Graciela Nava Guerrero,
Rafael Silveira,
What does the above story mean? How can we create this reality? What needs to change now, in order to start the transition? These questions will be answered in this section, as well as a refined formulation of our design challenge.
Required change
For reaching the situation described in the previous section, a system change is required. Behaviour of all actors should become both pro-environmental and innovative. Actors should have a pro-active attitude towards sustainable innovation. The interaction between actors should be low-threshold and two-directional.
How to make required change
To guide the transition towards this future sub-system, we need to design for presence and design for values. Which values guide the behaviour of Texelaars? How and when do they feel present on Texel and in their environment? We present five measures to steer the transition in the right direction.
First of all, the ambitions of the municipality of Texel should be translated into a tangible vision. Also, the desired innovation sub-system should be explained clearly to all Texelaars. Without this easy understandable and transparent communication channel, the Texel community will hardly ever fully support the municipality in their sustainable development, let alone engage in it.
Secondly, there needs to be a personal benefit in the contribution to sustainable innovation for each Texelaar. As mentioned before, it is in the nature of people to steer towards well-being and survival (Venhoeven et al, 2013). The desired scenario should contribute to this well-being and survival and be pro-environmental at the same time, meaning it does not threaten the environment.
The third challenge assumes that Texelaars are willing to engage. In this case, short-term projects with quick wins are most attractive for hedonic minded people (Venhoeven et al, 2013). Massive engagement in short term initiatives is good, but the relevance of long-term initiatives must not be forgotten. Within the innovation system, the right balance between short-term and long-term initiatives should be found and sufficient engagement from Texelaars is required for both types of activities.
As an overarching approach, our challenge is to design for presence in Texel, meaning that Texel citizens and innovators are well aware of their role in the system. They understand how they affect the system and how they are affected by it. By taking responsibility for the future, they support a common goal and take action to steer into that direction.
Lastly, each Texelaar needs to redefine its own presence by learning how to merge the being-here and being-there. For instance, since there are many sustainable innovators on the island, each of them is dedicated to their own project. In the meanwhile, the Texel citizen should find a way to be part of this innovative journey, even if they are not active in the daily process.
Refine the design challenge of chapter 1
As described in our problem statement in Chapter 1 we want to focus on the communication between actors and involvement of the inhabitants of the island to promote a transition in the socio-technical system. In section 2.4 of this chapter we explore a deeper understanding of the process to develop those initial intentions.
After reflecting on the knowledge acquired this week, we decided to refine our design challenge and specify it more.
First of all, it is necessary that each of the actors understands its role and its importance in the sustainable transition. This is fundamental for their engagement in the design proposals and in the recognizability of the sustainable transition as common well-being.
The communication between the actors that we aim for and was described in Chapter 1, is an important factor for this process to take place. A clear and transparent connection between them generates understanding of each other’s objective and a sense of community in which all pursuit the same common goal.
In addition, even though our main objective is a long-term result, we now understand that for creating commitment we should also focus on short-term projects, with tangible objectives that show the results of the efforts made by the actors.
In summary, we aim that all actors understand a sustainable transition as a future well-being, so they are naturally guided to collaborate with each other, and to participate in the initiatives to achieve this common goal.
Conclusion
This chapter is dedicated to comparing the current and future situation with regard to presence and well-being. After explaining our vision on the concepts presence, presence design, pro-environmental behaviour and well-being, we investigated presence and trust in the current situation for both citizens and innovators.
While comparing, we identified a strong difference between the status of situated agency, environmental impact and synchronizing performance among these two actors. Our design will be based on levelling these three factors for Texelaars and sustainable innovators.
As a result, this will lead to a future innovation sub-system in which all Texelaars are well aware of Texels sustainable ambitions and of the sustainable initiatives and room for innovation. Everyone will feel responsible to contribute to the transition towards a self-sufficient Texel, because they recognize both the community gain and personal gain from this new social dynamic structure.
To arrive in this future situation, we need to design for presence and trust, allowing Texelaars to redefine their personal presence on Texel and their role within the innovation system.