For Fresh Ideas - Breathe Fresh Air! On Moving to Lakeland

by Leander Bindewald, Doctoral Researcher, IFLAS

Finally summer returns to the Lake District, and so do I, this time to stay – well, at least me.

At the end of last year the exciting news came through that I won a University postgrad scholarship which now allows me to take my PhD research supervised by IFLAS founder Jem Bendell from a part-time aspiration to full-time execution – and finally base myself at the Institute right in the heart of the Lake District.

My topic is close to the heart of IFLAS core inquiry and teaching, examining the discourse around money and sustainability in the light of the bottom-up processes of community currencies. This is the field I have been working in for over 5 years now and finding a powerful partner in Prof Bendell and IFLAS has already yielded a number of unique outputs.

In 2012 I had assumed a research position at the New Economics Foundation (NEF) in London, an independent “think and do” tank that had promoted and researched complementary currencies since it was founded nearly 30 years ago. There, I was project managing the EU co-financed “Community Currencies in Action” (CCIA) programme, the biggest ever collaboration effort on the topic with partners and pilot currencies in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. It was as an external partner to CCIA that collaboration with IFLAS began, and when I came to deliver a workshop session on sustainable exchange practices in late 2012 the idea of pursuing a PhD with Professor Bendell was born. Admittedly, the beauty of the Lake District and the positive atmosphere at the Institute had no small influence on my decision to go back to school and forge ever closer links with IFLAS in the years since.

In the process I discovered that the Lake District has a tradition of creative and critical thinking, being the past abode of intellectual and cultural icons from John Ruskin to William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter to Harriet Martineau. The landscape is inspiring, and as Professor Bendell says “fresh thinking feeds off fresh air, and free thinking from a freer spirit.” Getting into the mountains has something to do with that, as I discovered when one of our supervisions involved discussions while hiking up a Fell (the local name for mountain).

My work with the Institute hit the news last year when I paid for the first instalment of my PhD fees with Bitcoin while speaking with Prof Bendell on a panel in Paris. This was the most high profile moment of a period of outreach activities on the subject of my PhD. Wearing the double hat of NEF and IFLAS if have already spoken about money and sustainability at the UN conferences on Social and Solidarity Economy in 2013 and again in May 2015. This time also reporting to their Interagency Taskforce on the findings of a UN roundtable on Social and Solidarity Finance and delivering an amendment on complementary currencies to the forthcoming accord on Financing for Development that Professor Bendell co-drafted. I also represented IFLAS at the annual SIBOS conference of the payment systems industry in Boston in 2014, challenging the financial technology professionals to seek positive social impacts.

By joining IFLAS full-time I will not retreat into a library but remain active with teaching and outreach activities connected to my PhD. For instance, I will continue to curate research networks including the C-C.info website and ccResearch forum. And just after my move to Lakeland I will co-teach the second iteration of the “Sustainable Leadership” module and co-host the Leading Wellbeing Research Festival. Then in August I will co-deliver our free online course (MOOC) on“Money and Society.”

In November I will give an IFLAS keynote at the national Transition conference in Denmark. In April 2016 I will co-teach the Certificate of Achievement inSustainable Exchange, the first university certified course on community currencies (that we are aware of).

Professor Bendell explains that I will be joining 3 other PhD students who are co-supervised by the IFLAS team. He says “We welcome more applications from engaged scholars, either in Leander's field of complementary currencies, or in the area of leadership development.”

 

So, if you are interested in joining our growing research community, either based in the Lake District or working remotely, do get in touch, via iflas@cumbria.ac.uk

The Leading Wellbeing Research Festival: Why should I attend?

By Janine John

Final preparations are underway for the Leading Wellbeing Research Festival in July, which, this year, is being jointly organised by Brathay Trust and The University of Cumbria's Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS).

On agreeing to blog about the festival (I don't work with either organisation, but am looking forward to attending), I wanted to find out a bit more about how it all came about, and so arranged to chat with various people within the organisations, including Jem Bendell, Professor of Sustainability Leadership and Director of IFLAS, and Dr Lucy Maynard, one of the event's organisers at Brathay Trust; for those less aware of Brathay's work, this includes research on wellbeing and resilience in the workplace for aspiring leaders.

How did the festival come about?

In the last two years, Brathay Trust, along with various departments within the University of Cumbria, have held joint one-day conferences on wellbeing. Both organisations have considerable expertise in this wide-ranging subject, and this year it was decided to take things to a new level with a three-day event attended by world-class leaders and some of the leading minds within wellbeing and sustainability.

Jem tells me that it's now time for IFLAS to announce to the world what it is doing on leadership, which is something not being repeated anywhere else, and the conference will form part of this. This year's festival is very much a one-off opportunity; it’s unlikely that the format will be repeated in future years.

What's the festival about? Why is it different?

The focus of the festival is on wellbeing, along with the interconnected themes of leadership and sustainability. But it won't be your usual conference, as the emphasis is very much on experiential learning within an informal and inspiring environment - and what better place to achieve this than the beautiful Lake District?

Jem describes how he became really bored with academic conferences, and that somewhere along the line we forgot that discovering new ideas is amazing and should be fun. These are worrying times, which require a very different type of leadership, so these new ideas can't be explored in a boring way.

Lucy echoes these thoughts by telling me that Brathay's key methodology is experiential learning through personal experience. The festival will provide the time, space and new experiences to give attendees the permission to do things differently, to really reflect and to tap into a deeper learning and understanding. The festival's activities are designed so that people can explore and work together to unpack the critical subjects being discussed, with many of the activities taking place within the natural environment.

Lucy explains that wellbeing is often discussed at the level of the individual, whereas here we will be talking about collective wellbeing, and the leadership required for it. Jem too, tells me that sustainability is about collective wellbeing, and that ultimately, “we can only be well if we're all well together”. The festival will be an opportunity to learn about the latest ideas on creative change within organisations and communities, for local and greater good.

Who will benefit?

There are particular practitioners who will really benefit from attending the conference, including management consultants, those responsible for procuring the services of leadership trainers, and wellbeing professionals. Jem says that, given the growing responsibility of larger employers to support the wellbeing of their staff, it's critical we share the very latest ideas on wellbeing. The festival will also provide an opportunity to discover the newest approaches to leadership being used across the world.

As an attendee, it is expected you will gain new insight into how your future work can make a significant difference to what and who you care about most. It's all about doing things differently. Those who join the IFLAS MBA courses frequently comment that the course has completely changed their life, and this is the type of experience it is hoped the festival will create. And as Jem points out, when else will you be able to reflect on critical concepts with a CEO in a canoe, inspiring new ways of leading well, in such an incredible setting?

Tempted to book?

With the collective expertise of both IFLAS and Brathay Trust, and the many fantastic thought-leaders taking part in the Leading Wellbeing Research Festival, I'm really looking forward to the experience. If you think you or other members of your organisation would also benefit from attending the festival, there's still time to book - visit the 'tickets' section of the event's website at www.leadingwell.org for more information.

On a practical note, if childcare is a concern for you, there are free indoor and outdoor activities being provided throughout the conference, along with professional babysitting.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Storytelling key to effective sustainability leadership says Ed Gillespie, Futerra

By Janine John

Good communication can improve our response to many environmental and social issues, and there is a lot that all practitioners in sustainability can learn from this fascinating area of work.

Ed Gillespie, co-founder of Futerra Sustainability Communications

Ed Gillespie, co-founder of Futerra Sustainability Communications in London, recently visited the University of Cumbria's Ambleside campus and gave a talk for the IFLAS (Institute for Leadership and Sustainability) series of open lectures. As someone with a particular interest in the communication of sustainability issues, I was really looking forward to attending this presentation, and I wasn't disappointed. Here, I share some of the notes I made during the lecture:

'Telling a new story: How heartfelt, authentic communication can effectively enhance your leadership for sustainability'

The stories we tell ourselves

Ed focused his talk on how important good story-telling is to being an effective sustainability leader, and how we frame our narratives. He has spent 20 years in sustainability, starting out as a marine biologist. However, he says that he didn't want to spend the rest of his career saying that if we don't stop catching all the fish, there won't be any fish left (and it happening anyway). He therefore co-founded Futerra with Solitaire Townsend, starting out with a small office in Brixton.

Ed argues that in order to subvert the current dominant paradigm, we need to be having more fun than the rest, and to be seen to being doing so. Futerra's own mission is about 'making sustainable development so desirable it becomes normal'.

At the heart of Futerra's work is the ability to tell stories. This is because stories are how we make sense of the world and it is narratives that hold us together. Our brains are wired to understand stories and they are something we need.

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Philip Pullman

Some of the famous stories we can look to include:

• Nelson Mandela's use of the term 'Rainbow nation'.
• Cool Britannia during 'the age of Blair', in which Britain was branded a creative, design-led country.
• The Age of Austerity, a dispiriting narrative, which suppresses our sense of what can be done.

In the age of the Anthropocene, humans are now the primary driving force influencing the future of the planet. Ed says that he finds this inspiring, as we are the first generation fully aware of how we're getting things wrong, and can act on this knowledge. As a result, we need to reconnect. Ed also asks, what is the point of economic growth if it doesn't make us happier? Consumer spending and GDP are both increasing, but life satisfaction is not. Our current cultural narrative is to buy more.

Psychological mechanisms which are limiting

For me, this next bit is the most interesting, because we move on to understanding human behaviour, and a number of useful terms to boost our communications vocabulary:

• The first term to get to grips with is the single action bias. This is where we feel we've done our bit (for example, we've recycled) and that we've therefore earned our flight abroad.
• The second term worth getting familiar with is the bystander effect. According to Ed, if you have a fall, you need only one person to be near you at the time. This is because one person will help you, whereas a crowd of people will look to each other, thinking that someone else will do something. He argues that climate change suffers from the same bystander effect because everyone thinks that someone else must be doing something about it.
• The fog of concern and the 'finite pool of worry' also limit us. We feel distanced, as though bad things are happening to someone else, somewhere else. In reality though, we now live in a complex, interconnected world in a way we never have before.
• Denial is a big problem – humans simply don't like change.

In his presentation, Ed also tried to address an issue he sees with environmentalism, which is the perception that some environmentalists don't like people. As well as clarifying that he likes people (!), he argues that it's not the planet that needs saving but ourselves – the planet will still be here long after we have destroyed our own existence.

It is an astonishing fact that in 40 years, 50% of vertebrate biomass has been lost. Humans are subject to what's called shifting baseline syndrome, in which we don't recognise the change going on around us. This is perhaps simply because we are unfamiliar with how bountiful things once were.

We also need to add to this that we have a growing population and climate change to think about. Ed compares our response to climate change as 'like turning up to an earthquake with a dustpan and brush', although he is optimistic about how we can solve these problems.

For his book Only Planet, Ed travelled around the world in 13 months using any transport method except air flight. Apparently this had a grounded 'Overview Effect' on him, comparable to that astronauts report experiencing when they look back on earth from space. This means that he could view all of our problems from a distance. He says that from all the experiences he has had across the world, what divides us is petty and what unites us is powerful.

On his trip, Ed was also particularly inspired by the story of the Monarch butterfly, which migrates from Mexico to Canada and back, but takes five generations to do so. In the same way, he argues that our problems will not be solved in one (or our) lifetime, but rather over a series of generations.

Stories on progress and climate change

One thing for certain is that facts and evidence don't tend to work, whereas stories do, and Ed reflected on what those in the Mayan civilization might have been telling themselves before they were finally beaten by climate change.

The story we tell ourselves now is the story of progress, where things keep getting better and better. But in actual fact, progress happens in peaks and troughs, and it is very easy to fall into 'progress traps' which undermine our ability to make the future better. It could be that fossil fuels, whilst they have been incredible in transforming our lives, will now set us back. Ed argues that in order to change, we do not need to blame the past but look to a better future. We are currently looking to tar sands and deepwater extraction etc., which is probably something we shouldn't be doing, whereas equally there are examples of communities across the world who are successfully becoming 100% renewably powered.

“We are not blindly opposed to progress… we are opposed to blind progress.” John Muir

We now see in common use the terms unburnable carbon and the carbon bubble, as well as huge interest in divestment programmes. Big names are discussing and supporting these ideas, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney.

Climate change is extremely tricky to talk about because it is a 'wicked problem'. As such:

• it resists definition
• it's ambiguous
• it's chaotic
• it's social
• there's no right or wrong
• it requires change to belief, behaviour and identity
• there's no precedent
• there's no intention

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Mark Twain

Climate change is also a very awkward subject to talk about with friends, and can be a complete no-no in social circumstances. Naomi Klein argues that climate change doesn't need to be a story about constraint, and that instead things can be better. It is also completely wrong to say that we cannot fix the economy and the environment at the same time.

 The rational vs the irrational 

One of the major obstacles we need to overcome is the irrationality of humanity. It is easy to assume that as humans we are rational, and that we make decisions based on cost and benefit. In reality, we are emotional, and act on instincts and habits. Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, says that parole prisoners should always hope to appear in court after lunch, because apparently the time before lunch when a judge is hungry is also when they are least likely to get parole.

Behaviour change has used facts and strategy instead of emotions and feeling, but this doesn't work very well. In fact empathy and emotional connection produce chemical changes in the brain with the release of oxytocin, creating a lasting emotional connection. Although we like to think we are in conscious control, we are not. An analogy in common use is that of the rider and the elephant. The rider thinks they are in control, but the elephant actually decides. Worse still, the rider acts as an apologist for what the elephant does. Note that most advertisements don't contain facts and statistics, but are instead more likely to use talking animals. This makes content sticky in your brain, because your brain chemistry has been affected.

The future for businesses and the 'consumer'

We're in disruptive times and it is important not to ignore that. Consumers want to 'live meaningfully and engage brands with purpose'. It's worth noting that whilst companies may argue people are not bothered about sustainability, research in fact shows that 'most people would not care if 73% of brands disappeared'.

The key to success is to identify a purpose, because if we don't have a purpose to serve, we will only end up serving ourselves. It is important to avoid a 'Kodak moment' by ignoring the currently changing circumstances. Kodak ignored the possibility of the digital camera because they thought it would be damaging to their existing business, but the lesson is, if you don't do it yourself, someone else will do it for you. This presents huge challenges for leaders, as most businesses have shorter lives than they used to. Now companies are asking, what purpose can we have in the world where we can have commercial success at the same time?

In Ed's opinion, it is important to kill off the word 'consumer', which changes the way we behave and makes us individualistic, selfish and concerned with our own rights.

For further insights into storytelling, he highly recommends the book Winning the Story Wars by Jonah Sachs, and quoted three great storytelling rules by John Powers, the world's first copywriter:

• be interesting
• tell the truth
• live the truth.

In conclusion, Ed says that we now have two divergent approaches facing us: either to treat the earth as an inert commodity, or as something living with intrinsic rights. In terms of cultural narratives, we now need to unravel progress and find a story that serves.

Please note that the contents of this blog post are a personal interpretation of Ed Gillespie's presentation, and are not a complete account of the whole lecture. Headings have also been included to adapt the talk to the format of a blog post. IFLAS will be posting a video of the lecture online shortly, which it is highly recommended you take the time to view. You can follow Ed on Twitter: @frucool

Janine John is a communications consultant based in the Lake District, and has a particular interest in the communication of sustainability issues. 

Twitter: @janinemjohn

Website and blog: www.bloominggoodcommunications.co.uk

The Life after Life

In both the sustainability field and the leadership field, we often hear people speak of “transition.” At the personal and collective levels we need to leave behind certain assumptions, patterns, and misplaced hopes, to be able to live well in a constantly evolving situation. With our strap line at the Institute, “leading transitions,” we imply both these personal and collective dimensions. It is a view that regards the sustainability and leadership agendas as essentially about a different way of being in the world. It’s not about adding things to our confidently successful selves, but being prepared to grieve for what has been lost, and discover the greater life arising after the passing, or death, of certain things. Whether it is the death of huge rainforests and their wildlife, or the death of our sense of personal status, it’s often through loss that we discover what is wonderful to cherish and explore. The immediate tragedies of environmental destruction and social disruption are not phenomena the sustainability movement can ignore with the fixed-grin optimism we’ve been told is the responsible thing to do to win clients, friends, or votes. Instead, we can incorporate that into our evolution. 

This summer we host our first major international conference that will celebrate this idea of a deeper joy in transitioning to a new way of being together in the world. It is also the philosophy of the Certificate of Achievement in Sustainable Leadership that precedes the festival. I asked three recently enrolled participants in that course and festival to explain why they are coming. Each are experienced at forefront of their fields, one in sustainability, the others in leadership, and so they embody the two dimensions we bring together in our work. 

Cam Webb

“Over the past twenty-five years, I have worked as a forest botanist, evolutionary biologist, educator, and small-NGO-affiliated conservation activist, based mainly around a biologically important and beautiful national park in West Kalimantan, Indonesia” explains Dr Cam Webb.   “During this time I have seen the forests surrounding the park disappear and be replaced by oil palm plantations, seen local wealth and health standards rise, and become increasingly aware of the massive, impending social and environmental crises bearing down on all of us, and on this precious patch of rain forest.  I am now winding up various research projects, and want to spend time during the next year trying to better understand which approaches to tropical nature conservation can really work, how to provide business decision makers with profound, direct experiences of biodiversity, and how to help students face the seriousness of our global future in a way that honours their grief and horror, but also protects them from falling helplessly into the natural traps of disempowerment and despair.  While I would never have thought to attend a course and conference on ‘leadership, sustainability and wellbeing,’ as I looked more into the events, after an unlikely meeting with Jem Bendell in Bali, I sense that many of the issues I am struggling to understand in Borneo will be explicitly addressed here.  The presence of Bendell, John Foster, and Charles Eisenstein indicates that the conference will be underpinned with an awareness of the seriousness of the mess we are in, and yet the container, an explicitly joy-filled, outdoor, community event promises to help me understand better the connections between grief and hope, and mind and heart.  As for the certificate course, I am most excited to engage in deep, guided conversation with the lecturers and other participants, many of whom I expect will also be grappling with the very meaning of any action in the face of what is to come.  Coming as I do from an academic and NGO background, I am also hopeful that this course and conference will challenge my own prejudices against business, green-washing, self-declared ‘leadership,’ and organizations in general, and expect to be deeply inspired by recognizing ‘strangers’ working tirelessly for goals I share in ways I would never have thought of. And last, but definitely not least, spending a couple weeks in the Lake District in July, rain and shine, with music and poetry, sounds like serious ‘soul food,’ and I’m always hungry!”

We are honoured to have someone as committed, experienced and inquiring as Cam joining our course. I also asked Sue Adams to explain why she is looking forward to July in the Lake District. She explains:

“Meeting Cam and hearing him speak with such grief about the brutal destruction of a part of the planet he clearly loves and has devoted his life to loving moved me to tears. Coming to the course and the Leading Wellbeing festival all the way from Singapore is a way for me to be in a community who feel as I do and may be holding different parts of the puzzle of how we address what is happening: this work is sacred to me and I want to learn from the best in order to better play my part back in my community in Asia.”

Sue Adams

Sue works in management development. She explains that “as a leadership coach and facilitator of leadership development programmes for the private and public sector based in Singapore, I mostly work with high-level leaders across Asia.” Her clients have included top tier investment banks and leading high tech companies and professional service firms. Prior to starting this practice she was herself the regional business head for 9 years of the world’s largest producer of TV shows. “My route to where I am now has been a winding one,” she explains. “The first 20 years of my career I spent in jobs where 'making your numbers' was the goal - first the hard-nosed fundraising end of the charity sector, then as a lawyer and finally as a business leader. But when I became a parent in 2006 an inner world of joy and love opened up that seemed to be given little space in that world of work. I started on an inquiry about what we really yearn for as human beings and how we can nourish that through our work and institutions rather than succumbing to myths of scarcity and economic needs which fail to satisfy us and have us inflict suffering on ourselves, others and the environment. This inquiry has led me to my current work: coaching and facilitating leaders to examine meaning, belonging and integrity - in themselves and their organisations.” 

Sue told me that hearing from Cam about how the vibrant life of rainforest has been replaced by the monotony of palm plantations, she immediately sensed how something similar was happening at the level of human diversity and creativity, as a monoculture of mainstream careers sweeps through modern life. “A type of deforestation of souls in the workplace seems to have been happening just as profoundly and with equally devastating effects on our ability to 'sustain life', if by 'life' we mean anything other than consumption,” she explains. Yet, like Cam, she is not deterred. “I work in the corporate world because I believe that through purposeful work engaged with others in a healthy way we can rediscover qualities of the human spirit that will not only create thriving organisations but will allow – or even compel us - to come together and change our collective path towards a world that is just, sustainable and flourishing.”

What I notice from both Cam and Sue is an honesty that invites us to leave aside our masks and explore everything anew. For me, that is the starting point of inquiry and learning. This message of freedom from delusion is one Jamie Catto shared for us at our launch event in 2013, and I explored in the context of our current economic system in my Inaugural lecture last year.    

Sue will be in good company, as we will be joined by the Director of Global Development at PwC, Catherine Rennolds, who designs, commissions and evaluates internal leadership development programmes. What is really positive for me is that insights into leadership development can be applied at all levels. For instance, another of our participants is Helen Carter, a youth development worker with Brathay Trust. “I work with young people and young adults to enable them to take action for positive change in their own lives, in the knowledge that positive individual action creates a ripple effect to influence, inform and inspire others. I cannot imagine a job that is more important or enjoyable,” she explains. Aitch, as she is known, told me “I have become concerned for their future: We are dogged by short-term political and economic decisions, by systems that are created to benefit the few and take little account of the needs of the many, the environment or the future. I am interested in studying with IFLAS not only to develop my own practice and knowledge, but to help equip the young adults – and young leaders – that I work with, to have the best chance of meeting the challenges of their generation head on, to share with them the knowledge, understanding and ability to create an environment that is sustainable for generations to come.” 

Helen Aitch Carter

As I’ve developed my practice of leadership development in the past few years, I’ve been attracted to the heart felt and open approach shown by our friends at Brathay and, further down the lake, at Impact International. One of our lecturers on the course is Richard Little, a senior consultant with Impact, who I’ve worked with to outline our approach to sustainability leadership in our first Occasional Paper. He draws upon the great minds that lived in and shaped the cultural landscape of the Lake District since the late 1700s, and that helps create a sense of time and perspective. It is either serendipitous, or simply natural, that our University has a tradition of interdisciplinary practice-focused education, that uses the outdoors and site visits, and fully integrates this into learning outcomes. Most other Universities I have experience of have academics that teach from within a discipline and then course convenors seek to spice things up with a few guest lectures and if you are lucky, a site visit. The result is often disjointed, because there is no rigour in either experiential learning or interdisciplinary education. 

Kalimantan Forests

In observing the way our region’s community of leadership developers work, I’ve begun to see that it is not the typical management development activities that are important, but the way groups are hosted to explore deeper questions about their lives and next steps. One outcome of last year’s course was that Zoe from Earthwatch decided that coaching is an important skill to add to one’s practice in leadership development. I share that realisation and so I’m looking forward to learning more about coaching from Sue and the other participants on our summer course. Yes, I am the tutor, but I feel there’s a great life after the death of the idea I should know more than you. The participants wouldn’t have it any other way. Sue told me “my experience of leading and working with leaders has me believe that communities of practice and support are vital in most change and development endeavours- but particularly in the face of the traps of disempowerment and despair that Cam describes when facing the scale of challenge the current generation of leaders faces. And festival, fellowship and fun seems to be a great way to seal the sort of learning and development I'm looking forward to from the course!”

If this community of explorers seems an ideal learning environment for you, I hope we receive your application and see you this summer for either the one week, or the full Post Graduate Certificate of Sustainable Leadership. Participants can then progress on to our forthcoming MA in Sustainable Leadership Development. If you can’t do the course, then do consider joining our research festival, from July 16-18 www.leadingwell.org

Thanks, 

Professor Jem Bendell 

Founder of IFLAS and the PGC in Sustainable Leadership

Academic Chair of the Leading Wellbeing Research Festival. 

---

Some quotes from our last cohort, which included participants from Forum for the Future, Impact International, and Earthwatch:

"This course was profound and life-changing. It has informed my practice, relationships – even my way of being." 

"This was the most in-depth, conscious, and profound course I have ever participated in. I was both surprised and delighted at the transformation of my own consciousness that was achieved. I was defining myself as someone out of the box. This course made me realise that there is always a further critical step still." 

"This first module has been the most powerful formal education experience of my life. The range of experts, both internal and external, brought a truly inter-disciplinary approach to exploring the challenges of leadership and sustainability. We have been challenged to take action, through imaginative practical assignments that go beyond the usual reading, analysis and regurgitation of academic texts." 

"This course has facilitated a great personal transformation in me. Thank you!" 

"Exceptional opportunity to engage with and question the debate around leadership and sustainability as instruments for and concepts affecting social change. Prepare to question and be questioned using a wide range of learning methods and environments. Excellent balance of attention to content with process." 

"An existential provocation, demanding full emotional engagement within a democratic and nurturing community." 

"Be warned: you will leave this course on a path to becoming a different person and hopefully a sustainable leader" 

"Challenging, fascinating course that will shake your perspective of sustainability and your role as a leader."

Holding Onto Sustainability by Paula Lernelius

When I was growing up in Stockholm I had never heard of the word 'sustainability, or its Swedish equivalent 'hållbarhet' - a not entirely literal translation coming from the idea of 'hålla', to hold, to maintain. In Swedish, it's also a word that applies to objects or products meaning to last a long time, to keep, as in longevity, before a food stuff may go off. It is a practical, hygienic term in keeping with the Swedish preference for clear unambiguous communication.

Somersaulting back to English such clarity around sustainability eludes me. Indeed the very concept of sustainability I sense is in need of replacing, implying as it does the need to hold onto something, to maintain, when it is our holding on to our current lifestyles and consumption patterns that is at the root of the problem. Many people have already questioned the term, its meaning and usefulness. Robert Engelman concludes in State of the World that what he calls, sustainababble has a high cost. "Through overuse, the words sustainable and sustainability lose meaning and impact. Worse, frequent and inappropriate use lulls us into dreamy belief that all of us—and everything we do, everything we buy, everything we use—are now able to go on forever." We are holding onto what Charles Eisenstein calls, the "Story of the People, in which humanity was destined to create a perfect world through science, reason, and technology: to conquer nature, transcend our animal origins, and engineer a rational society."

In or out?

Whilst agonising about vocabulary (a common affliction for migrants who have tried to master the English language) I'm nevertheless here now with B and D to discuss sustainability, leadership and societal change as part of my Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainability Leadership at IFLAS. I'm interested in the tension between provoking change from within 'the system' - meaning the corporate world, and outside, through the actions and voices of those who have rejected participation in institutions and organisations more explicitly through what may be called 'alternative' lifestyles. There are more subtle perspectives. Bendell in his research on the corporate responsibility movement references the idea of the 'tempered radical' as an 'outsider within' able to effect change which may be at odds with corporate aims. It may be an oversimplification therefore to have selected two people representing two quite different systemic positions; one a phd student and director of a large telecommunications company; the other an artist, small business owner, community activist and home educator of her three children. Both fulfil the criteria set in my brief to choose people I consider to be 'more senior and influential' than ourselves.

In choosing my interviewees, I'm playing at the tension between such apparently disparate lifestyles and possibly viewpoints. Can we set up a temporary slack line between two previously unconnected points, test common ground, create possibilities for dialogue, galvanise action however wobbly? I had asked my participants to discuss what sustainability meant to them personally and in their roles in the community, professionally, and family. Do they consciously try to influence others and if so, does this constitute a form of leadership?

Yet in hindsight, there was a deeper question to both of them. Help me make sense of this; I don't know where or how to sustain enough anger and energy that goes with that illusory creature - the leader change agent.

In less than two hours we had covered a range of loosely associated topics. Many sources of change and examples were mentioned, from the Cafe Gratitude D had visited on holiday, to the necessity of consciously adopting what Brian Eno coined as The Long Now, to counter our addiction to novelty where everything has to be  "exciting, fast, current, and temporary".

Failure to thrive

There was disappointment in lacking access to the scale and type of multi-generational community where we can co-exist without the rules of hierarchy "I feel like I'm living life in permanent protest, part conscientious objector, part victim-martyr " said B.  How much potential to influence and lead are we missing out on through making it so damned hard to participate and have a voice, without conforming to overly controlling structures and institutions such as education? There was a sense in which provoking and participating in change towards sustainability is in itself contingent on a level of security to "thrive, not just neurotically survive" which is easier to leverage with a firm foothold inside an organisation. Freedom to reject and challenge, to thrive and participate on modest financial means is challenging even in our so called developed country, yet these are the qualities which are surely essential to deal with the now unstoppable consequences of climate change.  (Any residual scepticism about this fact can quickly be dispelled by skimming through the introduction to Naom Klein's This Changes Everything) D is more outwardly content, perhaps more economical with his change agent energy, perhaps more willing to make compromises.

Be the change

Running through our discussion was an unconsciousness ease with which sustainability and its intrinsic value to us in whatever role we operate, does not need to be justified or explained. I discovered that we are all finding means of expressing ourselves within our particular environment and context; of carving out roles and fields of activity where we can explore and innovate; B through numerous community forums and ad hoc debating societies together with her one-woman crusade on facebook for the Citizens Income initiative, D through setting up a technology Forum for young entrepreneurs to promote  sustainability and global consciousness.

'Personal leadership comes first;  be the change you want to see' they told me, by way of concluding wisdom.

In the abstract, both sustainability and leadership are terms that seem diluted to the point of meaninglessness, victims to semantic bleaching. If we can't connect emotionally with these terms, we are left with what John Berger  describes as "such dead “word-mongering” that wipes out memory and breeds a ruthless complacency." At heart, sustainability, like leadership, only becomes meaningful in the context of human exchange and interaction.  It's been comforting and hopeful to enjoy what B calls 'an outbreak of conviviality' and this, surely, is worth holding onto.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Cumbria or any other organisation.

Paula Lernelius

This is what 2015 looks like - a letter from the IFLAS founder

IFLAS director Professor Jem Bendell

Good theory predicts the future, good practice creates it. With such a turbulent hyper-connected world, I’m not going to offer predictions, but here is what we plan to bring you in 2015, as our Institute grows and diversifies to promote sustainable leadership.

In January the IFLAS open lectures kick off again, and for the first time in our London campus. Famed African journalist Funmi Iyanda will be speaking about the future of black British leadership.

In February we deliver our first short courses, offered in partnership with the consultants Impact International. The first series runs through to the end of May and features skills development in areas like Leading Creativity, Values-Inspired Leadership and meeting Environmental Challenges.

If you can’t make it to the Lake District, then also in February we launch our first ever Mass Open Online Course (MOOC… not my acronym!). This free online course is on Money and Society. It’s also the pre-course work for our Certificate of Achievement in Sustainable Exchange, which takes place over 4 days in London, starting March 18^th. If you are interested in bitcoin, local currencies, the sharing economy, and innovation in that field, this course is for you. I’ll be teaching it along with our Doctoral Researcher, Leander Bindewald.  Click on those links to sign up.   

In March, the IFLAS open lectures move back to Ambleside, with Mark Cropper, who is transforming electricity generation across the Lake District with micro hydro. He might even make us happy when it rains! These lectures coincide with our MBA residential weeks, and in 2015 we have three new online MBAs with RKC now taking students, focusing on Finance and Sustainability, Energy and Sustainability and Media Leadership. Check out www.college.ch for more info on our RKC MBAs.

Learning about sustainable leadership in
the stunning Lake District landscape

Teaching these MBA residentials and the short courses will keep the team quite busy through to the summer, when we will flourish into festival fun with the Leading Wellbeing research festival, for 3 days from midday on July 16^th. We hope you can join us at Brathay Hall, where we are convening some remarkable leaders from around the world, to experience research sessions, workshops, great speakers, music, dancing and outdoor activities, all on the shores of England’s largest lake. Check out the speaker list to see how we are busting paradigms to make this a unique adventure. If you want to submit a paper, then the deadline for abstracts is February 3^rd.

Just before the Research Festival, our Post Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Leadership begins again, with a 6 day residential. This can be taken as a stand-alone course, to gain a certificate, but the full PGC is also very flexible, as you only need to do one further residential week. If you take the course, you can then stay on for the Festival at the student rate, and also meet the first cohort, who are saying nice things about it, such as "this course was profound and life-changing. It has informed my practice, relationships – even my way of being" and "This was the most in-depth, conscious, and profound course I have ever participated in.”

Tempted?

By September we will be further complicating our lives with two new exciting masters. First, the MA Sustainable Leadership Development will begin students, including many of the lovely ones from the PGC.  Second, we will be teaching modules on leadership and sustainability in the MSc Strategic Policing. The University of Cumbria is a national leader in policing education and we see a great role for the Institute in supporting courses for the police. Both these Masters can be done at distance by people with full-time employment, as we use a mix of online and intensive residentials. If interested in the MA, email me. 

We are launching the new BSc (Hons) Social Enterprise Leadership

We are also launching in September a new BSc (Hons) Social Enterprise Leadership course, offered in the Lake District in partnership with the Brathay Trust. Led by Charles Dobson and Caroline Wiscombe, it builds on the successful Aspiring Leaders programme and seeks to provide education relevant to people working in the voluntary and social enterprise sectors. September is also the deadline for papers to be submitted to a special issue on leadership of the Sustainability Accounting Management and Policy Journal that I’m editing with Richard Little (Impact International) and Dr Neil Sutherland (Bristol Business School).

A bunch of other things are in the pipeline, but too early for us to announce now. In the final quarter of 2015 a few of our publications will also be appearing, including the stuff I’m writing right now on leadership, and the work Im doing in the new year with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). That’s why for the first half of 2015, IFLAS Deputy Director, Dr David Murphy, is the Acting Director, so please direct any new ideas for engagement to him.

Acting IFLAS director Dr David F. Murphy

David joined us in March 2014, a year where we also welcomed Dr Grace Hurford and Dr Ian Chapman into the teaching team for the MBAs with Robert Kennedy College. We continued working with Jonathan Bowyer and colleagues of Fiona Reed Associates, to provide top-quality facilitation of the residentials, with our office manager Martin Pyrah providing key logistical support. Our Institute Manager, Philippa Chapman was therefore able to focus on our business development, including bringing the short course programme with Impact to fruition. I’ll now recap on some of what we achieved in 2014 where there are links videos and published resources which you may find educational.  

One of the key events for me in 2014 was my Inaugural Professorial lecture, which I delivered at a Literature Festival, making it little scary. The video of the talk, where I discussed what sustainability means, is available online.  In it, I discuss some of the ideas of my latest book ‘Healing Capitalism’, co-authored Ian Doyle, which also got be invited onto Abby Martin’s TV show on RT.

I’d had some prior TV practice, as last January the University became known for being the first public University to accept bitcoin for payment of fees. I discussed it on BBC Breakfast, as did our Director of Finance, Kate Maclaughlin Flynn on ITV. The story was fairly ‘viral’ so in May one of our PhD students became the first to pay fees by Bitcoin, which generated further interest, including a profile in the Daily Mail.  We don’t take an uncritical view of bitcoin or other currency innovations, as the Institute is looking at currency innovation in terms of how it shapes positive social and environmental outcomes. Therefore, Leander Bindewald hosted a Complementary Currency PhD symposium for us in London in July, attended by over 20 researchers, including the author of a briefing on currency innovation for Parliament, and Professor Nigel Dodd from LSE. Leander also presented his critically constructive views to thousands of bankers at the SIBOS conference and I spoke at the first meeting of the Guild of Independent Currencies in Bristol.  

We also shared our insights on leadership at events in the UK and around the world. I attended World Economic Forums in Davos, Switzerland and in the Philippines, presented at the Ouishare conference in Paris, World Cities Summit in Singapore, Guardian Activate conference in London, Womensphere Leadership conference in New York, Learnfest and the Cumbria Development Education Centre in Ambleside, and ran a day of leadership development with Futerra for the senior management of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Institute Manager Philippa Chapman presented on leadership development at the International Leadership Association in California, and Dr David Murphy presented at the Institute of Directors with Impact International. Thanks to Impact, Learnfest was also the venue for our first advisory board meeting, who we are delighted are really engaged with the aims of IFLAS. We were also delighted to host the first northern conference of the Transition Towns network, at our Lancaster Campus, welcoming Rob Hopkins and the Transition team. We also hosted a leadership retreat of not-for-profit research and campaign organisation Positive Money, for a weekend of team-building, training regional coordinators, and developing their strategy. 

We also shared some insights articles in popular publications and our Sustainable Leaders discussion group which grew to over 900 participants in 2014. I shared my thoughts on leadership in the Guardian, on the role of the ‘sharing economy’ in promoting sustainable cities in Just Means, and on the far more challenging agenda that the latest climate science suggests, for Open Democracy.  

We welcomed over 200 senior students from around the world for the Masters courses we run. The success of our partnership with RKC was recognised by the teaching and administration team, including Raye Ng, Philippa Chapman and Martin Pyrah, winning an award from our Vice Chancellor. In November we began Alumni activities, offering an additional event attached to their graduation ceremony, with educators from the University of Cumbria, Brathay Trust, Impact International and RKC. The response from our 1^st cohort on the PGC that I mentioned above also suggests we have something to develop with our new MA in Sustainable Leadership Development. We are grateful to Professor David Costa for his sponsorship of two of the places on the PGC, which enabled wider participation. 

In July we were delighted to see the first graduates of from the Aspiring Leaders programme, which we run with Brathay Trust.  Funded by the Francis C Scott Trust, it gives young adults the opportunity to achieve a foundation degree in Professional Practice for Business, receive leadership training, and benefit from 1:1 mentoring.

Funmi Iyanda speaking at IFLAS

The IFLAS open lectures grew in popularity during the year, and you can read great write-ups on our blog by Bob Hart. In March we heard from Sean Ansett, the Chief Sustainability Officer of Fairphone,  on how his new electronics firm has created a smartphone with ethically-sourced components. Then in April, award-winning broadcaster, journalist, and columnist Funmi Iyanda spoke on the importance of creating kinder media organisations that are more responsive to the needs of the communities they serve. That month we also heard from Ryan Heath, European Commission spokesperson for digital issues and a former speechwriter to Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. In May, Cumbria Recycling’s director Dave Bowden shared his story as a social entrepreneur in reducing waste and promoting a more circular economy. Then in June we heard from Richard Little, senior consultant with Impact International, an organisation offering a wide range of expertise on behaviour change and leadership development, and also from Jane Burston, head of the Centre for Carbon Measurement.

Learning about leadership through tango

The third series of talks began in a different way in September, with leadership coach Sue Cox hosting a participative session on Leadership Lessons from Tango. Then in October we heard from Dr Raj Thamotheram, a thought-leader in the field of long-term, sustainable investing, who explored why positively deviant leadership is needed with London’s financial district. That month we also heard from the experienced public sector leader, politician, and campaigner Laura Willoughby. Founder of Club Soda, which helps people to change their drinking, Laura spoke about how she has become a social entrepreneur to scale behaviour change for health and wellbeing. In November we heard from author and consultant on climate change Mike Berners-Lee, who explored why efficiency, green technology and carbon targets helped so far in combatting emissions. We also heard from Dr Rebecca Calder, technical director of the SPRING Initiative, about why alliances are so important for adolescent girls' empowerment, and why empowering adolescent girls is so important for the challenges facing the developing world today.

Executive Dean Prof Robert Hannaford, Vice-Chancellor
Prof Peter Strike, IFLAS manager Philippa Chapman
Prof Jem Bendell and Dr David F. Murphy 

More information on what we do is on our website and in our Inaugural Report. Looking back on the year, I’m grateful to Philippa for keeping all these activities together, David for hitting the uneven ground running, and the wider team, now including Principal Lecturer Caroline Wiscombe, who is working with us on new programme development. Commitment from our Dean Robert Hannaford, Head of Department Caroline Rouncefield, Head of Partnerships Elaine Flowers, Business Development Manager Sarah Stables and Vice-Chancellor Peter Strike has been important for us to continue to grow. Outside the University, I’m grateful to Professor David Costa, Richard Little, David Williams, Sam Carey, and Katie Carr who have been really helpful to our efforts.

Well, that’s a bit of what 2014 looked like to us, and what 2015 looks like in theory… now we hope to create it! A Chinese proverb came to mind as I was writing this review…

May we live in slightly less interesting times?

Thanks for your interest in IFLAS!

Jem Bendell

Professor of Sustainability Leadership

Founder, Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS), University of Cumbria.

www.cumbria.ac.uk/iflas   

Money and Society MOOC - now available with rolling start

A free online course at Masters-level will enable you to understand the past, present and future role of money in society. You can study at your own pace. Enrol here.

Are you concerned with the banking system? Bemused or fascinated by bitcoin? Starting a local currency? Whereas most courses on money are intended for people with an economics background or banking future, this course is for people who are interested in understanding money from a social innovation perspective – it prepares the ground for answering how to create a better future by reshaping money and currency.

The course is therefore highly interdisciplinary, drawing upon anthropology, sociology, history and heterodox economics. It is designed by Professor Jem Bendell PhD (IFLAS) and Matthew Slater BD (Community Forge), with additional tutoring by alumni of the course (some of whom have gone on to launch their own ICOs).

Typically 50 to 100 people complete the full 4 lessons, and many then continue to interact in the Alumni Forum. Over 20 have progressed to attend the full certificate course in London, which is taught in one week, once a year.

The course has four lessons:

Lesson One: An introduction to money: functions, forms, and fallacies

Lesson Two: The history of money and its discontents

Lesson Three: The problems with mainstream monetary systems

Lesson Four: Alternatives

Each lesson begins on a Sunday, consisting of a audio-narrated slides of less than two hours (which you can listen to when you want within the following days), followed by two hours of personal reading and one hour to prepare a written assignment of around 500 words, which must be submitted by the following week.

Participants can view and comment on each other’s assignments in the forum, and can interact as they wish, with tutors commenting on assignments in the forum.

At the end of this MOOC you will be able to:

• Critically assess views on the form and function of money and currency by drawing from monetary theories
• Explain theories on how social, economic and environmental problems arise from mainstream monetary systems
• Explain alternative forms of money and currency and the theories on how they can support better social, economic and environmental outcomes.

On the MOOC you will be joined by participants on the Certificate of Achievement in Sustainable Exchange, which is a credit-bearing module offered by the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability at the University of Cumbria. Four days of classes in person at the Docklands Campus in London explore the wider issues of currency innovation and the collaborative economy. There is a fee for the certificate, not the MOOC. You must have started the MOOC in order to enrol.

The Tutors 

Matthew Slater is a software engineer who specialises in open source software for community currencies. Co-founder of Community Forge, which produces software for and hosts over 100 local currencies, he is a regular commentator on grassroots initiatives for community control of currency and credit.