First published in 2013 by D Sustainability
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Copyright 2013 Penny Walker
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ISBN 978-1-909293-61-8 (eBook-ePub)
ISBN 978-1-909293-62-5 (eBook-PDF)
ISBN 978-1-909293-60-1 (Paperback)
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Cover by Becky Chilcott
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Abstract
SOME OF OUR BIGGEST CHALLENGES cannot be solved by one organisation or even one sector acting alone. They demand simultaneous, coordinated action by players with different interests and skills. We need to work collaboratively to sort them. And we can!
In this DShort, Penny Walker takes you through the early steps you need to take to identify likely collaborators, find the common ground and work out how youll work together.
Youll also hear the inside story from international multi-sector collaborations like the Sustainable Shipping Initiative as well as examples of local cooperation to protect water sources and businesses working together to promote leadership on climate change.
Practical tools include:
- Stakeholder analysis
- Collaborative advantage
- Honest brokers and organic leaders
- Techniques for finding shared outcomes and gauging how much support there is for them
There are case studies, frameworks, insights and tips from people who have built successful collaborations, all packed into a 90 minute read.
Jump in and see where it takes you!
About the Author
PENNY WALKER is an independent consultant and has been helping people work towards a more sustainable society for over twenty years, collaborating with people to help them both learn about change and sustainability, and to support them in making a difference.
This work has included projects with Unilever, Greenpeace, the Environment Agency and DECC. She also worked at Friends of the Earth for eight years. She is a Senior Associate of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership and an Affiliate of Forum for the Future. She is a director of InterAct Networks, building public sector capacity for stakeholder engagement and collaboration.
Her widely-praised and accessible book, Change Management for Sustainable Development a workbook, was published in 2006. She blogs at penny-walker.co.uk/blog
Penny also chairs the award-winning social enterprise Growing Communities ( www.growingcommunities.org ), a literally ground-breaking social enterprise growing and trading food. She lives in North London with her husband, two children and a vegetable garden.
Acknowledgments
THIS BOOK HAS DRAWN ON HELP, ideas, experiences and opportunities offered by an appropriately large number of people: Andrew Acland, Cath Beaver, Craig Bennett, Fiona Bowles, Cath Brooks, Signe Bruun Jensen, Ken Caplan, Niamh Carey, Lindsey Colbourne, Stephanie Draper, Lindsay Evans, James Farrell, Chris Grieve, Michael Guthrie, Charlotte Millar, Paula Orr, Helena Poldervaart, Chris Pomfret, Jonathon Porritt, Keith Richards, Clare Twigger-Ross, Neil Verlander, Lynn Wetenhall; others at the Environment Agency; people who have been involved in the piloting of the Catchment Based Approach in England in particular in the Lower Lee, Tidal Thames and Brent; and others who joined in with an InterAct Networks peer learning day on collaboration; and the anonymous reviewers who gave their feedback with no chance of acknowledgement. Thanks to all of you for your help. Any mistakes, of course, remain mine.
Contents
Collaborate to work jointly on an activity or project
from Latin col - together + laborare to work
OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY
CHAPTER 1
Start At The End What
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE?
A cure for cancer?
World peace?
Lets zoom in a bit to something more realistic. What about:
- Keeping the rise in global average temperature to below 2 degrees C?
- Halving the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.25 a day?
- All water bodies in a particular catchment having a healthy natural species range and abundance of plants, invertebrates and fish?
- A circular economy?
- Protecting and maintaining the ecosystems services provided in a particular area?
These are all classic wicked problems: complex, systemic, with lots of uncertainty and no clear solutions that do not also have downsides for some people (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Problems like maintaining ecosystem services or limiting global temperature rises, embody the Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin, 1968): a common resource will be exploited, perfectly rationally, by each individual who has access to it, until it crashes. Sustainable use of a common resource will only come with active management of access to that resource. (Another solution is to privatise it: pretty hard with the atmosphere.)
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