The world’s major problems are often directly or indirectly related to environmental issues of anthropogenic origin. The status of virtually all ecosystems on which humankind depends on for his well-being is worsening, and the predictions for the next future are worrisome. If we don’t amend our way as sooner as possible we look at our’s doom. At the same time, we may consider ourselves lucky that the threat is not a giant asteroid coming from the space, and that we might solve our problems if we tackle them energetically and timely.
For this reason, the United Nations established 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030 (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/). Although I praise the effort, I have always been critical about the SDGs. I think that there is an internal contradiction in the idea of being sustainable while “developing”. Our economic system based on the core idea of development is what has ruined our planet; nature has always been seen as a set of resources to be exploited. Now we want to continue developing as we always did, but taking somehow nature’s needs into account. Economists like Serge Latouche have warned us about the fallacy of this logic, and have suggested working on economic degrowth instead. We talk a lot about sustainability. But to sustain who and what? How many billion people? Living how? We look for technological innovations to allow us to change nothing instead of accepting that it is necessary to control the human population, change our lifestyle, and reconsider what are a person’ needs to consider himself happy. I never forgot Henry David Thoreau’s words in Walden: “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone”.
I had the luck to be among the 1000 talents selected by the Unleash Innovation Lab 2019, which was held in Shenzhen in China. Talents were expected to create innovative solutions to issues related to some of the SDGs. When I applied I was skeptical. Finding solutions to global problems in about one week, working together with people you never met before on a project you may have not thought about or worked on in the past. It did not sound easy at all. Moreover, I was worried. What if I was going to say that the solutions required radical changes in the current system?
Overall, it was a great experience. I was working on the SDG13 Climate Action and I met fantastic people, many of whom also shared my concerns about development. I learned a lot about the innovation process, which I think will be useful for other things in the future. I also enjoyed the beautiful location where we worked (Xianhu Botanical Garden). Yet, I think that the organisation could have been better. We were supposed to solve global issues working in 4-5 person teams in a competitive environment. Collaboration between teams was not encouraged. The two best projects per SDG were selected and competed again for the 1st and 2nd place in front of a new jury. Competition is ruling our world today. Ideas (companies) compete to make money, and making more money (regardless of how much they already own) is the only engine that moves decisions. I understand that Unleash wants talents to create solutions playing within the current rules. However, if they want to be successful in their scope, they need to be open-minded and consider that solving global issues require to reconsider how things have been working until now. New solutions will need large-scale cooperation and not competition. Maybe they should be the first giving the example.
As an ecologist, I found disconcerting how the word “ecosystem” was misused during some of the talks (essentially it was used to indicated the business network). I found depressing that projects that were meant to make money were favoured compared to others (because judges understood only this concept), and I was shocked when I discovered that in the jury that was supposed to identify the best projects for SDG13 Climate Action there was not even one ecologist or a climate scientist. At the end of my team’s presentation, a businessman asked us what was our role in the innovative proposal we proposed. It was none. We were trying to develop a solution, not to get rich with a new company. Wasn’t this what we were supposed to do?
Will your project be selected or not? Where is your place in this idea? Who will win in the end? These were not the questions I expected to hear during an event that was supposed to help solve global problems. I am glad that other people shared my concerns, and I hope Unleash will accept feedback. The idea of gathering talented people from all over the world to do something so important is wonderful, and it could potentially lead to great things. However, we have to start acknowledging that we are our greatest enemy and that we cannot solve global issues without dramatically re-build the system that has generated such issues.
My fantastic team: The Rooters!