Stories from the Field

#WEAREMSLS

ALUMNI STORIES FROM THE FIELD

A storytelling initiative to showcase the work of MSLS alumni around the world.

Harnessing the Power of Participatory Processes to Tackle Sustainability Challenges

Lotte Tange, MSLS 2018, The Netherlands

The world's democracies are both powerful and fragile at the same time. Engaged citizens, businesses and NGOs elevate sustainable practices to ever greater heights. But polarization, disinformation, and exclusion undermine what has been achieved and hinder progress.

Lotte believes in the power of participatory processes to tackle these societal challenges. By truly listening and giving meaning to different perspectives, fostering stakeholder engagement, and co-creating better (sustainable) solutions.

As an adviser at Maatschap voor Communicatie, Lotte´s motto is: “If you approach an issue from two sides, there is no need to collide.”

In a world where change is the only constant, and the public debate is largely shaped by the extremes, she seeks ways to uncover what drives people. By exploring the origins of different viewpoints, greater mutual understanding emerges, and with it, acceptance of the (best possible) solution.

In this way, she has organized public dialogue on several divisive societal challenges such as ‘how can we live together with wolves in the Netherlands, or not?’ or ‘under what conditions would nuclear energy in the Netherlands be acceptable, or not’? She also created communication campaigns for municipalities that want to engage citizens in the local sustainability narrative, or specific energy projects.

Her work challenges her to travel to all corners of the Netherlands and have conversations with people that she normally would never encounter in daily life. She highly appreciates stepping out of her “sustainability bubble”, and listening to the concerns and perspectives of people who think and act very differently from herself. This reality check helps her reflect on her role as a sustainability leader, and how she can engage different stakeholders in the change that is so urgently needed in the world.

The MSLS programme provided Lotte with a foundation in participatory processes, facilitation, and reflective practice. She learned about the importance of the social sustainability principles. Influence, diversity and common meaning-making are indispensable in her work to support people in participating in shaping the social systems they are part of.

Stepping into Leadership - Fitting My Own Shoes

Eike Schmidt, MSLS 2018, Germany

After MSLS Eike has been working self-employed as a facilitator, host and Flow Game host using his Art of Hosting background and MSLS experiences, especially for youth volunteers. During the COVID-19 pandemic he had a job in a project empowering youth refugees in Kiel, Germany.

Since 2023 Eike shifted gears and started working at his family business Uwe Schmidt mmb (a dairy management consultancy). Right now Eike´s purpose is to host his father into retirement and make sure the family company keeps bringing benefits to their clients and employees. Eike will step into the leadership role in the future.

However, Eike cannot step into his father´s shoes - he has to find his own shoes and his own way of leading this company.

Farming is one of the sectors with a huge potential for a more sustainable impact, but it is also characterized by a very traditional and capitalistic mindset. Bringing more regenerative practices and new impulses to farmers is Eike´s goal with the family business.

Eike is most inspired when he sees things moving and developing. This can be on the human level when through his work Eike witnesses a person making steps forward and towards their own life’s aspirations. Or it can be on the business level when new connections are made, unhealthy patterns are breaking and everything is in a good flow.

At MSLS Eike gained both methodological as well as interpersonal skills that help him navigate constantly changing work environments. Hosting a generational shift from within is a big challenge that requires endurance, a good stance, lots of clarity and hard work. All of those qualities were also needed when Eike joined MSLS and that he benefits from in his current work.

Curious to learn more about Eike´s work? Find out more here: https://www.mmb-milchkuh.de/www.mmb-milchkuh.de/

Designing Sustainable Supply Chains for Efficient, Long-Term Humanitarian Aid

Batool Banihani, MSLS 2019, Jordan

The nonprofit sector exists for a noble purpose: to make the world a better place. Every day, organizations around the globe work tirelessly to address humanity's most pressing needs. Whether it’s responding to the devastating impacts of climate change or providing aid to people displaced by political instability, nonprofits are on the frontlines of hope.

But delivering hope often comes at a cost.

Imagine a disaster strikes—a flood submerges villages or a war forces thousands to flee their homes. Nonprofit organizations mobilize immediately, dispatching food, medical supplies, and shelter to affected areas. In these moments, supply chains become lifelines. Yet, they can also be an unintended burden on the environment. Planes are chartered, trucks are loaded, and resources are consumed—all to ensure aid arrives as quickly as possible. The urgency to save lives sometimes results in emissions, waste, and inefficiencies that strain the planet further.

This is where Batool´s work as a Supply Chain Consultant at HELP Logistics comes in. Her mission is to find ways to integrate sustainability into even the most time-sensitive operations. This means designing supply chains that are resilient, agile, and environmentally responsible.

Batool works with nonprofits, governments, and private-sector partners to explore new ways for how to reduce waste, invest in renewable energy, and create transparent systems that track the environmental impact of every shipment.

What inspires Batool most in her work? It´s the ability to create lasting, positive change through sustainable supply chains. By helping vulnerable communities access life-saving aid with minimal environmental impact, she can contribute to both immediate relief and long-term resilience.

Having gone through the MSLS programme deepened Batool´s understanding of how social, environmental, and economic factors are interconnected. This inspired her to design resilient, sustainable supply chains that address immediate needs and contribute to lasting, positive change for communities and the planet.

Deep Collaboration for a Society in Balance with Nature

Ricardo Gómez Zamudio, MSLS 2024, Sweden

Ricardo is a collaborative, analytical and solution-oriented biologist with a focus on systems change, strategy development, and impact measurement. He collaborated with the Duni Group to identify potential impacts on biodiversity across its value chain. Moreover, he captured key impacts on climate action transparency across the work of the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency at UNOPS.

Currently, he is the Regions Director at Urban Biodiversity Hub and a member at the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management, where he coordinates regional teams for sharing knowledge on urban biodiversity across organisations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, North America and Latin America.

The most inspiring and rewarding thing about Ricardo´s work is connecting people across organisations and sectors to enhance dialogues that revive our connection with nature and support the creation of sustainability initiatives.

He passionately believes in a dynamic balance between nature and society, where we co-exist and thrive together, and he aims to emphasise the importance of deep collaboration between the private and public sector to get there.

For Ricardo, his MSLS’ learnings are instrumental in fostering this deep collaboration as it has provided him not only with the knowledge and skills to facilitate dialogues in diverse teams but also to transform them into strategic actions with the potential of creating transformational change.

Curious to learn more about Ricardo´s work? Find out more here: https://ubhuborg.wixsite.com/aboutus

From a Systems Thinking Spark at MSLS
to a World-Class Systems Change Consultancy

Viliana Dzhartova, MSLS 2019, Spain

Viliana is the co-founder and CEO of ReImagined Futures - a systems change consultancy specialising in systems mapping and systems change strategy development processes.

Through her work at ReImagined Futures, Viliana is bringing in systems thinking tools to local governments, networks of NGOs and investor collectives across a variety of sectors. Just in the last year, they worked on projects in agrifood, health, water, energy, rural development, migration governance and childcare.

These days most of her time goes to running the business side of things - business development, partnership and network management, thought leadership, team capacity, etc - and a bit less so on project implementation.

One of the most interesting and rewarding parts of her work is that paradigm shift which she feels she contributes to - whether this is through showcasing examples of ReImagined Futures’ systems maps, building new partnerships or speaking at events.

MSLS showed Viliana in practice that the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts - a real-life lesson in systems science! The masters also gave her a glimpse of a wide range of systems thinking tools and sparked her interest in diving deeper into some of them later.

Curious to learn more about Viliana´s work? Find out more here:
https://www.reimaginedfutures.org/

Researching and Teaching for Better Sustainability Policies

Lennart Stam, MSLS 2018, The Netherlands

After graduating from MSLS, Lennart worked at a social enterprise and then made his way into education, in which he felt very comfortable. Lennart strongly feels that through education we can train future changemakers, and that we have a responsibility to prepare students for how to navigate complexity, collaborate across disciplines, and be critical, empathic, and creative.

For the last 2.5 years, Lennart has been working at Utrecht University as a teacher/Ph.D. student. Within his research, he focuses on exploring competencies that policymakers and professionals in organizations need to contribute towards a sustainable state of society. Additionally, Lennart also considers the role of education in general and Utrecht´s university programs specifically.

Some of the main findings from Lennart´s research are on how important it is to create support for sustainability policies, and the leadership competencies needed for that, which reflects the main question that MSLS is addressing: will there be enough leaders in time?

What inspires Lennart the most in his work? Workingwith his students helps himto remain hopeful, as Lennart sees the amount of energy they bring and how they are eager to contribute to solving societal challenges.

When asked how his learnings at MSLS benefit Lennart´s work today he responds:”My time in Karlskrona gave me the language and mental models to engage with the complexity that is inherent in sustainability issues on a deeper level. The facilitation skills that I have developed during MSLS are also helping me in my teaching.”

Curious to learn more about Lennart´s work? Find out more here:
https://www.uu.nl/medewerkers/LRStam

Facilitating Systemic Change Through Connection, Courage,
and Collaborative Leadership

Florentina Bajraktari, MSLS 2016, Belgium

Florentina is working to address the systemic challenges our societies face, such as social and economic inequality, environmental degradation, and the disconnection between individuals, communities, and systems.

Her role has been to serve as a bridge-builder, facilitator, and catalyst for change. Through her work at the Presencing Institute and various other initiatives in the last decade, she has co-created and led educational programs, such as u.lab, that have reached hundreds of thousands globally. She focuses on fostering deep learning, innovation, encouraging participatory leadership, and supporting the development of solutions that address root causes rather than symptoms.

What inspires Florentina the most are the stories of transformation she gets to witness—on both individual and community levels. Seeing participants in programs like u.lab develop the courage, awareness, and tools to create impactful initiatives is incredibly rewarding. Whether it’s teams making healthcare more accessible, addressing climate anxiety, or fostering inclusive cities, Florentina is deeply moved by the tangible changes these efforts bring about.

The MSLS programme provided Florentina with a systemic perspective and concrete tools for addressing complex challenges. It deepened her understanding of sustainability science while equipping her with the tools to facilitate multi-stakeholder conversations and collaborative problem-solving. The programme also emphasized participatory leadership, which has been central to her work. Additionally, it helped her connect her personal growth to broader societal and ecological transformation, which continues to inform everything Florentina does.

And last but not least, it has given her a supportive community of peers whom she can continually rely on for questions, insights, and encouragement.

Teaching in a New Way... in Business Education

Jos Sienknecht, MSLS 2018, The Netherlands

Since graduating from the Master's in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) programme, Jos has channelled his knowledge and passion into a role that many would not initially associate with sustainability: a lecturer in business management programmes. His mission? To weave the principles of sustainability into the fabric of the business curriculum in the Netherlands - an endeavour as challenging as it is rewarding.

Jos’s transition into teaching was serendipitous, sparked by encouragement from peers who saw in him a natural educator. Embracing this path, he discovered that his greatest impact lay in leveraging his strengths. Today, he is not only an educator but also a coordinator for sustainability topics, engaging his students' minds and hands in the urgent dialogue of sustainable development.

During this time, one of Jos’s highlights was orchestrating a hackathon on Circular Economy & Business Innovation, where students tackled the practical challenge of repurposing medical mattress covers. It was a moment of pride, a crystallisation of Jos’s philosophy that true education merges theory with hands-on experience, demonstrating the multifaceted impact of sustainable practices.

The synergy between sport and sustainability is the latest frontier in Jos’s career, a dynamic he explores eagerly by offering students a minor in “sport and sustainable development.” This innovative approach reflects Jos’s belief in the powerful intersection of these two worlds, and he revels in the immediate, enthusiastic feedback from students and colleagues that confirms he's making a meaningful difference.

The MSLS programme provided Jos with a foundation in facilitation, systems thinking, reflective practice, and coaching—skills that have become integral to his professional toolkit. As a testament to his expertise, Jos also hosted workshops on systems thinking for a national talent program, leading the next generation towards a circular economy.

Uncovering the Blind Spots of Public Organisation´s Potential Impact
on the Wellbeing of Youth

Anna Lindeberg, MSLS 2020, Sweden

After graduating from MSLS Anna spent three years trying to change the system from within working with the most conservative processes in public administration. Stubborn shortsightedness and silo-mindsets gave her more resistance than she could handle on her own. Finally, Anna saw an opportunity to link the knowledge and methods she got from MSLS to a bigger movement initiated by the EU that another part of her organisation chose as a strategic target: Missions. She became manager of a missions-oriented project aiming at making the system around our children and young people more health-promoting and decrease health-related dropouts and social alienation.

Sweden is the only country in the EU where young people believe less in the future than the elderly, and suicide is the most common reason for death among young people. This in a time when people of this generation have to be superheroes as they have the hardest mission of all: to save the world from collapse. In the project we gather ”the system in the room” and together identify gaps at many levels and in many areas in the system that actually show how adults hinder wellbeing among young people. From this higher level of awareness we promote social system innovation.

What is most inspiring about Anna´s work for her is to see system holders get insights about their role, and how even the best intentions still can lead in the wrong direction when a systems perspective is missing. Anna loves seeing the power of the tools she learned at MSLS when them in this context and how the stakeholders enjoy being brought out of their silos and see new perspectives on the issues they are dealing with everyday.

MSLS gave Anna the courage to use vulnerability as an enabling strength and bring in and invite the personal persona in the room. In her case it makes all the difference. It’s like we breathe new fresh air and now see that what we are doing together is not another meeting on an impossible subject. Instead, it is a valuable opportunity to use our full capacity to make an impact for the “superheroes-to-be” that have to save the world.

Curious to learn more about Anna´s work? Find out more here:
Mission: Psykisk hälsa i skolan - Region Blekinge

Fostering Systemic Change, Justice & Equity at Reos Partners

Yannick Wassmer, MSLS 2017, The Netherlands

Yannick's work as a Senior Consultant and Facilitator at Reos Partners reflects his deep commitment to fostering systemic change, justice and equity. For over two decades, Reos Partners has been at the forefront of addressing complex societal challenges through multi-stakeholder labs and scenarios work.

At the heart of Yannick's work is the belief that those most affected by oppressive systems often hold the key to unlocking transformative change. His current work focuses on fostering racial equity in London's historically Black boroughs through multiple Social Labs addressing crucial issues like community safety and dignified aging for Black elders.

Another important aspect of Yannick's work at Reos is aimed at achieving climate justice through an intergenerational lens. He believes that intentionally bringing together bright, paradigm-shifting minds with people in positions of power and access to resources has great potential to shift patterns in stuck systems.

His philosophy is guided by the principle of having big systemic ambitions and deeply valuing 'small' changes and personal transformations. He finds inspiration in the fractalled nature of change, where individual shifts can ripple out to broader societal transformations.

For Yannick, the most rewarding aspect of his work are the stories of transformations he encounters and the sense of service it brings. He is humbled by the notion that he will never fully understand what the impact of his work might be--and that it might ripple out beyond generations.

His journey with MSLS, both as a student and as part of the program staff, was the catalyst for his lifelong learning journey as a student of equitable systems change. The program equipped him with the necessary skills and knowledge to navigate complex challenges, whether working with the senior leadership of the World Health Organization or fostering community-driven change in London.

Curious to learn more about Yannick´s work? Find out more here:
https://reospartners.com/
https://www.yannickwassmer.com/

Building Sustainable Communities Through Thoughtful & Participatory
Local Government Leadership

Jordan Jerkovich, MSLS 2019, USA

Since graduating, Jordan has worked with and for local governments in multiple countries and in various roles, including consulting, procurement, and community development. These have included Blekinge County (Sweden), Stirling Council (Scotland), the City of Lindsborg (USA), and Raftelis (USA). While none of his roles have explicitly dealt with common sustainability topics (climate change, inequality, etc.), they have all addressed the sustainability challenge in their own unique ways.

Since August 2023, Jordan has been working as a consultant with a national firm called Raftelis as part of the Organisational Excellence Team, where they help local governments and utilities around the US optimise operations and develop strategic plans. Ultimately, they aim to help government institutions deliver better outcomes for constituents and stakeholders. Jordan views this work as a part of the solution toward creating more thriving and sustainable communities, as well as greater trust in government and their democracies.

A large part of Jordan's roles working with and for local governments has been developing trust and support for government and democratic institutions, which, to him, are foundational elements of sustainability. This has involved taking a participatory and good-faith approach to community engagement and governance, empowering people to solve local problems using grassroots ideas, local partnerships, best-case practices, and innovative methodologies. Through these experiences, he has learned that even so-called 'perfect' solutions are never - and can never - be perfect for everyone. Because of this, he has adopted the approach of facilitating the most correct outcomes for the most people, in the most equitable way, most of the time. This has allowed him to work towards 'better' while building the capacity for continuous improvement over time in governing institutions and the communities they serve.

Outside his work on the ground, Jordan is part of a national delegation of 50 local government professionals under 40 in the US working to find creative, innovative, and engaging solutions to local government’s Grand Challenges (essentially the Sustainability Challenge with a local government focus). The initiative is called Local Government 2030. Jordan is currently working in a group focused on improving workplace conditions, pay, and benefits to create a more reliable, resilient, and sustainable workforce for local government and the public sector.
When asked how MSLS has supported him in his work, Jordan responded:

“MSLS provided me with useful professional skills, necessary academic theory, and invaluable workplace experiences that support and inform the work I do today. More importantly, it offered a transformative life experience that underpins my belief that we are capable of solving our greatest challenges together, despite how bleak and insurmountable the sustainability challenge may seem. MSLS is proof-of-concept that our greatest potential is realised together when leveraging our diversity to address the complex challenges of our time.”

Curious to learn more about Jordan´s work? Find out more here:
https://www.localgov2030.com/
https://www.raftelis.com/insights/

Shaping the Future of Urban Living by
Fostering Sustainable Communities & Social Connections

Divya Kasarabada, MSLS 2023, Sweden

The Udda mission is rooted in addressing the combined needs for social connection and optimizing the use of existing urban building stock through coliving spaces. Divya's role at Udda is pivotal in this endeavor. As a cultivator of community experience in Udda’s coliving spaces, she is not just creating spaces but curating vibrant communities where connections flourish. Her responsibilities span from building to supporting these communities, ensuring that every stay is more than just a place to live—it's an opportunity for meaningful interaction and a sense of belonging.

Divya's efforts are focused on setting the foundation for these community experiences, aiming to establish a standard that aligns with the company's ambitious vision. The most gratifying moments in her work come from witnessing the direct impact of her efforts: residents expressing their joy in having formed meaningful connections, feeling a sense of belonging, and not feeling alone during their stay in Sweden. These outcomes are not just achievements for Divya; they are the driving force behind her daily motivation.

Her role at Udda aligns perfectly with her personal mission to make a difference in people's lives. The joy and satisfaction she derives from residents feeling happy and connected in their co-living spaces is the most rewarding aspect of her work and being able to stay close to the customers has been pivotal in shaping the foundations of the community experience.

Divya credits her transformational journey to the Master's in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) program, which equipped her with the internal tools necessary for effective leadership and a deeper understanding of people. Emphasising the importance of grasping human complexities, the program has been instrumental in shaping her approach to sustainability leadership. It's a continuous process of trial, failure, learning, and improvement.

Curious to learn more about Divya´s work? Find out more: https://udda.co/

From Degenerative to Regenerative:
Supporting Strategic Sustainability in Turkey

Ahmet Eren Öztürk, MSLS 2012, Turkey

Eren graduated as an environmental engineer and was working for a Regional Environmental Center in Türkiye when he stumbled upon the MSLS Programme. In 2011, he joined the tribe of aspiring sustainability leaders, ready to embark on his own transformational experience.

After Eren graduated from MSLS, he started working for S360, a sustainable business and leadership consultancy in Istanbul where he pioneered the application of a strategic sustainable development lens combined with a more participatory approach to work.

The knowledge and skills he acquired at MSLS allowed him to help organizations navigate their individual sustainability journey. Seeing how people stretch their underlying beliefs and biases through simply getting together around a circle and having honest and meaningful conversations is really rewarding for Eren.

For the last 10 years Eren has been leading a team that supported 70+ companies, NGOs and local authorities in their work towards a more sustainable society, such as the largest conglomerates and companies in Türkiye and The Greater Istanbul Municipality.

Find out more about Eren´s work here: https://www.s360.com.tr/

Be Open-Minded & See Life from a Different Angle

Christina Swarna Sarker, MSLS 2018, Portugal

Inspired to integrate her learnings from MSLS at home in Bangladesh, Christina is currently researching a PhD at the intersection of policy, education, and sustainability, with a focus on how Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is integrated into secondary education in Bangladesh and the critical role of teachers in bringing theory to practice.

Recognising the global urgency of climate change and its disproportionate impact on poorer nations, Christina is convinced that the empowerment of youth through knowledge and guidance is vital. While developed nations provide their youth with resources to understand and tackle sustainability challenges, she is determined to bridge the gap for countries like Bangladesh, where opportunities are scarcer, and traditional cultures prevail.

Her research is a thorough investigation into whether Bangladeshi policies align with global and national environmental commitments and how teachers navigate the intricacies of imparting this knowledge. This deep dive is fueled by the notion that changing educational narratives and teacher training is imperative for weaving sustainable development into the core of educational systems.

The seed for Christina’s current research pursuits was planted during her master's thesis at MSLS, which she undertook with her peers, Eike and Sara. Their work, titled "Planting Seeds for the Future: Sustainability, Theory U, and Youth," examined how the application of Theory U could forge youth leadership in sustainability. Post-thesis, her curiosity grew — could the same principles be applied to young minds in the developing world, particularly in her home country?

MSLS was not just a degree for Christina; it was a pivot that positioned her at the forefront of change. The program imbued her with the tools to question, analyse, and synthesise complex concepts of sustainability, equipping her to inspire the next generation of leaders.

Cultivating Leaders to Help Them Navigate Complex Challenges

Marco Valente, MSLS 2008, Sweden

Sustainability is a leadership challenge. It requires leading inclusively, through major changes, and facing complex dilemmas that work on us at a personal level. Marco’s work over the years has been on the leadership dimension.

Marco graduated from MSLS in 2008 and has been focused on deepening his understanding of leadership and sustainability ever since. After five years of working as MSLS program staff in Karlskrona, Marco started a solo consulting practice as an independent trainer and facilitator to help teams have productive dialogues, learn and apply sustainability science to their work, and enhance their skills for working together more effectively. Drawing from these experiences, Marco joined the consulting collective Cultivating Leadership (CL) five years ago and is now a partner and member of the executive team.

Marco’s work with CL includes large-scale leadership programs that aim to help organisational leaders navigate complexity and level up their skills and capabilities. Their interventions, coaching, teachings, and facilitation help leaders see and act anew so that they are better equipped to face the intractable challenges they face daily. The CL team is powered by the firm belief (supported by evidence over time) that leadership can grow and that people must grow into their biggest selves to lead in complex challenges such as sustainability dilemmas. Through their work, CL serves large corporations, climate NGOs, purpose-driven public companies, and many more entities.

For Marco, what is most rewarding about this work is to see people grow on the job and, by doing so, become better able to embrace complexity, see interconnections, and lead more compassionately.
MSLS has helped Marco with a strong foundation of leadership concepts and practices and has served as a fundamental step in his journey. His MSLS year and later work in Karlskrona served as platforms for self-development and practice to offer these ideas far and wide.

https://www.cultivatingleadership.com/team-member/marco-valente
https://www.cultivatingleadership.com/what-we-do

How Can We Take Collective Action to
Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals?

Sophia von Petersdorff-Campen, MSLS 2018, Germany

After graduating from MSLS in 2018, Sophia went back to Germany and joined the United Nation Global Compact Network through an internship. Later she started working for a large German development aid organisation (GIZ), where Sophia advised the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development on sustainable supply chains.

In summer 2019 she switched to work for the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE). The Council advises the German government on sustainability policy and has three major goals:

generating contributions to the German Sustainable Development Strategy,
specifying concrete areas of action and projects and
making sustainability a public issue of vital importance

Sophia currently coordinates the platform “Joint Action for Sustainable Development” launched in 2022 to make existing commitment to sustainable development visible throughout Germany. The initiators are the Federal Chancellery and the sixteen German states. The aim is to further promote this commitment and to attract new actors to engage in achieving the SDGs. In addition to the platform, the project aims to encourage collaboration between politics and civil society by using participatory processes to jointly develop solutions to the challenges of sustainability transformation.

The skills Sophia was able to acquire during the MSLS program have given her the confidence that she is up to the challenge. In particular, knowledge of systems change and multi-stakeholder processes, but also the design of instruments, use of team-building, creativity and co-creation methods have helped a lot. Looking back on her year in Karlskrona, she can confidently say that all that she has learned personally and academically has led her to the path she is on now and which she is very excited about.

www.nachhaltigkeitsrat.de/en/

Enabling Social Entrepreneurs to Maximize Their Impact &
Supporting Young People to Build an Entrepreneurial Mindset

Akash Bhalerao, MSLS 2019, India

Ashoka’s Globalizer programme helps social entrepreneurs build strategies to maximise their impact. The 16-week 'accelerator' supports selected social entrepreneurs in designing and refining effective systems change strategies and connecting them to skilled advisors and high-level thought partners.
The programme aims to address the need for sustainable and effective solutions to social and environmental problems by enabling social entrepreneurs to identify and effectively address the root causes of the problem by targeting key leverage points to create lasting systemic change.

As a core member of Ashoka’s Globalizer team, Akash along with the rest of the team facilitates the systems change strategy-building process, recruits thought partners to build teams around social entrepreneurs, and designs and orchestrates summits and learning circles for social entrepreneurs and thought partners.
For him, the results of this work that inspire him most are the stories of social entrepreneurs who have used this approach to influence impact on a systems level.

He finds that his learnings from MSLS have significantly contributed to this work with Ashoka, providing him with the strategic and systems thinking skills to identify root causes of problems and potential leverage points to address them, combined with the tactical skills to design and host participatory spaces for collaboration.

He is also a core member at Let’s Enterprise, where they have been designing and prototyping experiential learning processes to help youth build an entrepreneurial mindset by learning by doing live projects and reflecting on their experiences.

Over the last five years, they have prototyped the processes with 74 students from 17 different education streams through their part-time program for college-age students- Enterprise India Fellowship. They are now launching India’s first experiential working degree- UGMED.

His learnings from MSLS also contributed to this work at Let’s Enterprise, providing him with the learning journey creation and design thinking skills, self-reflection, and leadership development skills needed to engage with and support others with their journeys.

For him, the results of this work that inspire him most are the stories of youth who have discovered their interests and built an entrepreneurial mindset by working on over 400 hours of projects during the program.

Ashoka´s Globalizer programme
Let´s Enterprise

How Do We Want to Live, Lead & Learn Together
for a More Sustainable Future?

Sophie Charrois, MSLS 2020, Germany

Yes, this sounds like the question at the core of MSLS, but it is actually the question that best describes another community Sophie calls home - oikos, a student-led non-profit association that supports, empowers and encourages student change agents worldwide to transform their local university ecosystems while growing into the leaders our world needs.

In 2014, Sophie stumbled into the oikos student network and hasn't stopped learning since. Within oikos she’s been on a journey that has taken her from oikos' in-house leadership program to serving as a student board member to then serving as international president for the past two years. There are few environments where she feels as safe, seen, and powerful. A global community that embraces and tends to the shifts towards sustainability we so dearly need.

oikos' work across its decentralised network of 50 local student groups focuses on three core elements:

💎 Leading - equipping young people with capacities & competencies to navigate our complex world

💎 Learning - creating spaces where we can sense into & co-create the future of higher education

💎 Living - jointly weaving a global support network for change makers, living into visions of community

The deep alignment between the core elements of oikos' work and the MSLS curriculum has provided Sophie with fertile ground to immediately put her learning from MSLS into practice. Most inspiring in her work with oikos are moments of witnessing the spark in people's eyes when they suddenly perceive the world from a different viewpoint. Moments when the possibility of new ways of doing and being takes shape, and students become co-authors, rather than consumers, of their education and learning.

Curious to learn more about oikos and Sophie´s work? Find out more on this website.

Tackling the Sustainability Challenge Through Holistic Landscape Restoration

Pieter Ploeg, MSLS 2016, Ireland

For the last ten years, Pieter has been working to address land degradation and its interrelated cousins of climate change, food security and biodiversity loss.

In 2019, after several years working on a regenerative farm in Amsterdam and as a freelance Art of Hosting facilitator, Pieter joined Commonland - a leading landscape restoration foundation with a mission to restore 100 million hectares of land by 2040 - with projects running in the Netherlands, Haiti, Spain, South Africa, Australia, India, Zambia and Germany and more. Commonland's landscape restoration approach is based on generating 'Four Returns' - return on inspiration, social capital, natural capital and financial capital - by engaging local stakeholders in partnerships and projects to restore degraded landscapes.

Pieter works as a Design Strategist and Facilitator on Commonland's Bioregional Weaving Labs programme - a partnership between Commonland, Ashoka and Presencing Institute. In this role, working closely with fellow MSLS alumna Florentina Bajraktari (Presencing Institute), he supports local landscape mobilisers with facilitation design and hosting support, allowing for an inclusive and participatory process, co-creating landscape visions and plans.

For Pieter, MSLS was a key stepping stone to solidify his analytical and holistic thinking, which allowed him to step more fully into understanding how to intervene in social drivers and causes of these ecological challenges. What inspires him most about the relationship between his study at MSLS and his work at Commonland is experiencing how the holistic view on the sustainability challenge and the leadership capacities he developed at MSLS are now manifesting through a practical action-oriented mission at Commonland restoring real-world landscapes.

Alongside his strategic work with Commonland and taking his commitment to landscape restoration a step further to the hyper-local level, in the summer of 2022, Pieter and his family moved to Ireland to start Terranu, a small learning centre for the restoration of soil and soul.

Explore Pieter´s work further here: Commonland and Terranu.

Innovation towards a Prosperous, Inclusive &
Climate Resilient Society

Inna Chilik, MSLS 2019, Germany

Preventing catastrophic climate change and achieving the 'well below 2°C' Paris Agreement target requires a speed of decarbonisation at least six times faster than anything the global community has achieved so far. Continuing to work through gradual, incremental changes will not be enough. What is needed is a fundamental transformation of economic, social and financial systems. EIT Climate-KIC is a knowledge and innovation community with a mission to orchestrate systems innovation for climate action across Europe to address this challenge.

At EIT Climate-KIC, Inna leads collective Sensemaking activities with partners across the innovation portfolio. In practice, this work involves constantly experimenting with a range of participatory methods to design and facilitate learning experiences for public and private stakeholders, supporting them to learn from climate action on the ground, grow leadership capacities, build ecosystems of collaboration, and catalyse alternative futures. The insights from these sensemaking activities are used to support decision-making, project implementation and scaling of climate innovation pathways.

Born in Moldova with a strong connection to nature and a background in finance and business, Inna has lived in Bulgaria, the UK, Mexico, Sweden and now Germany. These experiences have enabled her to develop a transcultural perspective that has guided her journey to building bridges where she finds walls. In 2018, Inna came to MSLS to synthesise her knowledge of sustainability. She left with much more, with the systems thinking and leadership in complexity content utterly shifting her perspective and how she engages with the world. Joining the bigger MSLS community of like-minded visionaries and doers has empowered her to continue walking unknown paths, blending polarities and catalysing transformation on both individual and collective levels.

Find out more about Inna´s work.

Sustainability in Health Care:
Applying MSLS during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Frank Swinton, MSLS 2018, UK

Frank is a hospital doctor (anaesthetist) in the UK. He’d been working on the relationship between healthcare and the environment since he worked for the British Antarctic Survey in 2004 but felt that he needed a bit more knowledge and credibility to take the next step. He joined MSLS in the class of 2018 and brought his wife and two children with him to Karlskrona. Since graduating MSLS, Frank has been appointed as the Climate Change Lead for the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health Care Partnership. This is a regional structure of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), which is responsible for health and social care for 2.7 million people in the north of England.

The post started in June 2020 which was extremely timely in terms of both the COVID pandemic, but also the run up to COP-26 in Glasgow in November 2021. Some of the ways in which MSLS teaching has helped Frank get to grips with this huge system which both causes and suffers from climate change are; the teaching about leadership in complexity; complex adaptive systems; the five level framework; and facilitating skills (especially useful and for those difficult online workshops).

In the UK, COVID has both shone a light on pre-existing inequalities in healthcare, and acted as a catalyst to accelerate changes that were already happening. Having the language to describe what’s happening and visualising the way, seemingly unrelated, parts of the system interact with one another has proven to be very useful when it comes to explaining why healthcare needs to be a leading industry in our transition towards sustainability.

Frank is particularly focussed on energy use, transport (5% of UK road transport is on health related business), pharmaceuticals, food, inclusion & diversity, and personal leadership. There’s plenty of good work still to be done!

https://www.wypartnership.co.uk/our-priorities/population-health-management/climate-change

Writing Behind the Scenes:
United Nations COP26 Climate Change Conference

Stéphanie Heckman, MSLS 2017, Northern Ireland

I came to Karlskrona in 2016 with a background in social science and having recently embarked on professional training as a visual facilitator in Amsterdam. Similar to my undergrad, MSLS highlighted the social perspective, but with a proactive focus on societal and organisational transformation. It also continued my training as a visual facilitator through the teaching style of MSLS and my involvement with the Art of Hosting training.

As for so many, my year in Karlskrona was a watershed year that led me down the road to where I am now – in Northern Ireland working as a visual practitioner in support of a wide range of local, national and international organisations. Self-employment brings great freedom to steer my collaborations in the direction of my choice, which I adjust annually in ABCD-process discernment days (an MSLS tool). Increasingly, I’ve steered my work towards supporting climate action. This led to me recently being at the UN COP26 in Glasgow as an accredited observer delegate, as close as possible to the largest concentration of climate action of 2021, where I captured my impressions in daily watercolour visual summaries and commissioned graphic recordings. These are now compiled in a COP26 ‘Visual Report’ – a personal, colourful and accessible ‘account from the ground’ of what it was like to be there, for all of you with our planet on your mind.

https://www.stephanieheckman.com/writing/behind-the-scenes-cop26

UNDP Accelerator Lab Vietnam:
Re-Imagining Development Work

Luong Nguyen, MSLS 2019, Vietnam

Right after finishing MSLS, Luong started his journey as Head of Solutions Mapping at the UNDP Accelerator Lab in Vietnam. With a total of 60 Labs worldwide, the goal of this brave project is to re-invent development work through promoting a culture of innovation and experimentation in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It also aims at finding new innovative ways of working that go beyond quick fixes and tackle systemic change.

As part of his broad role, Luong focuses on implementing a circular economy and waste segregation model in Danang. Extensive field research, waste system mapping, facilitation of grassroots workshops, learning experiments, consulting UNDP units and blogging about the journey are some of the examples of Luong's daily responsibilities. Though fast-paced and challenging, Luong's work unveils a fertile ground for applying new ways of thinking in Vietnam.

MSLS has equipped Luong with skills that he uses in his daily work with the UNDP Accelerator Lab. He actively applies facilitation and participatory methods as well as his sustainability knowledge, while the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development and the Social Labs concept serve as helpful mental models. Finally, Luong appreciates the connection to the MSLS community that gives him the support he needs to be a change-maker and innovator in a developing country.

www.acceleratorlabs.undp.org/

We Are Rising:
Surfing, Sustainability & Innovation

Andrew Outwhaite, MSLS 2006, Australia

Andrew came to MSLS to understand what conditions enable the growth of sustainable communities such that we could realise humans’ local and global aspirations simultaneously. Through MSLS he learned about strategy, science, social innovation alongside inspiring peers from around the world. The MSLS qualification and a growing interest in incubation of innovations lead to him working in corporate sustainability and with social enterprise startups in the UK.

Returning to Western Australia, he chose to live in Geraldton, a small town where Andrew co-founded Pollinators. Pollinators formed in response to the need for a means of nurturing the entrepreneurs and innovations necessary to realise the community’s sustainability aspirations. The success of Pollinators lead to co-founding Meshpoints to share its learning, and subsequent invitations to contribute to related state, national and international policies and programs.

He’s now applying the principles of ‘incubation facilitation’ to enabling easier propagation of beneficial innovations through his business We Are Arising. A current focus of research and practice is on oceans-related ventures, the Indian Ocean and its dependent populations. This seems fitting, as it was surfing that first prompted consideration of sustainability questions.

www.wearearising.org
www.meshpoints.com
www.pollinators.org.au

Tierra Verde:
Offering Alternatives for Toxic & Plastic-Free Households

Vihra Dincheva, MSLS 2015, Bulgaria

Her time at MSLS gave Vihra a systematic understanding of the sustainability issues and an amazing network of people who walk the talk. Two years after her graduation, she returned to her home country Bulgaria, bringing all the knowledge, contacts and ideas with her.

One of those contacts was the founder of the Czech company Tierra Verde, who produces toxic-free detergents and zero waste household goods. Vihra felt the strong need to offer such an alternative in Bulgaria as well. A few months later, in partnership with the Czech company and another amazing local person, they co-founded Tierra Verde Bulgaria.

Less than an year down the road, they now have a big network of partners and a number of shops offering toxic-free detergents and zero waste household goods. They even run an educational center for sustainable ways of living. Vihra and her team´s vision for the future is to start producing locally and to offer a refill option to their customers. "We are just at the beginning!"

www.tierraverde.bg/ & www.facebok.com/terraverde

Catchment Sensitive Farming:
Creating Sustainable Farming Futures in England

Shai Gilad, MSLS 2014, UK

Shai works as a Lead Adviser for farmers as part of the Catchment Sensitive Farming program in the UK. An initiative of the government, the partnership between Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Environment Agency and Natural England aims to create awareness and provide free support to local farmers as they transition towards more sustainable farming practices. “Once upon a time the priority of agricultural farmers was simply to grow food. Now they are being asked to do that while considering a whole range of other factors, such as water, biodiversity, animal welfare and the wider impacts that their practices can have.” Such a challenging shift means that Shai provides training, advice and grant support for farmers and land managers with the aim of reducing water and air pollution from agriculture to ensure sustainable farming knowledge and options are accessible and utilised.

MSLS equipped Shai with the language of collaboration and inspired him to work with those who share his values for the beauty of the natural world. It was also a place of deep friendship and reflection on how to work within systems to create change. His exploration of the transition movement during his thesis with class mates Margot and Mary led him to live and work in Forest Row, a Transition town in Sussex, after graduation.

The Existence Project: Everybody Has a Story

Marko Fleming Curuvija, MSLS 2013, Canada

The Existence Project uses storytelling to develop connection, dignity and belonging for marginalized peoples and to heighten the understanding of systemic social issues facing marginalized peoples in communities with political power and privilege. This is achieved through storytelling workshops for marginalized people and community members who care: students, professional creatives and change makers. Each workshop employs the narrative of a feature storyteller that speaks of overcoming an adverse experience (The Hero's Journey). This story is then used to build participant relationships around the story through collaborative dialogue, drawing and writing.

MSLS definitely boosted Marko´s personal growth: being able to break free from heavily conditioned, patriarchal narratives and ways of being; having space to explore his own story, being vulnerable and emotional with his peers and to be accepted in that. On top of that, his thesis and work in ASL (Advanced Societal Leadership) around strategic approaches to social transformation heavily influenced his approach to his current project.

Find more about the Existence Project here:
www.theexistenceproject.ca www.facebook.com/theexistenceproject

Blekinge Arkipelag:
Enabling People to Connect to Themselves, Others & Nature

Simone Wenzel, MSLS 2014, Sweden

After graduating from MSLS, synchronicity was on Simone´s side: she landed a job as Project Manager at Blekinge Arkipelag - an organization determined to strengthen, preserve and develop the natural habitat, culture and entrepreneurship of Sweden´s first biosphere reserve focusing on the Baltic Sea. Simone´s mission is to make Blekinge a destination for sustainable outdoor tourism for visitors from all over the world. Implementing sustainability in Blekinge Arkipelag´s company network is a crucial part of Simone´s work.

What excites her is that she can apply everything she learned during MSLS practically in her role as Project Manager for Blekinge Arkipelag. From the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development to stakeholder engagement and not to mention collaborating effectively to reach a common vision bound by Sustainability Principles, Simone is prepped with both the competence in Strategic Sustainable Development as well as kick-ass leadership skills to transform Blekinge´s biosphere reserve into a place where people can connect to themselves, to others and to nature.

www.blekingearkipelag.se/arkipelagrutten
www.ark56.se

"...IF YOU WANT TO GO FAR, GO TOGETHER."

Matt Mayer, MSLS 2010, Canada

Matt is guided by the Africa proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” He expresses this proverb professionally in his work with Conscious Brands and The Natural Step Canada.

Conscious Brands’ purpose is Harmony - a flourishing, responsive and regenerative society. They partner with organizations to better understand, and take conscious action within, the systems in which they participate, with the intent to always approach harmony. Partner organizations benefit from the use of the FSSD and other tools that enable the embedding of sustainability into the DNA of an organization.

The Natural Step Canada has been redefining collaboration by bringing multi-stakeholder groups into an ongoing ‘Sustainability Transition Lab’ experience to practice social innovation on some of the most complex and wicked problems of our times. For example, the Circular Economy Lab asks, “How do we accelerate a transition to a circular economy in Canada?” and the Energy Futures Lab seeks to understand how we might accelerate the transition to the energy system that the future requires of us.

Matt finds his work extremely dynamic, fluid and full of learning on leading in, and navigating through complexity.

consciousbrands.com/ & www.naturalstep.ca/

NOULAB: MAKING THE CHANGE PROCESS SMARTER

Amanda Hachey, MSLS 2010, Canada

Amanda’s strengths are in facilitation, public engagement, systems thinking, sustainability and process design. She believes that in order to solve our biggest challenges we need to understand them from diverse perspectives, listen to each other with curiosity, and engage in experimentation. She is the Executive Director of NouLAB - a convenor of processes that dig into root causes, innovate lasting solutions, and the change the way we tackle big problems.

NouLAB works to create pathways in which we can collaboratively explore ideas and test solutions to complex challenges. By connecting change agents from across sectors, convening them around pressing issues, and facilitating their journey to deep change, NouLAB is making the change process smarter.

In 2016, NouLAB convened a social lab to spark action on Immigration and Economic Development in New Brunswick. With the actions developed, NouLAB hopes that New Brunswick will be equipped with new strategies and ideas to lead us into the coming decades.

www.noulab.org
www.economicimmigrationlab.org

THE HIVE EXPERIMENT:
ACCELERATING ACTION FOR A SUSTAINABLE AND VIBRANT WORLD

Florentina Bajraktari, Belgium, MSLS 2016
Kelly Lyons Sweet, USA, MSLS 2016
Alina Minkova, Russia, MSLS 2016,
Zand Craig, Northern Ireland, MSLS 2012

The Hive Experiment project is focused on convening and leveraging a network of change agents from across Europe at the intersection of emerging technology, social innovation and sustainable development to support tangible action towards creating more sustainable and vibrant societies around the world.

The Hive Experiment believe the orientation we must take is to acknowledge where we are and to step forward together – whatever that may mean. We do not know the answer for those next steps. What we do know is that to step beyond our blind spots and take wise action we need to be exposed to the wisdom held at vantage points different from our own and we believe it is critical to have civic spaces available to meet and unfold those choices of moving forward together.

Find out more about the first event of The Hive Experiment: www.thehiveexperiment.com

EMPOWERING OTHERS TO TELL THEIR STORIES + EXPRESS THEIR PURPOSE

Maíra Rahme, MSLS 2015, Brazil

Maíra is a designer and brand strategist from Brazil, and after graduating from MSLS she started a tiny consultancy called Odd Yellow. Odd Yellow's focus is to help projects, organizations, and people working with environmental sustainability and human goodness to clearly distill their purpose and express it in conceptual and visual ways. Maíra does that by blending traditional branding tools with MSLS learnings, as well as other insights from the Theory U, Teal Organizations and Art of Hosting.

In its two years of life, Odd Yellow has already served projects in a myriad of areas: addressing regenerative agriculture, initiatives for the well-being of social entrepreneurs and war journalists, innovation and sustainability workshops for girls and women, urban beehives, schools fostering new forms of education and startups working to evolve organizational consciousness.

Maíra is happiest when her work empowers other people to tell their stories and express their purpose.

Co-creating a Greener, Smarter & More Prosperous Karlskrona

JP Candiotti, MSLS 2015, Peru

Karlskrona Sustainability Fest gathers entrepreneurs, scientists, politicians, investors and civil society in a series of Transformative Action Programs to accelerate positive urban change in Karlskrona and beyond. By engaging diverse stakeholders at the city level, we promote the application of scientific data and the adoption of the latest technologies and innovations for the practical co-creation of greener, smarter and more prosperous societies.

KSF seeks to contribute to overcoming the most important societal challenges at a city level while advancing the United Nations Climate Goals and Sustainable Development Goals.

Karlskrona Sustainability Fest, together for a sustainable future.

www.karlskronasustainabilityfest.weebly.com/

BRINGING SUSTAINABILITY TO GLOBAL EDUCATION

Anmar Kamalaladin, Bahrain; Caroline Michel, Germany; and Kelly Sweet, USA, MSLS 2016

Anmar, Caroline and Kelly studied the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme in their thesis, entitled Cultivating the Future: Sustainability Education and the International Baccalaureate Programme. They were contacted by the global education foundation, who wanted the students to examine how the company could implement sustainability into their curriculum for pupils aged 11-19.

Anmar, Caro and Kelly came to the conclusion that sustainability should permeate all of IB’s curriculum rather than being a separate subject. IB were so pleased with the students’ work that they contacted them again and asked them to continue with a similar project for the ages 3-10 years. Now, over one million pupils per year in more than 140 countries will get improved knowledge on sustainability.

REVEALING BRILLIANCE THROUGH FILM

Ada Ketchie, MSLS 2013, Worldwide

Setting out on a mission to support people that are making a positive difference, Northern Flicker’s Ada Ketchie (MSLS 2013) and Nathan Getzin, packed their bags (camera bags) in order to travel the world and tell the stories of change-makers through film. Knowing many organizations have deep wisdom to offer and rich stories to tell, they sought to reveal that brilliance and share it with others. They wove their way from Costa Rica to Japan to help bridge various initiatives to the audiences they need to continue their work, and inspire people towards a better world.

The ability of film to engage our senses and tell human stories is all the more necessary amidst an increasing barrage of negative news and media. Northern Flicker believes storytelling through film has the power to heal ideological divides, especially when paired with live inquiry and facilitated dialogue, and hopes to create more original content for that purpose.

www.northernflicker.org
www.vimeo.com/northflicker

WIND-POWERED SHIPPING TO SEND A MESSAGE FOR INDUSTRY CHANGE

Lewis Muirhead, MSLS 2016, Worldwide

The global shipping industry is behind a wide range of issues - from environmental destruction to human rights violations to enabling a consumer culture that is at odds with creating local products and jobs. Timbercoast is a project which acts to bring awareness to these issues. By refitting the Avontuur - a 97-year-old cargo sailing ship - and shipping cargo by sail, this project is harnessing the passion and drive of marine industry professionals who want to create change. As part of Lewis' MSLS coursework, his team completed a sustainability action plan for Timbercoast and subsequently he was invited aboard the Avontuur to sail from Honduras back to Germany. Lewis has been advising on next steps for the project as well as video documenting the stories on board - stories of people so passionate about sustainability that they are willing live the hard life at sea to send a message for change.

www.timbercoast.com

PLACEMAKING FOR DEMOCRATIC, INCLUSIVE
AND INNOVATIVE COMMUNITIES

Sophia Horwitz, MSLS 2010, Canada

Historically, cities and communities are designed, built and governed by few, and citizens are the passive or pacified users. Placemaking is part of a movement that seeks to shift this and put people at the centre. Placemaking refers to a process of citizens working together to improve their local environment for collective benefit while strengthening the connection between people and the places they share. CoLab's mission is to promote, empower and enable all citizens to be active participants in shaping their present and future, governing their spaces, their communities, their local economies and their quality of life. We have been working to develop a placemaking network in Canada to leverage the power of this movement and support wider adoption of placemaking principles and more strategic change and collaboration across communities nationwide.

Find out more about Sophia's work at Co.Lab: www.thecolab.info

HUMANITY IN PERSPECTIVE

Giancarlo Pucci, MSLS 2012, Costa Rica

Giancarlo and his brother Sergio's stunning aerial photography documents their beautiful country, Costa Rica, from the sky. Their work has drawn national acclaim and is focused on giving people the perspective they need to truly value the world that surrounds them everyday but is so easily missed at ground level. Their new book ‘Costa Rica from Above’ has become an instant national best seller.

www.craerea.com & www.arbolesmagicos.org/

PEOPLE+PLANET: HOUSE RULES

Brendan Seale, MSLS 2010, Canada

Brendan is the Sustainability Manager for IKEA Canada, where he is responsible for integrating sustainability into the business plan and helping to make sustainability a natural part of co-workers’ everyday work. He is focused on inspiring and enabling millions of Canadians to live a more sustainable life at home, striving towards a net positive environmental impact, and improving the lives of people and communities touched by the IKEA business. IKEA Canada’s recent People + Planet #HouseRules campaign engaged Canadians to share and promote the ways in which they live a more sustainable life at home.

www.ikea.ca/peopleandplanet
www.ikea.ca/houserules

CHANGE THE WORLD BY CHANGING THE PLACE YOU ARE

Jenny Bergman, MSLS 2014, Sweden

"Change the world by changing the place where you are.” - This is Jenny Bergman's motto. Since graduating MSLS in 2014, Jenny has created the project 'Idéinstitutet' for young professionals who want to start their own projects or businesses in the Swedish region 'Blekinge'. The region has one of the highest youth unemployment numbers and the lowest growth numbers in Sweden. The program aims to connect entrepreneurs intergenerationally and bring people together to share experiences and feedback with one another. Using participatory methods Jenny enables people to build strong relationships and create their dreams in reality.

www.ideinstitutet.se/

Learning Without Boundaries for a Better Future

Narayan Silva, MSLS 2013, China

Originally from Brazil, Narayan is currently based in Beijing. There he is facilitating processes of transformation and learning journeys at all levels of Chinese society. Over the last 18 months his processes and workshops on sustainability, self-awareness and facilitation have empowered and inspired hundreds of people in colleges, schools, NGOs, social enterprises and corporations. Recently his work with Education for Sustainable Development led him to be selected as a Youth Delegate at the UNESCO ESD Global conference in Japan.

www.gsfchina.org & www.esdyouth.org

Fostering a Connected & Sustainable Society
in Liechtenstein (and Beyond)

Elias Kindle & Michaela Hogenboom Kindle, MSLS 2012, Liechtenstein

What do you thinking about doing when you consider how to create a more vibrant and sustainable world? In 2012, Michaela & Elias decided to help shift the path of an entire country! With Liechtenstein as their playground, they created a national platform - Symbiose - to foster dialogue and initiatives for a sustainable society. Through this platform they have co-initiated a raft of grassroots projects - Repair Cafés, Give&Take Parties, a Coworking Space, a vegan regional cook book…the list goes on - as well facilitating change processes for organisations to integrate sustainability into their core. Most importantly, they are themselves committed to learn and experiment with what it means to live life in balance between themselves and our planet.

www.syimbiose.li

Net Positiva!

Ben Kneppers, MSLS 2008, USA

Almost two years ago Ben walked away from his cubicle and joined two surf buddies to try and create some real positive change. What they ended up with is Bureo, a company they created to transform harmful ocean plastics into positive products. The boys at Bureo dream big, live simply and enjoy the ride as last year they launched the first skateboard made from recycled fishnets.

www.bureo.co & www.vimeo.com/91873997

Taking Sustainability Education to the Global Classroom - YouTube!

Alexandre Magnin, MSLS 2007, Canada

YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google; it is where people go to learn (about pottery, gardening, etc.), find demonstrations, and share their work with the world. Sustainability illustrated offers short illustrated videos about sustainability concepts (ecological footprint, sustainability principles, etc.) so people can teach and learn for free online. The videos are funded by donations on a per video basis.

www.sustainabilityillustrated.com/en/

Creating a Home for Changemakers

Spud Marshall, MSLS 2010, USA

Spud is the chief catalyst behind the co.space, an intentional community for driven changemakers. His work is focused on building thriving local innovation ecosystems and believes community is a critical component to catalyzing change. During their time in the home, the 20 residents explore ways in which they can practically engage in sustainability, social entrepreneurship and innovation. Over the coming years, Spud plans to launch homes all around the world.

www.thecospace.com/

Growing Sustainability Leaders in the Heart of the Amazon

Raquel Luna Viggiani, Brazil & Isabel Chender, Canada, MSLS 2014

The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforest and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world. It is also home for many communities that live in connection with the land and are facing the challenges of unsustainable development trends.

The Amazon Summer School was created to build capacity in sustainability leaders to create transformation, impact and change in individuals and the communities they work with. The bi-annual educational program welcomes participants from across the globe for a three week learning journey into the amazon reality to learn about sustainability from local people, sustainability experts and the forest itself. The design and structure of the course is based on five interrelated modules: love for nature, care for people, know yourself, know how and bravery.

After years of working on sustainable development and education projects in South America, MSLS thesis mates Isabel and Raquel wanted to explore how subjects learned in MSLS, such as complexity and emergence, could be used in the development sector to create more sustainable interventions in rural communities. The learnings from the thesis were embedded in the Amazon Summer School design and facilitation methods. Learn more about the Amazon Summer School: www.amazonsummerschool.com/

LEADING FROM THE BEST VERSION OF YOURSELF

Tamara Connell, MSLS 2006, Canada

A year after graduation, Tamara returned to Sweden to join the teaching team in the MSLS program, motivated immensely by watching the personal growth of the beautiful people who passed through the program. Understanding of the world, understanding of the self, personal confidence, and skill development in many realms – one could observe all these things being enhanced. When individuals felt wobbly, the community stepped up to support. Tamara found it rewarding to contribute to fostering the MSLS community. After four years on staff at BTH, Tamara returned to Vancouver, Canada. She launched Kitesh Leadership Development with a goal to help individuals and teams become the best versions of themselves. For some, this means having the chance to attend the MSLS program, and Tamara assists MSLS applicants to that end. For others audiences, Tamara (co-) offers courses such at Authentic Leadership, lectures, event design, and curriculum development.

Tamara also holds a full-time position with The Natural Step Canada as Director of Sustainability Learning, where she works towards helping Canadians enhance their sustainability literacy.

www.kitesh.org/ & www.thelotus.info/

MOUNTAINS MADE MANAGEABLE

Marko Curuvija, MSLS 2013, Canada

On returning to his hometown of Ottawa, Canada in 2013, Marko had the courage to take the leap into social enterprise and set about creating his own dream job. Intertwining his personal interests of cycling advocacy and transformative technology, he co-founded Pedal Easy - an innovative electric bicycle company focused on providing high quality, locally produced cycling products and supporting a wider systemic shift towards sustainable transport systems. Since hitting the road last year, Pedal Easy has gone from strength to strength, gaining notoriety locally for their social ties within the community and nationally with customers such as Dr. David Suzuki.

www.pedaleasy.ca

LEARNING THROUGH LANDSCAPE

Zand Craig, MSLS 2012, Northern Ireland

In a time of constant bombardment by narratives and stories about what is good and what is bad, who belongs and does not, who you should be and who you shouldn’t be, it can be so easy to lose our own voice amidst the din. Many of us spend our lives as relative foreigners to the landscapes that stretch out beyond our windows and inwardly over the horizons of our deepest questions. What would happen if you closed your laptop and walked out into the world? What might you walk on to? Classroom Alive is a beautifully simple invitation to explore those landscapes. An invitation to step over the horizon of your life and undertake a collective long distance walking journey while carrying and working with a question deeply meaningfully in your life at this moment.

www.classroomaliveireland.weebly.com/

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE EMERGING PARADIGM

MSLS 2012 ALUMNI

Anton Valkov (Bulgaria), Solla Zophonaisdottir (Iceland/Denmark), Mischa Altmann (Austria), Tina Sieber (Germany/Canada), Michaela Hogenboom (Netherlands/Lichtenstein), Adria Gracia Mateu (Catalonia), Melinda Varfi (Hungary/Austria), Benoit Guyot (France), Thaela Stolz (Germany), Elias Kindle (Lichtenstein) & Christina Boldero (Netherlands)

Entrepreneurship in the Emerging Paradigm (EEP) is an EU-funded project looking at new ways of working that help purpose-driven social businesses thrive in times of changing narratives. Feeling strongly about continuing working together after graduation, 11 MSLS'2 Alumni have been exploring the practices and skills that have helped them and others to build their businesses sustainably over the past two years. An inspiration in their work is Frederic Laloux’s book Reinventing Organizations, with focus on solo-entrepreneurs and small businesses. They combined their diverse perspectives and backgrounds, bringing methods and concepts such as The Art of Hosting, Social Entrepreneurship, Sociocracy, Design Thinking, Theory U, Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development among many others.

From 22-25 September, they gather in Plovdiv, Bulgaria to learn and share their stories and practices with a wider community.

Check out their work and join them in Bulgaria this weekend!!:
www.weareeep.eu/

Hosting Emergence:
Life-Affirming Answers to Challenging End-of-life Questions

Tracy Meisterheim, Scott Perret & Paul Horton
MSLS 2011, 2012, 2013 - USA

A community of 475 Catholic Sisters invited Tracy Meisterheim to facilitate a contemplative dialogue process leading to proposals for consideration at their 2016 leadership elections. Tracy (’11) invited Scott Perret (’12), Paul Horton (’13) and Vanessa Reid (MSLS guest lecturer) to partner in this work.

Facing dramatic decline due to aging, the Sisters had serious questions about the relevance of their work in today’s world and a choice to make: closure or continuing into a radically different future. Over 16 months, the team hosted dozens of multi-day engagements with 8 to 400 people.

The outcome was inspirational and courageous. At the final 8-day gathering, the community chose to ‘set out anew together’ with a new direction statement focusing on current needs including immigrants, refugees, anti-racism, and earth stewardship. Priority was given to leadership training for the new paradigm, on-going practice in communal contemplative dialogue, and building capacity to have challenging conversations – all with a collective commitment to hold one another and their work with ‘radical grace & respect’.

ACCELERATING CHANGE. TOGETHER.

Celia Peterson, MSLS 2006, Finland

After MSLS, Celia moved to Finland with the intention to found a local office of The Natural Step. After 5 years working at Nokia on multiple sustainability teams, she was invited to become the CEO of a Helsinki-based company called Natural Interest, which has been a Finnish pioneer in ecological footprinting. Here she co-launched The Natural Step Finland and has expanded the team since then. Most recently, the TNS Finland has founded and curated a working collective, located in Helsinki’s former slaughterhouse area. It is a group of happy, values-driven entrepreneurs, whose aim is to work together to make the whole greater rather than the sum of its parts.

MSLS prepared Celia with the background on how to work with multicultural and diverse individuals and organizations towards a common goal: sustainability. These skills provided her not only a robust understanding, but also a collaborative network of actors, to enable others to find their own potential so that we can all be leaders moving strategically towards sustainability.

www.naturalstep.org
www.naturalinterest.fi

WEAVING COLLABORATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY IN THE PERUVIAN AMAZON

Cassandra Caroline, MSLS 2012, Peru

La Semilla sustainability based hub in the SE Peruvian Amazon, a collaboration of organizations working together with different missions and visions, each dedicated to seed positive changes for people and place here. Cassandra works for 'the seed': that feeds and sustains a good life for all life in the entire community - arts, agriculture, families and the environment. Organizations that La Semilla represents include community education projects, ecological food and wood production demonstration plots, forest conservation initiatives, and practices for preservation of language and culture. The region of Madre de Dios is affected by high-paced, illegal gold-mining, which is taking toll on the forest through devastating strip-mining, on the waterways with polluting mercury, as well as on the community itself through intense, often violent, social issues. Her efforts seek to find alternatives to practices like this.

www.semilleras.wix.com/amazon

CREATING A SUSTAINABLE CITY OF CANNING WITH YOU...

Jayne Bryant, MSLS 2009, Western Australia

Since returning from Sweden to her home town of Perth, Jayne has been working at applying the learnings of her degrees in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability, and Human Ecology – Culture, Power and Sustainability into local government in Perth, Australia.

Jayne’s role and work at the City of Canning has grown as she has lobbied for the sustainability program to grow and evolve. In 2014 the City adopted a Sustainability Policy which is based on the principles of the FSSD. It has inserted sustainability into council systems and processes, and a significant staff education program has trained 50 internal Sustainability Champions, empowered to lead sustainability initiatives and projects in their own departments.

www.canning.wa.gov.au/My-City/Sustainability
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtbmxhdguIU

DESIGN WITH THE EMERGING PARADIGM

Adriá Garcia i Mateu, MSLS 2012, Catalonia

We live in times of transition, and with it we see sustainable alternatives to business-as-usual emerging everywhere we look. But why aren’t those alternatives yet the mainstream? Adrià is a founding member of HOLON, a design collective helping organizations lead the transition towards sustainability by making them a user friendly, sexy and mainstream choice. Based in Barcelona, HOLON is putting its design practice to work at a regional level with local partners that include a co-housing initiative and fab-lab for public services, as well as at a global scale with players like UNEP and Interface. Part of the HOLONs journey is also to embody the emerging paradigm as individuals, organisation and the way design is practiced.

www.holon.cat

NATURALLY STEPPING INTO SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP

Maya Givon, Tamar Harel, Michal Bitterman, Ronny Daniel & Hila Shapira - Canada - Israel
MSLS 2007, 2010, 2011 & 2013

Michal Bitterman, Ronny Daniel. Maya Givon and Tamar Harel all graduated from MSLS program in different years, and joined different organizations and initiatives in the local change movement.

After having worked in the NGO and private sectors, they decided to join forces and founded The Natural Step - Israel, as an independent platform to promote sustainability as they know it should and could be. The young organization develops new models that fit the local challenges and introduces new tools and ideas to the local market. The organization is already running different projects of capacity building, research, process and innovation design.

Lately, Hila Shapira, a recent MSLS graduate has joined the team who's in touch with all the local alumni.

TRANSFORMING HIGHER EDUCATION FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Michelle & George Dyer, MSLS 2006, USA

Michelle and Georges Dyer's work is transforming the higher education sector in the U.S., helping colleges and universities create and implement comprehensive sustainability strategies. Serving on the leadership team of an organization called Second Nature, they helped grow the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) to a national network of nearly 700 institutions, representing 6.5 million students, that have made top-level commitments to climate neutrality in campus operations, and integrating climate and sustainability into their education, research, and community engagement activities. Georges now runs the Intentional Endowments Network, supporting colleges and universities in aligning their endowment investment practices with institutional mission, values, and sustainability goals.

www.acupcc.org
www.intentionalendowments.org

A New Take on Human Rights

Alaya Boisvert, MSLS 2008, Canada

What makes an idea stick? Have you heard of your human right to live in a healthy environment? The Blue Dot project is based on the simple yet powerful idea that we have the right to clean air, water, soil and vibrant biodiversity. The David Suzuki Foundation is building a movement to enshrine these rights in the Canadian Constitution. Inspiring a new generation of environmental leaders, we want strengthened environmental laws and better enforcement of existing legal protections. Alaya works as a Project Lead for the project and is also a mom to a feisty three year old - for her the Blue Dot campaign is all about protecting the people and places she loves.

www.bluedot.ca