In the first in a new series on management concepts, the environmentalist provides a guide to systems thinking
Responding effectively to the key environmental and sustainability risks and challenges facing businesses that were identified by IEMA in its 2014 report Preparing for the Perfect Storm: skills for a sustainable economy is a complex ask. Systems thinking can provide a better way to look at issues such as climate change and resource depletion because it focuses on the links and interactions between the components that form a system and cause change over time.
It enables individuals and organisations to view systems from a broad perspective, including the overall structures, patterns and cycles, rather than seeing specific events only. Taking a whole systems approach, the various moving parts and how each component affects the rest can help to solve problems. And an understanding of how actions affect the whole can lead to better business decisions.
Indeed, IEMA includes systems thinking in its list of the core ingredients required to transform organisations to sustainability. The list was in the 2016 report Beyond the Perfect Storm and as well as systems thinking it includes: leadership, listening, engagement, collaboration and innovation.
What is systems thinking?
Systems can be social, environmental and political. Dymphna van der Lans, chief executive at the Clinton Climate Initiative, says the world is made up of systems. ‘A tree is a system. A forest is a system. I am a system. Systems are often embedded in larger systems, which are embedded in yet larger systems. Earth’s climate is a system comprised of the subsystems of our atmosphere, our oceans, the land and human society.’
Readers will be most familiar with environmental management systems (EMS), which provide a structured framework for managing an organisation’s significant environmental impacts. But an EMS does not operate in isolation; it is usually part of a larger, more complex business system consisting of many components, from research and development to sales, working together to create and deliver a product or service. These systems consist of people, structures and processes. Ecosystems are another familiar concept and involve elements, such as air, water, plants and animals.
According to John Sterman, professor of management at the MIT Sloan School, systems thinking can help people to understand the structure and dynamics of the complex ways in which they live, from organisational change to climate change, from physiology to financial markets.
He says: ‘The structure of systems must be understood broadly, including physical elements, such as the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the time delays in a supply chain; institutions, such as markets and governments; human behaviour, such as the way we make decisions; and mental models that shape how we perceive and interpret the world. These elements interact and co-evolve to generate the world we experience.’
The bigger picture
A guide published by Oxfam in 2015 describes systems thinking by looking at the well-used phrase, ‘If you teach a man to fish, you can feed him for ever’. Ensuring someone can catch fish may prevent them ever again going hungry, but in an increasingly complex world that may not be enough. The fisherman or woman will have to see the bigger picture: the factors, from climate change and pollution to over-fishing and an expanding market for fish that may mitigate or support fishery-based livelihoods.
Seeing the bigger picture is systems thinking. The guide states: ‘When we consider interventions that may assist the fishers, clearly they need to be informed by a deep understanding of the bigger picture of what is happening, of all the different components that they need to respond to. This big picture thinking is also called systems thinking.’
John Cheeseborough, agricultural markets and enterprise unit manager at Oxfam and one of the guide’s authors, says people almost certainly apply systems thinking in their day-to-day lives when they engage with and respond to multiple economic, political and personal systems. ‘Despite its name, it’s not just a way of thinking,’ he says. ‘It’s also a way of seeing things and a way of acting. It’s about being prepared to be challenged and having an open mind. It’s about working with others and playing a catalytic role in the evolution of ideas rather than pushing specific pre-set paradigms. It’s about experimentation and constant, ongoing learning and adaptation.’
A different way of working
Systems thinking differs from how organisations generally address issues. People and businesses tend to solve one problem at a time; they separate the individual pieces, isolating the different elements of a system into small parts without thinking through the connections. Too often the outcome is that measures intended to alleviate a problem create new ones.
The debate over banning diesel-powered vehicles in urban areas to improve air quality illustrates this. Policymakers across Europe backed a major switch from petrol to diesel cars in the late 1990s to reduce carbon emissions. In the UK and elsewhere incentives were offered to encourage drivers to buy diesel vehicles because they produce 15% less carbon dioxide on average than petrol models. Fast forward 20 years and the huge rise in diesel cars is being blamed for worsening air pollution in cities. It appears that, in the post-Kyoto mood and the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, policymakers largely failed to consider the consequences for air quality from having more diesel vehicles on the road. Their engines emit about four times more nitrogen dioxide pollution and 22 times more particulates than their petrol equivalents.
As Sterman notes: ‘We often blame policy failure on “unanticipated events” and “side-effects”. But there are no side-effects – just effects. Those we expected or that prove beneficial we call the main effects and claim credit. Those that undercut policies and cause harm we claim to be side-effects, hoping to excuse our failure. But side-effects are not a feature of reality; they are a sign that the boundaries of our mental models are too narrow, and our time horizons too short. Avoiding such self-defeating interventions, in business and in sustainability, requires us to consider our actions in the context of the broader systems in which we are embedded.’
Meeting sustainability challenges
Systems thinking can help organisations improve their sustainability. Stephanie Draper, deputy chief executive at Forum for the Future, believes systems thinking is vital to achieving the UN sustainable development goals. ‘If the SDGs are really going to shift our whole system on to a sustainable path, we need serious amounts of joined-up thinking that goes deeper to address underlying causes. Successfully delivering the SDGs requires a really strong systems approach,’ she wrote in a blog (bit.ly/2dyJ9k7).
Other commentators have suggested that systems thinking is beneficial if a problem is complex; recurring or made worse by previous actions to fix it; affects or is affected by the surrounding environment, whether it be natural or competitive; and where there are no obvious solutions.
Further information
The Oxfam guide, Systems Thinking: an introduction for programme staff, is available at bit.ly/2lKSO9O.
The Schumacher Institute, an independent thinktank for environmental, social and economic issues, has developed a free, six-part online learning programme on systems thinking. It is available at bit.ly/2mpweYa.
The Open University offers a free online course over eight hours. Systems thinking and practice is available at bit.ly/1wQ3WTV.
