Episode 1: Reimagine

As the UK slowly starts to open up again, we want to Reimagine a new world that could emerge as we come out of lockdown and return to some form of normality. Thinking back on the past 12 months - what have been some of the biggest shifts in behaviours and perceptions across all levels of society - individuals, communities, and companies? Has the pandemic fast-tracked the need to Reimagine our societal structures, tackle inequality, and added urgency to the climate crisis? Is some of that already happening?

Speakers

Bruce Parry is an English documentary maker who in the past worked with the BBC for a number of documentaries exploring indigenous communities, climate change, and globalisation. He is an indigenous rights advocate, author, explorer, trek leader and former Royal Marines commando officer. Bruce works on feature films, including Tawai - a Voice from the Forest,

 Charmian Love is Co-Founder and Activist in Residence at B-Lab UK and Social Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Skoll Centre at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. She is a member of the ‘Regenerative Capitalism’ working group at the Institute of Directors (IoD), teaches an MBA elective on The Regenerative Economy and is the co-programme director of the Oxford Climate Emergency Programme

 Indy Johar is a founding Director of 00 and Dark Matter Labs. An architect by training, Indy is a Senior Innovation Associate with the Young Foundation and a visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield. He co-founded Impact Hub Birmingham and Open Systems Lab, was a member of the RSA’s Inclusive Growth Commission. He is a thought leader in system change, the future of urban infrastructure finance, outcome-based investment, and the future of governance.

Transcript

Speaker 00: 0:03

London National Park City is a large-scale and long-term movement to make London greener, healthier and wilder through a range of projects which, when combined, are impactful, inspirational and have potential to drive huge change across the capital. These projects are driven by a growing and diverse collaborative network of individuals, groups, organisations, partners, communities, businesses, and so much more. In July of this year, 2021, we'll be celebrating two years since the London Mayor awarded London its status as a National Park City, the first in the world. London National Park City is a way to rethink our relationship with nature and the expectations we share for our urban habitats. Most importantly, it's about taking actions that result in a better quality of life for people and for wildlife. My name is Emily Langston, and as well as working at Facebook, I am a volunteer ranger for London National Park City. The rangers are a network of passionate people with a wide range of experiences and talents. Together, we'll help make London greener, healthier and wilder, contributing to our shared vision to make London a city where people, places and nature are better connected. Rangers work in their local communities and across the capital on projects to tackle the climate and ecological crises, scaling greening initiatives and conservation activities. We've just onboarded our second cohort of Rangers, meaning there are 110 of us volunteering across London. So hello, everyone. This is the first episode of the Regrowth Project. So this is a three-part podcast series hosted by the London National Park City Movement for Earth Week. So the aim of the whole series is to inspire ideas and thinking about regrowth as we come out of lockdown. So looking back to the year that we've had, thinking about shifts in behaviour and perceptions and inspiring action in how we approach the future. So welcome, everyone. It's such a joy to have you here. So before I explain what this episode is about, I'd love it if you could introduce yourselves. So we'll start with Bruce and go in alphabetical order, if that's OK.

Speaker 02: 2:35

Hey, yeah, I'm Bruce, Bruce Parry. I'm, I guess I'm a doctor. documentary maker. That's how I'm best known. I used to work with the BBC for many years, making documentaries about indigenous people and a series about climate change and globalization. And I quit TV and entered the feature film industry, made a feature film, which took me 10 years, all about reconnecting to nature and kind of how we've changed over time, and especially around social organizations and egalitarianism and things like that. And now I've moved to Wales. I'm sort of in a remote little valley trying to live by what I've learned, crofting, small-scale, localized kind of lifestyle, connecting to the land. And that's me.

Speaker 01: 3:25

I think I am next in the alphabetical order, if I'm not mistaken. My name is Charmian Love, but everybody calls me Char. And actually, Bruce, just while you were speaking, I was really kind of feeling this idea of the remote valleys and being connected to land and to nature. I'm from Canada originally, and I feel like I grew up swimming in beautiful clear lakes and the smell of pine cones in my nose and pine trees. So I don't know, I just had a moment when you were describing where you are feeling that. I'm not in the green spaces of the countryside. I'm actually coming in from London, not too far away from some beautiful commons. So I certainly try and enjoy that sunshine on my shoulders wherever and however I can. So I come to this conversation actually with a few different hats. One of them is as being a part of the B Corp movement, the global B Corp movement. And I have the great pleasure of having co-founded B Lab UK. I've recently moved into a new role as an activist in residence at B Lab UK. I also co-chair B Lab's global climate task force. And I'm happy to share a little bit more about B Corps for those that are interested as part of this conversation. But I also am really fascinated by what's happening with young people right now. So I do spend quite a bit of my time virtually now at Oxford University where I teach an MBA elective on regenerative economics, the regenerative and circular economy, how to do business in a climate emergency. And I find myself full of hope when getting the chance to connect and engage with some brilliant students. I also really believe that accountants will save the world because I I really have a lot of respect for that profession. And I feel like that's something hopefully we can have a chance to talk a little bit about today as well.

Speaker 03: 5:19

Hi, my name is Indy. I'm a... I'm a director and co-founder of Dark Matter Labs. And I suppose what I'm really, I trained as an architect. And what I started to realize, we built stuff like Wikihouse, open source housing, OpenDesk, open source furniture company, social impact funds. We put two together. But what I started to realize was that underneath all these surface gadgets, there was actually a structural issue, which as Shah just eloquently said, is actually the dark matter problem. And I think we're in the middle of a dark matter crisis of how we've constructed our relationship with the world. That's just not a metaphysical relationship. It's also hardwired into our institutions. So the fact that a tree is seen as a liability or at best a value in timber in our accounting thesis actually constructs the economic constructs of the world we live in. And so that, you know, And that became really manifest for me. I stepped off about 2014, 15, most of the boards I was on. And I just wanted to build, so I had to solve problems of that level. And that's really what we were doing. We're now a 45-person team and growing, really focused all around the planet, not for profit based from the UK, but operating through Holland. And we've got a global team literally just focused on this issue. And that's why I'm super excited about this sort of conversation because I think that's the scale of change I think we're looking at with a lot of soberness and it's 500 years worth of viewpoints which have been crystallised into our institutions and those crystallisations are fundamentally self-terminating us now they were useful but they've now become self-terminating for all of us as a global civilisation so that's my mild provocation for the conversation

Speaker 00: 7:18

Thank you so much So the theme of today is reimagine. So reimagining a new world that could emerge as we come out of lockdown and return to some form of normality, I guess, with speech marks there. So I wanted to open the floor to discuss this theme, thinking about things like what have been some of the biggest shifts in behaviors and perceptions in the last year across all levels of society and business and communities and everything that you all have backgrounds in. Has the pandemic fast-tracked the need to reimagine our societal structures and tackle inequality? And has it added urgency to the climate crisis? And as you talk, are there any kind of concrete examples of change that has happened or is happening happening or could potentially happen. So I'll pass over to you through to take it away.

Speaker 01: 8:07

That's a hard question to sort of jump right in on. I think there's actually quite a few things that you posed in that. And maybe instead of trying to address the specific questions, maybe if I may, I'd just love to share just a reflection, two quick reflections, actually. One is that in this last extraordinary year that we've experienced at a global level, One of the things that I've been reflecting a lot on is this, this recognition. We all breathe the same air. Right. And that's become more clear than ever. We are all interdependent and we are all connected. And this year has shown how that, how that has emerged. And I think we, we need to find ways of really holding that and leaning into this, this interconnectivity, this interdependence and, and using that to really think about what this looks like on the other side. I remember very early on in the pandemic, there was a beautiful essay by Arundhati Roy in the FT, which is really worth reflecting on and maybe adding as sort of like a podcast note. And what I really remember in this line is this idea that this is a portal, the pandemic is a portal, and it's an opportunity just to walk through it and to reimagine what could be. And so if we walk through that portal with that sense of interconnectivity, interdependence, we are all breathing the same air, then I feel like that creates the conditions for reimagination. And I try not to use the word but, so I'm gonna use the word and. And I also think we have to, deeply ground ourselves in the recognition that the experiences that people have had in communities and countries and families is not homogeneous. I mean, there have been massive differences in levels of suffering, of fear, of stress. And I think that's really surfaced a lot of privilege that exists. So I think in recognizing we all breathe the same air, we also need to recognize that our systems that are set up right now have created conditions where there are very different experiences that people have lived through from the last year. And we should again hold that as we think about reimagining and rebuilding what comes next.

Speaker 02: 10:25

Yeah, beautiful, Shah. I'd like to just follow on from that. I totally agree. I love the word interdependence and I love, obviously, the idea of us being more and more connected as we have done over the last centuries. But, of course, alongside interconnectivity comes a level of fragility almost. It's like if we become too dependent on each other and there's no self-sufficiency, then we can have some of the problems that we've already seen in just things like PPE. And that can go all the way down into food security and all the rest of it. So alongside this connection at the top level, I think also has to be a reimagining of how we can be also more locally dependent and locally connected. And both of those things shouldn't, you know, they shouldn't prioritize one or the other. They're both equal, I think.

Speaker 03: 11:16

Yeah, I think where I sit on this is that at the same time, as we need to recognize our interdependence, actually what we're seeing is the reinforcement of trying to build independence. And so there's a kind of interesting, and as our material economy becomes, I think, you know, I would argue that we're moving into an age of long emergencies. This is not going to be an age of abundance suddenly. I think we're moving into an age of long emergencies. This is, probably one of many global crises that we will face. Certainly, if you look at the climate data, we're facing 3.2, 3.3 degrees. We're not facing 1.5, 1.4. And if you look at that, that means hundreds of millions of people on the move, certainly at the global level. So on one side, I think we have to recognize those systemic effects that we're now cascading. But also simultaneously, recognize that the natural reaction of that system will be borders and boundaries which is what we're already seeing but to get to that thesis of thinking about interdependence requires a much higher level of thinking a much higher level of political courage and cognition and we are still locked into seeing a country as a boundary not a country as a system we're still locked into thinking the UK is a territory when it's actually not a territory, it's a global system. We're still locked into believing localism is the answer. But actually, most of our material economy cannot be resolved at a local level. Most of the computers that we work on, the lights, even many of the things that we're talking about are part of global systems. So in a way, there's a real challenge for us of how we want to go for autonomy, self-resilience, and also recognizing our global systems. And I think that's a really powerful political challenge that we're in the middle of. which I think is really made difficult because I think we've been living in a world of psychological precarity. And that precarity was, I would argue, is a designed construct. You design precarity in order to allow people to be more effectively used in the economic market. So if you make people precarious, they're more easily instrumentalizable for the work that needs to be done in the market. And you can see that. You can see that in the discussions about whether people say, oh, you know, we should have welfare or not. Say, well, people will get lazy. This is a cognitive conversation that we end up in. So precarity. In that, if you design precarity and then you put in large-scale stresses on the system, actually what you create is a breeding ground for fear and what you also create is a breeding ground for effectively, I would argue, short-termist responses. So the ability of society to think long and deep is actually currently a privilege for the few that have the wealth and the independence to be able to think through that lens as well. Whereas many people, are actually locked into the U.S. economy where the stats are pretty obvious. Forty percent of the U.S. citizens are about one or two paychecks away from losing their house. Forty percent in a first world economy. So I think the nuance in this is going to be a really important challenge because I'm not sure it's a sort of clean loop to a better world, I think we're going to have to transverse a bit of a valley and that valley is going to be challenging and it will require us to be the best of us, which I think is going to be the other part of the challenge.

Speaker 01: 15:15

I love that. I love that. I love so much of what you've both just said. So I'm keen to jump in. And actually, you used the word courage earlier, Indy, and that word is one that sort of is, I hold it quite close. We have some lines of poetry that we have, has been passed down through generations in our family. And the lines are, two things stand like stone, kindness in another's trouble and courage in your own. And this idea of kindness and courage, I think are really interesting principles that I know I'm holding quite closely. But I guess I'll I have a question based on what you've just shared, this idea of the precarity. But how do we then collectively harness the power that's needed to deconstruct that precarity? What does that look like so that we can think more long-term and be more connected to one another in a strong and Yeah, I'm trying to think of what the words are that are not precarious, strong, and with what's needed in order to deconstruct these systems that are holding us back.

Speaker 02: 16:27

Thank you. Well, I look forward to what you have to say because that was directed very much at what you were talking about, India, and I guess I just wanted to feed in as well to be in agreement, really. Yeah, you talked about... in your introduction about trees and perception. And you mentioned perception again in the second little chat. And I think that in many ways, this is what it does come down to. It's like, what are the stories we're telling each other and how are we actually perceiving each other in relation to each other and also to this environment and to the future that we're obviously gonna be facing. And I think that the narratives that are peddled out by the power bases and the media that supports them are all telling us stories that pretty much universally are inverse to the stories that we should be talking about now. And that comes into the economic system, it comes into the political system, it comes into just basic narratives like more is better and And more fame, more notoriety, more money, more goods, all of these things that we're on this treadmill towards are actually causing us harm individually and long term for the future generations. And I think that that's, you know, before anything else happens, we have to shake up this awareness. We're all sort of on this conveyor belt towards some sort of mad future. And it is precarious, but it doesn't have to be that way. One of the greatest things that I learned in my journeys was that actually it's increasingly evident now that for the vast majority of our time on the planet, we existed as very much in an egalitarian state. And that's not fully recognized, but it's becoming increasingly apparent and increasingly agreed upon that... that literally we existed in a state without hierarchy and competition for the vast majority of our time on the planet. And that humankind can do that. But back then we had a narrative that told us that that was the best way. And now we have a narrative that tells us that meritocracy is the best way. And if people earn billions while other people are collapsing, that that's okay because they've earned it, which is clearly nonsense. And so... At every level of the story that we're telling each other, I think we need to have a reshake and a rethink. And so I just think that feeds in exactly to what you were saying there, Indy, and I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 03: 19:17

No, likewise. I mean, you put some really good colour on this. It is the stories we tell ourselves, but it's also... And on the basis of those stories, we've constructed the rule system and the kind of structures of our, I would say, machine system to reinforce those stories. And the precariousness for me, and I think it's a really good question, my worry is that it's become so acceptable to talk about our... So I think unless we can build a new... the capacity for deliberative long-term decision-making in society. Unless we can wean ourselves off opinion mechanisms to deliberative mechanisms, I think it's become very difficult. And unless we can build, I would say, stuff like a transition income investment, I think governments are going to have to do, before a UBI, a transition income investment, where they're going to have to invest in building the psychological security of people and then use that as a ballast to allow us to make different decisions and I think this is a scale for democracies it's really important autocracies don't have to go down this route but for democracies to create a new social covenant we're going to have to build our collective capacities to do that and that is not a loss and why I say it's an investment is that Actually, what we're creating is the frameworks for a new human development thesis, which isn't about instrumentalization, which is post-instrumentalization, because you cannot buy care. You cannot buy kindness. You cannot buy creativity. You cannot buy these things. You think you can buy them, but you can't instrumentalize them. You can trade them, definitely, but you can't trade them of people that don't want to give it to you. These are intrinsic acts. And I think we should be more careful about what is the human economy, kindness, carelessness. And these are not soft things. They are the foundations of the next economy in an age of automation. So this for me is not sort of like, okay, we all believe in kindness and carelessness. That's the only way. It's actually a deep response to the nature of the world we're moving into. And recognizing that treating humans as bad robots was the age that we lived in, but isn't the age that we're going to live in. And I think this is a socioeconomic transition, which requires that scale of thinking and that scale of capacity from governments to be able to recognise how we move forward in democracies. And building the social neurological capacity of a society to make this transition, for me, will be really critical. And that isn't just... That's a really strategic decision. And then we can make societal transitions, I think, at pace, much faster than autocracies. We will make them in real rapid paces. The problem is our social covenant is no longer functioning to allow us to make the transition. And that, I think, is a real issue.

Speaker 02: 22:33

I love all of that. This is a lovely chat. Couldn't we step even a step further backward? Isn't this short-term... perspective that we're existing and abiding in now just built into the very type of democracy that we have it's and i know that seems like like the type of conversation that's impossible to really imagine but in many ways the the type of representative democracy and these people who are clearly not answering to their constituents but are answering to other forces and and only really trying to regain power rather than think long term is at the heart of it. And then also, I think, much more alarmingly, those politicians that do try and talk about things in the fairest of ways, whereby they actually try and point out that we are also structurally part of the problem internationally by our own pretty dastardly acts through tax havens or whatever, to try and really find equity globally as well as nationally no one's willing to vote those people in. So in some ways, we're all complicit in the type of hierarchical, power-based, destructive society that we're abiding in. And it goes from the top all the way to the bottom. And to me, it's all about the type of hierarchical, power-based, patriarchal society that we're in. And until we really... look at that and admit that and acknowledge that at its deepest level. We're never going to find a way up.

Speaker 00: 24:25

Shah, I actually wanted to come back a little bit to, you mentioned your work with kind of B Corps and I wanted to think at a practical level about the work that you're doing and how you're bringing some of these thinking patterns and thoughts into the B Corp industry and also for the layman who's never heard of a B Corp before, like what is it and what are you doing and what does it mean and how does it fit into the role of kind of re-imagining society?

Speaker 01: 24:54

Well, thank you for the question. And I think I'm happy to share a little bit about the B Corp movement. And actually this has been an interesting week for the B Corp movement when it comes to some of these structural pieces that have been brought up. So for people who aren't familiar with B Corps, they are for profit businesses that have been certified to meet the very highest standard in terms of both how they operate. So in other words, how they treat their workers, their governance, how they engage with their local communities and how they think about the environment, as well as what they're in the business of doing. So in other words, their impact business model, what sort of impacts they're positive are being created through that business model. And if you reach a certain sort of threshold of points on the assessment, then you're invited to do the next step of the certification journey, which is to actually legally state that the director's duties of your company are to equally consider shareholders and stakeholders. So in other words, it becomes part of their duty is not just to maximize a return for a shareholder in the short term, but they are obligated to be considering wider stakeholders in their decisions and therefore the different time horizons that I think have come up in this discussion. And just to say again, this is like legally articulated in your governing documents. So it's sort of hardwired in. So this movement has been growing since it started over a decade ago in the UK. We've been in place for just over five years now. And we have some extraordinary businesses that represent this movement and this community. And the reason why I think it's interesting for this conversation is these are businesses that are sort of of walking the talk and showing it's possible to be both a business and to create positive impact, um, and be, you know, addressing, uh, the problems that are facing our planet, you know, people and our planet through, through the harnessing, the ingenuity and the innovation that exists within business so that it truly can be a force for good. Now, when it comes to the systems conversations that we've been having today, um, you know, just this week, we had a parliamentary reception about a campaign, um, that B Labuque has been working on for quite a few years, and it's called the Better Business Act. And really it represents a coalition of now almost 500 businesses that have signed up to say, let's change the company law. Let's change Section 172. I don't want to geek out too much here on particular codes within the Company Act, but how can we make it explicit that all businesses should operate with these duties for their directors to equally consider shareholders and stakeholders? Now, it's not saying that every business will be a B Corp, But to have that legal articulation of what they're in the business of doing, the purpose of the business, and how those directors are making decisions feels to be a way of addressing these systemic challenges that are that are facing the UK. Again, the hope is if we can do this in the UK, we would hope that this would be something that could be adopted by other countries around the world. There are jurisdictions in the US and some other countries that have created sort of an optional, what they call benefit corporation structure. But the UK would be the first where this would be hardwired into our overall company act. So that's one area. approach that we are really leaning into to engage in sort of these sort of more systemic infrastructural changes that we know is needed. So again, so we can truly harness the power of business to be a force for good and solve some of the problems that we know are facing planet and people on it rather than creating them.

Speaker 02: 28:39

Does your organization ever talk about accountability? I've been quite interested in the ecocide movement whereby CEOs could be personally held responsible for disastrous behaviour on the environment. Disaster, terrible. It's like some sort of destructive behaviour, sorry, on the environment. And that would radically alter the way that people would make decisions because they're not acting with impunity as they are now. And I find that to be quite a simple and easy answer on paper. Obviously, in practice, it's not being adopted. But is that something that you're talking about and thinking about? Do you see any headway in that as in your discussions with these sorts of areas?

Speaker 01: 29:29

Yeah, no, I think it's about really, you know, recognising what the director's duties are and how they are making decisions and considering these elements. And I think your point about... I mean, one of the key points to this is being able to report on your impact. That's sort of an element of what we are putting forward as one of our key principles within the Better Business Act. I'd also say that I think there is something about the rules, changing the rules of the game, reimagining, going to the topic of our podcast. How do we reimagine what the rules are for businesses? But I don't at all think we do that without recognizing the importance of culture. And so this is where I think rules, regulation, law paired with culture become a really quite critical force jointly. And so this is where, you know, for me, the definition of culture that always resonates, it's, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. That's one famous quote. But the other one is culture is what people do when nobody's looking. And so I think very much when it comes to these elements that you've brought up, Bruce, I think absolutely encouraging and engaging directors to make these decisions, recognising the impacts that are being had and making the positive decisions that are about recognising the future we want to create is really important and making sure that we've got an overall culture that is embracing and supporting the decisions these directors are making. Bruce, did I answer your question?

Speaker 02: 31:01

You absolutely did, yeah. I'm just... I guess I... I guess I'm not fully aware of what the impacts of what you're talking are when they trickle down into society. And so my question was only aimed at the sort of top level. But I would also, as a further question, be interested for you to explain a little bit more how you see that that would affect change in society as a whole, the type of stuff you're talking about.

Speaker 03: 31:32

One thing I'd just like to come in on, just on that point, though, is the idea of companies, which was about insulating investors from the risks of operation, is relatively a new phenomena in the history of humanity. This idea of insulation, of... the corporate in vitro, I think it was born out of royal charters, which were necessary for fishing, or not for fishing, sorry, my complete fault. They were part of the global Portuguese expansion, and the royal charter was constructed there. That royal charter, Greg, gave immunity to the ship's captain, for the loss of goods on a trade to the investors, that separation, and also gave immunity to the investors from the liability of those losses. But partnership as a vehicle, which actually has a completely different liability structure, because it does do exactly what you say, Bruce, is actually being undervalued and underplayed. So I think we should be massively differentially taxing corporate structures. So, If you choose to be a limited liability company, you should pay a significantly higher tax because you're creating risk for the world that is not going to be as accurately managed as if you're a partner because you're legally responsible. So there is a corporate structure conversation which I think goes beyond where we are. And I think there's some fundamental questions about whether we're talking about independence and silo value versus interdependent value i think that's going to change corporate structures and the other thing i would say is more and more it's clear that i think we're looking at boundless corporations and means of organizing rather than bounded means of corporate organizing so the kind of structures around that is really clean second thing i think it's worth us recognizing you know the idea of employment law is pretty fucking terrible Pardon my French whenever you're listening to this. But it is pretty terrible because it's effectively a form of servitude. And you're not allowed to speak freely. You're controlled by your manager. So it's constructed as a control thesis. And we have to understand, I think in this next phase of transition, there's a much larger structural transition of going beyond management as we've currently understood it. Management is an extension of effectively military mechanisms of organizing command and control mechanisms. It's a theory that's largely driven by lots of, most of the leadership comes from armies. It doesn't come from humane systems. It comes from control-orientated systems, not care-orientated systems. So I think we have to have a much deeper root and branch transformation that's going to be required. And I think, you know, we're sort of, for example, the pay differential in dark matter is 1 to 2. 1 to 2. Not 1 to 300. Not 1 to 5,000. 1 to 2. Right? And I think we have to start to think much more. An employment contract, we're trying to move away from even hours as a conversation, but actually talking about the care people take. I think one of our policies is that you take a minimum of four weeks of self-care. There's not a maximum, it's a minimum, because the emphasis is on how do you create the environments for self-care. So I think we need more radical transformation about this stuff, and radical transformation of what is the role of pay. Is pay... compensation for your time so you can be free outside it? Is pay a mechanism to liberate you to do the work? Is pay a transaction for you to feel incentivized? These are different ideas of pay and wage. And we're doing a lot of work around this and beyond the rules, if you want to look up the hashtag, around this sort of stuff. So I think there's structural work that needs to be done, which has to be deeply progressive to deliver us that kind and careful world.

Speaker 00: 35:51

I wanted to, I suppose, well, think of pay and debt. I wanted to actually bring this conversation slightly towards a concept which, Indy, you mentioned in an article I think you wrote late last year about ecological debt and extraction. I'm sure, Bruce, you can probably speak to this. Well, all of you can speak to this as well. In our current structures, we're obviously taking so much more than we're giving back. We have a huge debt and it's not... sustainable across every part of society. I wondered if you could kind of speak to our accountability to the ecosystems and what individuals, businesses, governments, all elements of society and kind of re-imagining how we move forward, like how can we interoperate better with the ecological systems that are part of life that we need, quite frankly.

Speaker 03: 36:40

I'm happy to start. I think Bruce will give some really beautiful answers on this, I hope, as well as a follow on and Shara as well, because I know you've been doing some amazing work around this. So I think, for me, there's a fundamental question about our relationship with the world. Currently, our relationship with the world, whether it's the future, whether it's nature, whether it's materials, or whether it's even actually other people, is that of control. We seek to control the future. We seek to control and own nature. And that turns nature into a resource. We treat nature through a resource lens. And that is the idea of ownership. Let's also just extend it. The idea of ownership is quasi the enslavement of a piece of land to one person's needs. It's the enslavement of a piece of land to one person's needs. That land has bees on it, has ecological soil systems that have taken thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years to develop. And actually, we allow it to be enslaved to the unitary purpose of a moment in time in history. And this is about how we've constructed the world. We had a logic structure which said property ownership is the most effective means of organizing value. Now, I'm not saying that that may have been almost the perfect thinking for a perceived infinite world. But in an interdependent world, we need a completely different model of thinking. We need to recognize, and we're seeing this happen already, whether it's New Zealand, river in New Zealand being made self-sovereign, or whether it's actually a forest in British Columbia being made self-sovereign. This is about actually building the sovereignty of nature as an identity in itself. And that opens up all sorts of secondary questions, which I think are really profound, but I think it's an intermediate step, which is, we need to recognize nature as us being in relationship to, in treaty with, not to be ownership of. And that's a foundational transformation. And I think we can legally start to construct quite different relationships. And that requires us to have a new type of, like I say, I think this is not just a it's not a control ownership model it's to be in relationship with model and that's a deep structural transformation and you can start to do that we're doing a piece of work we're doing lots of work around self-sovereign forests and how do you actually build a capacity for self-sovereignty in a forest and how do you grow that and there's really complex problems here because a tree is is not an object. A tree is part of a system of roots and mycelium networks. It's not an object. It's part of an ecosystem. So all of our thinking, which has been constructed around objecthoods, becomes problematized when we start to think in a new way around this relationship model. Now, this stuff in my view, hybridizes how technology is opening up options as well as actually indigenous worldviews. So there's a new hybridity possible that is, I think, the real magic moment here. So when we start to construct this new relationship, we can look both backwards and forward into quite a fundamentally different worldview. And that, I think, is the way to respond to it and a practical sense as well. So, you know, we're exploring self-sovereign houses where a house becomes... self-sovereign, a public interest instrument as opposed to a private entity? How does the house react to all the ecological services and benefits that it operates in, whether it's hosting magpies or other things? So you start to think fundamentally differently about how we build and construct the world. I've spoken too long, so thank you.

Speaker 02: 40:34

That was amazing, Indy. Thank you. Wonderful, wonderful words. Yeah, I mean, so much in that that I could respond to. I think the hybridizing of the indigenous viewpoint on our own is kind of perhaps where I'll start. And then this idea of thinking differently is, I guess, one of the things that I've learned, especially with my privileged time with indigenous peoples, is that they definitely do indeed think differently. And a big aspect of that thinking is actually feeling differently. It's not, we spend a lot of our time in our heads and they're actually much more embodied in their relationship. They're, They're in their hearts, they're in their stomachs, they're in their senses, and that's a daily exercise for them. And so their relationship with that tree isn't just looking at it in a sort of utilitarian way that this is useful for the future generations and it's just a logical thought process. It's actually they feel pain if that tree is mistreated. They have a sense of empathy that extends out beyond themselves into their community, but also into the community of other than human beings community of the landscape that they live in as well as also having a rational understanding because they see it on a daily basis that if you do destroy the environment you are also destroying your own lives because they haven't exported that as externalities over the mountains they they have a direct relationship with it so they know that they their well-being is directly proportional to the well-being of the environment that holds them And that's another thing that we've lost is that we clearly don't really pay much attention to the labels of where things come from. And the blood on my hands when I fill my car with petrol and all the other myriad things that we do on a daily basis, the net result of the cost of those things. We're not paying the cost. We're not understanding the cost. We're not feeling it. We're not feeling it. And I think that's a big one. And the feeling, if I may riff goes on to what we were talking about earlier with privilege as well, and how different people have, have, have, have, have existed and lived or thrived or whatever the relationship is that people have been through this recent time that we're in now. I feel incredibly privileged because I have landscape around me. I can go walking every day. I can be in nature. And that's an amazing privilege. And many, many people, if you're in a bedsit or a flat in an urban space, won't have had that. And another privilege that I have is having had opportunity to learn about certain tools to enable me to be able to cope with that and this comes on to what i was talking about feeling is that um it's a bit of a tangent i apologize but it just came to me when i was talking about how it is that the tribal people are able to feel the forest and have the sense of empathy is because they have practices that allow for that, which I think we also have lost over time. Certain spiritual traditions are trying to bring, or have always been trying to bring those practices back, meditation being an obvious one, as well as plant medicines and what have you. These do allow for us to enter into a space where we can feel more deeply. And those of us who've had those tools have been able to exist in this recent time because those tools also allow us to be much more comfortable with ourselves in these difficult times. And so, yeah, I lost my thread there a little bit. But like, yeah, I think that these tools and methodologies, if they can be, they're gaining a lot of, notoriety because they're being shown to work in our society. But I'd be really interested to see what's going to happen as we come out of this, this latest lockdown, to see just how many people will have actually reinforced traumas. And some people have had the privilege to have actually gone through some deep healing. And that will depend on whether or not they've had those tools accessible and have had a knowledge of those tools. And to me, this sort of deep psychological healing that we need to go through individually and as a society is central to so much of this. And I know what I'm just saying is a bit garbled, but to me, it all does fit together somehow. It's like our need to feel more deeply in order to be able to feel the empathy for the environment comes only when I'm willing and able to lift that lid off my own subconscious and start having a look at myself. I have to be able to feel all the pain of my own personal trauma in order to be able to deal with that, in order to also be able to feel this love and empathy for that which is around me. And that's a journey that we all need to go on. And for many people, it's really difficult because, of course, lots of people are carrying an immense amount of trauma and they'll do anything rather than go there. And society isn't telling them that they need to go there. So we just carry on consuming the world's anything to distract ourselves from actually the job of being able to be still and be calm. And if only the narratives of our society would allow that to be more understood and more recognized, then we would also not struggle so much in these really difficult times when we have to withdraw into our small spaces. And so, sorry, that was a bit garbled, but I think you can kind of see where I'm going with that. It's like, yeah, a need for some psychological healing is central to all of this too, I think.

Speaker 01: 46:32

I just have to say, I am loving this conversation and I am so excited to explore more about the work both of you are doing in these incredible spaces and what are sort of the tools and the practices. I feel like a part of all of this is about education. And when thinking about what we can reimagine, it's how do we reimagine the system so that the young people today that are going to be inheriting the challenges that, that lay in front of us. Um, how, how can we channel some of this incredible wisdom, this experience, um, in such a way that it becomes really quite embedded in the processes that our young people go through. And I shouldn't say just young people, I mean, all of us. Um, but I just, I, I feel, I feel a lot for the children today. Um, and how, how, how if, If this is and it is the transition that must happen in order for us to build a world and a sense of interdependence, not just one another, but with our planet and the environment within it, this is going to be a period of transition because the systems that we have in place today are not going to be the systems we have in the future. So how do we... bring the young people that will be feeling, leading, experiencing that transition so acutely on this journey. So they welcome it, they understand it, and they can champion some of these things we've talked about. That's sort of a question, I guess, but it's certainly a really important part of this reimagination that I think we all need to think about.

Speaker 03: 48:17

Can I just, on the... Can I just come in and say, I suppose if you're looking at a transition over the next 10, 15 years, Sean, I think everyone that's alive now has to be in that journey. And I wonder whether the segmentation of saying, whether it's young people or, I wonder whether that segmentational view has helped us. It's a kind of honest question, whether that actually we need to just take a whole societal view, recognizing that pretty much most of the people alive today are all going to have to go. Bruce, I really appreciate your point here. We have to undo the trauma. We have to create the space for reconciliation in a deep sense. So I wonder whether we need to stop. And again, feel free to disagree. I just wonder whether that segmentation is part of the problem. and actually whether we do need to just focus on societal combat. Because I think we're going to have to see 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds, 60-year-olds who are going to live hopefully till their 90s be part of this transition. And how do we build the politics of this kind of intergenerational capacity, which I think is going to be a different type of politics and a different type of play. I don't know, just to put that on the table.

Speaker 01: 49:40

So if I may respond, and I know we're kind of short on time, but I would really like to respond to this one. And you said the word, Indy, actually, that I think is really critical is this intergenerational, right? I actually totally agree. Everyone needs to be on this journey. And we need to be creating the conditions for much more change. tuned in intergenerational conversations, because let's be honest, the temporal, the longitudinal of what we're going through, and we've talked about the long-term nature of things, will require us to all be on this journey and to be listening to both the elder wisdom that exists and channeling the energy and the ideas of the new that's coming through the young people. But I'd actually like to use this, you know, maybe final moment just to reflect on actually a theme that I've been writing notes on throughout the course of this conversation, which is, I don't think, well, no, let me frame that in a positive way. I think one of the things that we'll have to do as part of an overall mindset is as part of this transition is moved to a place where we're thinking very much in a both and mindset rather than one or the other or either or. And so in particular with this, I would say absolutely indeed, everybody needs to be a part of it. And I think we need to also appreciate that there will be children who have different capacities to understand and different things that they can bring to this transition than perhaps those who are at the end of their journey and have had different life experiences. So we need to create a holistic set of transitions for everybody. And I think we have to recognize and respect different places different people are coming from. But also, we've talked about the global challenges and then local. And again, I don't think it's one or the other, it's how do we hold this capacity to do the both and. I know one of the opportunities, the challenges that I face is trying to recognize also how to hold the ability to be hopeful for what we can achieve when we think about this re-imagination with the urgency of the action that needs to be taken. And that kind of picks up on the, yes, we must be thinking and acting and planning and loving with this future in mind. And we need to be acting now because we are. in an emergency. So again, it's sort of an overall reflection, I think, of a mindset of both and that I feel we need to hold when tackling a lot of these quite critical and really worldly important questions that we've addressed today.

Speaker 03: 52:13

But just to build on that, and so I don't know the answer to this, by the way, but the and is about two objects, right? Two ideas, right? that are working simultaneously. Maybe there is a new language, which is not about the additionality, this and that, but a new language of relationality, which actually opens up a different way of seeing this. So I'm just kind of just putting that down because I don't know the answer to this, but there's something about, you're absolutely right, this There's a new language and taxonomy, and we know, for example, Bruce, you'll know this better than I will, but again, indigenous languages, many indigenous languages are entirely verb-based. They're not noun-based, they're not object-based. So they have a completely different relationship to the world. So I wonder whether we can really start to become really intentional of going from additionalities to new relationalities. And that's kind of additionality is really powerful because it's moved us away from single models to a new model. And what that language structure, I think, is a deep code innovation that's required at the societal level. But thank you so much for that. You're absolutely right. Beautiful.

Speaker 02: 53:28

Yeah, I guess just to finish, part of what I'm trying to do in my life now, having been a filmmaker for so long, is... to actually be the change. And part of that being the change is bringing in many of the lessons that I've learned. So ownership, power, hierarchy, all these sorts of things, trying to live in community where those things, we're re-evaluating them. And even as you say there with language, I'm checking myself every time and I say my house. It's not my house. It's the house I live in and it's our house or the house that we're all living in together. And these sorts of things on a daily basis, just trying constantly to just, yeah, every level of my being re-imagine how could this be better? And so no hierarchy. It's like we're all in this together and how are we going to, you know, the difference is, It's not that there's sameness, there's equality, but there's difference and respect and an enjoyment and celebration of difference. But at the same time, everyone's valued equally. And this is the type of society that I've experienced in the world and that could come back. But it needs to have lived examples, I think. And that's kind of the place that I'm playing in now. Very embryonically, I must say. And also with a great deal of difficulty because it means undoing everything. But I totally love what you say about the language and everything. It has to be a full body shift, I think. And that's the work that's needed.

Speaker 00: 55:08

Wonderful. So we're a little bit over time, but I just think this discussion has been wonderful. It's funny because at the start, I felt like we were... starting to touch on binary things, but I love how we've brought it all back together under this connectivity. You know, we were talking about themes of being kind of interdependent, also self-sufficient, and then also grounded, and so many kind of different themes. And I think, oh, I hope that every individual who hears this will kind of go away and think about their role in the future as we come out of lockdown. I mean, even Bruce, you mentioned earlier that kind of always living in flats in London, but actually at London National Park City, we think a lot about every single green space that is around us and how we harness that. And my hope is that as we come out of lockdown, those green spaces that have supported us through lockdown and been a little bit of nature and a little bit of comfort will continue to be kind of cared for. And hopefully the sort of litter strewn streets that we've seen of late won't continue. But I hope that everyone will kind of go in and look into all of your body's works. I think you're all such fascinating people. And what remains to be said is thank you so much. And I hope that we can continue these conversations in other spectrums and other fields. And I hope you have a wonderful weekend and take care.