Synopsis:
While community’s have been at the centre of destruction they are our hope and can be our guiding light. This conversation aims to benchmark where community has gone wrong and then foster the identification of the magic ingredients which when sprinkled all over Ireland will hasten the development of sustainability whether social, environmental, economic, cultural, political…….
Key Takeaways:
- Use your foresight and communicate it to and with others,
- Compassion and empathy are big so remember to look after yourself as well as others,
- There is a power in numbers so use that power in teamwork and
- Ritual and identity are important so foster these in community when ever you can.
About Vincent Carragher:
Vincent’s research collaborates with community’s to measure, reduce and communicate their consumption impacts. Living labs now exist in Ireland where through regular cycles of Footprint measurement, reinterpretation and open discourse the carbon intensity of current day lifestyle practices and behaviour is reduced. Vincent’s research has also critically reviewed community interventions which foster sustainable-behaviour change identifying 109 drivers enhanced by those interventions. It tested and ranked these drivers and barriers using Discourse Based Approaches within Irish communities. It produced sustainability driver profiles for each of these communities. These profiles were then utilised in the co-design of sustainability practices and policies for these communities. The co-design facilitated a rich harvest of sustainability ideas with the communities and expert stakeholders in policy, resource use and sustainability practice. Associate Professor Sarah McCormack was the PI in this research and their report is here
Vincent’s co-creation research has just been nominated by the Japan based Institute for Global Environmental Strategies and the Stockholm Environment Institute as a blueprint for sustainability transition across the globe. It explores the adoption of the Ecological Footprint, in communities, together with consumption-reflection, modelling and the establishment of Norms. Significant decarbonisation and related impacts on low carbon behaviours, practices and lifestyles have been shown. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13549839.2018.1434493 and at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13549839.2018.1481021 .
His most recent collaborative research is explained more here:
Contacting Vincent Carragher:
You can contact Vincent by email.
By Vincent Carragher
The disappearance of the Easter Island community:
Has it lessons for us today?
Does it predict we are doomed to fail?
Evidence from Paelobotany and Archaeology morphs into a frightful conclusion, why would an organised community, with religion, craft and substantial collaboration decide to eat itself?
Today, with resource depletion at its highest levels ever, emissions rising, climate change, pollution increasing, ocean acidification, species extinctions and more are we time a bomb ticking?
Is the Easter island community a foreboding blueprint of what is to come or do we have fabulous examples of community action which reduce our impact, and exemplify our resilience?
Is community actually the Secret Garden?
If it is, how do we open its gates to our leaders and Governments?
How do we foster the good stuff and drive improvement and sustainability transition?
There are many ways touched on by these congregation-huddles and talks.
Fostering: a sense of pride, identity, recognition of efforts, norm activation, storytelling, effective communication and messaging, sustainability champions, exemplar communities, progress measurement, funder-community relations, and so much more.
I hope we can explore the ingredients for positive change taking time and space to hear our fellow contributors.
With just one mouth but 2 ears we have real potential to listen and build a way out of the destruction we have laid bare in the Anthropocene.