Donella Meadows in ‘Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System’

“These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything”

We align with the science and ethics which clearly show we need an immediate, radical systems change in order to secure a liveable future and a just present, and we see this Series of 6 training sessions as a systems intervention in itself. It provides participants with the foundations on which to mount their own interventions, from micro to macro, toward Sustainability-as-the-World-Needs and Business-as-the-World-Needs.

Collapse-Awareness

Natural systems (e.g. ecosystems) in which humans unnaturally intervene through their activity exhibit a pattern of Overshoot-Collapse-New equilibrium, which describes the relationship between the size of a population of a species and the carrying capacity of an ecosystem. Collapse in this pattern refers to the stage when the carrying capacity shrinks due to persistent overshoot, resulting in a significant die-off of the species, until a new equilibrium is found.

On the level of the whole planet, our society has been in increasing ecological overshoot - meaning the footprint of human society in terms of destruction of nature and toxic pollution - since the 1970s. We are entering the phase of collapse - when the carrying capacities of the Earth systems (also known as planetary boundaries) are about to crumble.

More generally, some groups apply the term “collapse” to a broader societal collapse or collapse of complex industrial-consumerist society: Multiple macro trends, such as peak oil, peak of multiple natural resources, and their effects on the economic and financial systems, and in turn on our ability to produce food, goods and sustain middle class and affluent lifestyles, happen to coincide with the effects of long-term ecological overshoot playing out. The simultaneous unfolding of these events will have severe consequences over the next few decades - on all levels of society, including how we do business, what we are in the business of, how we trade, and how we live our lives.

Cognisance of these scientific findings, from a systemic perspective, has been referred to as “collapse-awareness”, which is a very fitting and concise expression. This is why we choose to apply this term. We do not wish to carry over any esoteric connotations - but the scientific accuracy of the term. You may not find the term applied widely in the mainstream yet - our offering is cutting-edge.

You may wish to check out our on-demand webinar: What Does Overshoot Really Mean for Business?