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January 2 2020

Michał Pająk

25 min read

02.01.2020

Effectiveness of social simulations and serious games.

Although the majority of our daily activities at the Centre for Systems Solutions is connected with developing serious games and social simulations, we do not consider them as the main goal of our organization. Such activities are solely the means, not the end we are trying to achieve. We believe that using social simulations enables participants to get a real first-hand experience of tackling difficult problems. This creates a new understanding of interdependencies, relations, and complexity behind systems that they are part of in real life. But is it really the case? Does using social simulations actually matter and may lead to tangible changes in participants\’ lives or in their everyday work? To check if our tools positively affect participants and their understanding of complex reality, we regularly conduct an evaluation of the participants’ results. Addressing users’ comments and suggestions helps us improve our social simulations and learn more about their effectiveness as educational or awareness-raising tools. So far, the Centre for Systems Solutions conducted two major evaluations on large groups of participants.

The first one constituted the part of the project \’Green games. Libraries and non-governmental organizations involve youth in the game for nature\’. The objective of the project was to increase the level of knowledge among young people about biodiversity, climate change, and the economic value of ecosystems. To reach the aim, we invited librarians and workers of non-governmental organizations in Poland and equipped them with tools (climate change-related board and online games) and know-how to prepare for and lead a game-based workshop with youth. Further, to check if playing the games enabled youth to gain a better understanding of environmental issues and inspired them to learn more about such topics, we asked them to answer pre- and post-game questionnaires.

We were able to get 3372 responses from young people between the ages of 15 and 19. We found out that after playing the game, 84% of the participants reported an increase in general knowledge about environmental issues. Out of this, 46.1% responders considered this increase as substantial. Similar results were obtained in reference to the questions about biodiversity and climate change-related knowledge acquisition. In the case of biodiversity awareness, 84.8% participants reported some knowledge increase, out of which 50.5% assessed it as substantial. In the case of climate change awareness, the corresponding values were 78.8% and 43%.

Furthermore, we asked participants how they evaluated their increase in knowledge, understanding, and interest in environmental issues. Only 11.17% of the respondents felt that the workshop gave them no new insights or sparked no interest in these topics. This means that 88.83% of participants learned something new or got inspired to learn more about environmental issues after playing the game.

Self-reported-increase-in-uderstanding-and-interest-about-environmental-issues

Finally, we compared the number of participants who responded that they had had no previous interest in environmental issues and felt that this topic is not worth any attention to the number of respondents that held the same opinion after playing the game. It turned out that out of 226 people with the highly negative attitude toward this topic, 38 were inspired to find out more information about this field after playing the game.

The second evaluation was connected with the project \’New Earth – Catholic Church educators increase the climate sensibility among students and believers.\’ The project’s objective was to embed climate change-related issues in a durable and accessible tool that would be used by Catholic educators. We developed thus Laudato Si – a pro-ecological board game inspired by the second encyclical of Pope Francis, and a set of additional educational materials. Further, we compared questionnaire responses of school students that took part in Laudato Si-based lessons (1398 participants) against the replies obtained from the control group (806 students).

We found out that in the control group (who had no contact with the game and educational materials), only 62% of respondents believed that human activity affects climate change. 37% of interviewees were skeptical of this connection, had no opinion or denied climate change in general. Meanwhile, in the group exposed to the game, 77% responders were convinced that climate change is real and that it is affected by people.

Opinions-about-climate-change-and-its-origins

What is more, participants who had the opportunity to play Laudato Si as a part of the lesson, felt that climate change is a much more serious matter than the students from the control group.

An important aspect of the research was to find out whether young people feel that their own actions can have an impact on the environment and climate change. According to their responses, 64% of the Laudato Si players believed that their actions matter, with only 34% doubting that an individual can do anything to control the negative environmental impacts. Meanwhile, in the control group, only 54% of the people believed that they have influence, and 37% were convinced that they, on their own, cannot do anything.

Opinion-about-one's-influence-on-climate-change

These results show that social simulations do have an influence on participants. We can clearly see that they affect the knowledge of participants and their understanding of environmental issues. This makes us optimistic about the positive consequences of using social simulations and gives us the motivation to improve our products to be more effective and impactful. Still, we understand that further research is needed to assess the long-term effects of changes that we observed in participants\’ responses. This would require involving a large number of participants and more elaborate means of measuring the effects of social simulations. We believe that the results of such research would enable us to make our workshops even more effective. As was mentioned at the beginning, we continuously put our effort to create better tools to reach our goal.

April 8 2019

annakoch All, Climate Change, Democracy and Civil Society, Energy Transition, Sustainable Development Goals

Amanda Anthony

20 min read

08.04.2019

What Macron Would Do Differently If He Could Go Back In Time

It’s May 2017. We see an elated Emmanuel Macron, celebrating his presidential victory, his platform focused on making the government more efficient and including green initiatives aimed at helping France reduce its dependency on nuclear and fossil fuels. In his acceptance speech, he says he understands the “rage, anxiety and doubt” simmering in the country and that he plans to use his five years healing the divisions.

It’s November 2018. Thousands of people line the streets in Paris and beyond wearing “yellow vests”, protesting the proposed rise in the diesel fuel tax. They claim that his policies make it hard to live in France. They claim he is out of touch with the struggles of workers.

Even though many protestors support energy transition, the simple framing and brute implementation of the tax on diesel simply did not take into account all the tradeoffs that come with moving to renewable energy, nor did it examine the emotional effects of yet another policy being imposed upon an already burdened populace.

Thousands of people line the streets in Paris and beyond wearing “yellow vests”, protesting the proposed rise in the diesel fuel tax. Video by: Wall Street Journal.

Wishing for a do-over

Macron must be wishing he could go back in time and do it over. It is, of course, too late for that – he is currently relegated to crisis management and image rebuilding. However, the idea of “looking into the future” is something he should consider before taking up the issue of carbon taxes and other climate change policies again.

This isn’t some kind of “Minority Report” fantasy: It is a fruitful time for immersive, forward-looking approaches to problem-solving. From Henry Mintzberg’s work on “seeing first” and “doing first” in strategy development, to Stuart Darcy’s experiential futures and Richard Duke and Jac Guert’s policy exercises, we now have less linear and more active ways of exploring the future before it comes. Among these strategies is the use of social simulation, aka policy or serious games.

Energy Transition Game

Each well-intentioned idea has a number of different possible outcomes based on both the decisions made and the decision makers. On the photo: media news representing outcomes of various decisions made by players during the Energy Transition Game workshop.

Using social simulation to see the future

Social simulation helps players bring their ideas of the future to life. As they adopt roles and implement their solutions, they begin to “see” how creativity is necessary for addressing so-called “wicked problems.” They feel ownership of their decisions and the results in a way that the more linear thought exercises of traditional scenario planning do not enable.

Players who have used Energy Transition Game, our social simulation on the transition to low-emission energy sources, often come in with a determination – like Macron – to take action. For many, it’s a very logical process: implement the tax, reduce carbon emissions, success!

What they often do not realize is that each well-intentioned idea has a number of different possible outcomes based on both the decisions made and the decision makers. Making consumers bear the real cost of energy production, including pollution mitigation, may work as planned. Alternatively, the policy may be implemented too quickly and clumsily, and be followed by protests, opposition and a significant decline in public support. There may be even 100 other possible results, based on who is at the table, whose views are considered, when and how fast decisions are made and many other factors.

That is why the critical moment for using simulation or other types of experiential scenarios is well before policy implementation, as Margaret Thatcher learned with her “Working for Patients” idea.

Social simulation in practice

In the famous “Rubber Windmill” simulation, the would-be policy administrators challenged themselves to come up with and “implement” a number of possible future scenarios to reform Britain’s National Health Service. By role-playing several potential situations, they hoped to identify traps, blind spots and other challenges and prepare accordingly. What the simulation showed was that the reforms as initially proposed were unfeasible, sending its proponents back to the drawing board.

Where else could simulation have been useful? For starters: Managing the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, Brexit, or the 2015 European refugee crisis. If policymakers had stepped back from politicking and invested the time in exploring the future through simulation, they may have been able to take better decisions.

$The World\'s Future$

The World\'s Future

The social simulation would help policymakers and others with a stake in SDG implementation travel 40-50 years ahead in time and see the interplay of their decisions on the whole ecosystem – not just the effects within their borders. On the picture: mobile version of The World’s Future game.

Time-traveling to The World’s Future

Going forward, other leaders should put their ideas and assumptions about the potential crises of tomorrow into practice using immersive exercises. A particularly good example of this concerns the Sustainable Development Goals, which are built on a complex system with many interconnections. Using The World’s Future would help policymakers and others with a stake in SDG implementation travel 40-50 years ahead in time and see the interplay of their decisions on the whole ecosystem – not just the effects within their borders.

As momentum gathers around ideas like the Green New Deal and debate continues on migration policy, discussions are taking place about how the as-yet-undefined specifics of goals, strategy, and implementation should look. If we are serious about achieving sustainability and if advocates want their policies to stick, they must be able to find a level of consensus on goals, somehow reconciling diverse worldviews. Incorporating social simulation in their planning would enable them to “see” many possible outcomes and more confidently and creatively shape the future.

January 2 2019

annakoch All, Climate Change, Social Simulations, Sustainable Development Goals

Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

Amanda Anthony

20 min read

02.01.2019

The World’s Future is in our hands

How can we use the social simulation to address the biggest problem facing us today?

The world is running out of time and carbon budgets

When the International Panel on Climate Change released its report in October 2018 about necessary actions to limit or reverse the impact of our behavior on the environment, it also gave us a timeline to do so: 12 years. In 12 years, if we continue to produce carbon dioxide at the same pace we have been, we will have “spent” our entire carbon budget and the global average temperature will rise by 1.5-2۫°C. From a climate perspective, this is significant enough. In the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, though, a 1.5°C rise in temperature has far-reaching consequences.

Although 1.5°C may not sound like a lot, the speed at which the temperature has risen is the main cause for concern. The faster we spend our carbon budget, the less time we have to adapt to the new, hotter reality. It’s less time to save coastal cities from being flooded by rising ocean and sea waters, less time to adapt existing infrastructure for more frequent and severe weather, and less time to adapt our agriculture to grow in hotter, drier conditions. These direct impacts have peripheral impacts, too. More droughts and less adaptable crops mean more hunger and more poverty. Human displacement from flooded cities leads to more inequality and worse health and well-being. Rising temperatures affect life on land and life on water – wiping out fragile ecosystems and biodiversity. More poverty, more inequality, lower-quality life on land and underwater – without action, we will regress on achieving a number of Sustainable Development Goals.

Why are we inactive?

“If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations is on the horizon.” said Sir David Attenborough at the UN climate change summit in Poland. This is only one of many public calls for action that has been repeatedly occurring in media over the last decades. And yet, since the Paris agreement in 2015 that obliged world leaders to keep the global temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, no major shifts have occurred in our production and consumption trends. Why? Does humanity consciously choose to follow a path to self-destruction?

The answer to the question is not easy, as the battle over climate change is a battle between knowledge and practice, good will and money, science and politics. Singularly, they are a challenge; together, these challenges compound. Let\’s have a closer look at some examples.

Knowledge does not mean understanding

As early as the 1960s, the first computer models of the world’s climate supported the idea that the growth of greenhouse gases would contribute to warming. In 1988, James Hansen, the former NASA scientist, testified before Congress on anthropogenic climate change, raising public awareness of global warming, and advocating action to avoid its negative impacts.

We know the threats; we have possessed the necessary knowledge for at least 30 years, yet we somehow cannot render it into practice. What we do is present and address climate change and related impacts on the Sustainable Development Goal as something linear and gradual. It’s as if they were a box of chocolates from which we could pick one with no consequences. Let\’s address the world\’s atmosphere today! Or eradicate poverty!

Of course, real-world systems never work like that. They are more like a Jenga tower – each building block depends on another, together creating a highly complex and fragile structure. Moving one block only seems easy, and any false move can trigger a violent reaction that affects the whole tower.

Want a more real-life example? Think about the ocean. Covering around 70% of the Earth’s surface, it plays a crucial role in controlling the climate and the oxygen we breathe. Without a healthy ocean, we don\’t have a healthy planet. Yet, over the past hundred years, the average surface temperature of the seas has risen by about 0.9°C (1.6°F), damaging many fish habitats and causing fish species to move to cooler waters. As a result, warming oceans are affecting fish stocks in some areas, reducing catches and thus directly influencing people who rely on fishing as their main source of income or food. Ocean warming also impacts human health as pathogens spread more easily in warmer waters. This isn’t even mentioning its effects on the weather and the possibility of more severe and frequent extreme phenomena, such as hurricanes, increased rainfall or floods.

Change requires trade-offs

The ocean is only one of many life support systems that humanity depends on. There are other, no less complex ones, including soils, ice, the pattern of winds and currents, pollinators, and biological diversity. They are all interconnected, and if one fails, who knows what will happen to our Jenga tower?

The Sustainable Development Goals offer a way to address these interlinked systems and balance social well-being, economic prosperity and environmental protection. Crucial to their pursuit is, however, our collective effort to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. No matter what politicians say, this won’t happen without necessary trade-offs, as some of the best solutions may have negative impacts on certain segments of society, based on where they live and how they make a living. Afforestation and bioenergy, for example, may compete with agriculture and food production. The example of the yellow jacket movement protests in France shows how policy aimed at lowering national dependence on fossil fuels may negatively affect the middle class and trigger social unrest on an unpredicted scale.

The choices to be made are not easy, as the short-term gains have to be weighed against long-term, yet often uncertain and initially costly, change. Will politicians be able to make the trade-offs? Will the general public be able to accept them?

$The World\'s Future$

The World\'s Future

How to bridge this enormous gap between science and policy? How to help the general public, policymakers and businesses understand both the urgency and the complexity of the situation, and get on board with taking direct action? The World’s Future simulation has been created to address this challenge.

Predatory delay

Short-term gains are a particular problem, as it is common knowledge that in countries all over the world, politics and business are intertwined. Business influences what policies are made; policy influences the way business is done. Such dependencies may thwart rational decision-making as the short-term interests of business oligarchs often stand in opposition to the long-term well-being of society. This also explains why quitting coal is so difficult despite our possessing the knowledge and the technology to do so.

Black gold, although the most polluting of fossil fuels, is still the cheapest, is still underground and still offers an easy path to a lucrative business. Large companies, often subsidized by powerful governments are thus in a rush to expand their markets before coal is taken over by increasingly affordable renewables. Such an attitude, referred to as the “predatory delay” by the environmental writer Alex Steffen is reflected in the decisions of many world leaders. Donald Trump has announced to withdraw the USA – a country that is historically responsible for the most emissions in the world – from the Paris agreement. In Brazil, the newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro, is ready to sacrifice the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness. Most recently, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, defended the country\’s reliance on coal, stating at the UN climate change summit in Katowice that: \”The use of one\’s own natural resources, in Poland\’s case on coal, and basing energy security on them is not in conflict with the climate protection and with progress in climate protection.\”

Way to overcome the impasse

The World’s Future simulation has been created to address this challenge. In this experience, participants become country leaders and collaboratively steer the fictional world from now till around 2030. As players make virtual decisions on their country\’s energy mix, R&D expenditures, environmental policy, and socio-economic growth, they get a very realistic feel of what may happen if we don’t take climate change seriously.

We intentionally chose the name for the simulation to move players from the sphere of abstraction and make them feel real responsibility for what may become our world’s future,” explains Michalina Kułakowska, one of the game designers. However they use their power will soon materialize, either in the form of simulated catastrophe or – quite the contrary – an innovative idea that may enhance a successful transformation.

The simulation, based on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, may be played in person or online, in both cases actively engaging players in revealing the interconnections between the global goals. With the “big picture” displayed, the most pressing challenges of our time become more tangible, easier to embrace and address:

It really helps to better understand the complexity of the ‘real world’, why changes are so slow, why solutions are not put into place, why international cooperation is so complicated.

– Participant of The World’s Future session, October 2018, Switzerland (FiBL)

What awaits players? Temptations, short-term gains and personal interests may come into play. There may be disappointment and frustration over negative repercussions of what seemed like a silver bullet. Tough negotiations and difficult compromises can be compensated with a groundbreaking solution:

The game translates a lot of knowledge and, in this particular case, threats into quite lively experiences. These last much longer in the minds of the players than the same information in the form of books.

– Participant of The World’s Future session, October 2018, Wuppertal Institute

The array of emotions triggered by play is hard to describe. Real experience is always better than words, thus we encourage you to check “The World’s Future” for yourself. Visit its website or contact us to immerse in a truly transformative experience and gain an impetus for real action!

September 12 2018

marta.magnuszewska All, Social Simulations

Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

Piotr Magnuszewski

20 min read

12.09.2018

Learn how social simulations help navigate complexity

In what way are social simulations different from educational games?

What is a social simulation?

A social simulation is similar to a multiplayer serious game in which direct communication between players is strongly highlighted. The word “serious,” which appears in the definition, suggests that the focus of such a game is not on entertainment (although social simulations are often fun) but on a serious goal (or set of goals). How you define a serious goal would depend on your specific need as a game user, but it may be, e.g., awareness raising, professional training, strategy development or learning. Here, at the Centre for Systems Solutions, we develop social simulations that may be applied to as diverse settings as education, business or organization management, social projects, policy-making and many more. Also our audiences vary significantly, embracing school children and students, educators, NGOs’ staff, CEOs or public administration employees, to name just a few.

Green & Great

A serious game targeted at business managers who face the challenges of transformation towards sustainable development and socially responsible business – is an example of a serious educational game with elements of simulation.

How do social simulations work?

Social simulations combine many elements of both formal science and humanities, including systems analysis and simulation techniques, storytelling, group scenario building, and role-playing. Most importantly, social simulations give room for confronting people from different professional and personal backgrounds in a simulated setting that mirrors the dynamics of real-life challenges. How? By recreating a complex net of social relationships via roles and problem cards, and building a fully operational in-game world, whose elements (boards, tokens, etc.) mark its borders. As a result, a realistic representation of a challenge emerges (e.g. players striving to undertake the transition to renewables or preventing negative impacts of a forecasted flood), and a group may engage in a collective action of analyzing and exploring it from a number of perspectives. The safe environment of simulation makes it possible for them to brainstorm and come up with and pre-test various solutions and strategies.

A special type of social simulation, a strategic simulation (also known as a policy exercise), may also be designed and applied to collaboratively diagnose, analyze and solve a specific real-life problem requiring strategic decision-making. In this type of activity, the effort is directed not on simulating any abstract problem but on collecting and organizing real data to engage participants (e.g. policy-makers or company employees) in a collaborative process of building a model which is adequate to their specific context. Therefore, unlike social simulations, which may be applied to many contexts and played by various groups of stakeholders, strategic simulations are always problem-specific and user-tailored, and their success is measured by the emergence of a collaboratively negotiated, realistic and doable strategy to overcome an identified obstacle.

Why are social simulations effective?

Facilitating multi-party experience, such as social and strategy simulations, is the capacity to collect relevant information, prepare a model and design a process in which different groups of people are able to share and contest their knowledge, ideas, values and perspectives. This effort pays off because, unlike traditional top-down planning-implementation models, social simulations offer space for joint practices, experiments and communicative processes during which the participants:

Gain a better cognition of complex problems

When faced with a problem, each person approaches it from their individual perspective, highlighting different aspects of the same input. A pioneer of systems thinking, Russell Ackoff, once provided a good anecdote to illustrate this cognitive bias. A group of people were chit chatting in one of the flats in a townhouse when a tragic message reached them: while climbing the stairs, their elderly neighbor got a fatal heart attack. Devastated as they were at the news, their started to quarrel about the misfortunate event. The first speaker blamed it all on the road service; the city was congested and the ambulance must have got stuck in a traffic jam. The second was firmly convinced that the problem lay in the underfinanced health care – there were not enough ambulances, so the help was delivered too late. Yet another person drew attention to the fact that the accident wouldn’t have happened if there had been an elevator in the building. In fact, all of them were right, but they didn\’t manage to put together the scattered puzzle pieces of information to reveal the “big picture.”

Bouwen and Taillieu (2004) describe such a failure to “gather the pieces” using the kaleidoscope metaphor: Often it happens that people look at the same elements, yet they all have their particular view and are convinced that it is the only perspective possible. Social simulations offer a solution here. By simulating real situations, they act like a mirror, reflecting challenges existing in the real world. However, in real life, grasping the complex nature of a problem requires in-depth multi-faceted analysis and the collaboration of many experts. Meanwhile, simulation compresses time and space, giving room for testing strategies, taking decisions and experiencing their impacts. In this way, previously obscure interdependencies become displayed and the totality of the problem revealed.

Come in contact with a variety of stakeholders

Complex problems require insight, tacit knowledge, cooperation and expertise from a number of independent specialists. Let’s take energy transition, for example. With growing climate risks and scarcity of fossil fuels, most of us realize that the world must switch to sustainable energy systems soon. However, little is known how to handle this task fast, effectively and – most importantly – globally, across countries with different economic, political and environment systems. Examples from places where energy transition is already very advanced (for example Hawaii or Germany) have shown that the process entails a lot of interdependent challenges (blackouts, excessive energy production, costly investments in innovations, taxpayers’ protests, etc.).

Each party entering into such a collaborative problem solving process obviously wishes to address the situation, but at the same time, each has its own way of framing it (Bouwen and Tallieu 2004). Environmentalists are interested in long-term environmental impacts, factory owners perceive the problem from their ‘profitability’ standpoint, whereas politicians would contribute from their ‘public exposure of political action’ frame, etc. (Bouwen and Tallieu 2004). All the stakeholders thus rely on their particular interest and expert knowledge connected to a challenge, and the most difficult task is to make them notice, understand and appreciate this variety of inputs and accommodate them to form a shared understanding. If they don’t find a common language, they most surely start to shift the blame onto somebody else; it was the prime minister who decided to close the factory and left thousands people unemployed or it was the energy provider who caused blackouts…,

Social simulations help overcome such communication problems. A social simulation is “a hybrid, ‘multilogue’ (as opposed to a dialogue) communication form, … a language for complexity for the future, allowing many persons with different perspectives to be in contact with each other, using different forms of communication in parallel” (Guerts et al. 2007). During a simulation, strangers, opponents, experts and laymen are made to interact with each other in a shared, safe environment. They are not bound to any particular mode of communication. On the contrary, they are free to rely on whatever interaction pattern they believe matches their current need (be it pairwork, open group discussion or temporary allies with a couple of players). In this way, they may confront opposing views, exchange experiences and perspectives. This face-to-face contact with other people helps them bridge gaps and build the trust required to come up with a common definition of a problem, which becomes the starting point for developing a negotiated, shared strategy.

Release their creative potential

As part of bigger systems, such as families, corporations or states, people tend to assume social roles that, to a certain extent, determine our expectations of what appropriate or desired behaviour is. For example, a father of three should, most certainly, work hard to support his family rather than spending his day in front of the TV.
Social roles are useful because they help us recognize our tasks and responsibilities. However, the limiting borders of what we assume is expected from or imposed on us by society may negatively affect our creative capacity, bounding us to ineffective yet already tested strategies.

Meanwhile, playing liberates. Entering an in-game world in new, fake roles, players can break free from their “shoulds” and “musts” and open their minds to creative exploration of solutions that they hadn’t previously been aware of.

Social simulations trigger creativity and provoke stakeholders to test it in practice. The simulated reality does not entail fatal consequences, thus even the most revolutionary hypothesis may be verified and its consequences become instantly evident. Although not always satisfactory, each result triggers novel alternatives, challenging role-players to reach beyond what has already been tested and explore new pathways into the unknown. In this way participants discover that the productive potential required for any change is already in them, and all they have to do is find courage to use it.

Learn how to make consensus

Taking on a new role has yet another advantage, as it enables role-shifting and triggers empathy for others. Need an example? Let’s look at one of our simulations, the Energy Transition Game (ETG). Imagine that you have no experience whatsoever in leading a transformation process. And your regular job is, let’s say, in accounting. But now, as a technological startup manager, you find yourself negotiating a subsidy with the government representative and deliberating on your country’s future energy mix. Neither of you know the future and you both may feel uneasy investing in expensive innovative technologies that may not generate returns anytime soon. Yet, the game mechanics require you to take a decision or you hinder your fictional country’s development.

Role-shifting often helps people step out from their regular framework and better understand other people’s perspectives. I know it is hard but we have to decide on something or I will share my budget to support your idea, if you decide to reduce emissions. During such a framing-reframing process, participants actively experiment with new ideas, concepts and emotions to find more positive alternatives, which sets the stage for negotiating a consensus among different parties.

The consensus we are talking about does not mean that everyone will necessarily find the solution completely satisfying. It means, however, that it has been negotiated and accepted by all parties with the acknowledgement of each other’s independent worldviews, interests, inputs and responsibilities.

Thanks to social simulations, such as e.g. Energy Transition Game (ETG), people may find themselves in completely new roles.

Become motivated to act

Games and other activities allowing self-expression, such as music, painting or telling stories, are intrinsic to our culture (Zimmerman 2013). Why? Because they rely on inquisitiveness. Children don’t have to be encouraged to play – they do it out of their inborn curiosity, which tells them to take an object and explore its functions and mechanisms until they learn all about it. Consequently, by tinkering with “transitional objects”’, such as toys and games, people get to know the environment they live in (Guerts et al. 2007).

Yet, games play one more key role in human life. Since ancient times, they served as rituals to challenge fate and to dispel anxiety about things yet to come. The symbolic act of collective fighting against the ‘ghosts of the future’ helped ancient people strengthen social ties, create a sense of solidarity and realize that they all have certain responsibility in ensuring safety and wellbeing to their community (Geurts et al. 2007). Social simulations build on this tradition. By testing different scenarios and approaches to a problem, participants take a “virtual look into the future”, exploring potential adversities or obstacles on their way. As a result, they gain a better understanding of their specific challenge and their responsibility towards it, realizing that they have enough experience, knowledge and determination to face it in real life (Guerts et al. 2007).

Social simulations must be well-researched and based on transparent sources. They help us understand each other and allow us to leave the cage of our opinions and views. Their aim is not to impose opinions on people but to help them come up with new solutions via self-reflection.

July 17 2018

annakoch All, Disaster Risk Management & Resilience, Energy Transition, Natural Resources Management, Nexus: Water-Energy-Food-Environment, Social Simulations, Water Management

Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

20 min read

17.07.2018

Understanding The Nexus Approach

The nexus approach

The Latin term „nexus” refers to the act of binding something together. The concept was first mentioned in the context of resource management in 1980s, especially in connection with the UN University Food-Energy Nexus programme. It was not until the Bonn2011 Nexus Conference, however, that the nexus approach gained relevant prominence. Guided by the principle of integrating management and governance across sectors and scales, the conference argued that the nexus approach can improve water, energy and food security, at the same time supporting the transition to a green economy, which is expected to increase resource efficiency and provide greater policy coherence.

The need for a more integrated, holistic approach both to the resource management and to the global policy in general became even more undisputable with the adaptation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. To simultaneously address the 17 major priorities, ranging from poverty and hunger alleviation, gender equality, industry development to sustainable production and environment protection, we are all required to recognize the interrelatedness and interdependence of these, partially overlapping or competing, goals, and to grasp the complex net of interactions, trade-offs and synergies that they create. Advancing towards a more stable and sustainable future depends thus on the “nexus thinking” or “systems thinking” that, instead of just looking at individual components and short-term quantitative outcomes, recognizes feedbacks and connections, and promotes concerted action and cooperation on a global scale across sectors, time and space.

From time to time a woman in black approaches each department, passing them a thick pile of documents. Upon her arrival, the group discussions become even more stormy. It means that a new problem or request has been submitted by the society. Departments’ heads are scanning the documents quickly, trying to prioritize issues the group has to address. The time is running, members of the groups seem to be far from reaching a consensus, and a stream of new issues is still flowing. Suddenly, a collective sigh of relief may be heard – the water department voted for a policy unanimously. The head of the department leaves to pass their proposal to the council. Just in time! Almost simultaneously, a moderator rings a bell and asks the buzzing crowd for attention.

Why do we need the nexus approach

A range of socio-ecological processes, such as population growth, economic development and urbanization have contributed to an overall change in the way land and natural resources are exploited, processed and consumed. Growing demand and unsustainable management have increased man’s ecological footprint and caused modification or degradation of the natural resource base in many areas of the world. The situation is further exacerbated by pollution and human-driven climate change, which results in uncertainty and less reliable food and water supplies due to e.g. intense extreme events (such as droughts or floods). Such pressures may in long-term drive social-ecological systems across critical thresholds, leading to irreversible water, energy and food crises. To avoid this situation and align with the Sustainable Development Goals, we need a shift towards improved resource efficiency, demand management and more sustainable consumption patterns.

The nexus approach can guide a transition to sustainability, by reducing negative impacts within the system and producing gains that outweigh the costs connected with investing in better policy and “greener” technology. Based on a better understanding of the interdependence of water, energy and food, this integrated approach identifies multilateral beneficial solutions to resource management (e.g. water and waste recycling, investing in green infrastructure or renewable sources of energy) and provide way to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Nexus Game

Like most “serious” games, does not rely on rivalry or single goal completion but presents the array of challenges and opposing interests that the players have to face to determine their own priorities.

Messy business

While the benefits of a nexus approach for individuals and societies are unquestionable, little is known how to advance this approach, especially in a multi-stakeholder environments. Global challenges that involve many diversified groups of stakeholders taking decisions under uncertainty, require collaboration on many different levels. The complex nature of socio-ecological system is characterized by messiness, with many processes happening at the same time. Without a proper understanding of the variables, policymakers may solve one problem but unintentionally generate another one, as illustrated, e.g. by the misconceptions connected with the renewable sources of energy. Many people may think that because the renewables cannot generally be over-exploited or depleted, they do not involve any negative impacts. Meanwhile, overdependence on them may highly interfere with other nexus sectors. For example biofuels, and to some extent hydropower, demand more water per unit of energy produced compared to fossil fuels. They also involve a risk of negative energy gains. For instance, corn grown in the US for energy purposes may require more calories of input than it eventually produces. As a consequence, unless integrated in multi-use systems, biofuels may actually compete with food production for water, potentially decreasing the resilience of food production systems.

Many attempts to identify an optimal path towards sustainability fail due to over-reliance on hard data and inadequate appreciation of the diversity of ways decisions are made. People often erroneously assume that their choices stem from rationality. Meanwhile, we are never equipped with perfect information on the situation and are prone to show bias, rely on misconceptions and our individual understanding of the issue, and favor short-term gains rather than longstanding solutions. Add to it differences in human values or interest and uncertainty that underlies our future, and the complexity of collaborative decision-making becomes evident. There is myriad of perspectives the sustainability transformation may be approached and no one “optimal” answer to it exists. This raises the question: How to advance a socially accepted solution? The solution that is agreed upon by the majority of stakeholders and offers possibilities to address all the nexus sectors and their complex interactions?

The Nexus Game offers a possibility to explore the dynamics of transboundary resource management. The game setting contains two countries sharing a river basin and thus facing interlinked challenges of water, energy and food production and consumption. By assuming the roles of the prime ministers, water ministers, energy ministers or agriculture ministers, the players enter into inter-government and international negotiations in order to meet the growing people’s demands and at the same time achieve sustainable development in both countries.

Social simulation to explore the nexus approach

There are many ways the complexity of water-energy-food nexus may be explored, however the best option is always to actively engage the stakeholders. Activities that enable people to collaboratively explore alternative scenarios offer space for creativity required to discover brand new paths, and enable the participants to understand competing interests and worldviews, which is a starting point for negotiating a consensus. In this context social simulations are gaining recognition, as a tool for triggering involvement and increasing public awareness on many serious issues. Simulating the reality of socio-ecological dilemmas, they help “players” immerse in their roles and gradually discover the complex landscape of problems, responsibilities and opportunities.

The Nexus Game is a good example, as it offers a possibility to explore the dynamics of transboundary resource management. The game setting contains two countries sharing a river basin and thus facing interlinked challenges of water, energy and food production and consumption. By assuming the roles of the prime ministers, water ministers, energy ministers or agriculture ministers, the players enter into inter-government and international negotiations in order to meet the growing people’s demands and at the same time achieve sustainable development in both countries. Their task is not easy, taking into consideration the interlinked pressures, such as the unpredictable rainfall (resulting in floods or droughts) and the shrinking natural and monetary resources. The decisions they make receive almost immediate feedback, as e.g. erroneous distribution of water tokens negatively affects power generation or agriculture production. Consequently, throughout the game, the participants may discover a number of dependencies existing across and within water, energy and food systems and learn that sustainable resource management requires forward looking and making difficult choices between meeting current needs and investing in developments technologies that may positively affect their countries’ production and consumption trends.

As noticed by Mochizuki et al. (2018), one of the significant characteristics of the game is that the players observe not only the benefits but also trade-offs connected with reducing resource use and transition to low-emission options. For example, an improved coal power plant burns coal at a higher temperature, reducing coal input and GHG emissions but increasing water footprint. A micro-hydroelectric plant, on the other hand, although cleaner, depends highly on water availability and may be ineffective in times of drought. By highlighting these inevitable “costs” that have to be born, the players are able not only to gain a more holistic perception of the system, but also understand the dilemmas of policy-making under uncertainty.

The Nexus Game, like most “serious” games, does not rely on rivalry or single goal completion but presents the array of challenges and opposing interests that the players have to face to determine their own priorities. While exploring the simulated world, the participants soon become aware of the need to communicate and collaborate.The two countries are highly dependant on the river their share, therefore individual and common interests blurry, creating a space for negotiations and compromises. All ministers are given partial authority and may focus solely on their sectors. However, if they don’t decide to cooperate within and and across the boundaries of their country, serious problems emerge in all nexus sectors. “I have learned that energy, agriculture, water ministers must collaborate with each other to better decision making. They are interdependent systems,” as one of the players summarized the experience.

The simulation, developed in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in cooperation with the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, has been played, i.a., with the participants of the Dresden Nexus Conference, the employees of the African Development Bank in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and water and energy professionals in Johannesburg (South Africa) and Cairo (Egypt). Many valuable insights and reflections emerged during these sessions, as most of the players agreed that the Nexus Game offers a playful, participatory and hands-on experience, which allowed them to learn from each other, view their opinions and gain a better understanding of the nexus approach to resource management. One of the participants of the Egyptian session admitted, for example, that the immersion in the simulated world helped him “see the big picture and evaluate situations objectively not subjectively, from a different perspective that usual”. Greater empathy, perspective-taking as well as the ability to perceive global challenges not as individual obstacles but as part of the bigger system, are among most appreciated lessons drawn by the Nexus players. Another Egyptian participant stated, for example, that via exploring the game’s world, he “learned how water is the propeller of development in every field, like food production, energy, and how it affects the pollution.” All these comments confirm our belief that social simulations are powerful tools to be explored while developing long-term strategies and policies, and may definitely support sustainable practices that will ultimately lead to a more fair, stable, inclusive and satisfied societies living in harmony with Nature.

References

Hoff, Holger. 2011. Understanding the NEXUS. Background Paper for the Bonn2011 Conference: The Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus. Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute.;

Mochizuki J., Magnuszewski P., Linnerooth-Bayer J. (2018) Games for Aiding Stakeholder Deliberation on Nexus Policy Issues. In: Hülsmann S., Ardakanian R. (eds) Managing Water, Soil and Waste Resources to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham

May 4 2018

marta.magnuszewska All, Social Simulations, Sustainable Development Goals

Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

15 min read

04.05.2018

THE ALPBACH STORY: CENTRE FOR SYSTEMS SOLUTIONS’ SIMULATIONS IN THE VILLAGE OF THINKERS

TOWARDS THE UNITED EUROPE

In 1945 the Second World War was coming to an end. By this time European thinkers, politicians and scientists were seeking for efficient ways to ensure a complete reconstruction of intellectual life in Europe and to prevent future massive conflicts among European nations. In August 1945 the “Internationale Hochschulwochen” (The International Summer Seminars) were established by Otto Molden, who had been active in the resistance movement during the Second World War, and a philosophy lecturer, Simon Moser. The initiative was created as “an intellectual platform of discussion where Europe’s cultural, scientific and humanitarian heritage could be developed in a future-oriented way and where European integration could be promoted.”

THE VILLAGE OF THINKERS

The endeavor (renamed to “European Forum Alpbach” in 1949) soon gained considerable recognition among the intellectuals interested in political unification in Europe. Over 70 years later, the Tyrolean mountain village of Alpbach remains the “other magic mountain”, gathering 5000 participants from over 100 countries every year. For three weeks they participate in seminars, symposia and debates and discuss current issues, exchange knowledge and formulate interdisciplinary solutions. “The open character of the events promotes a climate of tolerance for different opinions and contributes to overcoming national, ideological and disciplinary boundaries in a peaceful manner.”

ALWAYS UP-TO DATE

Each year the programme of the European Forum Alpbach is focused around a selected European challenge, aiming to trigger reflection and more coherent action towards an economically, politically and socially stable future. The rich schedule embraces seminars and symposia and is addressed to international and interdisciplinary decision makers from science, health, higher education, law, technology, politics, economy, built environment, financial markets, culture, art, and civil society, as well as to students and university graduates, who can participate in the Alpbach Summer Schools.

CENTRE FOR SYSTEMS SOLUTIONS AT EUROPEAN FORUM ALPBACH

The organizers do not hesitate to invite speakers, lecturers and facilitators from all over the world, who – in the course of time – create a diversified yet bound by a common mission network of partners. Since 2014 the Centre for Systems Solutions (in cooperation with International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis) has its share in this process. From that time on, the multinational and multicultural participants of the European Forum Alpbach have been engaged in our social simulations, playing, i.a., Forest@Risk, Bengaluru Quest or The World’s Future through which they explored the difficult task of making decisions under certainty, managing common pool resources, addressing social and environmental problems and transforming towards sustainability. Combining the elements of scenario building, role-playing and game-like mechanisms, the social simulations at Alpbach offered a perfect complement to lively and fruitful plenary discussions or seminars.

The multinational and multicultural participants of the European Forum Alpbach have been engaged in our social simulations, like The World’s Future.

In 2017, Piotr Magnuszewski had also a unique opportunity to co-create a beautiful dance performance based on the game theory and led by Gloria Benedikt from IIASA. As part of the the closing plenary session “Transformative pathways to sustainability: from perception to changing behavior” of the Alpbach Political Symposium, InDilemmaperformance touched on inequalities, shrinking resources and living space, enabling audience to actively affect the moves of the dancers. “By creating a narrative around an abstract theory, using music, dance, and visuals with narrated text,…[InDilemma provided] insights into the power of fusing artistic and scientific processes in order to strengthen this competence as well as into the potential of actively engaging audiences to understand and support the complex decision making involved in working to achieve sustainability.”

March 2 2018

annakoch All, Democracy and Civil Society, Disaster Risk Management & Resilience, Natural Resources Management, Nexus: Water-Energy-Food-Environment, Sustainable Development Goals, Water Management

Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

Marek Jaskólski

15 min read

02.03.2018

Bengaluru Quest in Alpbach

How to trigger reflection and inspire to action in an hour

Alpbach experience

It is an early afternoon in the Austrian Alps. A wooden terrace of a mountain shelter is bathed in sunlight – the yellow umbrellas above the small tables look like daffodils’ flowers. Under each umbrella, a group of five or six people is discussing something animatedly. The tables they gather around are marked “Water Department”, “Public Health & Waste department”, “Infrastructure & Energy Department”, “Business department” and “Environment department”. There is also one additional table, moved a bit aside. It is the Council, whose task is to consider the policy proposals that are brought to them by the department’ heads.

A fiasco?

The moderator is standing next to the map of Bengaluru, and he has an important message to pass: Due to poor sanitation and water treatment system, the city is heading towards a major water crisis. Although the water department’s proposal to enforce new sewage treatment standards has been approved and financial sanctions are now imposed on developers who do not provide sewage treatment plants in apartments with more than 20 houses, illegal dumping of untreated sewage and waste continue. According to the marshals, at least one case of dumping happens every day. As a result, toxic forth has appeared on several lakes, and the Bellandur Lake has burst into flames. Meanwhile, the groundwater level has dropped dramatically and the exposure to toxic substances is still rising. The potable water supply scarcity becomes even more threatening, taking into account the rapid population growth…

The people are shocked. For the last thirty minutes they were struggling hard to find most appropriate solutions to the burning problems of the city, yet new issues seem to pop up out of nowhere. They listen to the moderator’s summary and prognozes, trying to draw valuable conclusions. Soon a new round of negotiations will begin and they will be given a chance to correct their mistakes…

The moderator is standing next to the map of Bengaluru, and he has an important message to pass.

Will Bengaluru have to be evacuated soon?

The Bengaluru Quest – the social simulation played at the Alpbach-Laxenburg Group in September 2017 – was inspired by such a real problem. The City of Bengaluru (until 2006 – Bangalore) in the state of Karnataka in southern India, is one of the fastest growing cities in the world (3.25% per year). Often referred to as India’s Silicon Valley, the city is the major hub for IT companies of the country, accounting for about 30–40% of the IT exports from India. With the presence of international IT giants (such as Google, Microsoft or Yahoo) and the largest number of high-tech start-ups of any Indian city, Bengaluru seems to offer unrivalled opportunities. However, as experienced by the participants of the social simulation in Alpbach, the city is struggling with a number of serious social and environmental problems, including:

Social inequalities:

As might be expected, the flagship companies of the rich IT-branch are located in well-stocked city parts. Their managerial staff and qualified employees live in modern, separated from poverty and dirt, housing estates (gated communities), but the majority of the city population are poor employees of informal sector. They live in slums with unacceptable sanitation conditions, where the poverty gap increases year by year alongside the dissatisfaction of the society.

Water scarcity

Although Bengaluru has a lot of rain at certain times of the year, supplying its citizens with sufficient clean drinking water is difficult. There are no rivers nearby. The city used to rely mainly on wells and over 600 artificial lakes (established in 16th century). In 1971 the city started pumping water from the River Cauvery 100km from the city and 300m lower in elevation. The costly (each kilo-litre of water takes 1.88 units of electricity to transport) process is nowadays used to supply nearly 60% of the city’s demand for water. However, the forecasts are worrying as the river\’s efficiency decreases year by year. What is more, an estimated 35%t of water meant for the city is wasted in leakages in pipe systems. The artificial lakes, meanwhile, are nowadays mostly converted into housing estates or other developments. What has complicated the situation is the falling groundwater table and low-rainfall being recorded in Kodagu, the river\’s birthplace, because of reckless destruction of fragile ecology. The process of falling groundwater table is also visible at Bengaluru, where in 1990 the groundwater table was at 30 meter deep, while in 2015 it was at 300 m.

Water-theft

The limited drinking water access is resulting in further social inequalities and even in criminal acts, as water theft is a common practice in Bengaluru. Threat of criminal liability does not help, even after the BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board) introduced a penalty of six months of jail for stealing water. Only in 2016 over 80,000 households were found to have drawn unauthorized connections from the pipeline network of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, and this was only the tip of the iceberg, as there is no data about the amount of water that is illegally pumped from the wells.

Water pollution

The sewerage network covers only 265 km2 of the city (around one third). Therefore it does not have the capacity to treat all sewage. Only 30% of the sewage is treated and the rest flows untreated into the existing lakes. The process of uncontrolled waste and illegal sewage dumping limits water access still further. Most of the lakes are nowadays contaminated, filled with domestic and industrial waste (the estimated sewage generated by the city is about 1400 millions of liters per day, the installed capacity of sewage treatment plants was in 2016 only 721 MLD). It all adds to the potable water scarcity, as most of the borewell water and tap water in Bengaluru is not potable anymore.

Toxic waste and burning lakes

The IT sector has created the problem of toxic e-waste in the city, the estimations showing a number of 20,000 tons of e-waste that is produced in Bengaluru each year. Although a formal recycling system for e-waste was set up, 90% of it is dealt with through the informal sector, which is harder to monitor. Unaware of the necessary safety measures, some incinerate the e-waste, releasing lead, mercury and other toxins into the air – and dump the rest, allowing pollutants to infiltrate the groundwater. This unprofessional waste disposal causes not only water contamination but also direct human hazard. Sometimes the level of contamination is so high that the water reservoirs are covered with froth which catches fire.

Encroachment of lakes by buildings

The population density of Bengaluru increased by about 425% in just ten years thanks to growing opportunities. In 2017, there were 17,000 people per square kilometer, compared to 4,012 ten years before. Bengaluru is now growing faster than ever, crossing the 10-million mark in 2013. To satisfy the demand for housing, most of the Bangalore artificial lakes have got encroached (legally and illegally) and converted to developmental activities.

Lack of greenery and air pollution

The process of city growth and sprawling development encroached the natural areas causing their radical decrease. The disappearance of green areas dramatically reduces their positive impact on heat and air pollution in urban zone. Traffic and uncontrolled emission of industrial exhaust is the reason why Bengaluru was ranked 63rd among 168 cities for PM 2.5 levels in 2015-16 (air pollution), far below standards prescribed by the World Health Organization.

All these problems have lead some scientists and researchers to conclude that the city of Bengaluru will become unlivable in a couple of years – with an alarming growth of built–up area, almost no potable water and the vegetation reduced to minimum, it will simply consume itself.

Can social simulations help us understand global challenges better?

The Bengaluru case offers an excellent example of a complex, multifaceted problem, whose understanding would require months or even years of extensive research and thorough analysis of variables and interconnections. Meanwhile, in case od Alpbach experience, the “players” had only an hour. What is more, rather than studying diagrams and facts, they got actively involved in the process of mock policy making. By assuming new roles of the city council and its different departments, they entered a simulated reality of a struggling city whose fate was left in their hands. An inflow of requests, petitions and letters from unsatisfied inhabitants reflected the multitude of overlapping and contradicting interests and needs the Bengaluru citizens really face. A division into rounds created additional tension, as the time pressure made the decision process even more hectic.

From time to time, signs of frustration could be observed, as the effort put in diagnosing a situation, framing critical issues, developing relevant policies, and passing them through the legislative process did not bring desirable outcomes. The city was evolving according to participants decisions – the map of the city was constantly updated by the moderator. And although the participants did they best to address all the urgencies, new problems always appeared, covering the map with warning signs.

It may seem from the above example that social simulations are designed to confront the participants with their incompetence or lack of strategic thinking. This is not the case. Social simulations throw participants in at the deep end to let them experience the complexity behind many global problems. Relying on a simple mechanism of cause-effect relation and the moderator\’s instant feedback, the Bengaluru Quest finally helped the participants discover the underlying interconnections and perceive the country’s situation more holistically.

Did they manage to secure the Bengaluru’s future in an hour? The answer is no. Yet, this was not the aim of the activity. Social simulations do not offer ready-made solutions to global problems. What they do is help people navigate the complexity behind such problems and to understand that an effective counteraction requires collaboration, smooth information flow, and ability to make trade-offs. Many participants of the Alpbach experience hadn’t heard about the Bengaluru’s situation before. They were shocked to hear that the “game” they “played” is in fact rooted in real data, and that the problems they were trying to address may soon lead India’s Silicon Valley to destruction. The Bengaluru Quest enabled them to immerse in this reality for 60 dreadful minutes and draw valuable conclusions.

Social simulations throw participants in at the deep end to let them experience the complexity behind many global problems. On the picture: Nexus Game, another great example of social simulation.

Going beyond the Bengaluru case

The Bengaluru Quest is thus an environment for exploring behavioral, social and institutional challenges connected with sustainability transformation. By painful yet thought-provoking confrontation with a real-world case, participants may face a complex, ambiguous, and uncertain reality of modern policy making. The interactive and dynamic character of this process can lead to a deeper understanding and insights of a universal relevance. What can we do differently to avoid similar mistakes? How to ensure more safe and sustainable future for all? What is my individual responsibility in this process? These are all questions that emerged during a short session in the Austrian Alps.