Question #3 Response: Meso System Tweaks for Sustainability
Additional Meso System Tweak
Require education on sustainability in all educational curricula (K–12 and higher)
This tweak would require schools to integrate sustainability principles into core subjects
and help foster a “sustainable” and “eco-conscious” mentality from an early age. By
reshaping what we educate early on, future generations would far more likely prioritize
mother nature, taking care of people and sharing entirely.
Top Three Promising Tweaks:
1. #15: Replace GDP with GPI
Shift economic policy from GDP to the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI). This
would prioritize well-being over complete economic output. GPI accounts for
social and ecological costs (pollution, inequality) which would assist in aligning
policy with long-term sustainability and growth.
2. #2: Mandate businesses to report externalities
Requiring firms to disclose social and ecological impacts aligns with systems
thinking by making stakeholders aware of interconnected risks and benefits their
operations have on communities and actions of other businesses.
3. #17: Sustainability education
Educating on sustainability early on (K-12 and beyond) would foster and nurture
a new workforce that places greater emphasis on valuing sustainability (from
operations to materials to impacts one can have on communities) would lead to
more and more ethical business practices and policies to where true benefit
realizations can be sought.
Implications for Businesses: Marketing Focus
#15: GPI Adoption, #2: Mandate businesses to report externalities,
Marketing: Combining a lot of elements (not just ad running and promotion), sourcing
sustainable materials (i.e., recyclable/re-usable materials), local manufacturing, lighter
products to carry more with less round trips to deliver all assist in well-defined reporting
of externalities and wider implications.
Individual Actions: Triple-Loop Model for Addressing Two Meso System Changes
1. First Loop (Behavior): Educate on sustainable practices and provide local,
immediate action tools (what you can do now) to nurture this focus.
2. Second Loop (Worldview): Highlight and stress the impact GPI has on a local
and global scale. Host local workshops (organization run and/or smaller forms)
how voting, community involvement and social media can be used collectively to
change perceptions and ultimately change.
3. Third Loop (Social Structures): Join marketing firms who are involved with
NGOs and/or contribute to communal/organizational bodies (funding, hiring, welldefined and sustainable operations). This can include joining marketing firms
who have NGOs supporting them as a result of their drive to transform the supply
chain and how they combat negative externalities and promote positive ones.