Our Approach: 7 Stages to Sustainability (7SS) Building sustainable futures from the ground up At the foundation of Empowerment WORKS, 7 Stages to Sustainability (7SS) is a collaboration road map, an Asset Based Community-driven Development (ABCD) framework, philosophy of self-determination and an educational curriculum empowering communities to build sustainable futures from the ground up.
In short, 7 Stages to Sustainability is a tool to transform poverty into prosperity in the world's most economically challenged communities. And, modeling the way nature creates, the 7SS pattern is universal and used world-wide to catalyze innovation in business, technology, music and even movies. Although those using it have little or no awareness of one another, the widely distributed 7SS pattern, termed 'monomyth' by author Joseph Campbell (a.k.a. Hero's Journey), is inherent in most (if not all) other functional systems. 7SS as a Framework for Participatory Community Development Stages 1-3: THE INTERNAL FOCUS. Sustainable Communities Infographic. One The Event - Social Architecture. "12 Pillars of Human Endeavor" Origins Originally designed by futurist & social architect, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Founder of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, the 12 Pillars shown here (above) match & advance Barbara's popular12 point Wheel of Co-Creation (right) based on the Model of the Peace Room, which focuses on a world that works for all.
Barbara along with many others including officials in Washington DC saw this wheel as an open-source tool that would help us define and bridge us from old hierarchical systems to ones based in co-creation and bridging resources and needs in evolutionary ways. How we use it Each pillar is self explanatory. Embracing Whole-System(s): Beyond the Pillars While the Pillars cover the WHAT (solutions, impact areas, and issues); facilitating meaningful collaboration also requires coherence, trust and synergy. More about the 12 Pillar Model & its Purpose. Cities as sustainable ecosystems. Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems. Bike lanes led to 49% increase in retail sales. Models of Sustainability: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage.
Preface: Among the many replies we received on this blog, one came from Story of Stuff’s Annie Leonard.
She felt it was important that the other side of waste incineration be told, and guided The Pachamama Alliance to an organization – the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives – that is staunchly against waste incineration of any kind. For an alternate view on waste incineration, please check out their informational page here. The Pachamama Alliance would like to underscore to our readers that we seek to know multiple angles on environmental and social issues. This sometimes means information comes to light after we have published a blog or news piece. Sweden Runs Out of Garbage Due to Sweden’s innovative waste-to-energy program and highly efficient recycling habits, the Scandinavian nation faces an interesting dilemma.
Sweden’s waste management and recycling programs are second to none as only four percent of the nation’s waste ends up in landfills. The Circle Of Energy P.S. Extending a Hand to the Green Movement. Electric utilities yearly earn more than $300 billion in revenues.
Their primary output is electricity; a secondary energy source generated from any number of sources. This is a nice business with a solid returns and steady growth. Utilities underpin our economy and are indispensable to factories, commercial establishments and homes. How Green Is the Green Economy? Four environmental organizers and researchers examine the ‘green jobs’ buzz.
Any meaningful definition of "green jobs" should require real evidence of environmental, public health and community economic benefits. A “green recovery” is being championed as a solution to both ecological and economic crisis, but the sanguine rhetoric has not always been matched by progress toward a more sustainable U.S. economy.
Growth in “green jobs” has so far included waste incineration and offshore manufacturing of electric sports cars along with weatherization of homes and expansion of public transit. While the Right and industry lobbyists assail the very notion of green jobs, progressive critics argue that the catch-all term permits corporations to continue business as usual while banking public dollars to “greenwash” their image. President Obama’s first campaign ad of 2012 touts 2.7 million jobs in the clean energy economy. Protect nature for world economic security, warns UN biodiversity chief. Britain and other countries face a collapse of their economies and loss of culture if they do not protect the environment better, the world's leading champion of nature has warned.
"What we are seeing today is a total disaster," said Ahmed Djoghlaf, the secretary-general of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. "No country has met its targets to protect nature. We are losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate. If current levels [of destruction] go on we will reach a tipping point very soon. The future of the planet now depends on governments taking action in the next few years. " Industrialisation, population growth, the spread of cities and farms and climate change are all now threatening the fundamentals of life itself, said Djoghlaf, in London before a key UN meeting where governments are expected to sign up to a more ambitious agreement to protect nature.