A vision of collaboration

NZ2100 is a universal model for health and sustainability.  Everyone can use it, develop it and share its successes and failures, and learn together. Whether we are concerned with the smallest household, a business, farm, organisation, or even local, state or national government, we can all use NZ2100 to help assess the current situation, work out where we want to be, and how to get there.  So we have the basis for an international network of people who can work together, share experiences on methods, and build institutions, conventions, and a knowledge-base of databases, decision aids, policies, and best practice that is of value to us all.

The key to successful collaboration is building something together.  The Creative Decisions vision is that NZ2100 can form the basis of a global sustainability reporting system, accessible on the internet using tools such as Google Earth.  This reporting system will be maintained by supervisors and the community at large, much as Wikipedia functions today.  We can all look up a business, or an ecosystem, for that matter, and check out how it's doing in terms of the 28 NZ2100 performance areas.  We can see what the issues are, how well things are going, the level of leadership or directedness, whether people are responding to the issues, and what evidence that the system is adapting to persistent, long term change - whether that be social, economic, or environmental. 

These days, user input means Web 2.0:  community input into an NZ2100 scorecard can not only text and pictures, as in Wikipedia, but also video clips, multimedia presentations, animated graphics, and so on.  Sustainability reporting is currently only for the initiated and the terminally tenacious. It can be hugely revitalised, and become a tremendously creative, fun tool for everyone - and of real use in community governance and decision-making.   Does this sound like anarchy?  We don't think so. The NZ2100 model is so easy to understand, at a fundamental level, that we believe that it can be systematically managed with the aid of clever internet software.  And, like the reporting system itself, the software tools can also be "open source". 

It goes further than that.  NZ2100 creates the basis for a systematic classification (or "taxonomy") of similar systems.  Scientists love this sort of thing, and will help to set it up, and associate each class in the taxonomy with information about performance measures / indicators, methods of measurement, baseline values, and so on. So before too long, no one would start totally from scratch. Once started, this could catch on like wildfire.

For businesses, this has special significance.  If you want to invest or purchase ethically, how do you do it now?  What information is there out there to help you?  If the company you're considering is in an area of business - such tobacco - that is known to have health and sustainability issues, then you may have access to all the information that you need. On the other hand, if it's a restaurant, or hotel, or apparel company, for example, you may have very little to go on.  Specialised ethical investment research agencies gather and organise information to facilitate ethical investment within the finance industry.  But the process is time consuming and expensive, and the results are hard to get.  If we can marshal the forces of hundreds of thousands of investors and commentators in helping to build fair, balanced NZ2100 scorecards for businesses, then life would be a lot easier, and we would make fewer errors in investment and purchasing decisions.  For businesses concerned about sustainable procurement and supply chains, this could be the answer to a big headache: how are they to assure us their products and services are sustainable?

Finally, because NZ2100 can be used by and for all the elements within a community or ecosystem, we can build the basis for joint action to make improvements.  The whole raft of entities that make up civil society, from social support groups, mental health groups, business support and mentoring groups, ecological restoration groups, landcare groups, catchment (or watershed) management groups, and so on, can come together to build a shared vision for the future of a community, a catchment, or region.

Accreditation and certification

All of the above can happen in a loose, weakly regulated way.  To be really useful, however, there needs to be some form of certification.  A company may seek to gain some kudos from "reporting" using the NZ2100 model, but who is to say that the information presented is appropriate, accurate and complete?  For this reason, NZ2100 was formerly not available for general use in the public domain.  We have been concerned that it would rapidly be abused by unscrupulous businesses and organisations, eager to climb aboard a sustainability bandwagon.  However, even though it was necessary only to consult Creative Decisions to obtain authorisation, it is only human nature that the requirement to obtain permission may have hindered either uptake, or the public sharing of experiences.   So, as from mid 2009, the universal health model at the heart of our KiwiGrow™ sustainability approach has been freely accessible in the public domain, and  can be used without condition, free of charge.  This creates a demand for certification services, that we hope sustainability agencies, and other accreditation companies, will wish to exploit.   Any company can assess the local demand, and set up a local accreditation-certification network, centred around a unique sustainability brand.  Creative Decisions is advancing a collaborative KiwiGrow™ Network to help accelerate sustainable development of New Zealand communities and business.

A KiwiGrow™ Network for New Zealand

Creative Decisions is promoting a KiwiGrow Network for businesses and organisations within New Zealand, and for entities overseas that wish to join our network and collaboration rather than (or in addition to) creating and maintaining a new one of their own.  It is our hope that this network will come to embrace not just the existing, rather eclectic, sustainability community, but other groups who have found it difficult to respond to sustainability concerns because they have found sustainability too difficult to understand, or technically- or environmentally-focused.   KiwiGrow and NZ2100 make sustainability comprehensible and accessible to all.  Of course, even though you may live and work in New Zealand, you may wish to start your own local NZ2100 network, with your own certification brand.  Once we have a substantial KiwiGrow - NZ2100 network in New Zealand, we can start to demand NZ2100 accountability in local and central government, and perhaps formal national sustainability institutions.  Would a KiwiGrow Network become a political entity?  We think it's too general for that, and wouldn't like to see it get bogged down in the politics of particular issues.  Sustainability has been likened to a playing field, where issues can be brought out, analysed and debated.  Most political parties would have a contribution to make to sustainability, and all would (and do) see it differently.  But all can come together and debate it using the same Common Sustainability Language, and be motivated to deliver this new Citizens Accountability.  

Would a KiwiGrow Network develop an evangelical or religious dimension?  We have to admit there are many aspects of KiwiGrow that would support development in that direction. But Creative Decisions would rather see KiwiGrow and NZ2100 as ways of building bridges between religions and cultures, instead of creating new ones.   We think the science basis of NZ2100, and the dependence on science for development of the more advanced methodologies and knowledge-bases, will help to ensure KiwiGrow stays close to its foundations as a common-sense, secular movement with a strongly pragmatic philosophy.