The art of co-existence
The art of co-existence explores the human relationship to all life on earth. We invite artists, designers, scientists and creative thinkers for deep conversations grounded in wonderment. Together we explore what it means to be part of a natural system, and how we can transform our anthropocentric minds to a more symbiotic approach of life on this planet.
The art of co-existence
#6: To Change Systems We Need Collaborative and Creative Solutions - Eva Laláková
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Meet Eva Laláková - a woman with a mission to stay hopeful and to challenge the systems we live in, changing them for the greater good.
This is not light work. It asks for deep analyses, conviction, patience and trusting the global collective. Collaboration is key! 🤝
🌎 From a coastal region in Ghana to a coral reef inspired governance model 🪸, Eva gives us a glimpse into the work of building a better world.
🐚 Eva’s souvenir: experience hope as an activity and keep educating yourself: ask questions and focus on the positive tipping points that are also out there.
Visit the following websites for more information about Eva's work
www.metabolic.com
www.thecollaborative.world
Hosted by: Daphne Frühmann
Editing: Axel Frühmann
Music: Mark Oomen
Instagram: @theartofcoexistence
An Ourcelium Publishers podcast
And hey, you know, AI might replace a lot of jobs very quickly. So this would be a very relevant question for everyone. So education, you know, there there's so much that the nature needs. And the nature really wants to come back, right? The soil rebuilds itself if you let it, for us to regrow. The default state of the living systems is actually regeneration. So let's help it.
SPEAKER_01In a world of hyperconnectivity, we see more disconnected than ever from the living world. A world of natural wonder that has its own systems in place and masters the art of coexistence. We, humans, have placed ourselves outside this way of living, but it can teach us the biggest lessons and leave us in awe. What happens when we reconnect to the nature from which we arose? Will we think with it and coexist in a symbiotic way? Will we make other decisions? Will it change the way we perceive ourselves? What and who can teach us if we are willing to listen? We invite you to be open and amazed by today's guests as they offer a glimpse into their art of coexistence. Today I will be exploring the concept and theory of systems change with Eva Lalakova. She is originally from Prague, but has lived, studied, and worked across Canada, Scotland, and the Netherlands for the past 13 years. Since 2018, she has been part of Metabolic, an Amsterdam-based systems change organization. Metabolic is, and I quote, focused on bioregional regeneration, building the economic governance and capital models that allow whole regions to come back into balance with the living world. Beyond her work, she is a lifelong environmental and social justice activist, an ever-curious seeker, and now it is my turn to be ever so curious about her. Hello, Eva. How are you? And thank you so much for joining. Hi Defman, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00I'm doing really well today. Excellent. And you're actually in Prague now. Indeed. Yeah, I moved here a couple months ago for a bit of a trial period for the time around, a bit of a personal story, but my grandparents are not doing too well. So here I am, and actually very much enjoying the spring in Prague and for metabolic remotely.
SPEAKER_01So maybe you're also rediscovering Prague now. I'm curious what actually, because I just mentioned in the in the introduction that you're an ever-curious seeker. What has sparked your curiosity today? And now that you're in an old new place, maybe something in Prague has sparked your curiosity?
SPEAKER_00That's a great question. Um today I spent most of my day working indoors, but I guess what has sparked my interest uh has been the massive storm that we have had the full day. That's something that I have really missed uh in the Netherlands actually. These proper deep, dark, dramatic storms where you actually do see a bit of a bit of a light, a bit of a blue sky on one side, but then these dramatic clouds. Um and I I love it, love being surrounded by it, and it's a very different experience to the Dutch weather where there is a lot of constant rain but very little storms.
SPEAKER_01I see. Yeah, you're really within the elements today. Yes, indeed. Very nice. Um, when preparing for this conversation, I had I don't know how many tabs open on my computer, uh, because there is so much to read on Metabolic's website, and you gave me a lot of homework as well when I uh was preparing for it. Um there are also numerous links to all projects and the ventures that you are involved in. So, what I want to suggest is that we take it slow today, and I'd like to already warn our listeners that we won't be able to discuss everything because it's simply impossible in one hour if we look at all the things that you do. But I'm sure that we can cover a solid basis and uh spark everyone's interest and curiosity. Um and of course, then they can visit the website of Metabolic afterwards if they want to learn more. Having said that, Eva, I'm I'm curious what you are hoping this conversation will do for the people listening.
SPEAKER_00I suppose that I'm very intrigued by being able to share the beautiful and deep work that Metabolic um has been doing for the past 14 years and is continuously reinventing itself in different directions with a really genuine mission of trying to transition the global economic system to a fundamental sustainable state and really bringing um the global environment back within planetary boundaries and really focus on um helping the whole living system thrive. And it's something that is so close to my heart, something that I've poured all my adult life into, and I truly believe that it's very important for all of us to listen, to care, uh to be engaged uh in one way or another. And um I hope that the conversation and some of the projects that I will be sharing, um, and and the way we think, the way we approach change, uh hopefully inspires some people. Um I'm always happy to have a conversation if somebody wants to connect with me and simply we need to build a strong movement. There's so many amazing change makers out there that I know my that I know uh that are also very distant from me and and we need to talk with one another. We need to keep believing that creating a better world is possible. So um I guess that's my hope for today.
SPEAKER_01That's wonderful. So we hope that other people also see that it's possible to have a positive change for an even better world than um than you are maybe already creating. I think that's a great ambition to have, at least for this conversation, but also a wonderful personal ambition to have, of course. So you're already mentioning quite a lot of words that for some people, for you and for myself as well, they're words that we use on a daily basis, but some of them, other listeners might not use them on a daily basis. Uh, how would you describe to someone that doesn't know your work, or maybe someone that's still in primary school, or maybe one of your grandparents, how would you describe to them what it is that you do at metabolic?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's uh that's a question that I've been grasping with myself for a very long time. It's uh I know the feeling. I have that too most of the time, but but I'm curious how you would do it. Yeah. Um I guess as opposed to the word sustainability, which uh in its essence means uh it can keep going. You know, a factory that maintains its current emissions can be treated as sustainable.
SPEAKER_01I think that's the word you use for it, right? Uh sustainability is more maintaining it in a steady pace, that it's coasting the way it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a degraded landscape that doesn't degrade any further is sustainable. But is it though? Um so uh the term regenerative tries to capture this nuance. Uh, it's a different word for a different, stronger ambition. So really uh leaving the place better than you found it. Um I think a good example can be a regenerative farm that rebuilds its soil while it also produces food for people around it. Um, or a regenerative business, venture organization that creates more value uh than it extracts. Uh so really flipping the coin to the mindset in this way, uh not aiming for less bad, but for better, fundamentally better. Um and uh this the systemic approach is an interesting one because um it really allows you to look deeper into how all the different systems are interconnected. And once you start looking in this way, once you start to approach the world, you uh whatever situation you're in, whatever project you have with the systemic lens, you cannot unsee it anymore. It will always be there.
SPEAKER_01Um can I can I maybe already ask you then, because you now mentioned systemic change. I think this is also a word that maybe uh that not everyone understands or what it means to you, I'm curious. Like do you see it as a theory, is it a concept or a philosophy? Can you maybe give an example to make it a bit more tangible what systemic change means?
SPEAKER_00Um well, systemic change is something slightly different than systems thinking. I think we will get to systemic change throughout this conversation, I hope. But systems thinking maybe is one that's more related to where I was going now, because it's really this discipline, this practice of looking at the whole, not just the part of a system.
SPEAKER_01Um so it's a holistic approach of when you see an issue or when something is going well or it's not going well, that you don't just look at that specific event, but you look at all the other chains in how it came to that.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So you can really think about the world as a web of interconnected systems, right? So from buildings and neighborhoods to whole cities, from urban parks to forests and larger ecosystems, economies, communities, supply chains, specific organization, anything is really a system. And every problem that we care about comes from how these parts actually interact. Um and the reality of the world we live in today is that vast majority of institutions, but not only, uh also vast majority of uh sustainability consultancies, for example, or NGOs still work in silos. Um, so a company will maybe tackle at its best its own emissions, but it's not gonna look uh at the sector or or like a broader um impact on the planet uh that comes out of their operations. A government might focus on regulating couple sectors, but will uh rarely look at the interconnection. Even the European Union, Metabolic actually has a one of our many projects is being an advisor with the systems transformation hub to the European Union, really bringing that systemic element to policy. But I don't want to go that direction. Um, you know, funders have this tunnel vision often, even impact funders, they they fund something very specific. Um, and this is this is part of the problem because it's simply not enough. Um, the world doesn't experience the problems in silos, and these single types of interventions tend to be really insufficient. Uh, and oftentimes they create, and I think you mentioned that already, problems elsewhere. So, with systems thinking, you first really focus on understanding what the system is, um, how it interacts, what kind of impacts does it have. Um, and when thinking about shifting it and really looking for leverage points, which are places in a system where to intervene, where um a single intervention or a series portfolio of interventions where it has an impact to actually drive um everything to change, like a domino effect.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00So um it's really about taking that angle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And when you when you talk about these systems, you already mentioned, but I just want to reiterate the system can we can see this in an organization, it can be in a sector, it can be in a supply chain, it can be in a society.
SPEAKER_00Or is this correct? In a city, in a whole region, uh it really is about how one defines a system, and it's not about one being a better definition than other, it just depends on the scale that you're working within. Uh, and for metabolic, well, for most of our existence, we have worked on multiple systems in parallel. Um, we have built hundreds of circularity sustainability regeneration strategies for cities, for organizations. Um, we have been active in building impact-driven venture ecosystems, trying to build this ecosystem, this vehicle that is tackling multiple systems in parallel uh that need shifting, as well as looking at policy and governance, etc. But in the last year, we have shifted our focus, in fact, on a scale of region. So, really defining the regions as a system uh and trying to combine different elements at once, so really pulling several leverage points uh around capital orchestration, governance, infrastructure, supply chain transitions, and beyond to really orchestrate a long-term change.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna slow us down now a little bit because there is already, I think, a lot of interesting terms that I'm hearing. Now, bioregions is one of them that I think needs a bit of attention on its own. Uh, but just going uh back to my primary question, what is it then that uh metabolic does? I hear you say that you you build strategies for these can be organizations or institutions or governments, they have uh a problem and they come with a question, or maybe try let's let's try to make it a little bit smaller. How do we how do we explain what metabolic does and what you do?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, thanks for uh making me go a little bit slower because it's not easy, in fact. Um I have been at Metabolic for nine years, uh, and um what I was trying to share now is how we have approached our work in the past 13 years of me being there. So analytical tools, pulling in um data engineers and scientists, and ecologists, and designers, economists, venture builders together to work on these parallel work streams around uh building city sustainability transitions, working with organizations and helping them understand their impact better and building sustainability strategies than the innovation ecosystems. What has always stayed the core of Metabolic's approach is the kind of analytical methods that we use. Fundamentally, Metabolic is always about applying systems science, systems thinking, data science, and science-based approaches in whatever work we do. Practically, analytically, we apply analytical tools that help us really anchor our strategies in a deep understanding of the systems that we are working within. Um, one that some of the listeners might know uh is called material flow analysis. So, really following through data, the kind of resources, energy, water, money, waste, what is actually moving through a system. So you can imagine in a city, you know, all the things that are produced and consumed, the mobility system, the buildings, what is happening, what kind of impacts does it have? And we also use things around geospatial analysis, we use life cycle assessments, stakeholder and power mapping. There is a lot.
SPEAKER_01Can you explain how this how this works? Is there someone that comes to you with a request that says we have an issue? Do you proactively see that a system is stuck? And do you then approach them and you say, let's do an analysis on this? And we look for the right partners to join us to get all the data to improve this system, and this system can then be to improve this organization or to improve a City Flow or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a great question. We have historically had five different legal entities, of which one was uh for-profit consulting. Just a side note, we have always been mission-driven, so all the profit has been always reinvested in our mission. But the consulting indeed worked on the basic model of clients coming to us. Um, vast majority of the time. Um, for example, with our city work, it's been quite easy for us to find cities that are ambitious and driven to work with us uh and that come to us and ask for support, but then also something that we have always done uh was trying to be this long-term partner in crime. So not just, you know, getting stuck on the consulting advisory aspect, but really working with our clients or partners long-term, helping them with implementation. That has been our long-term practice, uh, and the same uh was with organizations. Um, but the approach has changed actually.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm thinking maybe uh there is a project that you are currently working on that we can take as an example. Uh and I know that this is then only one of the four maybe uh pillars of the things that you do, but just to walk us through how um what this project is, what the underlying question is, and then how do you approach this as Metabolic?
SPEAKER_00Um wow. We work now fully nonprofits in a steward-owned uh ownership structure where we see ourselves, our role as an orchestrator of change.
SPEAKER_01Steward-owned. I think that is already a very relevant term to explain as well, because that's uh it's a different way of how an organization can organize themselves. It's a different way of seeing the role of an organization. Uh so I'd love to hear more about this project, but I also want to take a note that we need to discuss what steward ownership actually means.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely. Um I do have to say that governance is one of my passion topics, and in the past five years, I have worked with um hundreds of startups actually focused on driving systemic impact, where we have always, as metabolic in our innovation programs, preached steward ownership as the most um yeah, as the most epic governance structure that I think is very much related to our vision and to uh the regenerative economy that we're trying to build. And it's fundamentally around understanding governance as on its own as a leverage point for change. Governance in a nutshell really determines how power shifts through systems, right? So who makes decisions, who benefits, who bears the risk, uh, which voices don't get hurt connected to funding uh and and accumulation of wealth uh in certain governance, mainstream governance structures. And SERET ownership um tries to change that through building uh a legal and decision-making set of structures uh where fundamentally uh the control of the organization uh stays with the people that work there, the people that are committed to the mission or to the cause. And secondly, the profit serves purpose, so purpose of the organization rather than shareholder extraction.
SPEAKER_01What we hear so much talk about always is that all the money goes to everyone in the boards and the stakeholders and things like that, and that that is a really big issue that we're seeing. And then the steward ownership says that is never going to be possible because we are uh steward-led, stewardship-owned. So this means it's going to the organization always, and anything that we earn with this organization or any profits that we make, they have to go to the purpose of the organization and not to anyone in a board or with a higher position.
SPEAKER_00That's that's a great exactly. I think the really key thing here is that uh the long-term stewardship uh is protected legally. So the company cannot be easily sold for some kind of speculative gain, which we see happening everywhere. Um, and that's a really beautiful way of um shifting the way, let's say, that the logic of seeing organizations as a vehicle for change. Perfect.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so we have that one figured out now. And that that that one we understand. And then you were talking about the bioregional transition work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, so we see each other as an orchestrator of these transitions. Uh, I already mentioned this, I think, at quite the beginning of our chat. Um, I would say at the very top there is the capital. What kind of capital uh flows into the region and basically trickles down to what's happening?
SPEAKER_01This can be money, this can be human capital, this can be resources, this is what you mean by capital.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Uh, and uh the the financial capital is an angle or is uh is a focus that we are now much more committed to um directing ourselves or through our local partners because we have seen in our we have learned in our 14 years of practice that uh this is an element that is always a struggle with any transition initiative if you don't have the power that capital can give you. You have to piece it together, you have to solve the puzzle. It's it's always a lot of effort that's put into it. So us and our local regional partners being really committed to driving a longer term transition, being able to actually have a fund um that is fundamentally nonprofit, uh, and be able to feed the money into projects and initiatives. And infrastructure that is needed that really shifts the game. So there is the element of building new blended finance capital vehicles. So really orchestrating where the money is going and how. But then there's all these levels below. So really connecting the local ecosystem of partners and trying to build new ways of collaborating. Then there is the knowledge element, this, this, this knowledge infrastructure that we either provide or we upskill our local partners to be able to apply this systemic analysis that I was mentioned before to really understand what's happening. And then to know how the transition might happen. So building scenarios, understanding potential trade-offs, and really piecing the change together one by one. So you can think regenerative agriculture, building innovation ecosystem, looking at the infrastructure that's missing. And it looks very differently in, for example, Ghana versus North America versus Europe, right? And we have projects in these continents. In all those places. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So we were we were just trying to get to an example of a very recent project. Which so which one is it that you would like to highlight?
SPEAKER_00I would love to talk about Ghana a little bit because this is a project that I'm very excited about. It's a collaboration that's been now ongoing for about five months. And Metabolic, I hope that it's gonna continue for much, much longer. The way we got engaged with the region uh was somewhat um, I'm not gonna say the word opportunistic, but it was, I would say um just a nice coincidence where metabolic CEO Eva Gladek, uh I believe at some kind of club of Rome meeting, met with um Mrs. Amelia Arthur, who is the Ministry of Aquaculture and Fisheries for Ghana, and comes from one of the poorest regions in Ghana called Shama. Um and the two of them really clicked. And Emilia uh was absolutely in love with how Metablake works and the kind of regional work we have been doing elsewhere. And she asked Eva, please can you work with us? Uh and I'm gonna do our my best to anchor you institutionally. Um, but hey, we cannot give you the funding. Uh it's gonna be a big undertaking. We have to figure it out together. But the kind of impact we can have in Shema is massive.
SPEAKER_01And her please is because it's uh it's a very poor region, and and her idea is could you please help us because we need to improve this region? That is the question that she has.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. I was there uh about a month ago now for a week with a few colleagues uh from Metabolic to get to know our local partners and to support with the systems analysis that we are currently undertaking, which is really the first step of this, but also any project, really building the knowledge. Yeshema is uh Ghana's western region, it's a coastal region uh with 57 communities of a couple hundred thousand people, uh, and there's this really significant river, uh the Prague estuary, surrounded by mangroves, as well as uh a lot of heavy industrial uh infrastructure. For Metabolic, it's actually our first uh African regenerative transition project. Um and I would say the aspect that I'm most excited about is that it's really partner-led. Um, it's led by two incredible Ghanaian NGOs, ESI and IADI, who really lead the work on the ground, and Metabolic really comes in with this um mission, this role of a capital supporter slash knowledge supporter. So we um really take the angle of uh focusing on shifting the power, um not just in language but really in practice. Um so really believing that the local NGOs and ecosystem of organizations and the people have the capacity to take their future in their own hand and do the work. Uh and metabolic is bringing in those that systemic thinking layer, and we have the access to capital.
SPEAKER_01It's still so very important that it's uh a local partner because as exactly as you say, there's often this idea that yes, we from the West, we can say we know how you should do it better, but that is that doesn't it doesn't work like that, right? That is not a very systemic approach to say, here you go, we have a good idea, and now you try and do it because then you're not looking at the whole. So in this specific project, you have local partners who are doing the actual work, and you are supporting them with doing your analysis, giving them the knowledge and the tools to work on it together.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's really about empowerment and really believing in this partner-led um kind of anti-colonial approach, so to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's this really big issue with you know coastal development work with West Africa, but also more broadly, it's really donor-led. So there's, you know, some funding, which also has been recently significantly cut off with some of the US um steps that they have done in the past years. There's these programs that are fully designed in Brussels or Washington. Um, and then the national NGOs need to implement them somehow and tick these KPIs, these boxes. Uh, these communities are surveyed. There's always promises that there's going to be something better, but there isn't. They're not empowered, they don't own the projects. Um, and also, of course, there's again this non-systemic approach, so random projects, random initiatives, but not looked at holistically. Uh, I was in this incredible uh national park uh also for a couple days, which has you know trees that are more than a thousand years old and some of the most beautiful trees I've ever seen. And it's there and it used to be everywhere, and and yeah, there's there is a lot of potential.
SPEAKER_01So uh in this specific project, you have these two local partners. Um, what is it exactly that you are bringing in you as a person, Eva? How are you? What is your role in this specific project?
SPEAKER_00Um well, I uh am busy with the project management as well as really trying to pilot this new um approach to collaboration in the other regions that we work, in the US, in Europe. Uh, we do a lot more of the work ourselves. And in Shema, uh, as I mentioned, it's really partner led. So 90% of the funding goes to the local partners. So, what can we do with the limited funding resources that we have to really make sure the project is steered in the right direction and um creates the kind of systemic impact that we hope. So it's really about designing this project, this program in a smart way. It's about upskilling the local partners so that they can do this first layer of the analytical work themselves. It's about building the next steps of this project. So once we have actually produced this package of knowledge materials, the systems, atlas, the stakeholder map, uh what is it then the next step? So developing concepts for uh some initial pilots that can really quickly bring value to the local communities and for to the like livelihoods to the locals where unemployment is so prominent in Shama, uh it's incredible. So there's a lot of projects that we are conceptualizing that can have these first quick wins uh that are designed to build trust before then this harder, more long-term systemic work will come into play.
SPEAKER_01And how do you see uh your role in actually finding this funding? Is this something that you do mostly in Europe or are you looking outside of Europe? You were saying that this is an initiative that you did with the local ministry as well. Uh, are you looking with them and how they can restructure maybe their local finances, or how how far do you go?
SPEAKER_00We are involved with as many institutions on the ground as we can. Um the local assembly, the mu which which is really the governing body on the municipal level, the as I mentioned, the the aquaculture and fisheries institutional layer as an anchor. And so there is certainly an element of potential way to blend the funding for this program or transition together with getting some funding from the government. But the issue is that the government simply has a very little budget. There is only so much they can do, but they can pull us into West African funder networks. But I assume that most of the funding will come from the philanthropic world in Europe and potentially in the US.
SPEAKER_01Unfortunately, that might that might make sense in this case. You were earlier explaining a bit about uh systems change or systemic thinking, how there's always a leverage point. Can you in this project in Ghana, do you already see the specific leverage point? What it is that you feel like is going to start this domino effect of and now we're into the change and now we're having a holistic approach where everything can follow?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a good question. Um there is maybe a really nice way to illustrate it around mangroves. Um, I think it can quite nicely illustrate systems thinking in practice and why it matters there. Um so the way it works currently is that women fish smokers tend to cut mangroves at scale for fuel because they do not have any alternative fuel option. And once the mangroves are cut down, uh the fish, the fisheries lose their nursery, and then the catches drop further, and then women cut more. And if you ban the cutting, then these women are left with nothing, they're left with no livelihoods. If you restore the mangroves without the alternative, the loop reopens again. And so if you think about it, this is we're already getting there, right? So some kind of intervention that could work would be connected to recovering the fisheries, building towards clean uh smoking ovens that are powered in different means. It's about deep, large-scale mangrove restoration and finding new financial vehicles to fund that as an ecosystem service. It's about uh building additional livelihoods for women, uh, additional women enterprises, capacity building, and really sequencing this together in a way that makes sense. And this is just yeah, one of many things that I see and we have we have seen through the analytical work that we have done that is needed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm super curious. Is is there do you have very specific tools or methods in how you approach this? Because I can imagine that sometimes you might see an an issue or an effect or some of something that might be an effect of something else, and how do you then decipher if it's an effect of something underlying, and how do you then get to the actual core of the issue? Because that's the deep work that you're doing, right? Like you're you were saying in the beginning, that is that is what you do. You have these very deep analysis, it's deep thinking, so you have to um peel off all the layers. Is there a methodology that you use to understand? Like now we get to the core layer. So now we see that this is the core layer because our analysis says so.
SPEAKER_00How does this work? I would say very specifically in this context, causal loop mapping, causal loop diagrams. So once you have this initial uh big pool of knowledge and intelligence, you start actually visually mapping the system. Um and so causal loop diagrams can help to surface these reinforcing or balancing feedback loops. And I just gave one example around the mangroves, right? That holds a system in its current behavior that makes it stuck.
SPEAKER_01Um diagram, so it's cause and effect in how these all loop into in each other.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And in reality, and I highly recommend people just googling it for fun, maybe some of the metabolics work that we did, it can uh be intense, intensely detailed, perhaps overwhelming, and then you can simplify it into some nice visuals that anybody can understand, such as the global food analysis that Metabolic did those 12 years ago, uh, which is a really beautiful knowledge piece that uh still uh many organizations work with as a kind of atlas of the food system, which is very much based on these methodologies as well as causal loop mapping. Um, and it doesn't end there. So, first you do the mapping of really understanding how the different um pieces connect and reinforce one another, but then you can model future scenarios, uh, and it can be done in different modeling ways, uh ways, uh, but it's really about testing how a little change here, uh, maybe with um switching the fuel uh of the women um can lead to an outsized effect elsewhere. So really looking at yeah, the futures under different interventions, policy, infrastructure, capital. Um, so there's then you can play with it, right? And really try to understand it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, here I really like the analogy of the Rubik's Cube that everyone knows. Like this this block that you keep turning, and um at some point you want all the sites to have the same color. And I feel like this is what you're now explaining as well. Like you you keep on turning or changing certain loops and causes, and then all of a sudden it has to click, and then you're like, now we're having a ballistic system. Um there shouldn't be any bottlenecks anymore. Is that that's kind of how I'm seeing it? But I thought that Rubik's Cube was a good example that I saw on the metabolic website.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Um, there's so many examples of when you don't do this, how the trade-offs um intervention or strategy that somebody meant well have outsized negative impacts elsewhere. And this is yeah, something that truly saddens me. Um, and yeah, we need to be able to predict these changes a bit better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What are you hoping for for the for the next year for it?
SPEAKER_00Um, I have really high hopes around first building this knowledge, large knowledge pool that will be truly owned by the people. This is something that is actually already happening, uh, given that most of the communities were involved and have done interviews and focus groups, and the local municipality is very excited to be able to access this data. It's really about building uh a knowledge pool that everything can be based upon. Yeah, truly building towards a longer-term, and I'm talking five, ten, fifteen years transition project that has enough unrestricted grant funding so that it can truly be adaptive and resilient uh on its own, makes some significant changes for the beautiful people of Shema that I have gotten to meet and and everybody else that's there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it sounds wonderful. Uh I hope that too, of course. Um, but it also sounds like a big part of it still always is finding the funding for it. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and actually, this is maybe one other thing that I would want to mention collaborative for systemic climate action. It has actually allowed us to get started in Ghana with this unrestricted grant funding. And I'm happy to introduce.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, that I had I had that on my list actually. So I love that you're bridging to it yourself now. Um please explain what this is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so collaborative is something that Metabolics founder started conceptualizing together with a few other uh global sustainability leaders that are working on systems change, I think at this point, maybe four years ago. It was a big undertaking in terms of efforts to actually build it towards something sensible and impactful. And the whole vision was we have so many organizations and NGOs uh and change makers that are deeply committed to building a better world and to systems change. Why don't we work together more? Of course, there is some collaborations happening, but not at scale, not at scale that it requires when we look at the polychrisis that we are in. And so this was the initial trigger. How can we really crack collaboration for systems change? I love that.
SPEAKER_01You see that so many sectors always that you're like, oh, there's all these really great small initiatives, so why do we not all combine forces?
SPEAKER_00And also, I think really key thing here is how can we stop competing for this limited and fragmented climate funding and instead start pooling capital together and pooling learning and intelligence and people and methods, and really while keeping our own identities, individual identities as separate organizations, also creating in parallel this super vehicle for change. Uh, I'm not gonna say in your organization, but a collaborative powerhouse which has actually funding and power and is fundamentally nonprofit and that has clear impact goals that it's working on. Um, and so this is something that we started it as a dream project, and over the last three years it became a reality. Now, uh one year later of our actual existence, we have 30 organizations, um, and we have everything from systems thinking experts, not just metabolic, but Club of Rome, uh Earth for All, Dark Matter Labs, we have regenerative science organizations, uh policy institutions like Open Earth Foundation, Amazon Sacred Uh Headwaters Alliance, climate law organizations, we have designers, communicators, funders. Um you have the whole system, basically. Exactly. Yeah. That's that's the idea. And so, really, this is just the beginning, hopefully. Uh, the vision is working together, uh fundraising together, and then actually hopefully really pooling a chunky capital that can allow us to do some epic work and also keep growing, growing where it's needed the most, uh, growing in the global south regions where lots of the impact is happening and where a lot more work is needed, um, not just in the global west uh or global north, um, and yeah, really cracking the collaboration, which is also a project that in fact I'm just finishing. Um, I've been, I would say, privileged and honored to lead this beautiful project of building governance for the collaborative. So first it really started as this dream project and collaboration, and a lot of it was informal and really based on trust and shared vision. But now we have grown already, we have uh we have fundraised and we have some capital, and we hope that this will really grow further. So, how can we actually make decisions and share intelligence and resources in this pre-competitive way? How can we keep solidarity? How can we grow in a sensible way?
SPEAKER_01I can imagine, especially because it's also uh a global collaborative, and you're going to be working on a global level as well. So, how do you decide which project gets priority? Where is the funding going, or how much funding does which one deserve? I quote unquote. Is it not that simple to then say, well, this one is also steward on, so that's the governance model that we're putting on it, or does it go much further than that?
SPEAKER_00It goes honestly a lot further. It's quite complex. Um I can imagine. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been working on it for so long. Exactly. It just took us nine months and like chunky iterations, and um it's it's not perfect, but I truly believe in it, and it's been built to be adaptive and to keep being tweaked on the way. Um, and I would say the beautiful way we worked on this project was uh turning to nature for advice. So actually using biomimicry uh to inspire this governance model. We called it the Symbios, Symbios, the Symbiotic Orating S.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, with because with the biomimicry, um, you're copying models that we see in nature and you're copying to human nature, basically.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So we have first look at lots of different natural ecosystems, uh, and we have some chemic chemists and biologists on the team that really were able to dig very deep into uh components of these ecosystems that can inspire governance. In the human systems, and we have in the end chosen uh coral reef because it's a really beautiful way to inspire structure of the many elements of what such a collaborative governance entails. Some of the nice aspects that inspired me personally as a non-biologist. Um, I'm fascinated. Well, the coral reefs are truly extraordinary. Uh, these super rich ecosystems, as we know, they're not doing too well nowadays, but uh they have been thriving for millennia in these very nutrient-poor water environments. Exact same situation that many um climate organizations face, uh, these resource-poor environments, right? Where no single organization has enough resources, capital capacity, legitimacy alone to shift the needle. And in the coral reefs, there's no single organism. Uh, the reef actually builds itself over time, one layer by another layer, through interactions of thousands of species. And at the cellular level, uh, excuse my language, the reef actually begins with a beautiful example of symbiosis. So the corals and the algae, uh, neither of them actually can survive alone. So they need all these other species to create conditions for the entire ecosystem to thrive. So there's all these interactions and engagements that support this wreath, and it keeps building itself very organically. If there is a species that doesn't quite have the role to play or a way to benefit from the symbiosis, it's just gonna continue going elsewhere. Um, and this is this kind of microcosm of core reliefs that we have been inspired by and uh that a lot of the work is built upon. Uh, everything starting from the way that we actually choose new partners, um, what kind of symbiosis can happen there, what are they bringing, how can we keep this diversity that we feel is needed to be able to work together and pool um different sets of expertise and knowledge in a smart way. It's about this fundamental layer of solidarity, keeping this inherent trust. Um, as a good example is this element that we have currently been practicing and that we still want to keep, which is this golden ticket element where each organization that's already there has the ability to bring in one new member because they fundamentally believe in them. As uh as being a partner of the collaborative exactly. There's some principles um that they need to adhere to. So in a 30 organization collaboration, we cannot have 10 designers or 10 communication experts. But so as long as it's keeping this prerequisite diversity, um, there's this solidarity that we trust that this partner will know why they're bringing this partner to the table. And there's gonna be some scanning, but otherwise, unless there is a strong veto from somebody, this is how we grow. Uh, and there's of course these other principles around um geographic spread, etc. But there's there is a lot of depth to this model that I'm actually very excited to eventually share with the world. Um, we are gonna first pilot this uh with the collaborative in the next nine months or so. And the next step is actually publishing an open source white paper where we hope that the the all the work, all the research we have done can actually be replicated elsewhere.
SPEAKER_01And then it's also, I suppose, still a question for you is this going to work long term, right? So you're gonna probably update this constantly to show how it's working for you if you make any changes in it. Is that is that how I'm seeing it? Is it a living system in that sense?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh I'm curious because I really liked how you said that the coral reef uh as an example that it there it starts really on a cellular level. What would you say is the cellular level of this collaborative where what is what is the the essence? I hear you say solidarity a few times. Is it is that where it starts in its smallest being?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, honestly, you you cracked it. So we have these three key pillars that each have a lot of nuance and components. Um, and there are solidarity, which we literally, in the metaphorical sense, call the reef DNA. Oh beautiful. The the second piece is portfolio learning in the meth uh in the nature way called the reef metabolism, and thirdly, the actual governance and decision making, which we call the reef skeleton. So you have the DNA, the metabolism, the skeleton. It's a if I could draw it, it would be very nicely visually shown. And the solidarity as the DNA, um, as you asked, really is this key basis for uh relationships. So um starting with shared identity, a really strong why, this mutual orientation and support, this deep trust foundation that will allow every organization, it doesn't matter how different from one another, recognize each other as compatible partners.
SPEAKER_01And this metabolism that you say. So the the portfolio, the portfolio is of all the projects that you do that make it bigger and that makes the impact bigger. Is that how you see it? Which then symbolizes the metabolism in the sense that the metabolism of the of the coral reef is everything that it's fed by, and then how that is coming out differently, and how it supports the microbiome, the the gut system of the coral reef.
SPEAKER_00How can we explain it? Okay. Um so there's this initial concept of multi-solving through uh the kinds of projects that actually get funded. So fundamentally, each organization can produce projects, programs together with other partners from the collaborative that they think can have a really outsized systemic impact, but not all of them actually get selected collectively and funded. Why? Because we are trying to choose initiatives that can act on several prominent leverage points at once, so the whole actually becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Um, and then through that we have this constant stream of learning. We're building some kind of portfolio of projects that ideally would be reinforcing one another and coherent. It flows the knowledge into this, we call it the global intelligence layer. So really building a shared map of how the global system and all the subsystems actually work, um, really surfacing key patterns that no single organization, even metabolic, right, could see alone, despite all of our analytical work, and then feeding it back to the selection of the projects. And I guess this is the portfolio learning component, the reef metabolism. So this continuous flow of action and signals.
SPEAKER_01But also it's also a pick and choose of um, yes, this sounds very healthy and or like a very relevant project to do, but in the whole of the collaborative, this is maybe not the right time and place to add it to our portfolio because maybe there's a project that is very similar, or maybe because it needs too much funding or something like that. So you you pick and choose um if it fits the if it's if it's going to be better for the whole metabolism and not just if it's if you can help that one specific project and then be done with it. It has to be exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Put it simply, activity uh any activity, any project produces evidence and intelligence. The evidence and intelligence, um, hopefully ideally measurable, is fed back into the system and produces new action. And this is the feedback loop on its own.
SPEAKER_01Um now hearing all this, it is still it's very complicated material, still, of course. And uh, and I know there are so many more things that you do. I'm I'm curious how you describe it yourself. Is it research, is it theory, sometimes speculation, but then it's also practical? Is it all of the above? Uh it feels like it's you're because it seems like you're involved in so many phases of um let's let's say projects, or let's say phases of driving change. You're there in the beginning, but you're also there in the end, making sure that the things actually happen and giving tools. And yeah, how how would you describe it? Or is it art, maybe?
SPEAKER_00Can also be. Are you talking about the broad portfolio of things that I am working on or the collaborative?
SPEAKER_01Um, no, sorry, I'm talking in general about well, about what you do and what metabolic does. Let's let's focus on that. Because I think the collaborative is something that came out of this way of thinking of how you think, of how metabolic thinks as well. Yeah, so in this whole conversation that we're having, what is it about? Is it is it research? Is it I was thinking when I was preparing for it, it was like a lot of it is theory, but it's so much more than theory because you're also bringing things to practice. But then you're also saying you're you're sometimes uh speculating in um in trying out different scenarios, but you're also doing them. So you're doing them while researching them. Yeah, that's a great question. Um how do you experience it? Maybe that's a better question.
SPEAKER_00I would say um that I have certainly had some frustration around the lack of like really large-scale global impact that you know when I was whatever, 21, coming out of university, joining Metabolic or 23, I don't know. Um, I had this vision, you know, I will I will dedicate my 20s, my my life to this mission. I'm the last generation that can do this. And nine years later, of a really hard work and being surrounded by brilliant minds and really, you know, understanding how lots of this crazy world works through beautiful projects and and um our network, there's just not enough, there's not enough impact. And even in the consultancy work, I honestly do not know an organization that would have deeper, higher quality analytical work than metabolic on the systemic level. Yet still, brilliant analytic work, brilliant strategies that have been well modeled still do not always bring the tangible impact um and just not at this at the speed that it's needed. Uh, and so there has been so much that I have actually seen, and please do check out Metabolic's website and our portfolio of all the work that we have done with all these cities and organizations and startups. It's very exciting. But I actually think that uh as the poly crisis have multiplied, as the climate crisis has exponentially worsened uh in the past decades, we need to be a lot more creative. And this is also where I see hope myself and where I'm extremely committed to the new bioregional transition strategy that we are taking. It's really about combining analytical and knowledge with doing, with building a parallel system that can demonstrate that a better, different way is possible. Lots of the examples I talked about illustrate that. It's really building, combining mitigation with adaptation. So let's not be fools, let's not be naive, let's actually build towards resilience, let's put people first, as much as the planet that is supporting us. You know, let's let's combine it without speculation as much as possible, um, with any strategy, any new initiative. You know, there's you never actually know how it's gonna go, right? But you can do your best work to support it um by doing all the preconditioned deep work well, but then also be adaptive. Uh so you know, be humble, uh be open to failing and to learning from your mistakes, share the knowledge with others, uh other like-minded organizations with everyone, open source. Make the capital that's funding all these projects and this transition much more patient and long term. And and this is where the real change happens. And there's so much that I see on the ground and so much that I haven't mentioned in this conversation, but I'm hopeful. Definitely I'm hopeful.
SPEAKER_01This is a wonderful motivational speech, and I'm so happy that you that you say that you're hopeful. That um that is really lovely to hear. And I'm really curious now, is this also when you started, or let's say when you finished your studies, is it what you expected to be working on? Is this what you knew that you wanted to work on, and did you expect that this is how it how it would turn out?
SPEAKER_00Um well, I would say that when I started studying, certainly not, shortly after, um thinking that I would work in an organization like Metabolic wouldn't even make it to my dream space, truly. Um, but I yeah, when I started um studying business and economics in Scotland, I very soon after got hit by the reality and really trying to understand what's happening and being very shocked uh about how the education is actually treating people's understanding of the global economy and all the things we are not learning, and really committing to trying to crack this and also focusing in my future steps on connecting my studies with environmental sciences and then also specifically focusing on entrepreneurship and innovation management as an angle that I was really interested in through my social entrepreneurial work uh with Enactus, which is the student-led NGO that builds social enterprises. Um, but not to go too far in the direction. I when I moved to the Netherlands to study my master's, when I finished it, I was searching, and a friend of mine told me about Metabolic. He was like, Eva, I feel like that could be something for you. And I applied three times. Oh really? Yes, rejected, rejected, then applied for a position of becoming an executive assistant to the CEO and funder, and again didn't get the position, but I was offered an internship. This was nine years ago. Uh, and nine years later, uh, I became a partner and co-director, and you know, I'm a peer of Eva Gladic. Oh, there you're wrong. Yeah. I would say it has certainly been a home to me for a long time. Uh, through Metabolic, I have made some of my best friends. Um, I have built community, and yeah, um a lot of good work.
SPEAKER_01It's a very strong message of if you know your direction, keep at it. You were uh you were on track, you know that you wanted to be part of of something, and you worked really hard for it, and you had the patience for it as well. This is also long-term thinking, I suppose, that you try it three times and uh and uh put the work in it for nine years. And we always give our listeners a souvenir, uh so something that they can take with them from this conversation. So maybe we can combine the two a little bit. So we think that we've covered everything, and is there something you would like to add that we can maybe do today or experience or anything?
SPEAKER_00Um, that's a great question. I what what came to mind immediately is a few a few things that give me hope uh in this world that we're living in, which is really not easy, and uh I'm sure that lots of the listeners will um know what I mean, you know, looking at the news every day, and um yeah, it's it's not look looking very good, but so hope is it's an activity. There was this quote that I uh this sticker that I got at the partners for the New Economic Gathering in Lyon. I have it on my laptop, but I don't want to shut it. I don't remember exactly, but something like hope is an is an action. Uh keep going. Um and this is very important. Don't give up and keep educating yourself. Keep also looking at the good. Nobody really knows about it. There's very little knowledge about what's happening in the mainstream media, but positive tipping points uh are real and are happening faster than we think. Um, you know, we have lived through, I my generation has lived through one, which I think is uh a nice example. You know, the solar revolution, uh something that become this very expensive, weird curiosity, maybe, to the cheapest electricity source in many regions in the human history in 15 years. So exponential problems require exponential solutions, and we have a lot of good ideas and a lot of good solutions that are already out there. But we need to work together, we need to trust in the change, we need more capital and work on the mindset shift, which is something I would have loved to spend some more time on. But um, you know, in every region there's people that in yeah, everywhere in the world there's people that understand and that are trying to build a a better world in one way or another. Um, and they're doing the work already, right? Quietly, locally, often not recognized at all. So sometimes we have to just find them and connect with them and learn from them or help them. And I would say the other thing that gives me gives me hope is that the next generation is already asking different questions, you know. I what I keep seeing around me is that they have a lot lower interest in climbing these corporate ladders that keep reinforcing the system that we have and much more interested in actually remaking it. So let's keep that going and let's be bold in you know empowering ourselves to change what we are doing. I mean, work is such a big chunk of our lives. So what are you doing and why? What kind of impact can you actually make still? And what is the kind of shift that you might be able to make in a sensible way? And hey, you know, AI might replace a lot of jobs very quickly. So this will be a very relevant question for everyone. So education, you know, there's so much that the nature needs, and the nature really wants to come back, right? Soil rebuilds itself if you let it, forests regrow. Um, the default state of the living systems is actually regeneration. So let's help it.
SPEAKER_01So I'm hearing two souvenirs. The one is hope that you're giving us and training that muscle of hope as well to stay hopeful. And the other one is asking yourself questions. What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Is this the way to go forwards um for better worlds? Yes, I would say so. Excellent. Thank you so much for for everything that you have shared. Um, like I said in the beginning, it is quite a complicated, uh, quite complicated topics, I want to say. And there is so much more that we can talk about. Maybe we can do this another time in uh six months or so that we can discuss some other points. In the meantime, I suggest everyone goes to the website of Metabolic, but also to the website of the Collaborative. We will put the websites on the on the show notes, but I can say thecollaborative.rules is the website for that initiative. Thank you so much again for your time for sharing everything.
SPEAKER_00And just a last comment: we're gonna update our website in the next few months, um, as we have actually quite strongly reshifted in this bioregional transition direction, as I mentioned, and there's gonna be a lot of beautiful new work and visuals and knowledge that we will be sharing soon. So stay tuned and come back in a couple months as well. Excellent. We'll we'll make sure to do that.
SPEAKER_01Thank you again.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Daphne. It was a pleasure.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for listening to the Art of Co-existence, a podcast produced by our CDM publisher, edited by October Krumman, music by Mark Ollman, and hosted by me, Dr. Krumann. Find us on your favorite podcast app and give us a follow, like, subscribe, and or share, and we'll see you again soon.