Guides

Here you can find sustainability workshop guides. You don’t have to be an expert to drive sustainable change. Science and research is clear and available from many sources. What we need are leaders and organisations who recognise the challenges we face and start to take action. Innovation and change is only possible when working as a team. Therefore, we’ve developed the following guides for sustainability workshops that can help you innovate together with your team or to find new collaborators. In addition, they also offer the possibility to develop new ideas which can turn into impactful projects and initiatives.

Feel free to mix, restructure and experiment with the different guides and activities. The workshops have already been implemented in Helsingborg, Sweden with great results. A helpful tip is to adapt the workshops to your local context and the specific problems you face. We’d love if you write to us to let us know how it goes or if you need any help!

Guide 1: Deciphering Sustainability

Sustainability is increasing in popularity every day, but what does it mean for people in your circle and your city?
Sustainability can be communicated in different manners with a variety of interpretations. How is the concept understood by your community and the people you work with?

This sustainability workshop guide will help you set the stage to explore sustainability definitions and how it is implemented nowadays. Not only you as a facilitator will provide your take on the subject but the workshop will build on input from participants. In this way, through the integration of perspectives, a common understanding for the concept will be formed.

Guide 2: Individual Impact on Sustainability

When talking about individual contributions to sustainability, we often see a focus on changing habits. However, this is only a small part of the full potential we have as individuals.

This sustainability workshop guide aims to open a space for discussing the most impactful actions individuals can take. The idea is to understand attendees’ perspective regarding their agency on sustainable transformation and brainstorm more powerful actions.

In addition, the workshop includes empowerment activities, such as a meditation practice and an exercise on active hope. These can be helpful in overcoming negative news, powerless feelings, and the challenges we face in our individual journeys.

Guide 3: Changing Collective Structures

Are there hidden elements that oppose our sustainability efforts and diminish their impact? It is easy to think that a transition into sustainability would come faster if the right information was available to everyone. The problem is our society is not only composed of individuals making free decisions. There are other factors that place different constrains on us.

This sustainability workshop guide focuses on bringing to light the different systems in our society that shape our habits and our way of thinking. Many times these systems cannot be attributed to a single individual, they are impersonal and difficult to identify. The goal of the workshop is to discuss how some of these systems are unsustainable, and have worked against the protection of the environment and social development.

Guide 4: Business and Sustainability

Are businesses prioritizing sustainability internally? Or the focus is only on the product or service they provide? Businesses will have a great impact on whether or not we achieve sustainability goals. Are they setting up their own goals correctly? And are they transforming their internal operations to achieve them?

This sustainability workshop guide helps in discussing these questions and navigating how businesses are related to the environment, society and more importantly, what is businesses’ purpose. The workshop opens a good space for reflecting on the motivations of traditional businesses and contrast them with characteristics of a business built for the future.

Guide 5: Envisioning Your City

What are the characteristics of a sustainable city to become a role model? This workshop guide aims to practice an envisioning activity to visualize in a concrete manner the future we are striving for as a community.

This sustainability workshop guide can help you visualize any sustainable city, or you can use your own city as a study case. The steps of the workshop will help you go from a general level to specific details; to then backtrack on the necessary steps to achieve this vision. As a bonus, you will get to explore the role of each participant in achieving the vision you’ve designed as a team.