Tag: Business-Sustainability

How are sciences misused to back up a cLaim?

Posted on by AnnJoest in Business-Sustainability

As I wrote on my WordPress Blog page, I am using the sciences to back up my claims. I am not the only one and there are further blog formats that also use the sciences to back up their claims. The sciences I relate to scientific papers that are for example peer-reviewed. Now what’s the catch? Nowadays, I am certainly not the only one, you can open Google Scholar and then you type in what you are looking for and when you are lucky, which you likely are because we are saturated on the sciences, you find a scientific article that you are looking for – to confirm what you think and want to convey. Just to give you an example; Sex is awesome, oh suprise an older study confirms it is awesome. My obvservation is valid.

A former professor of mine referred to it as scientific “cherry-picking“ and I am delighted that she taught me about it, because indeed she is right. It is as easy these days to write a blog, possibly policy and investement suggestions and and cherry-pick the foundation for it as easy as it is not to. You could not do so and be honest, while following logical argumentation and analysing “its” meaning but hypothetically, the validity of your own argument is lost for further recognition, making what you write and what is to be read rather invalid, if not even stupid without scientific evidence. Instead we trust the sciences and how we read it, to then make a claim or to confirm the claim we try to make; “We should invest into bitcoin”, because in the future people will like it, according to this study and not carefully delibertion of it; its method and outcome and done for who by who and how. Logically and if we are being honest, it can also be not like that, because the future is too uncertain and more studies would have to be done etc. Some studies or the ability to publish is furthermore exclusive too, making the sciences limited to what I call a bit elitaire and exclusive towards different knowledge.

Now more about the sciences and how they are used, by who and why. You will find that a NGO X is making claims and then tends to use a study or at least parts of it to confirm their claim or to receive funding. In my field, known the field of sustainability something similiar can be found. “A” is sustainable minded and wants that people consume more sustainable and to do so needs money for purpose “B”. A will now look for an article on consumer studies and finds one (favored are studies by business consultencies and market research institutes) to confirm that 60% of consumers of a random sample group want to buy more sustainable. The study confirms what A was looking for, whilst ignoring wishful thinking which is that many people not actually want it and the fact that 40% don’t want to buy more sustainable etc. A yet receives some funding and the investment into for example sustainable apparel flops.

Now this goes further and further, making its way into the sciences itself, which is to research to confirm or to develop something that confirms the hypothesis, or what the client needs. This can happen if the research is steered towards a specific set of expected responses “How much do you like this?” instead of “How do you view this?” (Even if you ask how much do you like this, you make liking the main option). No? Ever been asked how much you dislike something that should be of liking and then rate it? My former professor (thank you at this point) referred to it as being the devils advocate. If you are an honest broker, you research and provide different options and the outcomes could be of choosing for the client. Ideally, you would be a pure scientist, making objective observation or picking objective studies by as much as possible (Pielke Jr, R. A., 2007). The latter tends to receive little funding because it can lead to non desired outcomes, obviously.

Now what is it that I want from you? Have a look at your resources and don’t use them, if you don’t want to and do if you want to. Why? Because its vicious and risks that investements and hopes are placed falsely. Have a look at studies that don’t confirm what you are looking for. It itches, but may give room for different spaces to thrive,for example new ideas, strategies, projects and policies and even not where they should not.

Recommended references:

Evans, A., Sleegers, W., & Mlakar, Ž. (2020). Individual differences in receptivity to scientific bullshit. Judgment and Decision Making, 15(3), 401.

Pai, M. (2020). How Prestige Journals Remain Elite, Exlusive And Exclusionary. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/madhukarpai/2020/11/30/how-prestige-journals-remain-elite-exclusive-and-exclusionary/?sh=5e90a3254d48

Pielke Jr, R. A. (2007). The honest broker: making sense of science in policy and politics. Cambridge University Press.

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Self-Rejection and Innovation

Posted on by AnnJoest in Business-Sustainability, Mental Health

You are a company, an individual and you would like to do it different. You don’t because of what others think, the possibility to get rejected. You do it then like others do it, or those who are well known “write like the New York Times”, copy the business model from “Tesla”. You get little to no liking, because you lack novetely and you feel frustrated, it lacks the reality you wished to feel, to follow.

The outcome is that what you would have liked to do, what you and how you would like to do it differently, has and had little chance to surface and it leads you to self-reject before you even try.

I believe this perception is how much innovation becomes #rejected before it even has the chance to surface or to come to word.

P.S. even the New York Times started somewhere to be New York Times. Why not be your own New York Times, Tesla, whatever it is that you admire?

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Can we predict the future?

Posted on by AnnJoest in Uncategorized

We cannot predict the future with certainty, but we can create possible scenarios. In sustainability one looks at trends such as in the ecology, economy and society to form possible images or scenarios of the future. For example one can see increasing policies supporting sustainable development, more companies to engage in sustainable production processes or at least ESG and also increasing consumer interests in such. Therefore, one could imagine that in 2050 earth will be quite sustainable, whatever that means exactly.

Can the future be predicted accuratly?

There is certain bias to it because we find daily changes, but also unexpected events that may drastically influence our imagined scenario. Such an example is Covid-19 or the Ukraine Russian war that hugely impacted and still does in terms of efforts towards sustainable development; energy transition, cooperation, peace building opportunities and unexpected emissions such as from war, also the fact that while people care, some do not and some may do differently.

Can unexpected events be accounted for?

To take these unexpected events into account wild cards can be used. Wildcards can relate to any event that can have a major impact, for example a terrorist attack, an earthquake, a pandemic, or more individual an unplanned pregnancy, a Sexual Transmitted Disease or other illnesses not accounted for etc. . These are important to take into account because as seen in the examples before, they can hugely disrupt predictions. [Can you think of more?]

Why are wildcards important?

Wildcards are important because the future is too uncertain to predict it fully, so wildcards help to think about what other scenarios could occur and how to prevent them or what could be done in the case of their occurrance. Often these can help in minimizing possible risks. One of such examples is intelligence analysis, in which possible scenarios are quickly predicted to, for example, prevent fatalities or economic shocks. However, they may and they may not include wildcards or they may be based on them.

“This is likely to happen, lets therefore implement a policy here or increase security there or pay attention to there.”

Can scenario analysis be biased?

Yes, this can happen by taking into account narrowed views, biased sources or limited expertise. This can happen because of personal and collective bias or because of limited or biased information used to predict the future. For example the scenario of the sustainable earth I described at the beginning is purposely very one sided, focusing only on “positive” developments; whereby likely many companies may not care or cannot care about sustainability. The same can account for people and different countries too. So the future of earth may as much be sustainable as much as it won’t or a mix of it. This is imporant to be aware of to understand possible bottlenecks such as the impact of poverty or inequalities that can serve as barrier for interests in sustainability as a whole.

Can bias be avoided?

I believe that bias cannot be avoided fully, because there most often is personal and collective bias, but bias can be reduced such as by fact-checking news- sources; by looking carefully validating and evaluating information (cross-referencing) as well as by checking into different developments. Of course one should do so in a particular lign of interest and boundaries (time/space/directions).

Can bias be encouraged?

One may also go with imagining any future such as done most often in science-fiction and here work fully with possible bias and hence, imaginary. Yet, the reality of how to get there, might be a bit vague, a bit too much of phantasma so that future predictions becomes quit difficult to predict with certainty or possibly unrealistic.

Questions? Let me know and also if you want more on that topic. Below you can find my summaries.

Recommended Resources:

Walsh, P. (2011). Intelligence and intelligence analysis. Willan.

Investopedia (2022). Forecasting. Retrievable here.

Is there hope in the lack of it?

Posted on by AnnJoest in Uncategorized

Someone asked me to reply to the following;

“Many people say we are driving towards extinction and horrible living conditions, basically the future will be really dark. Others say that everything will be fine. I don’t know if I can relax and enjoy the present moment with thinking that the future will be ok or if I need to fight more because the future will apparently be really bad.”

And here is my answer;

In sustainability we deal nearly every day with the worst case scenarios and how to prevent them. In doing so we tend to begin with the end in mind and often that is the worst; “the end of the world as a result of climate change”. This trickles down to the interconnections and reason for that to happen such as inqualities, growing gaps between the rich an poor, corruption, unsustainable production and consumption processes, homophobia, abuse of power, addictions, health disparities, greed, species destinction, terrorism, further illness and alike. A recipe for anxiety.

It is now not only climate change that is a threat to our own survival, but it is also the interconnections that, when we focus in extremes on them, become the reality of how this world is, or more specifically how we perceive it to be. Let me point out; it is not like that, it is not neither nor in extreme, it is in proportion. Yet, (please continue reading, the good part is comming soon), many of these challenges seem extremely difficult to solve though, because of how complex they are so that the proportion might feel overwhelming. Such an example is the current war going on between Russia and the Ukraine. There is no “stop” botton. And there also seems no stop bottom for corporations to pollute and exploit because they get to benefit from the perks of limited liability (see why that happens in the video below). It nearly feels like working towards a vacuum, a sort of helplessness in the messiness we fight in that field.

Now in sustainability we still work with the end in mind (the worst case scenario) and in some methods we imagine the best case scenario, in which we have saved the world and all problems this world is facing (see the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals). Yet even if we use the best case scenario in which we imagine the perfect world, we still break down the vision into things that don’t work out now and then how we need to change them get to the imagined perfect world. We may see again that all is quite wicked. It makes it seemingly perceive that we will likely run into a shitstorm; extinction. More anxiety.

Is there any hope globally?

In all the scenarios that we run through, in all the madness that indeed is real in proportion, there is yet also hope. That is in fact seeing that such things as the Sustainable Development Goals exist or that one or two typos become increasingly accepted (more biases being removed that against how things should be but no longer hold to true i.e. in innovation, being open for change and working with differences). Going back; although the SDGs may not be ideal, they give some sort of direction and thanks to the SDGs we see not only companies moving towards more sustainability in many different ways, but we also see more people being aware of it as a result of creative forms of education, being that funny TikTok movies to reach a broader mass, other forms of Entertainment Education, or simply because people care. We now also see that sustainability becomes a profitable business case, so that capitalism (one of course can critiques it) becomes also an opportunity for change.

There is also much efforts done by individuals as there is done by NGOs and even governments through the implementation of new laws and policy. One can now even see countries nearly competing in terms of which country or region is becoming more green or more sustainable. Why would they do that? Well it attracts investments. The more stable an economy, the more secure investments, or in some cases tourism and further employment opportunities (money is not too bad). In addition, the world is becoming more globalized, our perception is changing rapidly, so that we no longer live in our own thought bubbles, but also in ways in which things can change more rapidly, not our perception only, but opportunities of cooperation and in the fight for lets say climate justice (think about Greta Thunberg); She does a great job in bringing the issue at stake.

Is there more hope?

Many people don’t throw their trash on the floor, there are companies and individuals I know who are not driver for sustainability of the entire organizations, but their hearts are inside; While Twitter might not be known for promoting gender equality and feminism I know at least one employee who drives that type of thinking in her heart there and internal in the organization, so that in all that critqiues about Twitter there is also hope. And knowing her, I am sure she’s moving a lot.

K-Pop at the UN. That’s called fan loyality and awarness raising at high level.

And for the other topics; as much as there is war, there is also the lack of it (think about how many countries are not at war now) and while there is a lack of biodiversity there is also not a lack of it thanks to growing regulations on forest protection and because people like it (also thanks to instagram almost instagram nature tourism and romantic tags in forest/nature scenarios that are worth protecting nature for too.). Seemingly, there are many tech companies that invest into IT Tools for social innovation (I know at least one) and sustainability also becomes this cool thing to do, even in education it becomes increasingly implemented. In ways its nice, because it moves automatically (literally giving us a rest also thanks to different time zones and many people working in this field around the clock and thanks to social media running 24/7 in repetition). It also is becomming more fun and accessible i.e. being more able to shape our cities through tools or different ways in which the public can participate in legal decision making. This is kind of the way to go.

Will the future be okay or bad?

Coming back to the original comment; There is no certainty, because in certainty we know, and sustainabiltiy or the end goal of it seems quiet uncertain. There is direction and when we look at direction there is much hope too, and balance in how we look at things also.

References

Glick, R. A. (2003). Idealization and psychoanalytic learning. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 72(2), 377-401.

Swart, R. J., Raskin, P., & Robinson, J. (2004). The problem of the future: sustainability science and scenario analysis. Global environmental change, 14(2), 137-146.

Trussler, M., & Soroka, S. (2014). Consumer demand for cynical and negative news frames. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 19(3), 360-379.

Cover Picture: Local Artist Studio.

Multi Level Perspective for Innovation

Posted on by AnnJoest in Uncategorized

It’s great to have an idea, or if technical – to have a prototype of an idea, but this protype and the idea, may always remain so, if there are other factors that prevent the idea from becomming established in the market. That is, where the MLP plays an important factor.

Multi-Level-Perspective distinguishes three perspectives: landscape, regime and niche. The landscape represents the broader picture of socioeconomic system, the regime consists of the established technological paradigm, also known as the socio-technical regime. A socio-technical system is a system of technology, regulation, user practices, markets, cultural meaning, infrastructure and supply networks that fulfils societal functions. Socio-technical systems are multi-actor processes, actively created by actors with differing interests e.g. firms, universities and public bodies.

Niches, consists of new innovations that should be adopted in the regime. A radical alternative has to grow in a niche, before it is able to compete with the established paradigm. That can be difficult if the infrastructure or user practices are layed out for previous innovations or innovations that are strongly embedded. Such an example is the use of batteries for electric vehicles that only became adopted over time and in some regions may fail to be established because the infrastructure or social practices do not allow for the latter.

Whats the use for business?

Using MLP as a theorteical framework can help to identify market strenghts and weaknesses. It can be applied in the moment, but also over time by using scenario forecasting techniques and asking a variety of questions:

  • What user preferences exist?
  • What political changes can be followed?
  • What changes my help my innovation become adopted?

(…)

Playing on circular music

Posted on by AnnJoest in Uncategorized

Did you know that music can have a beneficial effect on brain chemicals such as dopamine, which is linked to feelings of pleasure, and oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone.” And there is moderate evidence that music can help lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Besides these there are also other benefits like improved mental performance, coordination, reading and listening skills. And honestly, doesn’t it feel great to create music all by yourself – a way of expressing yourself and feeling it?

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Unfortunately, the ability to create music – the specific type of music- we dream of can be exclusive. And that is such a shame, because music frees, music connects and music makes us feel alive. It makes us dance, it makes us cry, it makes us smile, it makes us fall in and out of love, it makes us excited, it creates a unique atmosphere, a rythm, a bond.

Why is it exclusive? There is a great variety of music instruments and each of them is made of different materials , with a different level of difficulty and different costs to create a unique sound. Of course, it is possible to use vegetables or simple sticks to create sounds, but these might never create the sound of a violine. A well produced violine may cost at least 1000 Euros up to hundred of thousands of Euros, depending on the materials used. And this keeps the dream, your dream, a girls and boys dream, an adults dream or the dream of anyone with a low budget always a dream. In reality, this dream should be lived.

Could renting change that? Yes! With 30 years, I decided to rekindle with my childhood dream and signed up for a trial violine class. Unfortauntely, I did not feel inclined to continue the dream, because the price of a violine appeared quite shocking to me. It was then my teacher who recommended me to rent a violine from a nearby store, that offers also repair and maintenance service throughout the use time.

What’s their business model like? Depending on the quality of the violine, I pay between 15 and 19 Euros a month rent. This price also includes a small insurance fee (2 Euros) for any type of damage that could happen. I need to rent it for at least 3 months and then cancel it in advance. If I decide to keep it, the price of one year rent (around 160 Euros per year) can be deducted from the total purchasing price.

Because I rent it, it is expected that I care for the product. While I have no understanding of violines yet other than , good once are made of wood and the bow of horse hair, maintenance guidelines help me care for it and of course my teacher too (I hope : ) ). If I have any problems, I can also always contact the store for help.

What does this mean to me? Really the world, because I had always been fascinated by the sound of violines, and always viewed money as a huge obstacle. Likewise I was so pleased to learn about the environmental benefits of my local produced product and why quality matters so much. Circularity therefore does not appeal to plastic and fashion only, but also to many other sectors that make life livable and yet so joyful. I want more of it : )