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Completing the transformation economy circle
In Sustainocracy we defined the key values for society that produce sustainable human progress and harmony in local wellness. Those values are positioned above political and economic priorities. In fact, political and economic priorities become derivatives of the persuit of those higher values.
Transformation economy
We defined the transformation economy as a necessary complementory asset to the speculative transaction economy. It has been proven that if the economic world has no corrective process to control its own natural greed, natural chaos will fill in the gap with all the consequences of crisis, depressions and inequality around the world. It is a natural phenomenum that systems move in search for harmony.
The transformation economy bridges chaos by introducing value driven change when we become aware that the transaction economy challenges our existence or evolutionary continuity. It becomes a self regulatory process by combining growth, chaos and awareness into a symbiotic challenge of cocreating harmony. So the transformation economy positions itself in the field of awareness (change) and harmony (cocreation) while the transaction economy positions itself in growth (greed) and competition (chaos) with risk avoidance.
Putting theory into practice
In theory this is fine but in practice it needed to be shown working through a full cycle: Awareness, cocreation of unique values, growth and the start of a new value driven cycle.
In 2009 I started the STIR Foundation to address this new economic and transformative model called Sustainocracy. Our first step was to determine the key values that we were going to address. We were still very much professionally indoctrinated around problem solving. By addressing a problem such as the energy transition we would always compete with big powerful structures. We would start idealistically to end up in a program for financial profit seeking (transaction economy) rather than value creation. It took over a year of experimenting with our ideology and practical experiences to arrive at the “healthy city” concept of “air quality, human health and city dynamics”.
AiREAS
In 2011 we organised the multidisciplinary structure AiREAS to address this issue in the first city, Eindhoven. The value creation process could start. All values address the higher purpose of health and air quality. Those values do not exist yet and hence cannot be bought anywhere. We defined projects with the priorities at hand to make them SMART and UNITED. Every cycle generates unique values within each of the partners while addressing the key central purpose together. New products, services, policies, knowledge, structures and insights are produced. Each one is made visible within the AiREAS context as well as its unique added value per concept. All values together help address the health and air quality in the region, stimulating further spontaneous innovative initiatives by others.
Air quality and Human health
Individually the values represent unique new propositions that each partner can expand into their own (global) markets in the transaction economy of growth. Since the values were cocreated together a royalty is agreed as reciprocity for the transformation economy, creating a cyclic fund for continuity. So every value driven change and its growth scenario’s help to make a better world and a stable society with harmonic economies that clean themselves from mismanagement and manipulation.
STIR Academy
This organisation of the City of Tomorrow is capturing the experiences of multidisciplinary cocreation and know how for expansion world wide. It was the STIR Academy that asked for the first invoice from AiREAS to pay out royalties. This made the circle complete for the first time. It had taken 5 years to introduce the new economic cyclic transformation platform and prove it to the world. Now it will only grow and becomes a serious player on the world market.
The STIR cycle for sustainable excellence and progress connecting the transformation economy with the transaction economy
Fables
My own contribution to “The Spiritual Dimension of Business Ethics and Sustainable Management” publucation led to the recieving a personal copy of the book itself and insight to the contributions of all the other 18 authors.
I met Rita Ghesquière in Visegrad (Hungary) in september 2012. She wrote her contribution in the chapter named “the Power of the Fable”. Reading the multiple old short stories, with her personal reference to present day situations, it struck to me how powerful these communication instruments are and how little they managed to break through. We still suffer under greed of anonymity while the Fable looks for reason, purpose, controverse and the “why?” question.
A Fable is a short imaginary story that describes something that makes you think. We all know the Fable of the race between the Rabbit and Turtle which was won by the Turtle. The story refers to overconfidence, determination, trust and competition. It is a peace of art made of real life characters and their enhanced qualities placed in a humanoid setting of awareness and behavior. The absurdity makes us laugh, wonder and reflect. It are stories that trigger the imagination of children and parents alike.
The beauty of such fable is its communicative value combined with its educational guidance within a cryptic description that requires thought, understanding and wit.
What strikes me most is that we, human beings, know so much. We are so wise and aware that we can lay out visualised patterns in short stories that deliver timeless guidance for reflection. Yet, with all this artistic value available to all we still manage to behave with stupidity, greed and apathy. We destroy our habitat, our relationships and our evolutionary perspectives.
We have it all, we know it all, we simply have to apply it yet we don’t. It is as if our selfaware existence is a fable itself, a contradiction in the way we spiritually know (I am) and physically behave (I do), with our own inner Rabbit and Turtle fighting an eternal race, over and over again.
What did we achieve in 2014?
Since Eindhoven (Holland) is my living lab for Sustainocracy I reviewed the year in Dutch first. To many local people involved it makes sense. Internationally it takes a larger effort to understand and emphasise with what we do. It’s different and breaks through your traditional way of viewing yourself in relation to the human world organisation or your own culture.
Understanding a new society, such as “Sustainocracy”, needs involvement and commitment, not just curiosity or a passing by blog. So I will keep it short.
City of Tomorrow
If I had the define 2014 from a City of Tomorrow (STIR Foundation) perspective then two words come to mind: consolidation and growth.
Since its foundation in 2009 STIR established four different value driven cooperatives, each addressing a key global issue locally in Eindhoven.
Note: Global issues affect local communities in many different ways. Eindhoven is a city with specific characteristics. The local value driven solutions here would differ from those developped in for instance a harbour city, a city in a land climat or a megacity with lots of sky scrapers. Establishing local sustainocratic initiatives would produce unique values that can be expanded commercially world wide through the STIR network.
Each initiative is a result of the definition of sustainable human progress dealt with by our foundation. The initiatives in Eindhoven are:
AiREAS (since 2010): regional Air Quality and Human Health
FRE2SH (since 2013): regional self sufficiency and productivity
STIR Academy (since 2009): awareness, cocreation and new educative formats
SAFE (since 2014): safety and self sufficiency together.
AiREAS and STIR Academy are in phase of consolidation and growth. FRE2SH and SAFE are in pioneer phase.
AiREAS is expanding into new cities who either assume the technology or desire to develop a Local AiREAS.
Meanwhile Local AiREAS Eindhoven is entering into phase 2 and 3, involving citizen’s directly in cocreation of their vital and healthy living space.
STIR Academy is capturing the experiences that accumulate in all complex multidisciplinairy initiatives and makes it available through inspiring educational programs, European HUBs in cities and guiding international candidates with knowledge. New proven concepts around Sustainocratic Leadership, piramide entrepreneurial paradigm, human complexities, multidisciplinary cocreation and transformation economy are offered to the emerging global world for sustainable progress (business, government, education, ethics, science, citizenship).
FRE2SH is developing well with one first farmhouse to connect city self sufficiency through interactive food and energy programma’s.
SAFE was just recently set up to help people and institutions to address chaos as a transformative opportunity rather than fearful risk. It creates room and freedom to let go of the past and develop a new phase of harmony and prosperity.
Sustainocracy, the new democracy 