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This is a new and unique Masters programme, launched at BTH in 2004.

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BTH is a Technical University that has Sustainability as a prioritized core valueand as a theme for integration in all curricula

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The Natural Step is an international organization in 12 countries, working withScientific Consensus to provide Role Models with the TNS Framework forStrategic decision making. We train executives in business and policy, coachthem in their activities to increase chances of doing well from doing good ontomorrows market, to avoid risks, and to develop the tools they need. All toolsare aligned with the same framework a systematic way of planning for anygoal within sustainability constraints set by a systems perspective on the wholebiosphere. The latter aspect to put your goals and visions within sustainabilityconstraints is a natural thing to do, at least if you like your goals and visions. Toput long term goals and visions outside constraints of sustainability ismeaningless. And to put short term goals outside such constraints is risky, not theleast from an economic perspective.

Frvntningar?

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The learning process is designed to avoid reductionism. The full picture ispresented first, thereafter an increasing level of detail is presented as theprogramme evolves. In this way everything is presented already at the firstlearning cycle, only to be repeated in more and more detail throughout thecoming circles.

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The biosphere with its human societies and organizations is a complex system. Atree is a good metaphor for a complex system. If we take a step back we cancomprehend the whole system, and avoid drowning in all the informationamongst the leaves of details. Individuals are ingenious when it comes todealing with complex systems when we learn our first language, when wehandle our cars in traffic, or when we play chess or the piano whereas groups ofpeople, particularly large groups, have a tendency to perform badly when itcomes to management of complex systems. The reason is that groups often fail toscrutinize the overall rules of the system and then agree what it is the groupactually wants to achieve before it starts to act. If the group, on the other hand,does deal with those fundamental issues, then the group can perform better thanany individual. On such conditions, the group can make use of a higher collectiveknowledge than any of it s members.

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The biosphere with its human societies and organizations is a complex system. Atree is a good metaphor for a complex system. If we take a step back we cancomprehend the whole system, and avoid drowning in all the informationamongst the leaves of details. Individuals are ingenious when it comes todealing with complex systems when we learn our first language, when wehandle our cars in traffic, or when we play chess or the piano whereas groups ofpeople are often dumber than the dumbest participant of the whole group. Thereason is that groups often fail to scrutinize the overall rules of the system andthen agree what it is the group actually wants to achieve before it starts to act. Ifthe group, on the other hand, does deal with those fundamental issues, then thegroup can perform better than any individual. On such conditions, the group canmake use of a higher collective knowledge than any of its members.

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Upplyst egennytta OAVSETT VAD ANDRA GR. TEMPOT finns kvar somproblem, men inte RIKTNINGEN. Fretag som brjar vnder sig till politiker Electrolux, OK etc.

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People are generally intellectually and emotionally intelligent.We are social, we have empathy, we love our children and wegenerally want to look forward to something compelling in thefuture. What is so difficult when it comes to sustainabledevelopment which is all about applying those inherent humanqualities?

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The need for a framework is explained by a very complex and fragmented debatein massmedia as well as in the scientific community. In this debate each problemis dealt with as it surfaces. To rely on such information for planning purposes iscalled Forecasting. The term is derived from forecasting the trends we seetoday into the future, and then trying to fix the problems we see today as we planahead. This is bound to lead to more problems further ahead, and even moreconfusion.

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Reductionism has its corresponding organizational st ructure in society,compartmentalization. It means that each societal sector and each science field isdrilling deeper and deeper into their respective drillholes of increasingknowledge but with limited or no understanding of what is going on in the otherdrillholes. This is not a viable s ocietal model for sustainable development. Thequestion is how do the drillholes connect, and how can we make better use ofthe deep knowledge from a holistic point of view?

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What we need is a structured overview, by which all the drill holes, representedby their respective experts, connect. An example is rational clinical conferences,when all experts pathologists, physicians, surgeons, nurses, physiotherapists,social workers have a shared mental model of the problem at hand. That sharedmental model is the purpose to cure Mrs Anderson. None of theprofessional groups can cure Mrs Anderson with her serious disease on their own.But they can do it together because they have a st rict shared mental model what itis all about Mrs Anderson. Today the patient is the biosphere with its humansociety. It is suffering from the deadly disease un-sustainability. To cure thatdisease we need economists, business people, politicians, scientists and otherprofessional groups. But how could we cooperate, unless we share a goodunderstanding of the disease?

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The need for a framework is explained by a very complex and fragmented debatein massmedia as well as in the scientific community. In this debate each problemis dealt with as it surfaces. To rely on such information for planning purposes iscalled Forecasting. The term is derived from forecasting the trends we seetoday into the future, and then trying to fix the problems we see today as we planahead. This is bound to lead to more problems further ahead, and even moreconfusion.

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We must obviously try to envision the healthy patient ahead of us, the wholesystem being sustainable, and then ask ourselves: How can we cooperate todayand all the way there, to make it happen? Its called Backcasting, i.e. imagininga point of success in the future and then backcast from that point.

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but we can invent it, he added. This requires a basic understanding, at thelevel of principle, of the goal. So the scope changes from the level of detail,to the level of basic principles that connect all the details. The Natural Stepstarted with an intuitive belief that it would be possible to identify suchbasic principles, the trunk and the branches of sustainability. With suchprinciples it would be possible to inform all kinds of experts anddepartments in organizations in joint ventures for the curing of the patient.

e eep now e ge o a t e pro ess ona groups cou t en e put ntouse for innovation and design of sustainability, and there would benumerous opportunities for the creation of all kinds of differentorganizations and cultures as long as they all complied with the basicprinciples of sustainability.

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In order to find a unifying principled framework for sustainabledevelopment of this kind, we must apply a deductive method based onlogics. Principles must be sought for, and scrutinized, to fit and explainall kinds of empirical data on impacts in social and ecological systems,as well as to fit and explain all the ideas and concepts that have beendesigned to act on all the empirical data on impacts. In an ongoinginternational learning dialogue between scientists and practitioners,

as eve ope a gener c ramewor o ve n epen ent utinterrelated levels, all defined at the level of basic principles:

(i) The Systems level (Biosphere with the human society);(ii) The Success level (Sustainability principles meeting the criteria at the

previous slide);(iii) The Strategic level (logical guidelines for Sustainable development);(iv) The Actions level (concrete actions and action programs);(v) The Tools level (tools to foster actions to be strategic to arrive at

success in the system).This framework is called The Natural Step Framework. The key strategic

element of this framework is the second level, the Success level. Howcan we find principles for sustainability that are necessary, enough,general, concrete and distinct (see previous slide)?

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The Natural Step International is an international NGO dedicated to thepromotion of sustainable development. We have teams operating in 11 countries.Our history has involved working with Scientific Consensus to develop the TheNatural Step Framework as a distinctive and rigorous set of principles, andprocesses for applying sustainable development. We work with all sectors ofsociety to increase both commitment to and competence in sustainabledevelopment.

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If the system is explored enough, it may be possible to define in principle whatSustainability would entail. The more rigorous this is done, the easier it will be todevelop the subsequent levels in a robust framework for strategic planning,Strategic Sustainable Development (SSD)

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So, to summarize all of this into a concise problem description: If we wantto win in a complex system, we need to be able to define what successwould be. This can generally not be done at the level of detail, butneeds a principled definition. Such basic principles for a successfuloutcome of planning, need to be (i) necessary for success, (ii) enoughfor success so that there are no gaps, (iii) general to allow trans-disciplinary and trans-sector cooperation, (iv) concrete to guide actionprograms n rea e an v st nct to prov e compre ens on anallow development of indicators for the monitoring of the winningprocess.

This may sound academic, but is in fact quite intuitive. This is how theindividual brain, or brains in small groups, tend to operate. Say that a

family is going to move to Paris, and that they have never been thereefore. Is that possible? Yes by Backcasting from the basic principles

(i) close enough commuting distance to the working place(s) of thefamily, (ii) affordable, (iii) meeting safe and pleasant enough indoorrequirements, (iv) meeting the specific requirements of the family and(v) being free for rent or purchase. There may be a large number ofdifferent dwellings that meet all those requirements, but only those thatmeet all criteria can be considered. So, even if mistakes are made

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amongst t e eaves, e.g. c oos ng ug y wa paper or t e v ng room, twouldnt happen that they make mistakes at the trunk and the branchlevel, e.g. ending up in a too costly castle ruin in Berlin, trying tofigure out what went so wrong.

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Using this framework to not confuse the levels with one another,thereby avoiding misunderstandings between the scientists andpractitioners taking part in the consensus process, we asked thequestion: Through the lens of this framework, what can weagree on as regards systematic and strategic planning towards fullsocial and ecological sustainability, being economic with

nanc a , soc a an po t ca resources a t e way

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So under the first level, we explored the biosphere, with itsbiogeochemical cycles and with its ecological tissue; and weexplored the human society, with its relationship to theecosystems through flows of resources/services/waste and withits social tissue. And we asked ourselves: By what basicmechanisms do we destroy this system?

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The natural cycles, or the biogeochemical cycles of nature, operates like ahuge quality machine. The primary producers in this machine are the plantcells, and the reason for their specific capacity is that they know how toenergize themselves without eating or using other forms of chemicalenergy such as fossil fuels. On the contrary, energized directly by the sunthey digest what is waste from animal- and human bodies, andconcentrate it back to new energy rich resources such as crop, forests,algae etc. This is called photosynthesis, i.e. 'building with light, or primaryproduction since it is the first order production on which other productionforms on Earth relies on. There is another and much slower cycle as well a very slow flow of matter is sedimented and mineralized into rock at theborder between the biosphere and the earths crust, and another flowbrings matter back from the earths crust to the biosphere vulcano

eruptions and weathering. The creation of resources from waste (primaryproduction with sun-energy) has, over geological times, exceeded thedegradation of resources back to waste.

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The natural cycle has served as the engine by which evolution(biological evolution, and lately, after humanity entered thescene, also cultural and technical evolution) has been possible.There is one billion (!) years between each biological eventsymbolized by the evolving species on the time axis in thispicture. From the creation of Earth 4.5 billion years ago, it tookaroun one on years or t e ue-green a gae to appear. teranother one billion years the biosphere also had primitivecolonies of one-cellular organisms. It took another one-billionyears to create complex multicellular plants where the different

cells plaid specified roles. After yet another one billion years thefirst primitive animal cell entered the scene, which was thestarting point for high-metabolism life and mobility. Thistriggered a boost in diversity, giving us what we refer to asNature within only 0.5 billion years. The big Cycle of Nature,the quality machine, has thus in 3.5 billion years createdNature from a worthless mixture of disorganized matter in therimeval atmos here How does the human societ fit intothis?

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So under the first level, we explored the biosphere, with itsbiogeochemical cycles and with its ecological tissue; and weexplored the human society, with its relationship to theecosystems through flows of resources/services/waste and withits social tissue. And we asked ourselves: By what basicmechanisms do we destroy this system?

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So, after a creation period of 3.5 billion years, we are systematically allowingforests and soils to become deserts, and the creation of waste to supersedeprimary production. As a consequence, resources are declining at the same timeas inpurity is increasing. We are going backwards in evolution, as if the 3.5billion year creation film is played in reverse. We have created a funnel ofdiminishing capacity to sustain civlization. Through a thorough enoughdescription of the first level of the framework, the systems level, we are nowready to explain the problem as well as the solut ion at the level of principle. Thebasic principles for a sustainable society, system conditions, are

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This understanding made it possible to design basic principles for sustainablepractices and organizations that are independent of scale and type of activity.Any practice is NOT part of the sustainability problem, if it does not violate thoseprinciples. Decreasing the dependence on violating those principles, is a way ofsystematically avoiding the risks of being hit by the funnel. The principles areapplied to scrutinize todays business (do we contribute to the violation of thoseprinciples?), trigger innovation and design for inherently sustainable practices inthe future (do these solutions phase out our violations of the principles?), andhelp us guide actions in a strategic way (How do we approach those solutions ina step-by-step fashion while being economic or even earning resources on theway?). In fact, by understanding how to define the second level of theframework, sustainability, we have automatically approached the third level, thestrategic

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This leads us to the tools level of the five-level framework.

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So let us together apply a tool for keeping track of the big picture insustainable development the A,B,C,D analysis.

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All investments, in particular those that are large and tie resources forrelatively long times, need to be scrutinized by these three questions. In thisway economically feasible doors are opened to a future with even greatereconomic potentials. This is the generic framework for thinking andplanning strategically, and it can be applied for all kinds of organizationsand planning endeavors. Doing this right, is a way of increasing theeconomic potential, also from a strict competitive perspective. To that end,sus ta na e eve opment s n t e en at eas t as muc a outcompetence as values.

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With a robust principled definition of success, like principles ofcheckmate, it is possible to be strategic.

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This brings us to the fourth, actions level. A growing number oforganizations are applying the framework today, imaginingthemselves as complying with their sustainable vision in thefuture, and then allowing their actions to be guided by asking thestrategic question: what shall we do to get here?

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When many actors in a region apply the same A,B,C,D analysis,it allows them to compare notes as regards (B) problems andassets today, (C) possible solutions tomorrow, and to discoversmart early moves that can create synergies and support of eachothers action programs. Now we can move from quick fixdownstream, to a whole systems perspective upstream. From ow can we so ve a t ese myr a mpacts to ow can wedesign a sustainable society? Understanding the basic principlesof sustainability, makes it possible to reveal all the impacts at thebasic design level, and launch innovative design solutions thatwill tackle the problems all the way down to the basic principlelevel. From how certain can we be that climate change is worsethan the risks with nuclear power to what are the sustainableenergy options and how can we get there?

Even though the presented framework is quite straight forward,and even though we have many role models that have been

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successful in applying it for real change, the resistence from theold un-sustainable paradigm is considerable. Some, but not all, ofthe common objections to sustainable development are invalid


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Finally the tools level. There are many tools, but outside the context of ashared framework all the tools have begun to be perceived as confusing inthemselves. What aspects of sustainability are covered by the respectivetools, and which are the gaps that need to be covered by other tools? Whichof those tools do we need for a given planning endeavor, and which toolscan we do without?

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UNEP tog initiativet att lta pionjrer bakom flera av de mestnamnkunniga verktygen och koncepten fr hllbar utvecklingtrffas fr att tillsammans studera vilka aspekter av hllbarutveckling som respektive verktyg hanterade. Tankemodellen rdensamma som ovan beskrivits. Vi frestllde oss enorganisation som uppfyllt de grundlggande

ar etspr nc perna ramt en, oc st e re ter enretoriska frgan: vad kunde respektive verktyg hjlpa till med pvgen hit, och vilka aspekter mste hanteras med andra verktyg?

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KHR - Day 1 2010