Following the news from the Copenhagen climate summit has nearly become a full time job. Observing the chaotic deliberations, I am reminded of Adam Kahane’s comments on solving complex sustainability problems via a stakeholder inclusive approach, delivered during this fall’s BSR conference.

What sticks in my head the most is how relevant each of the three “complexity parameters” are to the climate debates :

1) Systemic complexity, whereby cause and effect are far apart in space and time (the generational issue in climate change)

2) Social complexity, whereby each actor has a fundamentally different worldview and perspective (developed vs developing nations, anyone?) 

3) Generative complexity, whereby we are dealing with situations that have never occurred before (when was the last time we had to put together a truly global, multilateral, mutually acceptable, binding agreement on anything?)

Adam’s approach to his work as a facilitator rests on the thesis that to attain a successful outcome, you basically need two things: power and love. Love, defined as “regard for others”, and power, as defined by the “drive of all things living to realize themselves”.  To some degree, we are seeing both love and power demonstrated at the summit, which is good news.

What is not so good is that the premise of stakeholder directed problem solving requires sufficient time to address both the complexity of the problem and do it in a way that takes the power/love approach.

And time is indeed in short supply.

As alluded to in the BSR conference theme: “Reset Economy. Reset World.”, we’ve entered a brief period where business and society is re-examining core assumptions about how we live and work. There’s a realization that the concept of sustainability is vital and relevant, and that sustainability integration is a business imperative fundamental to innovation, profitability, and ultimate long-term survival.

But it’s not as easy as pressing a reset button (there is no sustainability CTRL-ALT-DELETE key sequence!) In a sense, what we’re talking about is systems redesign. Embedding sustainability is very difficult, not least because of the fundamental culture change that accompanies efforts to integrate and operationalize sustainable business practices. Join that with barriers to implementation ranging from existing political frameworks, lack of scale, and an entrenched system of investor valuation that excludes most social and environmental factors, and the true nature of the challenge becomes apparent.

The BSR conference reflected these hard truths, mirroring in the choice of conference topics what we as sustainability practitioners need to do to move forward. Namely, to

• engage in transparent and collaborative learning and problem-solving,
• create openness for new models and approaches, and
• incorporate a multitude of views, voices, and experiences along the way.

We’ve moved past the early stages where the “low-hanging fruit” in terms of sustainability theory and practice has been harvested. In large part, we know what has to be done—and we know that it will take sustained and considerable effort to achieve systems redesign. Perhaps Ben Verwaayen, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent said it best in his closing plenary (@ 4:09) : “CEO involvement is YOUR measure of success”.  Let’s make it happen.