Bridges To Knowledge: A Blog by Barry Camson

Integrating Ecosystem and Value Chain Design in Sustainability Efforts, Revisited

How can one use the practice of design to implement sustainability approaches in organizations and in their surrounding ecosystems?

This is a daunting challenge especially with regard to ecosystems because the ecosystem of even a small polluter can be inhabitants of the entire planet or certainly a region of the globe.

One really needs to take a whole-earth perspective to fully comprehend this. This is vividly demonstrated in the recent "school-strike" catalyzed by Greta Thunberg of Sweden which involved 1.6 million young people in almost 1700 cities and towns in over 123 countries in every continent.

We do have to start somewhere in terms of organizations and one place to start is to gain a concept of the system with which we are dealing. This involves viewing the organization in terms of what may be a more linear, value-chain as well as seeing the organization as part of a larger ecosystem.

A Day Of Collective Impact

Collective Impact has come to Israel as I pointed out in a previous post.(Hebrew version) There are already a number of Collective Impact efforts going on or in the process of being developed in Israel.

Today, I attended a workshop put on by the Joint Distribution Committee which has its main Israel offices in Jerusalem. The JDC Israel or the "Joint" as it is called "deals with the advancement of quality of life, equality of opportunities and reduction of gaps in Israeli society. The organization works among populations irregardless of religious, national or political identity."

I spoke with a number of people in between sessions to get a perspective on what Israelis see as important about Collective Impact and the challenges of pursuing Collective Impact in Israel. Here is what I learned along with my own comments.

Collective Impact, Trust and Sustainability

Building sustainable responses to complex societal needs is a major challenge in contemporary society. Collective Impact is a holistic approach for responding to a complex societal issue in which a wide variety of interested parties work together to address the many different aspects of the given issue. It is a powerful approach appropriate for dealing with many of a society's challenges. Developing trust is a major aspect of creating a sustainable effort.

Hebrew version of this article can be found here.  Download Hebrew version