Building bridges between science, policy and industry

How would you have made use of the intellectual power of 3000+ of the world’s leading experts on global change, sustainability, development and resilience?

Amidst the traditional conference keynote addresses and breakout sessions, we piloted interactive sessions designed to provoke dialogue between business, policy and science and generated novel solutions to pressing problems, developing fresh perspectives on how social sciences and natural sciences interact. Many of these sessions focused on the use of experimental participatory techniques not commonly used at scientific conferences and came under the special programme title:

Bridges to the Future

Six of these sessions were led by a professional Art of Hosting facilitation team that also documented the session outcomes. The outcome documents of these sessions can be found here: Bridges to the Future Outcome Documents.

The Bridges to the Future Sessions produced for Planet Under Pressure 2012 are listed below. They included:

World Café - be part of creative, inspirational -- and most importantly solutions-orientated - conversations about our common future. Based on the concept that sometimes the most provocative and powerful ideas can emerge sitting in a small group having coffee. And, you get to do this with a group of people you may not normally get a chance to have a deep conversation with. Three provocative questions, three dialogues with three intellectual groups. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and let's talk!

Pro-Action Café - bring your project, ideas and knowledge. Or, put on your consulting cap. Let’s hatch some plans. It's your choice as to what role you want to play in this exciting session – you get a chance to get three rounds of top consulting services from across the globe focused on moving your project forward. Or provide your expertise as consultant to three projects of your choice.

Unconference - its your conference, you decide what’s in it. A bottom up approach to session design. Show up, bring ideas, produce an agenda together. At least 16 sessions to choose from. Rules: you decide what conversation you want to attend. Those who show up are the right people to attend, whatever happens is the right thing to happen, it’s over when it’s over, and finally: The Law of Two Feet: Are you learning? Are you contributing? If not, find somewhere where this will happen for you. You decide!

Interactive Workshop - expand your mind at this creative workshop that challenges you to use your creative intelligence at Planet Under Pressure!

BRIDGES TO THE FUTURE PROGRAMME

Following is a record of the Bridges to the Future sessions. For more details on each of the sessions please view the session Conference Session pages.

Monday 26 March – State of the Planet

Whole-Systems Solutions for Sustainable Development. What will it take?

Join James Syvitski, Chair, IGBP, Professor, University of Colorado and Executive Director Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS) invites you to join in this conversation. Global risks and solutions are interconnected and interdependent. We all share the goal of finding effective solutions towards sustainable development. How can we employ systems thinking in international decision-making? We invite you to the first World Café of the conference to join a diverse group of scientists, policy makers and industry professionals to look at ways to join the dots. World Café. 90 minute session.

Whole-Systems Solution Outcome Document

Integrating sustainable development into strategic planning in any organization

This interactive workshop is led by Peter Price-Thomas, CEO, The Natural Step International (TNS), Stanley Nyoni, Senior Strategic Advisor, TNS Switzerland and S2 Strategies, and Pär Larshans, Chief of Sustainability Officer, Max’s Hamburgers AB Sweden. Participants are invited to develop fresh perspectives on how businesses and organisations can strategically plan to reduce pressures on our planet. The workshop will discuss case studies from companies such as Max Hamburgers, Dow Chemical, Nike, Hydro Polymers, Givaudan and Carillion that have applied the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD). Participants will consider how to improve planning strategies and product innovation for a sustainable and resilient planet.

How can we ensure a green economy benefits the poorest people?

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) invites you to come up with solutions to this challenge! We bring together scientists, industry, policymakers and civil society leaders to discuss how the green economy can help alleviate poverty and create other long-term benefits for the world’s poorest. Join the conversation about key challenges and opportunities that arise when contemplating the following question: What poverty reduction opportunities can be realised only through shifting to low-carbon, green economy strategies?

Green Economy Benefitting the Poorest People Outcome Document

Tuesday, March 27 – Options and Opportunities

Meeting Global Energy Demands - generating new ideas for energy security

Philip Sharman, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the U.K. Research Councils' Energy Programme invites you to join him in taking part in this Pro-Action Cafe! Bring your project and ideas on how to meet global energy demand and discuss them with a room full of scientists, policy makers and business execs – your consultants. All other participants will take an active role as “consultants” on the proposed projects to assist the project owners move their projects to the next level. Philip is also a member of the Technology Strategy Board's Energy Steering Group and Chairman of Advanced Power Generation Technology Forum.

Meeting Global Energy Demands Outcome Document

How Science & Business Can Create a More Sustainable World Together

Join Katherine Richardson, Leader of the Sustainability Science Centre and Professor in Biological Oceanography, University of Copenhagen and Dirk Olin, Corporate Responsibility Officer’s Association Vice President and Editor-in-Chief, CR Magazine for this premiere dialogue with business and science executives at Planet Under Pressure culminating in a Final Meeting at COMMIT! Forum, Oct. 2-3, 2012.

The goal: unleash the power, knowledge, and expertise of science and business to create a sustainable society. Key questions are: How can science inform businesses as they develop products and services for a sustainable society? How can business inform science regarding development of products and services for a sustainable society?

Business & Science Outcome Document

Unconference

Sarah Cornell, Coordinator of the Planetary Boundaries Initiative (Global and Cross-scale Dynamics) at the Stockholm Resilience Centre invites you to join her at Planet Under Pressure's Unconference! At this session, you set the agenda. You decide the subject. You work it out. We facilitate. Then you can just focus on solutions. Unconference is a powerful tool for sparking debates, finding solutions and meeting creative people with ideas and energy. Just turn up with some ideas, agree an agenda (or several), split into groups and go figure.

Unconference Outcome Document

Wednesday 28 March – Challenges to progress

Global Sustainability Goals: transition to a sustainable future earth

Join UNEP (Ashbindu Singh) and the global-change programmes (DIVERSITAS, ESSP, IGBP, IHDP, WCRP) for this dialogue that seeks to gather suggestions on goals, targets and indicators for Sustainable Development as a post 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDG+) framework. Using a World Café format, participants will reflect on ways to integrate environment, economic and development goals. They will be asked to help explore a roadmap with which to create goals and identify possible examples of goals and targets. Results would be shared with and disseminated to various processes surrounding sustainability goal and MDG+ discussions.

Sustainability Development Goals Outcome Document

Realizing green economies: Harnessing trade for sustainable development across multiple levels of governance

This special event will offer an opportunity to explore a wide range of issues at the intersection of green economy, sustainable development, and international trade, including: national experiences with managing trade and green economy policy action under well-defined strategies that accelerate progress towards sustainable development; the role of non-state actors – including the scientific community and business – in supporting greater coherence between trade and other sustainable development policies; and areas where enhanced international co-operation could help overcome emerging trade and green economy challenges. The event will comprise a panel session of speakers representing governments and institutions, followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

Thursday 29 March 2012 – Planetary Stewardship

Rio+20: a chance to rebuild bridges between science and policy

As we begin to appreciate the vast interconnected global socio-ecological system, Rio+20 is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink how science and policy connect internationally. Some argue the bridges between science and policy are broken. Others argue the bridges were always too few and far between. We need new ideas and fresh thinking. How do we reduce fragmentation and improve coherency? What should the priorities be? Is it time to discuss a State of the Planet Assessment, or even an Intergovernmental Panel on Global Sustainability? Would appointing a UN Chief Scientific Advisor help? What other ideas and success stories from the around the world can inform a deeper and more effective engagement between science and policy in the future? Ideally, this session will represent a culmination of discussions through the previous days and sessions of the conference and seek to identify some really concrete examples and ideas for negotiators going on to Rio. This 60 minute event will occur as a panel and discussion, with ideas on the topic introduced by 5 minute talks from each panellist, followed by a moderated discussion between the participants and the panel.

Human population growth and its implications for land, water and food

Population growth is estimated to reach between 8 and 10 billion before the end of the 21st century. Yet the global population, which has now passed 7 billion, already exceeds Earth’s carrying capacity. These simple statistics provide us with both challenges and opportunities to ensure wellbeing for all. This roundtable will bring together global leaders from industry, policy and science to debate the implications of the expanding global population. The focus will on how integrated responses across sectors can sometimes be more efficient than single sector solutions, or can help to manage the tradeoffs to minimise unintentional harm.

The role of legislation in enabling sustainable business in the Anthropocene

This session aims to create networking discussions in which industry, policy and science representatives can discuss the session topic in the context of a series of key sectors. We aim for the session to raise some important issues for Rio+20, but more importantly establish some legacy networks for future interaction after the conference.