Register for the training now or download a printable flier.

Climate Interactive and SEED Systems are collaborating to offer a powerful three day workshop for innovative leaders from business, non-profit, government, university sectors.

Attend to develop your capacities in:

• Systems thinking: Causal loop and stock-flow diagramming.
• Leadership and learning: Vision, reflective conversation, consensus building.
• Computer simulation: Using and leading policy-testing with the C-ROADS/C-Learn simulation.
• Policy development:  Attendees will play the World Climate exercise.
• Climate, energy, and sustainability strategy: Reflections and insights from international experts.
• Business success stories: What’s working in the new low carbon economy and implications for you.
• Building your network of people sharing aspirations for climate progress.

All participants will receive their own copy of the 3-region version of C-ROADS used in World Climate: C-Learn (both in Vensim and Stella) or, for those who are more experienced with the use of system dynamics models, there will also be an optional, evening “under the hood” session to explore the more technical aspects of the simulations.

Registration

 Click here to register for the event.

Background

Business, government, education, and civil society all face enormous leadership challenges as they work together to drive the current energy transition and address climate change.

This workshop will draw on interdependent fields – 1) system dynamics and systems thinking and 2) organizational learning – to empower diverse leaders to act effectively in these challenging and exciting times. The system dynamics and systems thinking material will be based on our experience over the past 10 years using versions of the C-ROADS climate simulation to influence strategy at the highest levels of climate policy – the simulation has been used by U.S. negotiator Jonathan Pershing, White House Science Advisor John Holdren, Senator John Kerry and global corporate leaders. We will train participants in system diagramming, systems principles, simulation-based role-plays and the use of interactive decision-support simulators, including new models on the energy transition now in development.

The organizational learning material will draw upon several decades of collective experience developing capacities of diverse corporate, NGO, and other leaders in practices that complement rigorous quantitative analysis: the capacity to create a shared vision of outcomes, ability to reflect on mental models (one’s own and others’), and turn insights into effective action. The conceptual frameworks and business cases supporting this work are elaborated on in The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World (2008) co-authored by workshop leader Sara Schley and colleagues Peter Senge, Joe Laur, Bryan Smith and Nina Kruschwitz. Our premise is that to solve the sustainability crises we face now, we’ll need entirely new approaches and skills including the abilities to 1) see in systems, 2) collaborate across boundaries and 3) envision and create the changes we want to see in the world. We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for.

Note to more-technical people: you will be asked to explore your vision of climate success and reflect deeply and critically on your assumptions about how to make it happen. It is good practice.

Note to less-technical people: you will be asked to explore the quantification of the biogeochemical and economic systems of energy and climate. It is good practice.

And given the enormity and urgency of the task before us, Dana said, “I choose to believe that we have just enough time. That we have as yet vast, untapped collective creative capacity sufficient to create as yet unimagined ways of truly living together — all of us — on this small planet. What we do not have is any time to waste.”

Prices

Business: $1800 ($1200 each if more than one person from same organization)

NGO, Government, Media, University: $800 ($550 each if more than one person from same organization)

Student: $150

Workshop Leaders

The two workshop leaders are Drew Jones and Sara Schley.

Andrew (Drew) Jones is the Co-Director of Climate Interactive.

Climate Interactive is a not-for-profit-based consortium dedicated to open source sharing of climate simulations. It includes Dr. John Sterman of MIT Sloan School of Management, Dr. Peter Senge of MIT/SoL, and Dr. Tom Fiddaman of Ventana Systems. 

Drew consults with organizations, facilitates groups, creates models and sims, teaches system dynamics modeling and systems thinking, coaches leaders, and writes columns and articles. Trained in System Dynamics modeling at Dartmouth College and MIT, Drew  worked on the 1993 “Greening of the White House” as part of Rocky Mountain Institute and in 2008, as part of the CDC System Dynamics team, accepted the "ASysT Prize" for “a significant accomplishment achieved through the application of systems thinking to a problem of U.S. national significance."  In 2009, his team’s C-ROADS climate simulation was used extensively by the U.S. State Department and other negotiation parties in the U.N. Copenhagen Climate Conference. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in system dynamics, systems thinking, and sustainability at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He lives with his family in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina.

Sara Schley is the founder and President of Seed Systems, an international consulting company established in 1994. Seed Systems uses systems inquiry while working with individuals, teams, organizations, and networks to accelerate our transformation to a planet where all life thrives.

Sara has worked in business, non-profit, government and academic sectors; creating, designing, facilitating, teaching and coaching leadership programs and culture change initiatives for sustainability. With Seed Systems as incubator for innovation, Sara was the co-creator of the SoL Sustainability Consortium, a network of major corporations including Nike, Shell, Ford, WorldBank, Interface and more, challenging each other to create best practices in the field, as well as the Women Leading Sustainability Network WLS, a dynamic circle of Women ground-breakers and thought leaders for sustainability. Sara is co-author of Learning for Sustainability (SoL, 2006) and of The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World (Doubleday 2008.). Sara has lead workshops focusing on the content you will learn in Leaders for a New Climate for 18 years including for the Core Course of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL) and at Nike, Plug Power, NY Department of Environmental Conservation, Shell Oil, Phillips Electronics, and more. She lives in rural Western, MA with her husband Joe Laur and twin 8 year olds, Sam and Maya.