Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

Challenge Excerpt67continues to provide the base material of the built environmentand development worldwide.Given the conflict between this deeply embedded systemof growth and the urgency to reduce human impact on theearth’s ecological systems, the defining challenge of thisdecade will be to decouple development from combustion.Economic growth, the built environment, municipal services,transportation, even agriculture, all rely on combustion, andour core systems of valuation require that the impacts ofcombustion be ignored. Thus, no single individual, firm orgovernment can transform the practices that drive growth—it will require an architecture of solutions and actors.The development of a widespread economic imperativefor restricting carbon emissions seems unlikely in the near ormedium term. As was demonstrated during the CopenhagenClimate Conference, a global binding pact on climate changewill not happen soon. Enforcement is even more distant.Addressing this challenge is not just about protectingecological systems: it is about creating an opportunity. Inthe coming decades, a new frontier of competitiveness willopen between nations—there will be buyers and sellers of theexpertise, technology and models that thrive in a carbonrestrictedeconomy.With a decade of crises just behind us, and more on thehorizon, the political and economic climate appears too conflictedto shoulder this scale of change. Yet signals from allsectors and most governments suggest that we have reachedan inflection point, one that signals the onset of change.While a formal agreement was not reached at Copenhagen,the event revealed that the topic of climate change had nowengaged not only the environmental ministries, but alsoheads of state.The stage is set for the evolution of environmental policiesinto comprehensive economic and social transformations.For those who want to foster a productive natural environment,as well as ensure success in the impending regulatoryenvironment and emerging markets, the time to act is now.This excerpt is taken from the SustainabilityStudio Challenge Briefing which is reprinted inthe appendix. > P205 for more.