“interpersonal ecology” in the workplace68/datastream/ob… · ecological awareness that...

“Interpersonal Ecology” in the WorkplaceUsing stories found in nature to encourage employees to engage in sustainable

practices in the workplace.

In support of MA Thesis ReviewNovember 27, 2018

Heather MeyerMA in Sustainable DesignMinneapolis College of Art and Design

Thesis Advisor: Curt McNamaraThesis Chair: Denise DeLucaCommittee Members: Tane Danger, Belina Raffy

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The Project Introduction

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SummaryPeople are less engaged in sustainable practices at work than they are at home. Individual employee behavior leads to sustainability problems at work such as: excessive energy and water use; unnecessary solid waste and carbon emissions. At the same time, employees are less engaged and struggling to find purpose in their work and workplaces.

Many businesses have top-down sustainability approaches that use company-wide environmental programs and consultants to train upper-level leadership. Few, if any, seek to engage employees from the bottom-up. This project’s goal is to engage employees directly in workplace sustainability, thereby enhancing existing sustainability practices’ collective engagement.

Using The Natural Step ABCD Method, biophilic design and applied improvisation in a 12-week curriculum and experiential workshop, the thesis examines the increases of awareness of an individual’s potential environmental impact in the workplace.

Through developing and executing a pilot workshop, this thesis presents data that offers environmental sustainability practices as one option for disengaged employees to find purpose in their workplace.

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Table of Contents 4Introduction 2Problem Statement 5Sustainability Challenge 6Professional Goals 6Project Scope 11

Execution 12Curriculum Design: The Natural Step 13Curriculum Design: Biophillic Principles 15Curriculum Design: Applied Improvisation 16Proposed and Actual Process 18

Outcome 19Pilot Workshop: Materials list 20Pilot Workshop: Outline: 21Pilot Workshop: Results 28Next Steps 29Conclusion 31

References 32

Appendices 35

Project Introduction 5Employees are less motivated to recycle at work1

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Problem StatementPeople are less engaged in environmentally sustainable practices at work than they are at home, resulting in workplaces that use excessive energy and water, generate excessive solid waste and carbon emissions. These problems are directly connected to individual employee behavior. At the same time, employees are less engaged and are struggling to find purpose in their work and workplaces.

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Proposed SolutionThis project’s goal is to bridge the parallel disconnects of employees’ general workplace disengagement and their lack of participation in company-wide environmental measures by developing a program that uses a bottom-up, employee-driven approach to engage people in existing top-down company-wide sustainability initiatives. This project seeks to increase employee’s workplace environmental behaviors by offering a connection to the natural environment as an way for one to find purpose in their work.

Professional GoalsGain experience researching sustainability issues

Create and execute a sustainability focused in-person workshop

Increase confidence with gathering data and making recommendations

Connect with professionals in applied improv

Sustainability Challenge 6Because the reward for environmentally-sound habits (protection of natural environment) and the repercussions for infrequently environmentally-sound habits (damaging the environment) aren’t necessarily immediate, it can be hard for people to make the association between their daily habits and those habits’ consequences when they are at work. Company and corporate sustainability initiatives exist in most workplaces with 82% of large-cap companies reporting on their sustainability2.

Examples of energy-wasting workplace behaviors include:! In 2009 US office workers annually waste 2.8 billion dollars due to computers that are not shut off when

they leave the office 3.! 70% of total waste in office is made up of paper4

! 45% of printed paper on offices ends up in the trash5

! 10,000 sheets of paper used by Americans each year6

! In the United States, commercial buildings account for 36% of all electricity used and are responsible for 18% of carbon emissions7

! 500 disposable cups are used per worker annually8

! 20 to 30% of a person’s waste a day is food scraps9

It is believed that office workers typically care little about saving energy because they are not responsible for paying the energy-related bills10. However, 36% of electrical energy is used in the workplace and through office workers’ behavior modification savings between 12% to 20% are possible11. In Minneapolis, the commercial sector generates more than half of the total waste in Hennepin County and nearly two-thirds of the waste created at businesses and non-profits is recyclable12.

Current Work in the Area 7There are a number of sustainably-minded workplace programs to prepare, support and guide a company’s leadership in reducing workplace environmental impact.

Many of these programs use outside consultants or conferences to develop and communicate company-wide sustainable initiatives to leadership teams. There are also sustainably-minded consultants that help companies develop leadership skills and innovative thinking. For-profit consultancies, Maffick, Ltd15, The Brave New Workshop Creative Outreach16, Biomimicry Center for Creative Innovation’s “Business Inspired by Nature,”17 and Giles Hutchins’ Future Fit Leadership Academy18 provide a variety of trainings in leadership, organization, innovation and sustainability.

There are non-profit services in this area as well. Hennepin County in Minnesota provides free onsite assistance for businesses in setting up adequate recycling systems as well as complementary signage and a grant program to help companies priorities purchase of proper recycling infrastructure19. The Center for Energy and Environment provides services for individuals, organizations, and entire communities to improve energy efficiency20. These programs focus on developing leadership in individuals and teams to guide company-wide or department-wide sustainable improvements.

When structured well, sustainability engagement initiatives can drive enormous business value and return on investment21

like Google’s eleven year commitment to carbon neutrality22

and HP’s Sustainable Impact Stategy23. Many companies have formations of “green teams” or committees to shepherd the environmental awareness.

Another common way to increase environmental awareness in the workplace is through behavior modification. This includes initiatives such as giving each employee their own recycling bin, swapping out large trash receptacles for smaller ones24 , or removing individual trash bins altogether25.

Though many companies have environmental programs, employee participation is still inconsistent. In a recent study of 2,000 employees, 71% of employees who had not participated in their company program reported they didn’t even know the program existed26.

Despite well-crafted environmental plans and skilled leaders, clearly there is a disconnect between current sustainability programs and employee behavior. There is room for more lasting improvement through non-management, employee-driven efforts. The project presented here is a “bottom-up” employee-driven approach that supports top-down efforts towards a company’s sustainability.

Additional Reasons to Address The Problem 8Gallup estimates that actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. $450 billion to $550 billion in lost productivity per year. And 50% of people are not finding meaning in their work.

The strongest motivators for sustainability in the workplace are community reputation, reducing business costs and aligning business and personal values. Empirical studies have found that people who give considerable thought to morality and moral matters tend to be concerned with others’ well-being27. For example, the newest generation of workers, Generation Z, is expected to make up 30% of the U.S. workforce in just four years. This will be the first generation of workers to prioritize purpose over money28. In addition, 15% of worldwide employees say they are engaged in the workplace29, 40% of Millennials feel strongly connected to their company’s mission30 and 3 out of 10 employees agree their opinions strongly count at work31

Engaging employees in a workplace program that connects to their values in a meaningful way can help bridge this disengagement. Employees who find more meaning at work don’t just stick around longer, they also report 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and are 1.4 times more engaged at work32. Employees with feelings of organization ownership lead to greater job satisfaction, engagement, productivity, and profits33.

Employee sustainability engagement programs work even when they ‘fail’, because they help a company better articulate the issues at play and refine their approach34. The biggest contributing factor to recycling success in the workplace is the attitudes of the employees35.

Business Survey on Entrepreneurship and Innovation, GATE Project36.

The scope of this project is to focus on creating and executing one two-hour pilot workshop. This workshop would be one of 12 workshops in the whole curriculum. This test workshop will allow data collection to adjust curriculum for improvement and make recommendations for the future.

The entire program would be a two-hour weekly workshop over the course of twelve weeks in an organization.

For this thesis, one pilot workshop will be designed and executed. The themes of each weekly workshop will be also shared in this presentation.

The Project Execution

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Project Strategy 10For this thesis I developed a program to increase engagement with workplace sustainability measures through individual employee behavior. This program serves as a complementary program to current practices of company sustainability, driven by leadership support and business-wide environmental programs.

This project centers on how the individual can benefit from taking sustainable actions by addressing this issue from the human resource angle. This new approach will support pre-existing company sustainability initiatives and leadership training from the bottom-up through activating the non-management employees. This will help employees to see themselves as part of the system (company and environment), not just a user of nature or a “cog” in the work machine.

This will be done by creating a space where individual, non-management employees will reflect, share and ideate on their role in environmental sustainability to increase psychological ownership. Psychological ownership refers to feelings of possessiveness and connection we develop toward a person, company, or even an idea37. An employee with high psychological ownership feels as though their organization or their job is “theirs,” and the company becomes integrated into the person’s self-identity38.

To cultivate a sense of psychological ownership of company environmental sustainability, this program uses elements from applied improvisation, The Natural Step ABCD Method and a new application of biophilic design principles.

These three modalities help connect with participant’s mindsets and values around the environment. This will rely on the deep ecological awareness that recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena and the fact that, as individuals and societies, we are all embedded in (and ultimately dependent on) the cyclical process of nature39. By connecting individuals to their environmental beliefs, I would like to cultivate mindset of “interpersonal ecology.”

For this thesis, ”interpersonal ecology” is defined as a personal connection to the systems of the environment and the awareness of how one’s choices affects the natural world. This touchstone term will help to compel people to feel connected to the impact they have on the environment while they are at work.

The program also fuses elements of storytelling into the program to push the innovation even further. Stories can be a very powerful way to represent and convey complex, multi dimensional ideas. Well designed, well told stories can convey both information and emotion, both the explicit and the tacit, both the core and the context40. I will be incorporating stories that exist in nature to appeal to participants’ emotional human connection to the environment. This will help them see their natural selves in the unnatural environment of the workplace.

Project Objectives11

Program Objective:

The program’s main objective is to connect individuals’ work lives to their impact on the environment by creating a 12-week curriculum and implementing a pilot workshop.

There are five learning objectives within the curriculum:

1. Cultivate a Sense of Community

2. Absorb Abstract Concepts

3. Illustrate that Small Things Make a Difference

4. See That Everything is Connected

5. Practice Solving Puzzles

Thesis Project Objective:The objective for this these is to create and execute the first workshop in the twelve part series.

Proposed and Actual Process 12Proposed: Create a two-hour instructor-led workshop for employees to connect with sustainability issues in accessible, personal interactions in a group setting.

Actual: Based on research that it takes twelve weeks to create a new habit 49.I expanded the program to take place over twelve weeks.

For the scope of my thesis, I have created and executed a pilot workshop of the first week of the program and I created the themes for the entire twelve weeks.

Program Curriculum Design 13The curriculum design uses the sustainability methodology of The Natural Step, which follows four sustainability principles (Appendix 1). These principles are applied using The Natural Step ABCD Method (Appendix 2). The Natural ABCD Method was instrumental in assessing how to structure the reflective and goal-identifying nature of this program.

The Natural Step ABCD method was used to guide the process of introducing the “Interpersonal ecology” program to participants for the first 8 weeks of the program. The remaining four weeks focused on implementing the discoveries made in the previous weeks.

The Natural Step ABCD Method41.

Following the “A” (Awareness and Vision), the first two weeks of the program focus on creating community by reflecting on each individuals’ current relationship to sustainability in the workplace. This also introduces a common language of what sustainability means, what an ecosystem is and what the connection of “interpersonal ecology” will be through the program. The participants set individual goals for themselves for the program.

Weeks 3 and 4, following the “B” (Baseline Analysis) in the ABCD method, participants will reflect on current sustainability initiatives in the workplace and participants’ activation in the pre-exiting sustainable workplace systems. They will perform a personal inventory of their engagement at work and in sustainability overall.

Week 5 and 6, follows “C” (Creative Solutions) and begins developing creative solutions. We focus on brainstorming to encourage participants to share all ideas on sustainability.

Weeks 7 & 8 is “D” (Decide on Priorities), in this portion of the program the participants examine their observations thus far in the program and begin to define actionable steps they can take to improve sustainability.

Program Curriculum Design 14

Decide on Priorities

Week 1Week 2

Week 3Week 4

Week 5Week 6

Week 7Week 8

Week 9Week 10

Week 11Week 12

[[[[Awareness and Vision

Baseline

Creative Solutions

Theme: “Cultivating a Sense of Community”

Theme: ”Absorbing Abstract Concepts”

Theme: “Small Actions Make A Difference”

Theme: “Everything is Connected”

The Natural Step ABCD Method informs the structure of the pilot workshop and the twelve-week program. The ABCD Method was instrumental in distilling the themes for each of the weekly workshops, and after combining it with the other methodologies used in the curriculum, the content fell into five themes; Cultivating a Sense of Community, Absorbing Abstract Concepts, Small Actions Make a Difference, Everything is Connected and Practice Solving Puzzles. Each theme will be the focus for two weeks, with the final two weeks reserved for next steps and reflection on the program with the theme of “Synthesis.”

Theme: “Practice Solving Puzzles”

Theme: “Synthesis”

[[

Implement Discoveries

Next Steps

Workshop Design 15

New Application of Biophilic DesignEach workshop utilizes applicable biophilic principles in a new, non–location based-way. The 14 Principles of Biophillic Design articulate the relationships between nature, human biology, and the design of the built environment42.

The Biophillic Principles (Appendix 3) are traditionally used in creating a physical environment. In this project, the innovation with the principles is in applying them in non-location based ways. I’ve applied three biophilic principles (Risk/Peril, Connection with Natural Systems, and Prospect) to the psychological and social space of the workshops. The workshop is not about teaching these three biophilic principles, the innovation is that I have applied them to the curriculum design.

The three principles that are present throughout the program are:

RISK/PERILRisk/Peril is an identifiable threat coupled with a reliable safeguard43.

Risk/Peril permeates throughout the program. When co-workers are invited to express themselves and share their behaviors it may cause a fear of being judged. However, using this biophilic principle safeguards the “risk” of honesty by using an anonymous response sharing software. This will allow a sharing of feelings without the fear of being singled out.

CONNECTION WITH NATURAL SYSTEMSConnection with Natural Systems is the awareness of natural processes, especially seasonal and temporal changes characteristic of a healthy ecosystem44.

This biophilic principle is present through the nature narratives introduced in each workshop. For each workshop, an example of a natural system is the focus of reflection and exploration. This continual exposure and examination of the natural world supports this principle.

PROSPECTProspect is an unimpeded view over a distance for surveillance and planning45.

This principle is applied to the social space by consistently providing reflection time each week of the workshops. The prompts encourage further thinking to prompt unimpeded ideation.

Workshop Design 16

Applied Improvisation Principles

Applied improv in action48

Each workshop will incorporate some participant improvisation exercises. The applied improvisation principles used throughout the curriculum are based off the Brave New Workshop Creative Outreach Improv For Innovation Principles. The Brave New Workshop Creative Outreach uses applied improv principles to activates the everyday, micro-behaviors that are needed to translate company’s cultural visions in to actionable behaviors46. The improv principles in this method are: Listen, Defer Judgement, Reframe, Declare and Jump in. These principles help the participant be open and say “yes and” to everyone’s contribution, including their own47.

Listen: Absorb what is being shared by each participantDefer Judgement: Being open to ideas from othersReframe: Examine roadblocks to environmental sustainable behaviors and examine how to reframe them into a solutionDeclare: Create an individual action plan for workplace sustainabilityJump In: Taking action with the new sustainable behaviors

Each workshop encourages participants to say “yes and” to their connection to the environment through exercises that reference and mimic natural systems. For example, an exercise might illustrate the interconnectedness of the elements of an ecosystem or incorporate the POV of a predator animal and that of a prey animal to explore the natural food chain system.

The Project Outcome

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The Pilot Workshop 18Duration: Prep time: 30 minsWorkshop Facilitation: 2 hours, one ten minute breakPost time: 30 for gathering data, clean-up

Pre-Workshop Prep:Review current sustainable company initiatives

Materials Needed: -Open room with chairs along the walls.

-Self-adhesive paper notes and pens

-Projector and laptop

-Software for anonymous data collection and immediate group sharing via word cloud (for example: Mentimeter.com)

-Images of animals and natural environments.

-An open room, a community room in a nature center is most ideal, a conference room in a workplace is suitable.

-Graphic organizer provided to capture key finding for participants. (Appendix 3)

The Pilot Workshop: OutlineThe Pilot workshop was execute in five steps:

Step 1: Pre-data collection

Step 2: Introduce a Nature Narrative

Step 3: The Interconnectedness of Our Ecosystem Improv Exercise

Step 4: Workplace Barriers to Sustainability

Step 5: Wrap-up, Reflection and Next Steps

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The Pilot Workshop: Step 1 20

Workshop Step 1: Pre-data collection

After welcoming the participants, they were instructed to select pens and post-it notes. Using these, they answered questions relating to their attitudes about work and workplace environmental sustainability programs.

For the Pilot workshop, two question were asked in Pre-data collection.

1) How do you currently feel about your engagement in your workplace?

These were placed on the wall of the workshop room.

Then, the participants were asked:

2) What are the barriers to environmental sustainability in your workplace?”

The participants were given five minutes to write as many barriers, if any, they encounter to environmental positivity in the workplace. In a separate location in the room, the post-its are placed on the wall for use later in the workshop. At this time the participants also filled out the first leaf of the graphic organizer with these thoughts (Appendix 4).

The Pilot Workshop 21I transcribed the paper notes into a word cloud

software.

How do you feel about your engagement in you workplace?

For my pilot workshop: I used post-in notes on the wall and the participants then walked around reading them. I was given the feedback from the participants that a website like Mentimeter would provide for easier sharing and a more honest and anonymous reflection.


Step 2: Introduce a Nature Narrative

Nature Narrative introduced:An ecosystem is a community of plants and animals interacting with each other in a given area, and also with their non-living environments50.

Ecology is the scientific study of the processes influencing the distribution and abundance of organisms, the interactions among organisms, and the interactions between organisms and the transformation and flux of energy and matter50.

Then, the participants with share what “interpersonal ecology” means to them and what the facilitator is using it to mean. In this workshop, the term ”interpersonal ecology” is defined as a personal connection to the systems of the environment and the awareness of how one’s choices affects the natural world.

To explore the interconnectedness that is play in an ecosystem, the participants will try an physical improvisation exercise.

Improvisation can invoke fear in a group. Which links into the Biophilic principle of Risk/Peril as it involves people participating in an new, public activity. The Risk/Peril principle is used to arouse attention and curiosity, and refresh memory and problem solving skills47. The principle does require the element of safety to protect the user from harm while still permitting the experience of risk. The safety here is emotional, social and psychological safety, since this workshop asks the participants to explore applied improv exercises, make personal reflections and forge new connections with others and embracing uncertainty.

This workshop encouraged the participants to let go of judgements and be open to sharing themselves, a prospect that could be viewed as risky in a workplace environment. The facilitator hold safe safe with the participants to balance the “peril” through encouragement and monitoring a culture of support. This also uses the applied improv principle of Defer Judgement, which will help heighten the Risk/Peril principle throughout the exercise.


Step 3: The Interconnectedness of Our Ecosystem Improv Exercise

-Participants formed a circle. This is the ecosystem.-One volunteer stood in the middle. They are not part of the ecosystem, they will be the observer of the ecosystem.-The volunteer in the middle closed their eyes.-The circle participants silently chose a member of the circle to act as the leader.-The leader began a silent physical movement while standing in one place and changes the movements throughout the exercise.-The circle mimicked the movements of the leader.-When prompted, the volunteer opened their eyes. -The volunteer tried to determine who is the leader of the circle.

Facilitator Guided Reflection: Observe how difficult it is to see who is leading when the circle is moving in concert. This is how nature’s systems are designed. They are designed to work together. Repeat the exercise with a new center volunteer and leader. Each time the circle becomes better at concealing the identity of the leader as they worked together towards a common goal. Reflect on how, like a ecosystem each member is important for the success of the whole. This reinforces the first of the five objective of the program “creating a culture of community.”

The Pilot Workshop: Step 4 24Step 4: Workplace Barriers to SustainabilityNext, the participants walked around the room reading the notes from Step 1, detailing specific barriers to sustainability in the workplace. The goal of this section is to discuss in groups what they see as a barrier to sustainability. The facilitator led them to suggest solutions without worrying about logistics through a round table exercise in nonjudgement and listening. Each person read a note that was not their own and the person next to them shared the first response that comes to their mind. The goal was to foster a sense of non-judgement and community to be built upon in later workshops when the focus is on actionable next steps.

They then filled out the second leaf in the graphic organizer about the barriers that affect them the most.

Examples of some of the pilot workshop’s participant’s workplace barriers.


Step 5: Wrap-up, Reflection and Next Steps

After the reflection, the facilitator opened the conversation up to share any thoughts about the exercise or sustainability barriers.

The goal of this conversation is to practice deferring judgement and encourage listening.

Allow at least 30 minutes for this portion of the workshop. As this discussion happens participants are welcome to capture thoughts in the final area of the graphic organizer. This third area is for what their personal next steps might be for sustainability behaviors in preparation for the next workshop. For this pilot workshop there was no additional workshop, but this is what the action would be if this was part of the twelve week program.

Pilot Workshop Results 26To end the pilot workshop: I asked the same question I did in the pre-data collection: How to do you right now feel about your your workplace?

Post-Workshop:How do you feel about your

engagement in your workplace?

Pre-Workshop:How do you feel about your

engagement in your workplace?

Next steps 27The next slide outlines the themes for the duration of the program.

Each theme is focused on for two weeks to allow time for an introduction to the concept and time to refine it. The first week of each concept the tools are taught and practiced, then the next week the group will observe their behavior in regards to that concept over the week. They will then share with the group in the second workshop their own observations of sustainable behaviors.

The final four weeks of the entire program will revisit all the exercises and reflect on the growth expected and actual growth in the process. The last two weeks special attention is paid to how to maintain the momentum of the program when there will no longer be an outside facilitator on site.

The original goal of this thesis was to create and execute one in-person workshop.

With feedback that a longer program would help solidify workplace habits, I added the themes of the overall twelve weeks. However, it was not in scope of this thesis to flesh those twelve weeks out further.

Next Steps: Twelve Week Outline 28

Week 1&2: Theme: Cultivate a Sense of Community

Week 3 & 4: Theme: Absorbing Abstract Concepts

Week 5 & 6: Theme : Small Actions Matter

Week 7 & 8: Theme : Everything is Connected

Week 9 & 10 : Theme : Solving Puzzles

Week 11 & 12 Theme : Synthesis and Accountability

Conclusion 29

From the qualitative data collection it can be observed that in the moments following the pilot workshop participants’ attitudes about their engagement in the workplace were more positive. With a twelve-week program, the goal would be to maintain this improvement and develop more action steps for each individual to take in regards to environmental sustainability.

The goal for the program is to communicate that each individual has their own responsibility, connection and reliance on the natural environment.

Next steps for this program would be to pilot the entire twelve weeks in the same workplace. This would allow for measurement of the same group of people over a longer period of time and the opportunity to measure the environmental behaviors. An addition to the program would be to incorporate solution-focused questions into the workshop in to the later weeks of the program to help build the participants’ capacity for finding actionable steps.

Additional next steps would be to pair this program with a pre-existing leadership sustainability training to reinforce the work in this area that focuses on executive decision makers. This would help the top-down decisions be adopted quicker by the lower level employees.

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Appendices

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Appendix 1: The Natural Step Principles52

34

In a sustainable society, nature is not subject systematically increasing:

1. Concentrations of substances from the earth’s crust (such as fossil CO2, heavy metals and minerals.

2. Concentrations of substances produced by society (such as antibiotics and endocrine disruptors).

3. Degradation by physical means (such as deforestation and draining of groundwater tables).

4. And in that society there are no structural obstacles to people’s health, influence, competence, impartially and meanings.

Appendix 2: Natural Step ABCD Method53 35

A. Awareness and Visioning This first step aligns the organization around a common understanding of sustainability and identifies a 'whole-systems' context for that organization; building a common language around sustainability as well as creating a vision of what that organization would look like in a sustainable future.The Natural Step principles of sustainability, basic science and whole-systems approach are presented to develop strategies for living in balance with nature and our global community. Participants review details of the state of the earth's systems, including the ecological, social and economic trends that are undermining our ability to create and manage healthy and prosperous ecosystems, businesses and communities.

During the visioning process, people are encouraged to set ambitious goals which may require radical changes in how the organization operates. Some goals may take many years to achieve.

This is where businesses often begin to identify the service they provide independent of any one product (for example, providing energy services versus oil). Incorporating this awareness into the visioning process unleashes innovation and releases the company from preconceived limitations.

B = Baseline MappingThis step uses the four sustainability principles to conduct a sustainability ‘gap analysis’ of the major flows and impacts of the organization to see how its activities are running counter to sustainability principles. The analysis includes an evaluation of products and services, energy, capital and human resources from 'cradle to cradle'. The assessment also looks at the social context and organizational culture in order to understand how to positively introduce change. This allows the organization to identify critical sustainability issues, their business implications, any assets they may have and opportunities for change.

Appendix 2: Continued 36C = Creative SolutionsIn this step, people are asked to brainstorm potential solutions to the issues highlighted in the baseline analysis without any constraints.

Armed with their vision of success and potential actions, organizations look backwards from the vision to develop strategies toward sustainability. This is called backcasting and it prevents people from developing strategies that just solve the problems of today. Instead, they begin with the end in mind, moving towards a shared vision of sustainability, with each action providing a platform for further improvement.

D = Decide on PrioritiesAfter identifying the opportunities and potential solutions in the ‘C’ step, the group prioritizes the measures that move the organization toward sustainability fastest, while optimizing flexibility as well as maximizing social, ecological and economic returns. This step supports effective, step-by-step implementation and action planning. At this stage, organizations can pick the 'low-hanging fruit' - actions that are fairly easy to implement and offer a rapid return on investment in order to build internal support and excitement for the planning process.Backcasting is used to continually assess decisions and actions to see whether they are moving the organization toward the desired outcome identified in ‘A' step (awareness and visioning).Sustainability principles provide new design parameters that drive product and process innovation throughout the system. This step also incorporates organizational learning and change methods, essential elements to move people into new ways of thinking and working together.

The sustainability principles help people stay on course as they process the myriad of information and decisions involved in long-term planning. What’s considered realistic today never determines the direction of change, only its pace. This approach is based on systems thinking, setting ambitious goals, and developing realistic strategies to achieve them.

Organizations are not expected to achieve long-term goals immediately. They’re encouraged to move systematically by making investments that will provide benefits in the short-term, while also retaining a long-term perspective.

Appendix 3: Patterns of Biophilic Design54 37

1. Visual Connection with Nature-a view of elements of nature, living systems and natural processes.2. Non-Visual Connection with Nature-auditory, haptic, olfactory, or gustatory stimuli that engender a

deliberate and positive reference to nature, living systems or natural processes.3. Non-Rhythmic Sensory Stimuli-Stochastic and ephemeral connections with nature that may be

analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely. 4. Subtle changes in air temperature, relative humidity, airflow across the skin, and thermal & Airflow

Variability- surface temperature that mimic natural environments.5. Presence of Water-A condition that enhances the experience of a place through the seeing,

hearing or touching of water-.6. Dynamic & Diffuse Light-Leveraging varying intensities of light and shadow that change over time to

create conditions that occur in nature7. Connection with Natural Systems-Awareness of natural process, especially seasonal and temporal

changes characteristics of a healthy ecosystem.8. Biomorphic Forms & Patterns-Symbolic reference to contoured, patterned, textured or numerical

arrangements that persist in nature.9. Material Connection with Nature-Material and elements from nature that, through minimal

processing, reflect the local ecology or geology to created a distinct sense of place.10. Complexity & Order-Rich sensory information that adheres to a spatial hierarchy similar to those

encountered in nature.11. Prospect-An unimpeded view over a distance for surveillance and planning.12. Refuge- A place for withdrawal, from environmental conditions or the main flow of activity, in which

the individual is protected from behind and overhead13. Mystery-The promise of more information achieved through partially obscured views or other sensory

devices that entice the individual to travel deeper into the environment.14. Risk/Peril-An identifiable threat coupled with a reliable safeguard.

Appendix 4: Workshop Graphic Organizer 38

According to Allan Paivio’s theory of dual coding, humans process information in both visual and verbal form55.

To ensure a deeper reflection, time to write down thoughts will be built into each workshop

Each week participants will fill out a new “leaf” graphic organizer to collect their thoughts.

“interpersonal ecology” in the workplace68/datastream/ob… · ecological awareness that...

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