Atelier WeekNotes w/c 20 Nov 2023
Innovation and Sustainability in Business: what would you teach? Depth of Change spectrum: useful as heuristic.
I am writing newsletter of #weeknotes of starting the Atelier of What’s Next (What’s needed, What’s ready? What can we do? What next?). For my rationale for starting the Atelier see here.
This week covers:
Innovation and Sustainability in Business: what would you teach?
Depth of Change spectrum: useful as heuristic.
Innovation and Sustainability in Business: what would you teach?
Step: 4/DEVELOPING. Themes: Innovation. Education.
In September 2021, I was approached by Prof Paul Ekins (co-founder of my former employer, Forum for the Future, and a leading environmental economist; you can hear his thoughts on 'what can we do in these powerful times?' here). Would I be interested in teaching on a Masters module in the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources? There was a module on business, innovation and sustainability, but one of the people who taught had had to pull out. Could I step in?
At that point I was wanting to explore things that were unfamiliar to me, so I said yes. I'll be part of teaching the module for a third time in the spring. This week we were making adjustments, so we can start with Lecture 1 on Mon 8 Jan 2024.
I was doing that with module lead, Dr Will McDowall, Associate Professor in Innovation and Sustainability. Will is an actual academic who knows the terrain (rather than an auto-didact practitioner who has seen and done bits). He has published proper research like Induced innovation in energy technologies and systems and On order and complexity in innovations systems: Conceptual frameworks for policy mixes in sustainability transitions (this last I had read ages ago, because it is a sorta summary of Micheal Grubb's excellent Planetary Economics; highly recommend both the paper and the book). (Also, Will is a subscriber to the WeekNotes. Hello Will!)
The module is now called Innovation and Sustainability in Business. (The title had been Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Eco-Innovation. I had to tell folks that I've not heard anyone in business say 'eco-innovation' since at least 2008.) In the first year we delivered the lectures as before. Then we took the chance to re-write the curriculum (more on this below).
The benefits
Doing the module has been an opportunity for me in various ways.
Ordering my own thinking about my own experiences. For instance, we use my twenty years in corporate sustainability to provide a frame of different business and innovation responses. We've come up with some frameworks and narratives to provide a thread through the course. I've been using some of these in my thinking about that became the Atelier.
I get to learn more about the terrain. I have come across most of what Will talks about before, but not in a cogent or ordered way, nor seeing how the theories relate to each other. I get to learn stuff. Hurray!
The students. About 50 people take the module. Most (but not all) the students are in their 20s, perhaps have had one job, and about 60% from overseas (of whom, many are from China). They've chosen a sustainability masters, and many will go into consulting or policy jobs. For the most part, they are curious, hard-working, plus perhaps a little naive and raw (but if you can't be naive and raw in your 20s, when can you be?). If there is to be a transformation to a better future, they will be at the coalface (pun intended) for the years to come.
Interviews (podcast) of practitioner stories. A teaching innovation I wanted early on was to give students real stories of practitioners getting the grit under their fingernails of innovating for sustainability. After the first year, we made the interviews public as a podcast (hub, Apple podcasts, Spotify, everywhere else).
Now there have been 17 episodes with (at time of typing) over 4,300 downloads (almost 270 per episode). These have gone much wider than the students (and ranked 35th in UK sustainability podcasts by Feedspot, which I find amusing).
There are some great stories in there. I'm very pleased with the content, and with the variety: an Indian for-purpose incubator and the Imperial College climate-tech incubator; a serial Angel investor and a deeptech pro-climate VC fund; several start-up CEOs and several corporate innovators; plus policy makers and investors. More to come (I've got 3 interviews to release).
Also, I'll be looking to get more voices from outside the UK (especially the Global South) and from not-for-pure-profit innovators. Let me know if you'd like to be interviewed or have a suggestion.
Part of UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources (ISR). The ISR folks are a friendly bunch, and let me into their research seminars and team meetings. I get to hear about the latest research questions and findings (getting such intel when you are a lone independent is much harder), and to sit in their offices (very convenient for Euston). Plus, as an Honorary Lecturer I have a library card (which I've mainly used to add to my pile of things that I will definitely, definitely read).
Oh, and working with Will is fun too. Right now I’m usually working for someone, as an advisor. So, it is nice to be in a team working with someone.
But should it be 'in' the Atelier?
All very lovely. But. If the Atelier is a studio for the initiatives, interventions and innovations that accelerate shifts to a better world, then does this Masters module count? What about it needs to be 'in' a workshop to take it another step on?
I've been worrying about this. I feel that the module is part of the Atelier in some way. But, while I'd claim it is making some teaching innovations (I don't think any other UCL Masters module has an accompanying podcast of practitioner interviews), it is not on the frontier of either teaching methods or content.
Thinking about this, I had a clarifying insight: the masters module is part of the underpinnings which make the workshop work. The course is a source of research insights and theories. Writing new lectures forces me to work through what I mean. Also, some lectures are a chance to test new methods (for instance, doing scenario planning that is TCFD compliant in under 2 hours). It is part of the learning and diffusing function of the Atelier. So, not 'in' the workshop, but part of keeping the workshop sharp.
What would you teach?
The title is Innovation and Sustainability in Business. The purpose is to equip students with knowledge and skills to understand the role of innovation for sustainability, both from the standpoint of a business and of a public body.
What would you teach? And how would you teach it?
Well, we are constrained on the how. There are 10 lectures. We try to make sure each of these has a mix of presentation, small group discussion, and exercises. (Not death by powerpoint.) There has to be assessment. In our case, an essay (from a list of topics) and a group presentation as if pitching a start-up idea for funding. Plus the podcasts of practitioner experiences.
After the first year, we had the chance to re-jig the curriculum. This is where we have ended up.
Business responses to sustainability crises. The recent history of corporate sustainability. Key terms like ESG, CSR, shared value, stakeholder value.
Innovation economics: core concepts and issue. Different definitions of innovation and views on how it happens.
New product development & managing technology innovation. Managing innovation from the point of view of the firm.
Sustainable entrepreneurship, routes to commercialisation, and sustainable finance. Types of entrepreneurs in the sustainability space, and the 'journey' from pre-seed to IPO. Financing, from start-ups through to large companies.
Sustainable innovation in a digital age. Innovation for sustainability when digital technologies (including AI) are the General Purpose Technology driving today's industrial revolutions.
Sustainability strategy, plus scenario planning. How do businesses create their sustainability strategies. What is scenario planning and the Taskforce for Climate-Related Disclosure?
Innovation (eco)systems (not just the cult of the entrepreneur). Firm's eye view of innovating in a systems context (and how entrepreneurs are rarely lone heroes).
Transitions and the bigger picture. The roles of innovations in macroeconomic transitions and what that means for sustainability.
Public policy for sustainability-oriented innovation. What governments can do to foster high levels of sustainability-orientated innovation.
Case studies. Applying all the above to 1 or 2 examples.
This week we were tweaking this (out goes Blockchain, for instance).
When we first looked at that list of lecture titles, both Will and I thought: those could be chapter headings of a book. A really interesting book.
We both know writing it would be hard work, and possibly good fun. The key is: who would we be aiming at? Perhaps at mid-level executives and policy makers, and what they need to know on innovation for sustainability? What publisher would go for that?
Let me know if you have any ideas!
WHAT NEXT
Adjust my lectures for next year.
Record and release more practitioner interviews in Innovation for Sustainability podcast.
Keep asking for people to interview (suggestions welcome!).
Write a book proposal, 2-ish pages on who the audience is and the gap for the book.
Once the lectures are going, I’ll share one key concept or insight per week in this newsletter.
Depth of Change spectrum: useful as heuristic.
Step: 4/DEVELOPING. Theme: Atelier management. Societal transformation.
This week I found myself using the Depth of Change Spectrum three times, in ways which proved useful. Which is an interesting validation.
As a reminder, the Depth of Change Spectrum (which builds on the work of Vanessa Andreotti) is an attempt to articulate the different stances I am seeing, which are in effect different strategies responding to our powerful times.
The short version: soft reform (eg better corporate disclosure); strong reform (eg climate-focused industrial policy); radical resistance (eg Extinction Rebellion); deep transformation (eg tbd); prepare good ruins (eg a school called HOME) ; and, metamorphosis (Findhorn Foundation).
The 'use cases' were all in a conversations where people were frustrated with strong reform, could see it was not enough, but had no way of articulating what was beyond. Talking about the other stances (radical resistance etc) really opened up a new terrain for them.
So, good validation of the Depth of Change Spectrum as framing or heuristic device. Now, is it useful in as a diagnostic or analytical tool?
WHAT NEXT
Apply as a diagnostic or analytical tool.
Talk to Will about adding it to our Module as a framing device (though we already have a few of those, and we risk confusing people with more frames).