Group items tagged

"...we're probably measuring the wrong things and the right things are not amenable to measurement. If this is true and it is also true that the culture of measurement is in the ascendancy, we might expect that things that resist measurement - quality, poetry, insight - would be dismissed and set aside, on the reasoning that if it can't be measured, what good is it? A new technology typically turns its limitations into a mechanism of evaluation and consigns phenomena outside its capacities to the margins, not merely to its margins but to the margins of what is generally significant and worth worrying about. "

HSD tools help you cope with those patterns when: Resources are tight and demand is high Your old tools and techniques fall short Players are many, diverse, or constantly changing Culture and/or organizational habits are obsolete Too much or too little control makes people crazy There are so many moving parts you don't know where to start

" The SusHouse methodology is in essence a combination of creativity workshops and scenario building together with stakeholders. The methodology has been inspired to a large extend by the methodology developed in the Sustainable Technological Development (STD) Programme of the Netherlands (1992-1997), and in this Programme by the project Sustainable Washing. An important element of the methodology is called 'Back-casting' (think backwards from a desirable or unavoidable future situation). Like in the STD Programme the premise of the project is that in the long term (50 years) a drastic reduction of environmental burden is necessary (factor 20). This reduction will not be reached by just incremental technological innovations. More drastic technological as well as socio-cultural and organisational changes will be necessary. The hypothesis in the project is that there are interesting opportunities for instance in the concepts of sharing, leasing and service-products. The project consists of the following steps: 1. Investigation of functions in countries (Jan 98-Aug 98) 2. Expert interviews and stakeholder enrolling (Jan 98 - Dec 98) 3. Creativity and backcasting workshops with experts and stakeholders (Nov 98-Jan 99) 4. Scenario-building (Jan 99 - Feb 99) 5. Assessment of the scenario's (Feb 99 - Sep 99) 6. Follow Up workshops with experts and stakeholders (Oct 99 - Dec 99) 7. Reporting and spinn-off (Jan 2000 - June 2000) The scenario assessments are threefold: 1. Analysis of environmental gains and impacts (contact information) 2. Assessment of economic consequences and viability (contact information) 3. Assessment of consumer acceptance (contact information) Each of the three SusHouse household functions (Shopping, Cooking and Eating; Clothing Care; Shelter) is being researched in three countries: SCE Clothing Care Shelter Italy X X UK X X Netherlands X X Hungary X Germany X X

A study (pdf) done for the Innocenti Research Center, a research arm of Unicef, found that cutting had only 3 percent support in 2008 - down from 97 percent in 1999. This is a remarkable achievement. There is nothing more difficult than persuading people to give up long-held cultural practices, especially those bound up in taboo subjects like sex. The change happened because of an organization that Gebre and her sister Fikrte started called Kembatti Mentti Gezzima-Toppe, which means "women of Kembata working together." It is now known simply as KMG-Ethiopia.