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Key note speeches
Sustainable Food lab
Following a recent Sustainable Food Summit (http://www.3pillarsnetwork.com.au/p3_Events-Resources.html?&event=68&page=4), where Mike spoke about ‘transition narratives,’ Mike McAllum of GFN has been asked to act as lead designer for Australia 21′s Sustainable Food Lab.
What is the Sustainable Food Lab?
The Sustainable Food Lab is a partnership between 3 Pillars Network and Australia 21. The transformational narrative will form a crucial part of a broader set of narratives being developed by Australia 21 through six action theatres. 3 Pillars Network will act as the secretariat for the Lab.
What will it do?
The Lab will provide a space for diverse stakeholders to work (at speed) on this future narrative and pathway through a common source model.
It will focus on providing both solutions and context for those who understand the need for transformation and rapid transition. Clearly we intend that this will create new connections and learning and drive change in organizations and the larger system.
Of particular interest will the identification of, and action on, key ‘acupuncture points’ within the system that will strengthen resilience and the ability to adapt.
We will also look to draw on the considerable thinking and wisdom about the narrative that already exists both here in Australia and overseas.
In addition, over the next 6 months, we plan to hold a series of focused workshops, offer practical training and facilitate online discussion forums that will feed into the 2012 National Sustainable Food Summit. This will be supported by online resources, research papers and webinars.
We are also in preliminary discussions with several organisations who are interested in creating a new context for their endeavours and we hope to announce a number of projects and partnerships soon.
Future of electricity
GFN was recently involved in the a major project with a major utility. This project examined how demand management in electricity might shift between now and 2030 and the implications that such shifts have for the current utility business model. Our work revealed the followinig:
- current networks are unidirectional and thus are unable to realise the full potential of what are known as smart grids. This is of particular concern given the widespread desire by many customers and some governments for environmentally friendly small scale power generation.
- despite the rhetoric which suggests that change is on the way, there is a deep cultural reluctance to enter into conversations that will require utilities to enter into dialogue with customers about demand management where shared arrangements are considered.
- in the short term the only way to have some control of alternative generation and demand management at the source of consumption (beyond managing efficiencies) is to introduce some kind of storage arrangement as the primary interface with the utilities.
In short the power of the network utilities has until now never been challenged. But now the technologies and systems of the post carbon age are almost upon us and whether they like it or not they will have to change.
New social contracts in cities
Mike has recently given a number of speeches about the future of cities in the developed world. In them, he argues that new transformative social contracts between local governments and their citizens are required. There is a need to move from highly and often costly responses to short term needs to planning and services that use fewer resources to deliver higher value. Not only that cities must be seen as integrated ecologies rather than as a series of siloed economic and social precincts.