This is the text of my plenary talk at the Innovation and Emerging Industry Development (IEID) conference in Shanghai on 18 September 2019. I describe three enabling conditions for system change: a capacity for ecological thinking; a focus on social infrastructure (rather than the concrete kind); and a shift of focus from place making, to place connecting.
A cultural disconnection between the man-made world and the biosphere lies behind the grave challenges we face today. We either don’t think about rivers, soils, and biodiversity at all – or we treat them as resources whose only purpose is to feed the economy.
This ‘metabolic rift’ – between the living world, and the economic one – leaves us starved of meaning and purpose. We have to heal this damaging gap.
My talk today is therefore about the design of connections between places, communities, and nature. Drawing on a lifetime of travel in search of real-world alternatives that work, I describe the practical ways in which living economies thrive in myriad local contexts.
When connected together, I argue, these projects tell a new ‘leave things better’ story of value, and therefore of growth.
Growth, in this new story, means soils, biodiversity and watersheds getting healthier, and communities more resilient.
The signals of transformation I talk about are not concepts, and they are not the fruits of a vivid imagination. They are happening now.
But in conversations about innovation, I am often asked the same question: Are small local initiatives an adequate response to the global challenges we all face?
The sheer number and variety of initiatives now emerging is my first answer to that question.
No single project is the magic acorn that will grow into a mighty new oak tree. But healthy forests are extremely diverse, and we’re seeing a healthy level of diversity in social innovation all over the world.
My second answer
A “Marshall Plan for tourism” – but with what aim? (20 minute talk)
EU Commissioner @ThierryBreton promises a “Marshall Plan for tourism” – but with what aim? In this talk, I propose a new storyin which the design of new urban-rural relationships creates value by leaving places healthier. Video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bwKtab
The concept of sustainable tourism was invented 45 years ago – but it was added to global mass tourism, it did not replace it. Since then, although sustainable tourism brands have proliferated, mass tourism has continued to devastate its ‘destinations’ with growing intensity.
Until Covid.
It’s tempting, post-Covid, to welcome the grounding of the world’s climate-destroying aircraft. But in Europe alone, the fate of 27 million jobs, & three million small firms, are also on the line. Our story, going forward, must include them.
EU Commissioner @ThierryBreton promises a “Marshall Plan for tourism” – but with what aim?
The old tourism story was about perpetual growth combined with feeble attempts at damage limitation. In this talk, I propose a new story in which the design of new urban-rural relationships creates value by leaving places healthier.
Good work, in this new economy, ranges from ecological restoration, farmer-city connections, and open food networks – to learning journeys, biohacking, and village revitalisation.
The talk concludes with a policy proposal: the focus of any Europe-wide ‘Marshall Plan’ needs to be on social infrastructure – the coordination and connecting work needed to create these new urban-rural livelihoods.
(My talk was part of the symposium Re-Thinking Tourism for a Planet in Crisis organised by Jakob Travnik @tuvienna and @AASchool
http://www.gbl.tuwien.ac.at/rethinkingtourismforaplanetincrisis/