W6D2 Wald
W I N T E R 2 0 0 7 V O L . 4 8 N O . 2
R E P R I N T N U M B E R 4 8 2 1 1
Peter M. Senge, Benyamin B. Lichtenstein, Katrin Kaeufer, Hilary Bradbury and John S. Carroll
P l e a s e n o t e t h a t g ra y a re a s re f l e c t a r t w o rk t h a t h a s b e e n i n t e n t i o n a l l y re m o v e d . T h e s u b s t a n t i v e c o n t e n t o f t h e a r t i c l e a p p e a rs a s o ri g i n a l l y p u b l i s h e d .
Collaborating For Systemic Change
Meeting the sustainability
challenge will require
the kind of cross-sector
collaboration for which
there is still no real
precedent. It must be
co-created by various
stakeholders by
interweaving work in
three realms: the
conceptual, the relational
and the action-driven.
Peter M. Senge,
Benyamin B. Lichtenstein,
Katrin Kaeufer,
Hilary Bradbury and
John S. Carroll
or more than a century and a half, industrial growth has been weaving an ever-
thickening web of interdependence around the world. Today, consumer
choices on one side of the planet affect living conditions for people on the
other side. Complex supply chains span the globe; for example, the average
pound of food travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles before it reaches an American con-
sumer.1 But these developments do not alter biological or social realities that have taken
shape over thousands and millions of years. Consequently, businesses operating within this
growing web are facing a host of “sustainability” problems: social and ecological imbalances
created by this globalization, such as a widening social divide between haves and have-nots,
global climate change, exponentially growing chemical and material waste and loss of
habitat and species.
Traditionally, businesses have thought such problems to be the result of economic exter-
nalities that require governments’ attention. But while governments are a crucial part of
lasting change, relying on governmental leadership to effectively deal with sustainability is
questionable for many reasons. The first limitation is geography. Even the largest govern-
mental institutions are limited by their borders and can’t attack sustainability problems that
are global in nature. The second limitation is time. Elected officials are limited by their elec-
tion cycles and struggle to deal with problems that develop over decades and don’t align
with their time in office. Moreover, due to increased fragmentation in democratic societies,
problems that transcend those of specialized interests tend to fall by the wayside.
For these and many more reasons, businesses are finding themselves compelled to ex-
ercise leadership around a host of sustainability issues. In particular, recognizing the
limitations of what can be done in isolation, many business leaders have already formed
collaborative initiatives like the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the
Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies and Societies and the Global Re-
porting Initiative. In spite of such initiatives, however, there are challenges we are just
beginning to recognize. (See “About the Research,” p. 46.)
For example, in 1991, Unilever — the consumer products giant based in London — ini-
tiated a worldwide collaborative effort toward creating a global certification regime for
sustainable fishing involving fishing companies, distributors, retailers, local governments
Collaborating For
Systemic Change
Peter M. Senge is the founding chairperson of the Society for Organizational Learning and a senior lec- turer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Benyamin B. Lichtenstein is assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at the College of Management, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Katrin Kaeufer is research director of the Presencing Institute and founding research member of SoL. Hilary Bradbury is the director of Sustainable Business Programs at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. John S. Carroll is a professor of behavioral and policy sciences, MIT Sloan School of Management. Contact them respectively at diane@solonline.org, b.lichtenstein@umb. edu, Kaeufer@mit.edu, hilary.Bradbury@usc.edu and jcarroll@mit.edu.
F
44 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW WINTER 2007
S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y
and nongovernmental organizations. Unfortunately, as soon as
this Marine Stewardship Council was formed, it was immersed in
controversy.2 Environmental NGOs interpreted aggressive goals
to certify major fisheries as a corporate drive to certify “business-
as-usual” overfishing.3 Conversely, NGO efforts to contest
certification were criticized by the multinational corporations as
stalling progress toward sustainability. One of the first projects of
the MSC — to certify the Alaskan pollock fishery (the largest
white fish fishery in the world) — became a multiyear legal bat-
tle. Similar difficulties have plagued other efforts to establish
certification mechanisms in forestry, organic and nongenetically
modified foods.
Two conclusions stand out from efforts like the MSC. First,
recognition of the need for such collaboration is growing. Second,
it is exceedingly difficult to engage a diverse group of partners in
successful collaborative systemic change. Although some relevant
research exists,4 cross-sector collaboration at this scale is largely
unexplored. The need is great, but the challenge is equally great.
The Society For Organizational Learning Beginning in the late 1990s, organizational members of the Soci-
ety for Organizational Learning began several initiatives focusing
on collaborative solutions to a variety of sustainability issues.5 The
group’s goals have included the application of systems thinking,
working with mental models and fostering personal and shared
vision to face these complex sustainability issues.6
Through its work, SoL has learned that successful collabora-
tive efforts embrace three interconnected types of work
— conceptual, relational and action driven — that together build
a healthy “learning ecology” for systemic change. Failing to ap-
preciate the importance of each is likely to frustrate otherwise
serious and well-funded attempts at collaboration on complex
problems. What follows are examples from particular projects in
which this learning ecology provided an important foundation
for substantive progress.
Conceptual Work: Framing Complex Issues Making sense of complex issues like sustainability requires sys-
tems-thinking skills that are not widely shared. When effective
collaboration is the aim, developing a shared conceptual “systems
sense” is even more important.
Illustrative Conceptual Projects: Integrating Sustainability Frameworks A dozen SoL organization members including Shell, Harley Da-
vidson, HP, Xerox and Nike formed the SoL Sustainability
Consortium in 1999 to gain a better understanding of how learn-
ing tools could support their efforts to integrate sustainability
concerns into their business practices.7 One of the first concep-
tual projects that emerged in the consortium grew from the
confusion of members about the many different sustainability
frameworks and tools they encountered,8 including the Natural
Step,9 Natural Capitalism,10 ISO 14001,11 Zero Emissions Re-
search Initiative,12 biomimicry,13 WBCSD Indicators,14 ecological
footprints,15 life-cycle analysis,16 and cradle to cradle.17 (See “De-
scribing Different Sustainability Frameworks,” p. 48.)
This confusion became an issue because the proliferation of
frameworks and tools was actually slowing progress toward sus-
tainability rather than assisting it, especially because people were
spending their time arguing about which framework was “right.”
In response the consortium frameworks group emerged — a
WINTER 2007 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 45
S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y
subgroup of the consortium that included members from BP,
Harley-Davidson, Plug Power, Visteon, MIT and U.S. Natural
Step — that came up with two key ideas for integrating and relat-
ing different sustainability approaches.18
1. There are three different worldviews that inform the notion of
sustainability.19 These are rationalism, which recognizes the need
for efficient utilization of resources through “meeting the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs;”20 naturalism, which recognizes the need
to bring industrial systems into harmony with nature21 by not de-
pleting resources beyond their rates of regeneration; and humanism,
which recognizes that sustainability depends on an intrinsic human
desire to be part of healthy communities that preserve life for our-
selves, other species and future generations.22
Each worldview provides a vital
counterbalance to the others. For
example, popular rationalistic con-
cepts like eco-efficiency can help
businesses waste less, but a growing
economy can have an increasingly
adverse environmental impact, even
as it becomes more efficient in using
natural resources. By contrast, natu-
ralism addresses the total impact of
industrial activity on nature, but
unless it evokes a deep human de-
sire to live within those limits, it
doesn’t necessarily motivate change.
Similarly, humanism addresses the
deeper motivations for sustainabil-
ity but does not, by itself, lead to the
practical tools and metrics for con-
necting business operations to
sustainability outcomes.23
2. Different sustainability frame-
works relate to different levels in
the management system. Many
frameworks focus on metrics. This
is useful but narrow. Equally im-
portant is defining overall outcomes
and having guidelines for shaping
strategies. Organizational practices
that include or go beyond metrics
mediate between strategy and out-
comes and constitute a critical
aspect of any business.
Seeing different sustainability
frameworks as working at different
management levels clarifies their interdependency and potential
complementarity. (See “Integrating Frameworks Across Levels,”
p. 49.) It also reminds us that management systems must be
homegrown. Strategic guidelines and organizational metrics and
practices must be tailored to the specific people, culture, market,
technology and history of any enterprise. For example, NIKE Inc.,
a company that prides itself on innovation for vitality and more
healthy personal life styles, naturally gravitated to biomimicry —
innovation inspired by nature. Today, led by hundreds of
independent designers who are part of Nike’s larger network, the
company is introducing a range of “biomimetic” innovations such
as compostable cloth, shoes that are put together with biodegrad-
able adhesives and an entire line of organic cotton athletic apparel.
(Nike even helped to launch the Organic Cotton Exchange to
bring more organic cotton onto the world market.) Translating
46 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW WINTER 2007
Data for this research were collected and analyzed by a team of four researchers who, over
a six-year period, participated in more than a dozen meetings of the SoL Sustainability Con-
sortium as well as being participant observers in all the collaborative projects. Using
traditional ethnomethodology, researchers took extensive field notes of each of the con-
sortium meetings and discussed these in post hoc research teleconferences. In addition, 42
semi-structured interviews with participants were conducted, recorded and transcribed
over a two-year period. Participants were asked about specific collaborative experiences,
as well as their personal and business aspirations for the consortium as a whole. In order to
gain a diversity of views, the research team chose individuals representing a range of orga-
nizational ranks (senior, mid-level, and junior) and attendance levels (core, frequent, and
recent). Data were analyzed and coded for emergent themes, using inductive qualitative
methods appropriate for exploratory research.i At the same time, individual case studies of
collaborative projects were developed and compared in order to identify emergent rou-
tines and practices being transferred across projects.ii We analyzed all these data for the
presence of drivers and interaction patterns within the consortium as a whole, eventually
developing a single system map that identified the three domains discussed here.iii
The study has been guided by the principles of participatory action researchiv and com-
munity action research,v aiming to build a community that builds knowledge in a way that
binds together the community. Thus, the researchers actively participated in meetings and
projects and, in addition, they periodically presented interpretations from their research en-
gaging participants, facilitators and organizers in regular dialogues on its implications.
i. J.M. Corbin and A.L. Strauss, “The Articulation of Work Through Interaction,” Sociological Quarterly 34, no. 1 (March 1993): 71-
83; and M.B. Miles and A.M. Huberman, “Qualitative Data Analysis” (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 1994).
ii. R.K. Yin, “Case Study Research: Design and Methods” (Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1984); and K.M. Eisenhardt and L.
J. Bourgeois, III, “Building Theories From Case Study Research,” Academy of Management Review 14, no. 4 (October 1989): 532-550.
iii. H. Bradbury, D. Good and L. Robson, “What Keeps It Together: Relational Bases for Organizing,” in “Creating Collaborative Cul-
tures,” ed. S. Shuman (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley, in press).
iv. P. Reason and H. Bradbury, “Introduction: Inquiry and Participation in Search of a World Worthy of Human Aspiration,” in
“Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice,” ed. P. Reason and H. Bradbury (London: Sage Publications,
2001), 1-14; and C.D. Argyris, B. Smith and B. Putnam, “Action Science: Concepts, Methods and Skills For Research and Interven-
tion” (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).
v. C.O. Scharmer and P. Senge, “Community Action Research,” in “Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Prac-
tice,” ed. P. Reason and H. Bradbury (London: Sage Publications, 2001), 238-249.
About the Research
WINTER 2007 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 47
general ideas into specific organizational strategies, practices and
objectives takes imagination, courage, persistence, patience and
passion. In its final report, the consortium subgroup concluded,
“The sustainability challenge is fundamentally a learning chal-
lenge, a process that requires both ‘outer changes’ like new metrics
and ‘inner changes’ in taken-for-granted assumptions and ways of
operating.”24
Lessons From the Conceptual Work The learnings from conceptual work done on particular projects suggest the need for collectively
built frameworks that create clarity without denying complexity.
Build community through thinking together and sharing.
When faced with difficult conceptual tasks, it is faster and easier
to leave the work to small groups of experts or to outsource it to
consultants or academics. But doing so bypasses the collective
intelligence embedded in diverse organizations and industries
and can result in output for which there is neither deep under-
standing nor commitment. In contrast, when conceptual
frameworks are developed collaboratively, the process builds
community and fosters more extended application and testing.
As one member reflected, “Working together to make sense of the
different sustainability frameworks showed us that we were not
the only company who was confused about sustainability and
helped us communicate what sustainability meant in terms of
outcomes and strategies in a way that worked in our culture.”25
Achieve simplicity without reduction.26 Clarity must not come
at the expense of oversimplification and trivialization of com-
plex issues. Conceptual working groups can sometimes produce
rousing action agendas that include little penetrating insight;
similarly, turgid analyses of complex issues can leave people
better informed but no more able to take action. Nevertheless,
tools like system dynamics27 and stock-flow diagrams (see
“Naturalism and Sustainability,” p. 50) can help in digesting the
complexity of a problem while communicating key features that
guide action. Simple system models highlight key variables and
key interrelationships.
Relational Work: Dialogue and Collaborative Inquiry Success in any collaboration between organizations rests on the
quality of relationships that shape cooperation, trust, mutuality
and joint learning.28 But supporting relationship building is not
easy, given the competitive culture and transactional relationships
typical in organizational life. Only rarely do groups move beyond
“politeness” or win-lose debates into more authentic and reflective
interactions characterized by candor, openness and vulnerability.
From its inception, members of the SoL Sustainability Con-
sortium were committed to skills of reflective conversation and
working with mental models as a way to build more productive
relationships. As part of bringing new members into the com-
munity, a half-day, premeeting workshop introduced basic
tools of organizational learning; specific ground rules for ef-
fective conversation were made explicit, including such things
as confidentiality, radical respect for each other, the imperative
to “listen, listen, listen” and inquiry balanced with advocacy.
These steps were especially useful in ongoing projects in which
people deepened their understanding of one another through
genuine dialogue.
Illustrative Relational Projects: Women Leading Sustainability The first Women Leading Sustainability dialogue was held in 2001 to
explore the distinctive nature of women’s leadership in sustain-
ability initiatives. Over the years, participants developed a
repository of the group’s experiences, including stories about
leading sustainability initiatives, reflections on personal chal-
lenges and lessons learned through the eyes of their children. In
these ways, the group has lived the consortium’s dedication to
candor and cooperation.
The relational work of WLS has had tangible effects. For ex-
ample, Simone Amber, founder of a corporate-funded, global
Internet-based educational project called SEED, said that the
honest dialogue of WLS helped her see how far sustainability ef-
forts go toward helping others, especially those in developing
countries. In WLS, participants’ motivation for working on sus-
tainability goes beyond business benefits by integrating work,
family and self; and the members have developed a sense of pur-
pose, fueled by a desire for their work to benefit others. These
successes are embodied in the group’s description of itself: “What
matters most about this group is that we assert the importance of
taking time for reflection so that our learning evolves through
integrating action and reflection.” Action and reflection are nec-
essary for good decision making, yet in today’s “just do it” culture,
time for learning is rarely practiced or valued.
Clarity must not come at the expense of oversimplification and trivialization of complex issues. Conceptual working groups can sometimes produce rousing action agendas that include little penetrating insight.
S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y
Lessons From the Relational Work The learnings from relational work done on particular projects suggest that the work must
begin with far-reaching and unorchestrated dialogue that in turn
sets the tone for systematic initiatives and practices.
Dialogue groups emerge from deep questions and longings. Al-
though it is easy to focus on formal strategies and the mechanics of
change, we shape our collective futures in “conversations that mat-
ter.”29 For example, the Women Leading Sustainability group
explored how to connect their “inner” and “outer” lives, how to
develop a career path that can provide leadership within the corpo-
ration while also being consistent with their core values and how
best to engage stakeholders far beyond their organizations. Such
conversations help clarify important issues and provide a “lived
experience of how we naturally self-organize to think together,
strengthen community, share knowledge and ignite innovation.”30
Identifying powerful questions cannot be orchestrated or
planned. They emerge over time with shifts in strategic context.
The key is to recognize and engage them seriously in a spirit of
dialogue and joint exploration. For example, John Browne, chief
48 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW WINTER 2007
When the Society for Organizational Learning first organized in 1999, one of its first conceptual projects was to find a way to
integrate and relate the existing sustainability tools and frameworks.
Describing Different Sustainability Frameworks
The Natural Step was founded by the
Swedish researcher Karl-Hènrik Robèrt
in 1989, who developed the following
scientifically based consensus defini-
tion of sustainability: In a sustainable
society, nature is not subject to system-
atically increasing (1) concentrations of
substances extracted from the earth’s
crust; (2) concentrations of substances
produced by society; and (3) degrada-
tion by physical means; and in that
society, people are not subject to condi-
tions that systematically undermine
their capacity to meet their needs.
Natural capitalism is a strategic frame-
work based on four precepts: (1) radically
increase the productivity of resource use;
(2) shift to biologically inspired produc-
tion (for example, biomimicry) with
closed loops, no waste and no toxicity; (3)
shift business models away from the mak-
ing and selling of “things” to providing
the service that the “thing” delivers
(thereby retaining ownership of products
for recycling and remanufacturing); and
(4) reinvest in natural and human capital.
ISO 14001 was first published in 1996
and specifies the operational require-
ments for an environmental manage-
ment system, providing generalizable
objectives and goals with measurable
metrics that can guide the environmen-
tal activities of organizations in most
industries.
Zero Emissions Research Initiative was
launched by the United Nations Univer-
sity/Institute of Advanced Studies in 1994
and was renamed Zero Emissions Forum
in 1999. ZERI promoted the concept that
all industrial inputs can be completely
converted into a final product and that
waste products can be converted into
value-added inputs for another chain of
production. In this context, the manufac-
turing line can be viewed as a series of
production cycles and recycling systems.
Biomimicry studies nature’s models and
imitates or takes inspiration from these
designs and processes to create products
and human processes. Based on research
from multiple disciplines, biomimicry
provides a framework for valuing not
what we can extract from the natural
world but what we can learn from it.
The World Business Council for Sustain-
able Development brings together 180
international companies in a shared
commitment to sustainable develop-
ment through economic growth,
ecological balance and social progress.
The WBCSD has developed a set of eco-
efficiency indicators to help measure
progress toward economic and environ-
mental sustainability in business.
“Ecological footprints” was first
coined in 1992 by the Canadian ecolo-
gist William Rees, and is used to
manage the use of resources through-
out the economy by measuring the
total environmental impact of business.
Life-cycle analysis enables a manufac-
turer to quantify how much energy and
raw materials are used and how much
solid, liquid and gaseous waste is gener-
ated at each stage of a product’s life
from creation up to and including the
end of its period of use.
Cradle to cradle articulates a set of
principles that seek to transform manu-
facturing design from being purely
opportunistic to focusing on the service
that products provide. One key princi-
ple is the total elimination of waste
in manufacturing; all components of
manufactured goods would be recycled
or reused, thus reversing the “cradle-
to-grave” model that governs existing
industry.
executive officer of BP p.l.c., has arguably done as much to legiti-
mize the importance of climate change in the business world as
anyone over the last decade. This started with a day-long meeting
of climate scientists and a handful of BP top executives in 1996.
“The very fact that we took a whole day on this issue was signifi-
cant,” says former BP chief scientist Bernie Bulkin. “Prior to that,
this was a subject that might have gotten 20 minutes on a manage-
ment team meeting agenda. But, I remember Brown saying that,
‘We are grownups. We can think these things through on our own
and find out what we really believe. Maybe we come to the same
conclusion as the industry association, or maybe we come to a
different conclusion.’” This “thinking together” eventually resulted
in a historic speech Browne gave at Stanford University, in Stan-
ford, California, in 1997, in which for the first time in public a
CEO of a major oil company broke ranks with peers. He declared
that it was sufficiently likely that climate change actually was oc-
curring to warrant serious action, and he announced a series of
initial commitments that BP would make unilaterally to reduce its
emissions and begin investing in alternative technologies.
Nurturing relational space can be systematic and purposeful.
Although the deep questions that drive dialogue cannot be overly
planned, there are ways to encourage a relational ecology out of
which initiatives will self-organize. For example, many of the
founders of Women Leading Sustainability brought specific
methods to the group, like personal check-ins and basic princi-
ples of dialogue and learning. The provision of free space is a
must — and perhaps is the most challenging. Although it sounds
simple, free space to simply explore what emerges is virtually
nonexistent for today’s busy managers.
Once it is recognized and legitimized, deepening relational
space also infuses results-oriented work. Effective relational
work encourages diverging conversations, asks difficult questions
and helps confront dysfunctional practices and attitudes in our
organizations and ourselves. Such capacities also benefit action-
oriented change initiatives.
Action-Driven Work: Building Collaborative Change Initiatives Conceptual and relational work are important for effective col-
laboration, but they are especially important as they come
together to enable whole new levels of action. Effectively weaving
together all three dimensions requires a new approach that is
more personal and more systemic than traditional planned-
change approaches.
Illustrative Action-Oriented Projects: Collaborating For Innovation in Food Systems Although most consumers in wealthier countries are unaware of problems with global food systems, these are the
largest drivers of poverty, social and political instability and local
environmental deterioration worldwide. For example, falling
prices for coffee have created a “crisis for 25 million coffee pro-
ducers around the world, [many of whom] now sell their coffee
beans for much less than they cost to produce.”31 Long-term
trends of falling prices for major agricultural commodities —
40%–90% declines over the past 50 years for wheat, soy, maize,
potatoes, dry beans and cotton — relentlessly drive down farmer
incomes.31 Whereas wealthy countries like the United States buf-
fer farmers with over $500 billion in annual agricultural subsidies,
developing countries do not have that luxury. As a result, the in-
creasing production needed to meet demand and offset falling
incomes leads to vast environmental degradation (for example,
over 1.2 billion hectares of topsoil has been lost in the past 50
years — more than the area of China and India combined) as
well as increasing worldwide water shortages, since 70% of water
use is for agriculture. And yet, despite increases in production,
800 million people remain chronically underfed.
The Sustainable Food Lab project was organized around an
innovative approach to weaving together conceptual, relational
and action space and included about 40 upper-middle and senior
WINTER 2007 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 49
Different sustainability frameworks relate to different levels
in the management system. Companies often develop cus-
tomized or home-grown versions that combine elements of
various frameworks.
Integrating Frameworks Across Levels
S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y
leaders.33 These leaders were committed to a deeply personal
action-learning process consisting of three phases: (1) cosensing in
order to develop shared understanding of current and emerging
realities, (2) coinspiring in order to share new knowledge and
commitment, and (3) cocreating in order to design prototypes and
pilot a small number of innovations conceived by the lab team.
The process began with extended dialogues that brought out
the different worldviews within the group, followed by five-day
“learning journeys” to Brazil designed to immerse team members
in the realities of the food system.34 Time for reflection and
dialogue offered windows into people’s different views of reality.
In the midst of a subsequent eight-day retreat for reflection
and planning, lab team members undertook two-day wilderness
“solos” to catalyze deeper intuitions and commitments. “In many
ways, the sustainability challenges stem from losing touch with
the larger natural and social world, so these solos seem impor-
tant,” said project coordinator Hal Hamilton. In this case, when
the work finally turned to formulating prototyping initiatives,
the group discovered new levels of trust, commitment and en-
ergy. Eventually, eight different prototyping initiatives and
associated teams formed, vetted their aims and wrote initial plans
for getting to work. Several of these initiatives have evolved into
ongoing action projects in three areas: (1) creating shared stan-
dards for sustainable food production so that farmers, buyers and
the financial community can influence sound production prac-
tices, (2) restructuring specific supply chains to increase
opportunities for small and mid-size farmers and fishermen, and
(3) generating a “demand pull” for more sustainably produced
goods and for policies that reward sustainability.
The overall success of this approach to developing action projects
was summarized by one of the business participants in the following
way: “It amazes me that you can take a group that has been doing
individual things and build such a huge amount of trust.”
Lessons From the Action-Oriented Work The learnings from ac- tion-oriented work done on particular projects suggest the need
to take time to gather input from all stakeholders so that true
systemic thinking can give rise to sometimes radically innova-
tive action.
It can take significant time to bring together the diversity of
players needed for effective collaborative action. The initial
50 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW WINTER 2007
The diagram below identifies three key waste streams: manufacturing (extraction and production), use and discard.
According to this framework, an industrial system is moving toward being in harmony with nature when (1) stocks of both
biotic and abiotic natural resources are not being depleted faster than their regeneration rates; and (2) all types of waste
move toward zero by (3) being converted into “nutrients” for other industrial or biological processes.
Naturalism and Sustainability
Biotic
Resources
Regeneration
Manufacturing
Abiotic
Resources
Waste
Products
in Use
Natural
Resources
Natural Nutrients (Compostables)
Technical Nutrients (Recycling and Remanufacturing)
Product Produced
Waste From
Use
Waste From
Discard
Extraction
Material Stocks (such as manu- facturing plants or cars in use)
Material Flows (such as extraction of mineral resources)
Manufacturing Waste
Waste Impact
Assimilation of Waste
founders of the Sustainable Food Lab — Unilever, Oxfam, the
Kellogg Foundation and the Global Leadership Initiative — spent
over two years gathering a sufficiently large and diverse network
to undertake the project. While the scale of the challenge is huge,
in this case “getting the system in the room”— meaning that the
people who are present should represent all aspects and stake-
holders of the problem being explored — is a common principle
for all system-change processes. This is challenging not only be-
cause of the time and effort involved but also because it includes
people who will see the world very differently. By defining the
project as a cross-sector, multistakeholder initiative, the founders
not only signaled that it would take time to engage an appropri-
ately diverse group of participants but also that it would take
time to eventually generate action projects for which such diverse
participants could truly collaborate.
Systems thinking is essential for change, but it also can be
messy and uncomfortable. According to Andre van Heemstra,
a management board member at Unilever where the food lab
was founded, “The whole awareness of sustainability (in the
corporate world) has been growing because systems thinking,
in different forms, is enabling us to see more interdependencies
than we have seen in the past. It is those interdependencies that
make you conclude that it is more than stupid — it is reckless
to think of commercial sustainability in isolation of either so-
cial or environmental sustainability.” As a conceptual tool,
systems thinking can help to clarify interdependencies and
complex change dynamics.35 But at the same time, seeing sys-
tems together means allowing for different, sometimes
conflicting views.
Radical methods are needed for collaborative action work. The
basic toolbox from the organizational learning field — which
includes systems thinking, building shared vision and working
with mental models and dialogue — is a useful starting point in
collaborating for systemic change, but it is just a starting point.
New approaches for organizing complex change processes and
for large-scale dialogue like the World Café36 — a process for
leading collaborative dialogue and knowledge sharing, particu-
larly for larger groups — will also be needed. Traditionally, group
and team dynamics approaches have sought to foster deep per-
sonal and interpersonal work, but much less is known about
opening minds, hearts and wills across networks that cut across
diverse organizational boundaries.
The Collaboration Imperative Business as usual is reaching an evolutionary dead end. Effi-
ciency improvements are useful but limited and, if extended too
far, become counterproductive. It is hard to have healthy busi-
nesses, no matter how efficient, in unhealthy social and
environmental systems.
Businesses, governments and NGOs increasingly will con-
front complex sustainability problems for which isolated efforts
are inadequate. Transactional models for improvement (pay for
performance, rewards and punishments, benefit-cost relation-
ships, fear as the primary motivator) have never sufficed for
dealing with transformational or “adaptive” change, which re-
quires a new mandate for learning across organizations,
industries and sectors. We are at the very beginning of recogniz-
ing and responding to this historic shift, and we need to learn as
quickly as possible.
Distinct but Not Separate Approaches Although it is convenient for analytic purposes to distinguish the conceptual, relational and
action domains, our experience suggests that they interpene-
trate each other in important ways. True systemic change means
enacting new ways of thinking, creating new formal structures
and, ultimately, transforming relationships. As Hal Hamilton of
the food lab says, “The relationships among leaders across nor-
mal boundaries might be the most crucial ingredient to major
change.”
Interweaving conceptual, relational and action work is espe-
cially relevant for the cross-sector collaboration needed for many
of the “big issues” confronting society. But there is little precedent
for such collaboration — protagonists from different sectors
often focus on building political leverage and power rather than
creating new knowledge and possibilities together.37 Only by in-
tegrating our thinking, relating and acting will projects like the
food lab become more common and successful.
Leadership and Transactional Networks While the limits of transac- tional ways of interacting are apparent, generating change at a
scale that matters often requires engaging large communities of
diverse participants with different motivations. Efforts like the
WINTER 2007 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 51
“The awareness of sustainability has been growing because systems thinking is enabling us to see more interdepen- dencies. It is reckless to think of commercial sustainability in isolation from social or environmental sustainability.”
S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y
food lab, by virtue of the deep personal and interpersonal work
involved, have many members who share a strong commitment
to the success of the enterprise as a whole. But specific projects
also must involve a larger number of individuals and organiza-
tions in order to be viable. This means including people and
organizations that are focused on narrower agendas and do not
share the same sense of responsibility for the whole.
The resulting leadership and transactional networks operate
on different logics. In effect, leadership networks function like
communities, whereas transactional networks operate like mar-
kets. Markets are only viable when actors perceive that benefits
exceed costs. From a transactional perspective, a collaborative
effort is attractive when there is a compelling value proposition,
a clear “business case.” By contrast, the logic that binds commu-
nities revolves around a larger purpose that matters to people. It
is not that they are indifferent to benefits and costs, but their
primary motivation comes from a commitment to the transcen-
dent aim of sustainable agriculture and its long-term strategic
importance for their organizations.
Both types of networks matter for achieving large-scale sys-
temic change. For example, articulating new industry norms that
require direct competitors to work together also require enough
participants who are genuinely committed to longer-term aims
for the industry as a whole. Failing to discern and appreciate
these differing motivations can result in stalled initiatives because
of an overreliance on transactional players in the early going.
Three Recurring Questions As we progress along this twofold path of collaborating to achieve practical changes and building learn-
ing communities capable of ongoing collaboration, we continue
to wrestle with three questions.
1. How can we get beyond benchmarking to building learning
communities? Benchmarking is a well-established form of cross-
organizational learning, but a learning community involves
much more than site visits or listening to PowerPoint presenta-
tions — it involves disclosure and vulnerability. Learning
communities are most evident when people are openly discuss-
ing real problems and asking for help, and they grow as people
offer help simply because they want to. Over time, they nurture
common commitment and relationships based on respect and
mutuality. Perhaps the biggest question is: Which people and
organizations will be willing to move beyond more common
transactional relationships to build the leadership networks
from which such communities grow?
2. What is the right balance between specifying goals and cre-
ating space for reflection and innovation? Most collaborative
efforts among businesses commence with explicit objectives.
But initiatives like the SoL Sustainability Consortium and the
Sustainable Food Lab did not; rather, they organized according
to a general intention to foster learning communities around
broadly articulated sustainability issues. This created a good
deal of anxiety but also provided space for exploration. Several
short-term projects and dialogue groups materialized but did
not achieve the critical mass to continue. On the other hand, no
one would have predicted the long-term importance of the
Women Leading Sustainability dialogue nor many of the Sus-
tainable Food Lab initiatives aimed at radically shifting social
and environmental conditions. These unforeseen developments
and larger webs of collaborations would have been unlikely if
the issues agenda were predetermined or driven from a central
organizing group.
3. What is the right balance between private interest and
public knowledge? There is much artistry in building collab-
orative systemic change initiatives, but at the same time, most
of the key members of such networks are from for-profit busi-
nesses seeking competitive advantages. Commercial interests
and proprietary know-how must be balanced with public in-
terests when tackling systemic issues. SoL believes that
balancing private and public interest means focusing on issues
that are larger than individual organizations, improving the
related systems that can benefit all and respecting that it takes
healthy organizations to address these issues. In this sense,
balancing public and private interests resembles the mantra of
all great teams and healthy communities: It’s up to each of us,
and no one can do it alone.
REFERENCES
1. B. Halweil, “Home Grown: The Case for Local Food in a Global Mar- ket,” November 2002, www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/163.
2. See www.unilever.com/ourvalues/environmentandsociety/sustainabil- ity/fish/default.asp; www.msc.org; and B. May, D. Leadbitter, M. Sutton
52 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW WINTER 2007
Leadership networks function like communities, transactional networks like markets. Markets are only viable when actors perceive that benefits exceed costs. By contrast, communities revolve around a larger purpose.
WINTER 2007 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 53
and M. Weber, “The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC),” in “Eco-label- ling in Fisheries: What Is It All About?” ed. B. Phillips, T. Ward and C. Chaffee (Oxford: Blackwell Science, 2003), 14-33.
3. P.E. Steinberg, “Fish or Foul: Investigating the Politics of the Marine Stewardship Council” (paper presented at the Conference for Marine Environmental Politics in the 21st Century, Berkeley, California, April 30- May 2, 1999), globetrotter.berkeley.edu/macarthur/marine/papers/ steinberg-1.html.
4. S. Waddell, “Societal Learning and Change: How Governments, Business and Civil Society Are Creating Solutions to Complex Multi- Stakeholder Problems” (Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing, 2005).
5. See www.solsustainability.org; S. Schley and J. Laur, “The Sustain- ability Challenge: Ecological and Economic Development,” The Systems Thinker 7, no. 7 (September 1996): 1-7; and C.O. Scharmer and P. Senge, “Community Action Research,” in “Handbook of Action Re- search: Participative Inquiry and Practice,” ed. P. Reason and H. Bradbury (London: Sage Publications, 2001), 238-249.
6. P.M. Senge, “The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization” (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1990/2006); P.M. Senge, A. Kleiner, C. Robers, R. Ross and B. Smith, “The Fifth Discipline Field- book: Strategies and Tools For Building a Learning Organization” (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1994); G. Roth and P.M. Senge, “From Theory to Practice: Research Territory, Processes and Structure At an Organiza- tional Learning Centre,” Journal of Organizational Change Management 7, no. 5 (February 1996): 92-106; and www.solonline.org.
7. P.M. Senge and G. Carstedt, “Innovating Our Way to the Next Indus- trial Revolution,” MIT Sloan Management Review 42, no. 2 (winter 2001): 24-38; and J. Ehrenfeld, “Learning and Change in the SoL Consortium” (presentation at the Harley-Davidson Consortium meeting, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 9-11, 2003), www.solsustainability.org/toolkit.htm.
8. For a more comprehensive list and short analysis of 21 different frameworks, see J. Elkington, “Triple Bottom Line Reporting,” 2003, www.ccc.govt.nz/TripleBottomLine.
9. See http://www.naturalstep.org.
10. P. Hawken, A. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, “Natural Capitalism: Cre- ating the Next Industrial Revolution” (Boston: Little, Brown, 1999).
11. See http://www.iso14000.com.
12. See http://www.zeri.org.
13. J.M. Benyus, “Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired By Nature” (New York: Morrow, 1997); and www.biomimicry.net.
14. H.A. Verfaillie and R. Bidwell, “Measuring Eco-Efficiency: A Guide to Reporting Company Performance” (Geneva: World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2000).
15. A. Sturm, M. Wackernagel and K. Müller, “The Winners and Losers in Global Competition: Why Eco-Efficiency Reinforces Competitiveness: A Study of 44 Nations” (Zürich: Verlag Rüegger, 2000); and www.ecological footprint.com.
16. See United Nations Environment Program/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry cooperation on best available practice in life- cycle assessment, www.setac.org/lca.html.
17. W. McDonough and M. Braungart, “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things” (New York: North Point Press, 2002).
18. B.J. Bulkin, J. Ehrenfeld, C. Gray, P. Morris, R. Saillant, T. Savino, T. Reese and P.M. Senge, “Integrating Frameworks For Sustainability,” working paper, SoL Sustainability Consortium, Cambridge, Massachu- setts, May, 2000 (revised, January 2002), www.solonline.org.
19. These three terms were influenced by the writings of John Ehren- feld. For example, see J. Ehrenfeld, “Searching for Sustainability: No Quick Fix,” Reflections 5, no. 8 (2004): 1-12.
20. World Commission on Sustainable Development; see www.un.org/ esa/sustdev/csd/csd.htm.
21. J. Benyus, “Biomimicry” (New York: Morrow, 1997).
22. See www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.
23. A similar project is now underway among consortium members, seeking to clarify the social dimensions of sustainability. See SoL Soci- etal Dimensions Workgroup, “Social Dimensions of Sustainability Frameworks Document” (presentation at SoL Sustainability Consortium, Brewster, Massachusetts, April 26-28, 2005), www.solsustainability.org.
24. The Working Group on Sustainability Frameworks, SoL Sustainabil- ity Consortium, Integrating Frameworks for Sustainability (Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 2001), www.solsustainability.org/toolkit.htm.
25. Anthony Reese, director of engineering planning, Harley-Davidson Motor Company, 2004.
26. This phrase is a favorite of Karl-Hènrik Robèrt, the Swedish oncolo- gist and pioneer of The Natural Step framework.
27. G.P. Richardson, “Feedback Thought in Social Science and Sys- tems Theory” (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); and Senge et al., “Fifth Discipline Fieldbook,” 1994.
28. Y.L. Doz and G. Hamel, “Alliance Advantage: The Art of Creating Value Through Partnering” (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998); and L.C. Abrams, R. Cross, E. Lesser and D. Z. Levin, “Nurturing Interpersonal Trust in Knowledge-Sharing Networks,” Academy of Man- agement Executive, 17, no. 4 (2003): 64-77.
29. J. Browne and D. Isaacs, “The World Café: Shaping Our Future Through Conversations That Matter” (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2005), 5.
30. Ibid.
31. Oxfam International, “Mugged: Poverty in your Coffee Cup” (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxfam 2002).
32. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets,” 2004, www.fao.org/docrep/007/ y5419e/y5419e00.htm.
33. Business participants included Unilever, General Mills, Rabobank, SYSCO (the world’s largest food distributor), Nutreco (the world’s largest fish farming company) and Sadia (one of Brazil’s few multinational food companies), along with smaller food companies and farm cooperatives. Senior government officials from Europe and South America were involved, along with global NGOs like Oxfam, World Wildlife Fund, Consumers Inter- national and The Nature Conservancy and local NGOs from Suriname, Brazil, the United States, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany.
34. Scharmer describes the method-of-learning journey in C.O. Scharmer, “Theory U: Learning From the Future As It Emerges” (Cam- bridge, Massachusetts: SoL, in press).
35. Sustainability Institute Report, “Commodity Systems Challenges: Moving Sustainability into the Mainstream of Natural Resource Econom- ics,” (Hartland, Vermont: Sustainability Institute 2003); and www. sustainer.org/tools_resources/pers.html.
36. Brown and Isaacs, “World Café”; and Senge, “Fifth Discipline,” 357-360.
37. As a comparison, see R. Bouwen and T. Taillieu, “Multi-Party Collab- oration As Social Learning For Interdependence: Developing Relational Knowing For Sustainable Natural Resource Management,” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 14 (2004): 137-153.
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