Intermediaries of Sustainability

One often wonders - how many of the things we struggle with have already been solved somewhere in the world? Through the Internet, we get a clue of the answer. Still majority of the knowledge is with the persons. And only partially answers are available through a free search.

So in order to be efficient and result full, we would need to know the right persons or the way to work in the relevant networks. This is a challenging task, as the context changes all the time. For this task intermediaries are needed.

Anyone can be a practical intermediary. The most advanced cities have dedicated a person/persons for the task. They may be called as Co-ordinators of Sustainability or Climate Change experts. These are the key persons to advance the work towards implementing solutions. Does your city have one already?

Steps before actions

Nowadays, you can everywhere run into presentations, speeches and texts urging the actions to take place. "Enough for talking - time to take actions", "more actions, less talk" - is spreading fast. But why the process is so slow, although everyone knowns in principle, that changes are needed?

A true fact is that changes will only happen if the driving forces are strong enough or the organization culture enables visionary work. The force can be for example, a financial situation or a disaster that needs radical changes in previous manners. In any cases, nothing will happen unless there is a passionate person to create the demand or to push others to join him/her.This is vital. Sometimes a new combination of people will start something bigger than ever before or a person that has high enough status will trigger the process to start.

From the driving force, it is still some way towards real actions. A joint vision on the future is needed. This needs to be explicitly written, so that all are truly sharing it. Then one fact of success is based on how the organization works together and values the small steps taken. In many cases, the process itself results in bigger change then the real measurable outcome. This should not be forgotten.

During the planning process of Solutions2011 conference one encounters the process very vividly. It is fascinating to see how the different actors suddenly pull themselves together and start to jointly plan actions that just waited to be fulfilled. What kind of change would you like to see taking place?

Process of sustainability

It is challenging to create a conference, that focuses on the process of sustainability as widely as possible. It would be much easier to just arrange a conference without really thinking about the impact it could/should have on the hosting city or on the Baltic Sea Region. You could just tender out the elements needed and plan the programme. This is not what Solutions local, together will just do, it aims to do more than usually is done for sustainability.

How do you quarantee that the event will make an impact on the hosting city before and after it? A good example of the larger process that one can influence, is the reduction of CO2 emissions by year 2050. All possible efforts are needed to reach a maximum reduction, therefore this should be also enabled through the events organized. A reality is that in order to have an impact in the city of Turku, one needs to create a new working culture, where existing networks are acting together. Every actor is challenged to do things differently and think about the eventual common benefits. Actions are needed during the entire process.

The conference preparation team is committed to organize a conference with a true impact. The elements of the sustainability process will be revealed during the upcoming months. If you are interested to be part of the process, you are welcome to contact me.

Essentials

The biggest environmental act is not to organize a conference at all, as the most of the CO2 emissions are caused by the travel to the conference. But why do we have so many conferences and how could those be compensated?

Everyone knows that nothing really can compensate the true meeting of people. Through the online presentations and video conference facilities, one is not able to reach the essentials of a good meeting. Facts can be received without moving anywhere from your computer, but only a fragment of following essentials:

• atmosphere that changes according to the composition of people and the facilities around.
• random meeting of interesting people
• impressions received through different senses
• feeling of togetherness, support from the like-minded
• ideas that are generated through the right timing and content

A huge challenge is to create a conference that is not just a meeting, but an event that is an important part of several ongoing processes. It can be a finish of something, but as well a beginning of something new. In the Solutions local, together – conference we are at the moment combining these ongoing processes in order to create a unique synergy on several levels. It is fascinating to realize that so many actors have become enthusiastic about the event. I have the feeling that Solutions conference has all the potentiality for becoming a milestone in the development for sustainable Baltic Sea Region.

Conference sharks

You could spend all your time going through conferences and various meetings. Baltic Sea Region is rich in its diversity and activities. Therefore it is challenging to build up a conference that has a real impact. By observing the people, you can learn a lot also in this respect.
The real conference "sharks" end up meeting each other very frequently. This creates a certain culture of behavior in all of the conference events. It is fascinating to analyze this a bit on distance. You could raise several characteristics of a "conference sharks":

• Prioritizing social parts - coffee breaks, evening outings, sightseeings. The true networker knows that the best place to create links and enable true actions happens during the unformal programme.
  
• Working while listening - carrying out multiple tasks at the same time. This is done, mainly through internet, but also mobile, whispering, reading, napping or drawing.
  
• Arriving 15 minutes late - at least.
  
• Collecting loads of materials - going through them during the meeting or just piling them on the existing piles in the office.

These are just my observations - you are free to add on..