What is this sustainability thing 1

What is this “Sustainability Thing”? Jenni Goricanec @ Swinburne University 24 th August 2011

Outline
my thesis and my position
and sustainability, engineering, context
and past, present, future
and innovation
and philosophy, transformation
and methodology
and propositions for engineering
Each considered for its implications for practice
This “and…and…and…” form – a post-structural logic of difference, perspectives and fragments (Usher [1])

Towards Creating Sustaining Futures: a philosophy of (engineering) practice for the 21 st Century
This philosophy emerges from an understanding of the nature of our predicament
Some deep questions are:
What is it that we are trying to sustain?
How do we choose good sustaining answers, ones that will become real?

I accept that humans have effected the natural processes of the world
My practice focuses on:
Enhancing the sustainability of human systems
Through working with people
to break out of cognitive silos
orienting towards the “pull” of future intentions while taking into account the “push” of past habits and “best practice”
with the whole problem systemically in all its inter-disciplinary complexity

Start with a human system (artefacts e.g. dams)

Getting to the artefact

The project to build the artefact “sits” within an open system

This combination of relations is socio-ecological (Emery & Trist [2])

Highly interconnected… Our systems, networks, processes and organisations, developed with a causal logic have become over time deeply enmeshed in a ‘cats-cradle of interconnections’ with behaviour ‘driven by interactions between optimising, but confused, agents’ (Haldane [3]).

Turbulence: an important emergent property of the causal texture
dynamics emerge, not only from the interactions of identifiable component systems, but also from the environment itself
systems within the environment become related to each other, and form novel interdependencies
dynamic social & natural environmental field pressures emerge as an unplanned consequence of the actions of constituent systems and reverberate through the extended social & natural environmental field
the resulting increased complexity, and the unexpected directionality of causal interconnections, produces increased relevant uncertainty about the requirements for adaptation
(Emery[4], Baburoglu[5,6], Emery & Trist[7])

Shift in causal texture  responses need to shift
from
disturbed, reactive
operations (a planned series of tactical initiatives)
take into account – internal, “inputs” & “outputs”
equivalent of CHESS
to
turbulent
active adaptive planning (high levels of relevant uncertainty)
take into account all 4 possible relations
equivalent of GO

Engineering
Following the creative drive and proud history of serving the survival needs of humanity
Now serve the collective survival needs of the world
Striving to create what can be
Engineering as creating what can be, consistent with collective goals

Response?
‘ a whole package…of incommensurate aspects…one single predicament, which no matter how tangled, has to be tackled at once’ (Latour [8])
This all-at-once-ness requires different practices

Creating an escape from our labyrinthine, turbulent predicament Engineering
Follow the proto-typical engineer Daedalus in escaping from the labyrinth.

Directive Correlation (Sommerhof [9])

Directive Correlation
Responses available for dealing with emergent environmental circumstances (passive form)
Co-evolution – track the system of causal relations, seeking to identify emergent properties and allowing these emergent circumstances to determine the kinds of responses that will be adaptive (active form).
The appropriate method for engineering a living, open system is active adaptive engineering, using foresight to create desirable and feasible futures (or outcomes) for the system as a whole

Latour [8]

Engineering practitioners making heterogeneous connections Engineering organising a sustaining technological world; becoming broader, more transdisciplinary, dissolving boundaries

Philosophical questions
George Monbiot (writer in The Guardian ) [11]
"The real issues are not technical or economic. The crisis we face demands a profound philosophical discussion, a reappraisal of who we are and what progress means” and
“ Debating these matters makes us neither saints nor communists; it shows only that we have understood the science”

Framing  Methodology
A realignment of the whole engineering system
Cannot be done within the frame of reference of the discipline
‘ we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them’ (Einstein, similar idea – Bateson [12], Godel)
‘ a corrective change in the system of sets of alternatives from which choice is made’ (Bateson [12])

Framing  Methodology
“ Transformation happens less by arguing cogently for something new than by generating active, ongoing practices that shift a culture’s experience of reality” (Zander & Zander [13])

Method/Practice Assemblage
Wicked problems (Conklin [14]; Rittel [15])
Generative flux (Law [28])
Reflexive practice
Object-oriented philosophy (Harman [16] describes Latour’s work this way) where the reality of science (and engineering) events in the material world are transformed into scientific knowledge and through this process of coming together, reciprocally transform both the material and human worlds (including the researcher) ( This though is not what we normally teach as science or engineering )
Process Philosophy (Whitehead [17])

Method/Practice Assemblage
Searching (Emery)
Empirical work
Abduction (Peirce [18])
Emergence (Bedau & Humphreys [20], Johnson, Lewin)
Action Research (Checkland & Holwell [19])
Short Cycle – producing outputs
Long Cycle – producing outcomes
(Bateson [12], Checkland & Holwell [19])

What emerges? Propositions for engineering
Engineering as creating what can be, consistent with collective goals
Creating an escape from our labyrinthine, turbulent predicament
The appropriate method for engineering a living, open system is active adaptive engineering, using foresight to create desirable and feasible futures (or outcomes) for the system as a whole
Engineering practitioners making heterogeneous connections
Engineering organising a sustaining technological world; becoming broader, more transdisciplinary, dissolving boundaries
Using Active Adaptive Planning to re-conceptualise engineering
Sustaining futures for our living ecosystems embedded in engineering outcomes, processes and evolution
Towards a sustaining contextual poetry of engineering practice

More…
The Sustainability Thing @ www.thesustainabilitything.com.au
Thesis (in Docs Tab)
Project (in Project Tab)
LinkedIn
about Jenni Goricanec
Powerpoint Pack
http://www.slideshare.net/jennigoricanec/what-is-this-sustainability-thing-1-8969743

Sustainability Thing
A “gathering”
The Ding of Scandinavian parliaments public assembly (&….)
Whatever is or may be an object of thought

Sustainability Thing
Human – Brundtland (UN [23])
Triple Bottom Line
Four Pillars
Eco-system – Deep Ecology (Naess [24])
Sustaining or strengthening our environment – Natural Capitalism (Hawken [26], Hawken, Lovins A & H [27]), Biomimicry (Benyus [25])
What is it that we would sustain?

References
1. Usher, R. and R.G. Edwards, Subjects, networks and positions: Thinking educational guidance differently. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 2005. 33 (3): p. 397 - 410.
2. Emery, F. and E. Trist, Towards a Social Ecology: Contextual Appreciations of the Future in the Present . 1973, New York: Plenum Publishing Corporation.
3. Haldane, A. Rethinking the financial network . 2009 [cited 2011 26 July].
4. Emery, F., The Case Study Method . 1963, The Tavistock Institute, Unpublished Working Paper, Number 265: London.
5. Baburoglu, O.N., A Theory of Stalemated Social Systems and Vortical Organisational Environments: The Turkish Experience and Beyond . 1987, University of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia.
6. Baburoglu, O.N., The vortical environment: the fifth in the Emery-Trist levels of organisational environments. Human Relations, 1988. 41 (3): p. 181-210.
7. Emery, F. and E. Trist, The causal texture of organisational environments. Human Relations, 1965. 18 (1): p. 21 - 32.
8. Latour, B., Pandora's Hope - Essays on the Reality of Science Studies . 1999, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
9. Sommerhoff, G., The Abstract Characteristics of Living Things , in Systems Thinking: Selected Readings , F.E. Emery, Editor. 1969, Penguin Books: Harmondsworth.

References
10. Sommerhoff, G ., Hierarchies of goals and subgoals, in Systems Thinking, F.E. Emery, Editor. 1981, Penguin: Harmondsworth. p. 147-202.
11. Monbiot, G., This crisis demands a reappraisal of who we are and what progress means , in The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/dec/04/comment.politics 2007: London, UK.
12. Bateson, G., The Logical Categories of Learning and Communication , in Steps to an Ecology of Mind , G. Bateson, Editor. 1972, University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London. p. 279-308.
13. Zander, R.S. and B. Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life . 2000, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
14. Conklin, E.J., Wicked Problems and Social Complexity . 2001: http://cognexus.org/wpf/wickedproblems.pdf Accessed 9th October 2007.
15. Rittel, H., Second Generation Design Methods. Interview in Design Methods Group, 5th Anniversary Report, DMG Occasional Paper 1, 1972: p. 5-10.
16. Harman, G., Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics . 2009, Melbourne: re.press.
17. Whitehead, A.N., Process and Reality: an essay in cosmology , New York: Free Press.
18. Peirce, C.S., The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, Vol 2 (1893 - 1913) . The Peirce Edition Project, ed. 1998, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
.

References
19. Checkland, P. and S. Holwell, Information, Systems and Information Systems. 1998, Chichester: Wiley.
Bedau, M.A. and P. Humphreys, eds. Emergence: Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science. 2008, MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England
21. Johnson, S.B., Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software. 2001, New York, NY: Scribner.
22. Lewin, R., Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos. 1992, New York: Macmillan Publishing.
23. Bruntland, G., Our common future. 1987, The World Commission on Environment and Development, published by Oxford University Press: Oxford.
24. Naess, A., Deep ecology for the 22nd century. The Trumpeter, 1992. 9(2): p. 53-60.
25. Benyus, J., Biomimicry. 1997, New York: William Morrow and Company.
26. Hawken, P., The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability. 1993, London: Pheonix.
Hawken, P., A. Lovins, and H. Lovins, Natural Capitalism: The next industrial revolution. 1999, New York: Earthscan.
Law, J., After Method: Mess in Social Science. 2004, Oxon: Routledge

What is this sustainability thing 1

by jennigoricanec on Aug 22, 2011

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