Last Thursday Marco and I were invited to another city with our AiREAS initiative in Eindhoven (NL). It was interesting to observe how two different worldviews meet, interact and come together. For quite some time already we had been convinced that we were working on something unique with Sustainocracy . This encounter confirmed it once again in full reality.
Top technological value, no price list
The encounter had been established after a call from this city. They wanted to know if they could get access to the technology that was being developed by AiREAS? Our technology is the absolute best one can imagine in current state of the art technological evolution around environmental measurements (finedust, CO2, ozon, etc). Why was it so unique? Because it had been ideologically achieved within a sustainocratic process, a true co-creation.. This means that it involved directly the higher regional purpose of human health combined with the interests of a city council, the local population, scientific research with directly applied knowledge and applied business innovations. The technology had therefor not been conceived from a product point of view with a money driven motivation. Human health was our common multidisciplinary goal not money. The technology had to serve multiple purpose, not just city council policy making but also health research based on cross data, real time city dynamics analysis and transparent involvement of the local population with data and an explanation on what one can do to improve the local environment.
When the other city approached us we had not even established a price for the technology nor a sales structure to pass on the products within a typical commercial chain. The new technology was part of a purpose driven co-creating concept, not a stand alone product. In our working model (sustainocracy) technology was just a means not a goal and as such we would only be satisfied with the best we could achieve in multidisciplinary co-creation for the purpose of sustainable human progress in the region. The technology that we had developed today may well be the best available in the world but for us it is just a means we created to help achieve “the healthiest city of the world” in a sustainocratic way. It was hence “owned” by the entire AiREAS community and movement. Technology is likely to evolve further as our path along the line of sustainable human progress evolves too. What price do you attach to that? Wouldn’t it be easier for a new city to simply become member of the AiREAS community and its purpose, adjusting it to the local 4 local circumstances?
AiREAS has no personnel or hierarchy
The next difficulty was that AiREAS has no personnel, nor hierarchical organization of its own. AiREAS consists of the formalized co-creative venture to achieve healthy human environments through a sustainocratic cooperation. People are employed by the participating specialized institutions, not AiREAS. The general public participates through intrinsic motivating in their own city quarters by taking initiatives, not through an employment contract. The whole process involves already thousands of people in a purpose driven commitment yet no one in a hierarchy or on our payroll, not even me or Marco. We are in it as result driven professionals. No progress means no income for us either. How can we offer a product when there is no organization to back it up? We could only invite the new city to become a member of the movement and receive by consequence the technology together with the sustainocratic surroundings on a local for local basis.
When the city representatives mentioned that, in normal circumstances, they would have to tender for the technology it became easy for us to show that we could not participate. In AiREAS we have no client/supplier relationships, just a joint institutional and popular commitment to a goal of regional city health in which measurement is an essential but not conclusive instrument. This was also an eye opener for the people present and a new way of relating to reality. We were not there to sell anything. When we were asked to consider selling our technology we felt as if we were drawn back into the old world with its money driven structures, hierarchies, authorization processes, liabilities and bureaucratic difficulties. We did not want this. AiREAS wants to achieve health not money or power. Our authority lays in creating sustainable human progress, by facilitating it not by creating another bureaucracy around it.
Royalties?
An option we had now was to make the technology available through one of our money driven multinational partners against a royalty. This would provide the world with the technology without Sustainocracy. Many would prefer it that way even though we would eventually show that only Sustainocracy can solve the complexity of healthy regional environments and progress. The royalties would help us with means for reinvestment in our true purpose without the need to ask the local government for support through tax income. For local government it is of interest because they are part of the local reinvestment team, this time without having to challenge their own limited resources (in decrease too due to crises). We (Marco and I) would be challenged to avoid becoming yet again a money driven entity ourselves and remain in our role of providing progress rather than speculation. The uniqueness as well as the pitfalls of our creation became clear.
Involvement of the entire local population
In AiREAS we develop the purpose driven involvement of all people in a region, residents and visitors, private and professionals. In fact, AIREAS itself was initiated by me as a totally independent and free civilian around human responsibilities, not material or institutional complexities. The link between measurements and proactive public initiatives, facilitated by a sustainocratic venture between institutions, to achieve healthy dynamics through culture rather than regulation, was new too. Business, science and government were seen as instruments for sustainable human progress, not the cause but the means.
This holistic approach, in which all instruments for progress work together around a human driven purpose, was unique in our current global society. It was something that people from the old world of institutional dominance and hierarchies had to get used to. Some current institutions would fit in naturally, others would need to change while others would only play a role in the old money driven world and disappear in the sustainocratic reality. So be it. It is all part of creating a new biodiversity of human activities. We also see already totally new institutions arise around the powerful platform of local Sustainocracies.
Indeed there is always a lot happening in a consumer driven democracy from a public involvement point of view. The difference in a Sustainocracy is that the initiatives are not “to be authorized or regulated” but facilitated towards the common goal. When the population takes the lead the authorities offer their position of authority to enlarge purpose driven experimentation rather than authorizing them. This creates a totally different dynamics in a city with a proactive interaction between regional development of infrastructures and public initiatives around their own health and sustainable progress. Local content and involvement eliminates bureaucracy and society gets into a totally new phase of self-sufficient participation. The cost savings are tremendous and the value driven social and technological innovations get a boost. Local involvement is value driven and values are shared together. People learn to interact in a purpose driven way instead of competing and selling each other their talents without sharing key responsibilities. Now talents need to partner up for a common intention and achieve steps together. So does the harmonic relationship with our environment due to the direct relationship between living green, food, mobility, housing, social cohesion, health, etc. in AiREAS.
The relationship between measurements and human health is then not to evaluate the consequences of health or money related policies. It becomes an instrument to co-creatively and transparently measure progress through public proactive initiatives, organic social innovation, applied science and technological innovations.
New social order and learning process
With sustainable human progress defined as “working together on a healthy, vital, safe, self-sufficient human society within the context of our ever changing natural environment” the social organisation transforms. When working together the relationship needs to evolve based on trust and commitment while we come from a society that is based on exactly the opposite. To achieve a new social order in another city we cannot ask government take the initiative. They are the authority that needs to step back a little and no other institution can take its place. In Eindhoven I invited the old world to work with me in the new world. The “I” represented the holistic human being within a fragmented world that used the human being instead of serving its evolutionary purpose. The “I” became both Marco and I as a dual team at the center representing the interaction between the universal ethics of “To Be” and the professional “To Do” that produce the sustainable human progress in the model of human complexities.
In another city Marco and I could hardly take that responsibility because it requires the intense networking with people who go through an individual process of change when they are invited to the process. Each person has to learn the basics of Sustainocracy and the individual role in such venture as a person and a professional. When the individual is convinced, then the institutions themselves go through a similar process. It does require powerful people to be able to do all this, even if it is seen as an experiment. It is impossible to conduct this operational process at a distance. We need local independent and free Sustainocrats to place themselves at the center of the local process. The role of the Sustainocrat is one of connecting all forces in the multidisciplinary format to the common goal and translate idealistic intentions into practical projects. It is a position without power yet with great authority and responsibility. Every region where a sustainocratic venture appears has its unique opportunities to create value of their own that could also benefit the rest of the world. It should first however benefit themselves making the region the perfect reference for their own sustainable progress. Within the local venture all the participating parties are equal without dominance or hierarchy. This is achieved by the Sustainocrat that represents the spirit of progressive democratic and spiritual freedom of humankind.
I am establishing a global STIR Academy to help the new sustainocrats and the local co-creative initiatives. This will make the process easier and smoother as this new operational structure of society gathers knowledge and experiences to be shared. The STIR Academy is also sustainocratic, just like AiREAS.
A network of Sustainocracies
I envisage a global network of purpose driven local for local sustainocracies such as AiREAS. The concept of co-creating “the healthiest city of the world” through local civilian involvement and commitment in their own city quarters of residence, is equally the basis of “the healthiest living planet” in the universe. The working model of Sustainocracy makes it potentially the global multinational of permanently applied social and technological innovation without a single person on the payroll and all the 7 billion people contributing in value driven processes, sharing the values abundantly among each other.
The current 40000 involved in Eindhoven (NL), the proven ability to co-create state of the art complex technology, the proven social and institutional commitment for sustainable human progress, attracted after just 6 months at least one new city. When we continue like this and assure the quality of our progression, the global multinational for sustainable human progress will soon be a fact. It confirms people in a format where authority proves itself to the world as a progressive facilitating power for the benefit of 7 billion contributors to their own sustainable harmony and progressive stability.
By then the human world will have changed from a huge risk in chaos to persistent wellness through applied human excellence and higher awareness.
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