2025 is off to a breakneck pace and I can tell you from my end, so far it has been a blur.
To start with a bit of sad news, 7Peaks Brasserie has closed its doors for good. After many difficult months, and a bleak outlook for the future, Corinne and I have decided to close the brewery and redirect our energy towards new adventures.
Now for the good news. In December, I was accepted into the 2025 cohort of the “Organizing the Climate Transition” run by Business Schools for Climate Leadership (BS4CL) (https://www.bs4cl.org/about/). BS4CL represents “the beginnings of collective action across business schools” and I am honored to have been chosen as part of this elite program.
Courses started in January and will run until early April. This program will help me to challenge the validity and relevance of my research topic amongst the world’s top academic sustainability researchers. After only 4 sessions, I can confirm that B Behaviours remains an incipient field. Proof is in the fact that nearly 70% of sustainability researchers are working in the field of business strategy and finance, with little focus on social issues.
I participated in a very interesting course titled “Applying a Systems Lens to the Climate Transition”, which focused on the of role systems thinking in sustainability. Those systems thinkers who are reading me now are probably saying, “But of course!” Unfortunately, there is a great deal of research that shows a significant lack of systems thinking in sustainability research, also within the sustainability field. I found this very disappointing, yet enlightening at the same time. As a systems thinker, I have the painful gift of seeing how the systems around us play out. I take certian things for granted, and sometimes make invalid assumptions as a result. My false assumption is that the sustainability community is taking a systems approach. While this may not be the case, there is a solution.
Ever heard of panarchy? “Panarchy is the term we use to describe a concept that explains the evolving nature of complex adaptive systems” (Holling, 2001). Imagine a whole pile of heirarchies working together. That’s a panarchy. Sustainability professionals and sustainability researchers tend to focus on elements within a heirarchy in order to improve, or to increase knowledge. But it is very hard to control the results of meaningful action within a heirarchy once it moves out into the panarchy. Also, current academic journals require well constrained research in order to be considered for publication. In order to address the global climate issues that face us, we need to evolve our thinking. All of these heirarchies must work intelligently within the panarchy in order to deliver systemic improvement. We must accept this need to change our perspective and pivot towards a systems approach. And to add another element of complexity, our current social “situation” confirms our behaviour is what needs changing.
Needless to say, this B Behaviours research has never been more important. I am looking forward to the coming months when I will be able to share my learnings as I dig deep into the literature review. But before that, I have an important milestone in my B Behaviours research. I must submit my formal Research Proposal for validation on March 10th. I am working through the details with my supervisor Thibault Daudigeos and will share the final product once it is submitted and approved. Until then, I have lots of editing to do.
2025 is the year of the snake, associated with transformation, renewal, and spiritual growth. It’s time to let go of the old and embrace the new. I think i’m off to a pretty good start.