Worldchanging: Bright Green: Designing As Associative Life

Description

Designing As Associative Life

Government departments or ministries responsible for sustainability , or "the environment", are too often constrained by small budgets and modest influence. Their very existence allows traditional departments - "industry", "economic affairs", "finance" or "transport" - to carry on their ecocidal ways as normal.

A similar problem persists in business where Corporate Social Responsibility has long been treated as a sideline to the real action.

A growing number of individuals in government or industry silos want to work collaboratively with their peers in other silos - but they are often stymied by a system that imprisons them.

So what to do?

Rather than rage against the iniquities of politicians, a new French organization called La 27e Region (The 27th Region) has set out to help regional governments change by running collaborative projects that enable them to experience a new approach to social innovation in practice.

In recent months, for example, seven multi-disciplinary teams have conducted three month residences , in different regions of France, on topics ranging from health centres, or the working lives of elected officials, to "augmented citizenship" and the role of school canteens in tackling childhood obesity.

Last week, in order to stimulate wider conversations in regional government, La 27e Region cleverly organised a kind of "off Broadway" social design event in Marseille (see pic above) - the day before 3,000 elected politicians and officials gathered in the city for France's annual Congress of the Regions (of which there are 26).

La 27e Region's director, Stephane Vincent, invited me to join this creative back-casting day. It brought together elected officials, designers and and social innovators to "imagine an aspect of life in a sustainable region in ten or 20 years from now - and describe the steps that were needed to get there".

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