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Alan Atkisson - EARCOS Teachers' Conference

Area of Expertise: Sustainability
Keynote Title: The Hope Graph: How to Accelerate and Deepening the Practice of Education for Sustainable Development

Description:
Climate change, resource scarcity, food crises, disappearing species ... we live in the world that the authors of books like "The Limits to Growth" (1972) warned us about over 30 years ago. Negative trends like these are accelerating, and they also link together, in ways that create unpredictable effects and problematic surprises in our world. Physical scientists and social scientists are increasingly concerned about these hidden "tipping points" in our planetary systems, and research is increasingly focused on how to reduce the risk of going past a point of no return.

At the same time, positive trends are also accelerating, as whole societies mobilize to create "circular economies", embrace renewable energy, conserve ecosystems, and practice new forms of "sustainable development" that can lift people out of poverty and secure justice, while sparing the Earth. Our world is in a genuine race against time.Can we accelerate these positive developments, and outrace the problems?

During this crucial and decisive decade, which the United Nations has declared the "Decade for Education on Sustainable Development" (DESD), learning plays a central role in all sectors -- and formal education plays a starring one. Around the world, new mandates for understanding and teaching sustainability are emerging, formally and informally. The necessary skills involve interpreting research, doing systems thinking, and helping to speed up the process of innovation and adoption of solutions to our gathering challenges.

Alan AtKisson, author of The ISIS Agreement: How Sustainability Can Improve Organizational Performance and Transform the World, will review the latest trends in sustainability as they relate to education. Using a mixture of presentation styles, he will underscore how education for sustainable development can be engaging, creative, and fun, while also meeting the serious demands of our times. AtKisson will also present the "ISIS Method," a structured process for doing sustainable development in both teaching and management, together with the "ISIS Accelerator," a toolkit that puts the method into practice. "ISIS" stands for "Indicators > Systems > Innovation > Strategy," and forms the core of an approach used by sustainability initiatives in corporations, cities, government agencies, and schools and universities around the world.

Biography:
Alan AtKisson has been working at the forefront of innovation and practice in sustainability for over twenty years. He is president of the AtKisson Group, an international consultancy founded in 1992, with associates and affiliates in nine countries. The AtKisson Group's services, training tools, and planning methods have been used by hundreds of sustainability initiatives around the world, in government, cities, development programs, schools, universities, and
global companies.

He is the author of two books, Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimist's World (Chelsea Green, 1999) and The ISIS Agreement: How Sustainability Can Improve Organizational Performance and Transform the World (Earthscan, 2008). He is also a co-author or contributor to a number of other websites, journals, and books, including The Natural Advantage of Nations (Earthscan, 2006) and Worldchanging: A User's Guide to the 21st Century (Abrams, 2006).

Alan is the originator of the "ISIS Method," a step-by-step process for teaching, learning, and doing sustainable development in practice, as well as the lead designer of the "ISIS Accelerator," a comprehensive set of tools designed to support education and strategic action on sustainability.

In a volunteer capacity, Alan also serves as President of the International Network of Resource Information Centers, also known as the Balaton Group, an international network of researchers and leaders working in systems and sustainability, founded by Dennis and Donella Meadows in 1982.

While primarily working as a consultant, Alan has twice served as a transitional executive director, leading organizations through change and reorganization. Most recently, he led the Earth Charter Initiative -- a global process to promote the widely endorsed statement of common ethics, values, and vision known as the Earth Charter -- through a two-year process of strategic restructuring and organization building(2006-2007).

After university training in philosophy, science, and cultural studies at Tulane and Oxford Universities, Alan was selected a Henry Luce Scholar and spent a fellowship year in Malaysia (1981-82), working as a therapist and staff trainer for a heroin addiction rehab center. His professional experiences include owning and running a clothing design company in New York City; managing the US branch of an international peace NGO (Servas); editing the pioneering sustainability journal In Context (1988-92); co-founding and leading Sustainable Seattle, a model volunteer-driven program in civic indicator development that was copied around the world (1991-96); and directing the economic policy think-tank Redefining Progress (1996-97). In the 1980s, he led rock and folk music bands in New York City. Alan continues to perform as a musician and songwriter and has released four albums on the independent label Rain City Records.

Alan is a frequent conference keynote speaker who seeks continuously to increase people's intellectual, strategic, ethical, and creative commitment to sustainability; to "raise the bar" on sustainability in practice; and to inspire more and more people to an optimistic engagement with the great challenge of global sustainability.

A dual citizen of Sweden and the United States, he lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and partner Kristina AtKisson -- who also works as a sustainability consultant and trainer -- and their two children.


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