The Natural Step

Towards A Sustainable Society

David Cook

• Publisher: Green Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780857843555
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

The Natural Step framework for sustainability is unique, science-based approach developed in 1989 and refined ever since. It is a way of seeing the world that helps decision-makers put sustainable development into action. In this Schumacher Briefing, David Cook tells the story of the evolution of the organisation from its start in Sweden to the present day. Whilst the fundamentals of TNS remain the same, it has responded to the ever-evolving sustainability debate. David provides an overview of the TNS framework here.

Chapter 1

What is The Natural Step, and how has its framework developed ?

The Natural Step is an organisation that is all about promoting deeper understanding and commitment to sustainability, and a wider application of sustainable development. Sustainability refers to our own human society being capable of continuing indefinitely. Development that will move society in that direction is what we call sustainable development. The key feature of TNS is its science-based definition of a sustainable society. Without that definition, sustainability is open to too many interpretations and too much confusion. Real progress will only be possible with a shared understanding of what success will look like.

In order to arrive at a definition of success—in this case sustainability—we must know enough about the system—the environment around us (the biosphere), human societies, and the interactions and flows of materials between the two. The concept of sustainability becomes relevant only when we understand the un-sustainability inherent in the current activities of society. In what principal ways are we destroying the biosphere’s ability to sustain us? This question is answered by looking upstream, where the decisions are made that trigger the thousands of negative impacts occurring downstream.

The negative impacts of un-sustainability encountered today can—at a fundamental level—be divided into three separate mechanisms by which humans can destroy the biosphere and its ability to sustain society. We are systematically digging so much stuff out of the Earth that nature can’t cope; systematically poisoning the system with polluting chemicals; and systematically burning, covering over, and generally laying waste to the living environment. In addition we live in societies that do not give individuals a chance to lead a decent way of life. If people do not have the opportunity to lead fulfilling lives, or even to meet their basic needs, they are not likely to take care of the environment. These basic unsustainable behaviours are expressed more scientifically in The Natural Step System Conditions:

THE NATURAL STEP SYSTEM CONDITIONS

In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing . . .

1. . . . concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust,

2. . . . concentrations of substances produced by society,

3. . . . degradation by physical means;

and, in that society . . .

4. . . . people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.

The System Conditions tell us what a sustainable society would look like. Sustainable development is all about making progress towards that sustainable society. We need policies, strategies and decisions that take us in a sustainable direction. The Natural Step has developed the TNS Framework as a collection of strategic methods and strategic communications to help organisations make real progress. The System Conditions and the framework are set out in more detail in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 of this Briefing.

TNS: The organisation

The Natural Step is an international non-profit organisation that began life some 15 years ago in Sweden, and its international office remains in Stockholm. In addition there are now TNS Teams in the US, UK, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Japan and Brazil, and activities in many other places including France, Italy and Hungary. Our work covers three main programmes:

•   Research and Development—science projects and science-based dialogues on complex issues

•   Advisory Services—working with organisations to increase their understanding and application of sustainable development

•   Outreach—awareness raising and educational programmes.

 

The story of the growth of this organisation is also the story of the evolution of the TNS Framework. It all began with the trials and tribulations of one man, Dr Karl-Henrik Robèrt. It is impossible to talk about TNS without telling his story. It is a tale that adds life to the framework itself. In its telling and re-telling, this story has almost attained the status of a mythology. For the full low-down you really need to go to the source and see how Karl-Henrik himself has retold the myth.¹

Karl-Henrik was pursuing his profession as a medical doctor, an oncologist, studying cells and tumours, at a Stockholm medical Institute. His work and his microscope taught him that there are limits within which each cell must function. Realising that we are all made of cells, “even politicians”, as he puts it, led him to question why so little attention seemed to be given to the systemic causes of problems.

Karl-Henrik has a deep personal connection to nature and the countryside, which began with his childhood. As an adult he was troubled by what he saw around him as the trashing of nature. He was equally perplexed by the way the environmental debate, even in Sweden, always seemed to divide society rather than unite it. No one seemed to be paying attention to the root causes, or to spotting the connections. He turned to systems thinking to help his own comprehension and to share with others.

There followed an amazing period of Karl-Henrik developing his ideas, researching what others had done and starting to talk to lots of different people about his concern and his conclusions. He started writing a scientific paper on the subject and sent it to many Swedish scientists to get their reactions. After about 22 different drafts, a consensus was reached on some fundamental principles that make the earth’s system function. His conversations expanded from talking to the local shopkeeper, to leaders of industry, stars of Swedish media, senior politicians and even the King of Sweden. All agreed that he was really onto something. His breakthrough resulted in a TV programme, information packs being sent to every Swedish household, and significant backing from influential sections of Swedish society. The Natural Step was born.

From 1989 onwards the team which gathered around Karl-Henrik went on to work with many of the largest corporations in Sweden. The work done in those early years continues to shine through and inspire. It includes terrific breakthroughs with major companies such as Electrolux, IKEA, McDonalds and others. Sustainable development initiatives were happening in other places too, mainly in Europe and the United States. A momentum was gathering, even a movement, and that wider scene surely played a part in helping TNS to get its foothold.

The spread of The Natural Step began quite quickly. During the early to mid-nineties TNS teams were established in several other countries. Big-hitters in the environmental world, such as Paul Hawken in the US and Jonathon Porritt in the UK, were easily attracted to it. It offered them a unique scientific model for the dissemination of sustainability at a time when that concept was too often beset with woolly thinking and confusion. Initially the Swedish originators licensed others to operate TNS in their own countries. By 1999 a network of such licensed organisations in various parts of the world had grown to the point where Swedish colleagues felt able to hand over stewardship to a new organisation—The Natural Step International.

Every place is different and TNS has deliberately allowed experimentation that seemed appropriate to different cultures. This was particularly true between the US and UK, for example, where very different starting points were chosen. In the US there was an emphasis on fairly wide dissemination through conferences and open learning events. In the past five years this has changed, with an increasing emphasis on application within specific organisations. TNS in the UK, working within the sustainability charity Forum for the Future, chose to start working almost exclusively with large businesses. The UK Pathfinder Programme was a deliberate model for the TNS UK team to learn quickly about the practical application of the framework.

The core TNS message about sustainability is built upon science, and such very fundamental science does not change very much. But the application of that message keeps on evolving. So the work keeps on changing, growing and being sustained by our learning from practical applications. As an organisation, TNS has had constant concern for the way its message is communicated. The scientific principles that underpin the framework have been referred to as ‘non-negotiable’. That is a hard message to combine with allowing people to apply those principles in their own way. The science of TNS is its heart and soul. We must manage to communicate whilst safeguarding the rigour and scientific credibility of the message. The Natural Step’s mission is to disseminate the framework in order to generate better awareness and application of sustainable development. We can’t afford to fail.

“The work of Karl-Henrik Robèrt and his colleagues through The Natural Step process is one of the leading examples in the world today of society-wide learning. Learning based on systems thinking and continued dialogue . . . holds great promise for many of the most intractable societal issues of our time.”

—Peter Senge, Centre for Organisational Learning, MIT

 

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1. Robèrt, Karl-Henrik, The Natural Step Story: seeding a quiet revolution, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, 2003

Chapter 2

The Challenge of Sustainability

What is all the fuss about, and why is this such an urgent wake-up call?

Many of those who take the trouble to find out about sustainable development—and probably most of those reading this Briefing—are well aware of the seriousness of the human impacts upon the environment. Increasingly large numbers of people see the links between those impacts and our socio-economic progress. Limited space here allows me only to summarise the perilous situation we face, without going into great detail. There has long been a kind of mantra amongst some environmentalists that those who do not see the danger are too likely to be overwhelmed by the scale of the problem. Therefore we must be careful not to ‘frighten the horses’ lest they become too overwhelmed to do anything about it. There is much common sense in this. You must give people hope. At the same time there really is no way of ignoring the threats resulting from our continuing unsustainable behaviour.

I came to work with TNS through a seemingly obscure route, with no professional connection to the world of sustainability or even the environment. Of course now I see how absolutely un-obscure this route really was. There were three particular experiences that now seem important. In the first place, my earliest memories include me standing quiet as a child, still and alone, in a field by a stream on the edge of the housing estate where I grew in the English Midlands. When I was still and quiet, nature was opened up to me. This happened very often and it left a deep impression on me. Since then I have always had a close connection to the outdoors and to nature. That field and that stream have long since been buried beneath an industrial estate.

The second experience was later in life when I became involved in taking groups of young criminals off to the hills for rock climbing. I realised for the first time both how scarred some people can be by their childhoods, and how absolutely foreign and threatening it can be for them to be close to nature. These were thugs in their late teens and early twenties with some bitter deeds in their records, usually involving violence to themselves as well as others. Many of them had literally never seen a mountain stream before, and they didn’t know that they belonged to this sweeter world.

The third part of this short venture into my personal story relates to the point that the situation is too overwhelming. When I was first asked about working with Forum for the Future to get TNS off the ground in the UK, I had almost no notion what it was all about. Then I started to read and the more I read the more I became appalled, almost enraged, that there was all this destruction going on in the name of economic progress. And it was not just the things you hear about in the media, but so much more, and so deadly because if its insidiousness. Why weren’t we all up in arms about this? How could the environmentalists still be on the sidelines of policy making, when all about us the fabric of life was being torn to shreds?

The point of this short trilogy is simple. I now believe that we are all capable of seeing and enjoying our individual connection to nature. That insight and joy, which some may call a kind of spirituality, is intrinsic to making us who we are and enabling us to cope with the troubles life will surely send our way. The absence of such insight and joy leads to barbarism and violence. To make a difference in getting more people to share such connectivity means overturning a mindset that has taken deep root within the industrialised pulp-fiction culture of today. That means dealing with people on their own turf, and sharing a logic that is compelling and uses the most modern terms to get everyone involved. To my mind that is exactly what The Natural Step achieves. It tells a story of how the world works. It is a story that everyone can understand, a story we all knew once upon a time. Let us hope it can be twice upon a time.

In my view, there is no excuse for not ...