26. In transitioning from polluting to non-polluting activities, communities and companies shall be supported fairly.We have finally arrived to this episode, and this crucial check in our pre-flight checklist, as if through layers of an onion to its core, and yet - its as though we have arrived back where we started. It’s about the people. A good example of what not to do, in transitioning communities to the new economy, is simply shutting coal mines. This is what happened under Margaret Thatcher in Britain in the 1980’s, and many communities have never recovered. Glasgow, one-time ship-builder to the empire, lost ground to more dynamic economies around the world and for many years languished in economic depression - but in recent years has experienced a cultural renaissance. Could this have been brought about without the years of pain?Of course it could, and in this episode we rehearse these and other examples to see what is possible, and take a deep dive into the question of mind-set.Talking Points:Shipping as a case studyPeople, feelings, abandoned communitiesProportions and emotional impact of climate crisisTechnosphere: human contextFive stages of grief, communities and politicsIndividual acts, collective actsThe need for political leadershipTransition in GlasgowCoal miners eg. in PolandChange in organisationsLinks:Timothy Morton extracts, and wikipedia -Five stages of Grief (Kubler Ross Model) - look out for the visualisationsPeter Haff - full paper on the Technosphere: Technology as a geological phenomenon: implications for human well-beingDavid Pocock, rugby player and activistGeorge Monbiot on mobilisationZapatista PrinciplesClips:Gordon Brown saves the world financial system (48:00)Greta Thunberg goes to Poland to talk coal (15:10)Simon Sinek on the Law of Diffusion of Innovation (10:56) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

25. Systemic inquiry shall accompany investment commitments in the technosphere; thereafter, end-to-end producer responsibility applies.Throughout Preflight Checklist, and our previous series Proof of Concept we have placed great hope on Systems Thinking. What is that, again? Yes, trying to see systems in their totality - but also: humility with regards to knowledge.In this case, rather than assuming you know enough (Facebook: "move fast and break things") to chuck out products and see how they boom, bust or blow up; instead, armed with this humility, and with eyes and ears open to the variety of impacted perspectives, companies can move more deftly and discretely to create sustainable, durable designs.Disruption, moving fast and breaking things, asking for forgiveness and not for permission, creating minimum viable products and trying them out on The Market - these things are fetishised in our intensely consumerist and wealth-focussed version of capitalism. And because importance is mainly attached to economies, economics and money, we are acculturated to the restrictive dimensions of this perspective. But such reductionism has landed us with outcomes we know well: the climate and biodiversity crisis, massive inequality, and more besides. It's not enough to wring our hands and look to the market in hope that an answer will appear - it hasn't so far.So we're back to the rails - constitutional change - and with this principle, a principle both of humility and an approach to reality, we have an important pre-flight check, as it were, for any durable, sustainable, economic activity.Talking Points:Technosphere, Investment Commitments, Systems ThinkingIncreased urbanisation as symbolicThe internet creates monopoliesSystems ThinkingDesign Principles, Dieter RamsGood intentions vs. AccountabilityUber and The London Assembly: City pushes BackThe casualisation of labourAirbnb and communitiesLinks:On the Technosphere, Jan Zalaceiwicz (Guardian, 2015) references Peter Haff, who coined the term for his 2013 paper - well worth a click, if only to read the abstract. McKinsey on The Business Value of Design (2018)Dieter Rams' - 10 Principles of Good Design (Wikipedia)On the casualisation of labour - "I could have been a somebody... instead of a bum, which is what I am."Marlon Brando On The Waterfront (1954 - IMDB trailer, 01:35): See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

24. Company duty to inform: For each product or service, consumers shall be informed of the biosphere and human impact of its sourcing, manufacture, distribution, and post-use treatment.As consumers, we have more power than we might think. We not only vote with our wallets, but our consumption is conspicuous, and contributes to setting a tone across society - and this is a secondary and perhaps more powerful effect. And change is possible - look at how perception of veganism has shifted, in a relatively short amount of time, from being seen as a fringe activity paraded by the pious few, to a reasonable and accepted option for the main stream, who are now interested in personal and planet health.In thinking about this episode, three things struck me. Firstly - out of sight, out of mind. Beautiful products mask less beautiful realities involved in their creation. To make choices, we need to know about them. Secondly, the scale of the challenge. The vastness of it. When you research and think about the some industrial activities, the sheer scale of it is staggering. And thirdly - it's the job of the system to shove the big picture right in people's faces: if information is clear and present at the point of decision - which, for products means the point of purchase - then consumer choices are not only more straight-forward, but there is potential for a major shift in standards, both for us, and for our world.Talking points:This is not a guilt trip: it's about free choiceNeo-freudian advertising and marketingOil fields the size of France, undersea mining the size of EuropeThis principle is very simple: it's about attentionIt's not just the system, there's also just bad practiceThe world can't run on company liesLabelling can make the difference: it tells you what you are doingCarbon trading, bio-fuels and true effectsStyles of labelling: medicine info, tobacco images, energy ratingsFourth separation of powers: holding large companies to accountGaming in the system - civil society, the media and changeThe other 25 principles will provide a strong contextThe Freedom Pollute in context: as a last freedomSystems thinking meets governanceLinks:Earthtime story on undersea mining (2019). View on a desktop, requires patience and engagement - but will be rewarded in spades:https://earthtime.org/stories/ocean_miningOther Earthtime stories:https://earthtime.org/#storiesEconomist podcast on the environment:https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2021/09/20/to-a-lesser-degree-a-new-climate-podcast-from-the-economist See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

End-to-end producer responsibility: Producers are responsible for all impacts of their activities and products, from raw material extraction to product recycling/disposal.There's no doubt that a single company can create and inspire change. But if all producers up and down the supply chain, and indeed across the economy, are holding each other accountable for all impacts by virtue of this principle, then we really do have the potential see the kinds of changes we need on a grand - global - scale. Effectively, a feedback loop. And let's not forget what Einstein had to say about about another feedback loop, compound income: it's "the most powerful force in the universe".In this episode we see in Fast Fashion Brand Boohoo a case in point of many of the things we have been talking about: the Global Monetary System at work, almost blindly driving profit, with scant regard for its vast impacts in human and ecological terms. And failure of consumer power, and tension between activist censure and investor appetite. In contrast we also consider Renault, a company that is embracing complete re-use and recycling.What would complete circularity look like?Talking points:The limits of limited liabilityOut of sight, out of mind - we don't want to knowFast fashion, Boohoo - and the Global Monetary SystemContributory factors in the development of fast fashionExtended Producer ResponsibilityPlotting the chain - gouging and dumping vs circular processiPhones and the truth of supply chainsIs this a basis on which the world wants to work?Renault transitioning to the new economy - PACERespect and the biosphereNature vs consumer cultureEthos and company culture as something accessibleCommunity as a part of good business and good brandingNeo-liberalism means - take and don't careLinksBusiness of Fashion Podcast:https://www.businessoffashion.com/podcastsGreta Thunberg BBC series:https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p099f58d/episodes/playerPACE - Platform forAccelerating the Circular Economyhttps://pacecircular.orgExtended Producer Responsibility (EPR)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibilityUK Govt/ recent DEFRA EPR Consultation:https://consult.defra.gov.uk/extended-producer-responsibility/extended-producer-responsibility-for-packaging/...+ consultation document pdf (06.2021/ 213 pages):https://consult.defra.gov.uk/extended-producer-responsibility/extended-producer-responsibility-for-packaging/supporting_documents/23.03.21%20EPR%20Consultation.pdf See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Companies shall act in the interests of people, and the biosphere.As we've mentioned in recent episodes, from the standpoint of the biosphere, humanity's existence is felt primarily through industrialisation. Resource extraction, pollution, as well as much monoculture in agriculture have taken their toll on both the biosphere and many of the people it supports. Indeed, while populations have been increasingly "farmed" over the decades, the characterisation by technology companies of humanity as end-users to be addicted and data to be mined is an obvious extension of this outlook. And these exploitations are often the preserve not of individual people but of companies, with their diffuse networks of responsibility and "the corporate veil."But things could be different. In this episode we re-imagine the role of companies in our world as inverted: from the current slavishness to the global monetary system and its obfuscating pipework of corporate ownership - to something that privileges human value in the context of our life-support system, the biosphere.Talking Points:Picking apart the principle: the real is almost the reverse of the idealThe corporate veil as central to the current version of capitalismThe ethical drift in corporate behaviour over the last several decadesFree-flowing capital before and after WW2: neoliberalismThis is not an insurmountable problem: we can reinvent the systemCrystallising public opinionTomorrow's Company - since the 1980'sA case in point: demutualisation of AA and RAC, submission to global monetary systemDesign- and Systems thinking vs the pressures of neo-liberalism:Other "tomorrow's companies" - The Body Shop - hinges on structures of ownershipJapanese management in manufacturing: raising the global standard through competitive pressureW Edwards DemingConsumer power, shareholder power and greenwashingPaying the true cost is possible - if you can afford itFlooding brought people together, and they never felt happierWhat is it to be human? Community is a big part of itBut also: diversity of experience within the community - or companyAligning the word Company with what it meansLinks:Alternative search engine to Google: Ecosia. They plant trees:https://www.ecosia.orgW. Edwards Deming: "Deming's teachings and philosophy are clearly illustrated by examining the results they produced after they were adopted by Japanese industry:"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_DemingLimited Liability - brief history:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability#HistoryThe Corporate Veil (wikipedia)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veilGlobal Monetary System: "Leading financial journalist Martin Wolf has reported that all financial crises since 1971 have been preceded by large capital inflows into affected regions:"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_monetary_systemThe origins of "Tomorrow's Company" stem from a lecture given in 1990 by Charles Handy, Chairman of the UK’s RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) on the question ‘What is a Company For?’. This led to the inquiry ‘Tomorrow’s Company – the role of business in a changing world’, led by Sir Anthony Cleaver, then Chairman of IBM, which culminated in a report of the same name published in 1995.Here's the original report from the RSA:https://www.tomorrowscompany.com/publication/rsa-inquiry-tomorrows-company-the-role-of-business-in-a-changing-world/Its current incarnation, 30 years later - https://www.tomorrowscompany.com - Still interesting and forward looking, although their prioritising away from society and toward the embrace of disruptive innovation diverges from our ideal of systems thinking:"[...]In 2016, in the light of all the organisation’s learning and experience in working with companies and investors, Tomorrow’s Company report, UK Business: What’s Wrong? What’s Next? restated [their definition of a Tomorrow's Company as three principles.These are:A purpose beyond profit and a set of values that are lived through the behaviours of all employees to create a self-reinforcing culture;Collaborative and reciprocal relationships with key stakeholders – a strong focus on customer satisfaction, employee engagement and, where possible, collaboration with suppliers, alongside working with society; andA long-term approach that embraces risk – investing long term and embracing disruptive innovation.Community energy companies and projectshttp://awel.coop/This is the largest employee owned company in Scotland:https://homecarescotland.co.uk/Profiting from Integrity - Alan Barlow (book)https://www.waterstones.com/book/profiting-from-integrity/alan-barlow/9781138090613There are quite a few surveys of staff as the best places to work (although - what these surveys show and mask is up for debate), e.g. for tech companies:https://blog.greatplacetowork.co.uk/uk-best-tech-companies-to-work-forQuakers Businesses -"Quakers didn't wring every last penny out of a business so they were appealing companies to be taken over." [ie - with the dawn of neoliberalism in the 1980's]- it looks like the great myth of Quaker businesses has struggled to stand the tests of neoliberalism:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17112572Couldn't find a list of Quaker company principles - rather, it seems they held each other accountable in the context of how they conducted their meetings.Forbes Magazine says:"..During early Quaker meetings, "the business activities of their members were scrutinized by their peers, not only for their soundness but also to ensure that the interests of the broader community--not just the Quakers--were protected,"...The Quaker congregation "would stand behind the activities of members who were in good standing, and if one of them got into trouble, they would supervise the liquidation of the business and make good the deficit."https://www.forbes.com/2009/10/09/quaker-business-meetings-leadership-society-friends.htmlQuaker Companies.Predictably enough, Quaker Oats was never a Quaker company."This is a list of notable businesses, organizations or charities founded by Quakers. Many of these are no longer managed or influenced by Quakers. At the end of the article are businesses that have never had any connection to Quakers [3, to be precise - the first being Quaker Oats], although some people may believe that they did or still do."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Quaker_businesses,_organizations_and_charities See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The start of a new season is a good time to take stock, and as we look forward to the next series, on companies, we reflect on where we are now, nearly a year after the launch of The Hidden Power Podcast, on October 11th, 2020. But who has time to reflect? These turbulent years have been eclipsed by another Summer of wild fires and wilder floods, as the climate crisis begins to bite - presenting an appalling, stunning spectacle of human tragedy. So we have the IPCC report, with it's Code Red for humanity. And then there's Afghanistan, which one struggles to adequately describe. In this special episode, we assess the accelerating climate disaster and take a clear-eyed look at what next month's COP26 Conference in Glasgow has to offer. We have a think about whether the UK's "Levelling Up" can have any more meaning than previous political slogans like "Northern Powerhouse" or "Compassionate Conservatism". We also take a look at the storied link between war and business - and see yet again the dark fact of government capture at work. With all this darkness, we also look forward for some light. In the final series of our Preflight Checklist we will be examining the role of companies in shifting our societies to a sustainably happy future. Talking points:The IPCC ReportThe COP26 ConferenceAfghanistan and Preferential LobbyingDominic Cummings Is Apparently Still RelevantMichael Gove is The Minister of Levelling Up - will he fake it or make it?What is working in Systems Thinking? Deliberative schema: DAD and EDDWe Need To Talk About Companies. LinksStructures and systems and thinking (Youtube, 10 minutes into an hour)https://youtu.be/A3P5XJJVN3IHere’s the Big issue piece explaining why the supermarket shelves are often empty, and why HGV drivers are scarce - fed up with being treated as low lifeshttps://www.bigissue.com/news/inside-the-uk-food-shortages-why-nandos-and-sainsburys-are-running-out/Here’s a piece on the futility of the war in afghanistanhttps://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/what-i-learned-while-eavesdropping-on-the-taliban/619807/And here is a piece on what it cost and where some of it went:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/11/us-afghanistan-iraq-defense-spendingForeign intervention (article, behind paywall):https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n16/charles-glass/hush-hush-boom-boom'In 2011, as Obama was considering what action to take in Syria, some of his advisers urged him to support the rebels. Before making up his mind, Obama commissioned a report on the history of US covert operations. Robert Malley, then Obama’s Middle East adviser and now President Biden’s negotiator with Iran, read the CIA’s classified report. It was, he told me in 2019, a litany of failure. ‘I think there were one or two, out of I don’t know how many tens of cases, where you could, at a limit, say that there was a success by working through opposition proxies.’ The vast majority of the CIA’s secret wars had backfired, from Albania in the late 1940s through Angola in the 1980s to Afghanistan in the 1990s. Despite this, Obama ordered the CIA to arm and instruct militants in Turkey and Jordan under a programme that permits such activities in defence of American national security. The outcome was both predictable and tragic: the insurgents failed to overthrow Assad and Islamic State emerged.’ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're off for the Summer! But - I found a great quote on the great _nitch instagram this morning, by the writer James Baldwin, who seems to be almost uniquely articulate when it comes to things that really matter. So I thought I'd read it out.We've finished the Governments section of our Preflight Checklist series - basically, a constitution to save the world - and in September we'll be back, tackling what seems to be at the heart of human activity from the standpoint of the planet - Companies. How should we think about them? What do companies look like on a sustainable planet? Find out in these last six episodes of Preflight Checklist, coming this September wherever you find your podcasts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Check 21 - Governments - Tax: Too much is never enoughEveryone pays their taxes.The deceptive simplicity of this principle belies the fact that, obviously enough, not everyone pays their taxes - quite the contrary, and the leaders of the G7 group of the world's richest nations are attempting to address this by imposing a global corporation tax of 15%. Whether this is enforceable remains to be seen. As things stand the global monetary system is set up in such a way that, on the one hand, nations are in a race to the bottom on tax costs to make their countries attractive to multi-nationals, under the delusion that such winning such a competition will benefit them and not harm them; and on the other, their funds are secreted through tax havens to evade contributing to the various infrastructures they benefit from. So instead - these costs fall to us, the citizens.But if we step back from the whole issue of Making The Big Guys Pay - do we need to pay taxes at all? What does this practice really mean to us, as citizens? How might it become more meaningful?In this episode we place these questions in three key contexts - the citizen, the national economy, and our bio-physical world - the biosphere.Talking points:Why do we pay taxes?"Rent", surplus and the common goodThe tax planning industry: not bad people, but in a bad systemIt's about fairness - why are we paying tax and not vast corporations?Nailing down the wealth extractors, rampant individualism, and the fault-linesGlobal taxation vs global tax competition: The G7National taxation vs local taxation: efficiency Centralisation, opacity and local powerTransparency and accountability - Sweden’s public tax returnsThe UK’s hand-maiden economy Deadweight taxes - thinking back to Adam SmithA society of rent-seekers vs a society of wealth-creatorsEfficiencies in tax expenditures: hypothecated taxes, mutual insurancesCompassionate communities and cost savingsCarbon taxation is a muddleEnd-to-end producer responsibility vs the planet as an economic “externality”Links:Interview with Fred Harrison (audio interview, 30 min): https://www.prosper.org.au/2021/01/we-are-rent-with-fred-harrison/?fbclid=IwAR1zkII88E7f2TKLXQOa9-wppO-27fwDoEz9Bt0JDTpLSTz5MchioDXSjvENicholas Shaxson on Britains Second Empire (...of tax-havens - article):https://taxjustice.net/2019/09/29/tax-havens-britains-second-empire/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Technocratic democracy: Government designs for action shall be disciplined through their vetting.We often hear that politicians are essentially sales staff - but there are implications of this, if we extend the metaphor. They are not the engineers. They don't really understand what they are selling, they're just playing for the team. And if we were to imagine that someone did really understand, we would be a bit naïve. But clearly things - all kinds of things - would work a lot better if the question of how laws and regulations, or indeed overall missions, designs for action, were to be implemented - they would work better if this question was interrogated from the outset. As things stand, at least in the UK, any such evaluation is entirely optional, and normally ignored. Again, the spewing of 150 items per ministry per week should shock us into attention to the sheer dysfunction of our system, and the volume of wastage. What this principle does is, in effect, to paraphrase the famous designer, Dieter Rams: Less, but better. And not only that, but to make it enforceable. And this is where the separation of powers comes in to play - a second chamber can take the Executive's wild if well-intentioned hallucinations of the glorious future, interrogate them and reconstruct them as workable programmes. In this episode, we look in detail at an eight-step vetting process devised by Ed and his co-author, Ray Ison, that would ensure that any designs that a government might have for action would align with the overall ethos of bringing about beneficial change.Talking points:Using expertise within a democratic structure...as a check on the executiveThe PR basis of political activityThere's nothing to ensure that learning is appliedEvaluations do not typically challenge the systemMoney gets creamed off, culture of graftCommercial due diligence as a modelNorman Strauss: ethosThe 8 Tests: Framing, Purpose, Engagement and Stakeholder, Insider, Other Countries, Systems Thinking, Capability, ValueSome systems have a more conducive ethosSingapore - decisions treeNew Zealand - other forms of CapitalLinks:Norman Strausshttps://normanstrauss.wordpress.com/tag/norman-strauss/Stafford Beer: “Rules come from System 5: not so much by stating them firmly, as by creating a corporate ethos – an atmosphere”The inside and now, the outside and then:Systems 1, 2 and 3 between them make up the internal environment of the viable system – the Inside and Now. The autonomous parts function in a harmonising internal environment which maximises its effectiveness through creating mutually supportive relationships.System 4 is concerned with the Outside and Then. It formulates plans in the context of both the outside world and its intense interaction with System 3 which ensures all plans are grounded in the knowledge of the capabilities of the organisation.The Viable System Model (blog)https://metaphorum.org/viable-system-modelGillian Tett: Anthropology as the study of what it means to be human in a digital age (Zoom interview with The Mint Magazine)https://www.themintmagazine.com/tribes-and-tribulationsSarah Novak & Dr Caroline Mc Leish: Social Capital and New Zealand's Living Standards Framework (blog/interivew):https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/insights/good-economics-new-zealand-s-focus-on-living-standards-and-social-capital-to-navigate-crisis See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Beneficial change most often results from working with the affected population through the medium of STiP.Systems Thinking in Practice - or STiP, as we sometimes call it - is, frankly, one of the great hopes of our time. It has the endorsement of the UN, the WHO and the OECD and has proved effective in alleviating difficulties of bewildering complexity by engaging social learning.This principle takes the fundamental purpose of government - beneficial change - and addresses the patchy performance of governments everywhere. The placating, appeasing, and overall absence of effective action on the part of governments is easily traced to the impossibility of such a tiny cohort being able to contend with the vast complexity of their imagined mandate. The systemic response, the STiP response, is to turn this on its head, and put the mandate where it is needed - at the front line, where life is happening, far from the much-vaunted Corridors of Power.What is it, to think systemically? What does it look like, in practice?In this episode we unpack this promising approach to the challenges of our time.Talking points:This great hopeProblems are the world's problemsThe problems with governments - over-stretchedLaying it all out - "problems", maps, stakeholders, "solutions"Situations of concernExtending and containing boundariesSystems mapping - a picture of the whole system, how the system worksGoulburn-Broken River Catchment - vast complexityPolarised perspectives: Bawdens World-viewsThe library at Shepton MalletRich pictures - visual representations and complex communications and humansFraming and re-framingSolutions landscapes - homelessness in VancouverThe design turn - systems thinking in practise is designing...and is empowering to civil society: Pacific coast tidal wave planning and the pandemicIndividual action and STiP - An art therapist bucks the bureaucracy and frees an agoraphobicWhat Why and How - applying learning to your relationshipLinksSystems thinking in practise at the Shepton Mallet Library(slide deck):https://www.systemspractice.org/resources/attachment/eca09f7f-03f0-4115-9c9a-1ed113670d5cTo beat a pandemic, try prepping for a tsunami (MIT Deep tech podcast)https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/03/1002535/podcast-to-beat-a-pandemic-try-prepping-for-a-tsunami/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.