My introduction of the Sustainocratic context was not taped during our online encounter about the power of citizens networks. I hence reproduce the slides here with some underlying text for them to make sense.

Sustainocracy stands for Sustainable HUMAN progress and our realtime Democracy. Sustainable Human Progress refers to our evolutionary existence as a selfaware species within (not at the expense of) our natural living environment.

As human beings we are a living expression of our natural environment.

As human beings we are member of two ecosystems: the natural biological one, through which we evolved, and the financial/political one that we have created ourselves.

We tend to express ourselves in three ways, often in this priority: our function in society, as citizens and sometimes as human being. It is high time that we turn this around.

As a human being we are closest to nature, in fact we ARE nature. If we pollute or destroy our natural surroundings we pollute and destroy ourselves.

As a citizen we are part of a community that is ruled by community principles. These may or may not take our natural human biological complexity into account. In that community we act through functions, also called “jobs” or “our personal contribution”. These functions have objectives and also consequences. In our current societal system’s structure these functions tend to stand far from our biological living reality. Perhaps this abuse was alright when humankind was small enough to express itself well within the regenerative capabilities of our living planet Earth. It is not anymore, in many ways.

When we crossed the threshold of about 3 billion, without adjustment of our abusive system that makes use of humankind and our planet for financial benefits, we started to run into problems (plastic soup, pollution, chronical deseases, wars, climate issues, overconsumption, deforestation, refugees, huge migrations, etc).

If it were up to the abusive system the size of humankind is the problem. From a humankind perspective it is the abusive system that is the problem. In this duality only humankind itself can solve the tension. We need to address our sustainable human resilience by acknowledgement of our biological selves. As human being we stand closed to our natural selves.

If we only relate to nature without any community structuring, learning curves and adaptive creativity, we would be living chaos all the time (if we consider our global scale deployment as a species) due to the complex nature of nature. If we however manipulate and use nature abusively out of fragmented self interests then we eventually destroy ourselves.

Balance is found by finding a progressive and sustainable interaction between nature, our community and our functions. Sustainocracy positions itself at the side of our biological selfs and redefines our citizenship and system functions around a set of core natural values that are key for any lving species, including us a human beings and our sustainable resilience.

Due to our self created dependence on the political and financial systems we see that these core natural human values are being violated systematically and continuously. We abuse of our natural surroundings to sustain a highly structured, unhealthy and unsustainable lifestyle.

The only way to address and restore our core natural human values effectively is to let go of the political and financial hegemony of fragmented interests while concentrating on our shared responsibilities in the cocreation of these core values. This is where the power of citizens networks come in. We are closest to our authentic human nature and hence the only real reliable resource for effective change through awareness and purpose driven action.

Below you find yet another representation of the transformation of societies based on human values centered cocreation and shared (people and institutions) responsibilities. The fragmented institutions and citizens join the same cocreation table and together define their priorities democratically within the context of the core values and sustainable human progress.

The institutions undergo a transformation by positioning their authenticity within the context of the common good, not just blind financial goals.

Yet another way of representing this evolution is the appearance of layer 4, awareness driven regional development, purely based on the shared responsibility for sustaining the core values locally, interlocally and hence globally.

On the next slide you find examples of layer 4 Sustainocratic initiatives in the region of Eindhoven. The one on regional air quality (AiREAS) is the most consolidated and proof of concept. Its progress has been published and can be downloaded here free of charge. The healthy city focus was caused by the old political geographical bounderies. Gradually the initiatives expanded regionally, interregionally, cross border and with very broad participation.

In practice a level 4 participation table looks like this. It is being chaired by a Sustainocrat who represents the human being and the core values. The Sustainocrat unites all regional stakeholders at the same time based on equality, without hierarchy. In the case below regional air quality and health is leading. The multidisciplinary table and prioritized focus is a movement represented by a name: AiREAS (Air and Areas). Meetings are project and results driven, generally every three months or when needed. During the meetings decisions are made, resources allocated and responsibilities agreed among all. Many simultaneous projects can be defined at the same time, all in a SMART way. They are allocated funds with a 10-10-80 distribution:

10% = Sustainocrat (normally an couple of people taking care of the vision, priorities, follow ups and looking after the means)

10% = Learning process of effective and values driven cocreation among the partners

80% = project operational means according to budget agreements

Here is again the AiREAS example in the region of Eindhoven showing the incredible amount of engaged members in all disciplines of society.

Finally a slide about the engagement of our young generations. I cite here a poem by Marcus Link for his son (2004):

“I have been sailing under your command since long before my own adventures to a world that once was mine and now is yours —may you make it someone else’s.”

As such Sustainocracy positions itself in the era of awareness and spreads its roots and branches across the world. Citizens initiatives are the powerful juices of the branches. Two of such initiatives: Planet4Youth and Sensor Community, have been recorded on YouTube. They were presented after this Sustainocratic contextual positioning.