Hack:
Green World Team

By Luis Cordova - MBA 2011 Candidate at SDA Bocconi | School of Management

December 6, 2010 at 6:27am

Empower people

Distribution of power

strategy

Environment

NGO

human resources

Moonshots

Enable communities of passion

De-politicize decision-making

Summary

Are all the people working/helping in the same direction and having in mind the same priorities of the environmental issues? The idea of doing something just because in some way or another it will help to repair the world is not enough. Not anymore when we have in front of us an urgent problem. We should start to do things in the same direction: towards a UNIQUE WORLD STRATEGY.

Let's develop a web page which easily illustrates the United Nations break-down of its prioritized assessment of environmental problems from which people can refer easily in order to participate in and solve environmental issues around the same strategy.

Problem

I think that a lot of (if not most) people have, at some moment in their lives, had the motivation to do something to take care of the planet and our environment. I am not just talking about the kind of strong motivation that some people experiment after a difficult moment in their lives. I am also talking about the kind of initial/slight motivation that is kindled within you when you have a moment to think after watching a documentary, something the daily news, a video by Al-Gore, or perhaps after a journey, or just in our natural attempts to try to be well-rounded people.

When this motivation appears, questions like the following appear:

What are the environmental problems, specifically?
Which problem(s) need(s) to be dealt with first? Is what I want to do necessary or urgent?
Would what I want to do be worth the effort?
What is the latest info regarding problems and solutions?
Which institution would be the best to get involved with?
What world strategies exist? Should there be just one overall global strategy?
Do main organizations communicate amongst each other to avoid making double effort?
Who is doing or has done something similar to what I would like to do?
What are the minimum things I could do in my daily routine? Which ways of helping already exist?
How can I monitor the improvement of the world environmental situation?
What should I do?

The current solution available is to get online and doing some research on each of these issues. Probably, as you can imagine, there is a lot (tonnes) of information already available, as well as some partial answers to these questions.

After going through all this searching process (if one has enough time to go through), only a few obtain some answers or something that they like.

It becomes evident that there is a huge information deficit leading to a sort-of ‘I give up’ attitude by the majority of people interested in this problem. Let’s suppose that you are eager to do something; however, you end up spending endless hours in front of a PC trying to gather information because there is no official updated resource of information regarding this issue and, moreover, what is currently available is difficult to quickly understand. Meanwhile, life (family, work, children, friends, etc) can easily occupy your time again.

The lack of a unique website where everybody can find the direction and tools they need to take action immediately, make it is easy to lose a big share of the motivated people.

Solution

When Governments can't sign an agreement based on political and/or economic reasons, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) appear everywhere looking for resources, and it is necessary to make sense of all the efforts being made to create an impact now ...

... lets empower people under a unique strategy to make the change.

The Idea:

“Develop a web page which easily illustrates the United Nations or World Bank’s break-down of its prioritized assessment of environmental problems from which people of each country can refer in order to participate in and solve environmental issues. Always around a unique WORLD STRATEGY”

The webpage should reliably enable people with different varieties and amount of resources, such as time, skills, ideas or goods to locate the project that matches with those resources they are able to provide. Should be a platform for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to expose their requirements (more of them do not even have web presence). Should be medium for Multilateral organization to receive less pressure and can comunicate more efficiently with people in a direct and simple way ... a new way to rule things.

Configuration and interaction
The web site I'm proposing is something like the following:

Every user should be able to say which kind of resource it has and which kind of NGO he/she is willing to join. For determine the kind of NGO, I do not propose an exhaustive analysis of the NGO. I propose some simply basic indexes based on the tools that currently the International Development Bank or the World Bank already use in order to give resources to some institutions.

For example, with this page an individual with a limited amount of time could look for a project that requires his presence just once a year. Another individual with more time perhaps could find a project that utilizes his time on a once-a-month basis. And finally one with even more time could even try to concentrate on a problem that is not being well attended to in his own country by incorporating the knowledge and experience offered by another country where that same problem is one of its biggest.

Additionally, if we are working as a team, there should be a monitor of the key indexes of the environment and their evolution, regardless of the measurement frequency.

The Actors:

Consolidator/Strategist: United Nations, World Bank, IDB, Countries
Anchor NGOs: WWF, The Nature Conservancy, Green Peace, Green Cross
Other NGOs
Website Management: Facebok, Twitter, Wikipedia, Linkedin
The People

Consolidator/Strategist
Annually, a meeting is held among the most important NGOs and the Multilateral Organizations mentioned above. There they coordinate the work to be done for the year and some common tasks. This is, to a certain degree, a strategy. In this meeting they identify problems and establish priorities. This is the strategy that should be used as a foundation for the website.

Anchor NGOs
Once the strategy is clearly laid out in the web site, the most well-known NGOs would be encouraged to use it to set an example for Other NGOs.

To have feedback about the willingness and compromise of these few Anchor NGOs to participate is fundamental for this idea could go on.

Other NGOs
These NGOs will find a place to publish their requirements and show their importance. If they are not able to generate a business plan or explain their projects in the proposed way, they could request for help on the website itself. They could find and exchange ideas with people who might be willing to help and have experience doing business plans and maybe now do not see the way they could help.

Is easy to imagine that some NGOs might be reluctant to reveal all this information in one centralized website for fear of losing potential donors, who might instead allocate their donations to more urgent problems. In the end, each NGO is a business; they also have to pay salaries.

But my view on this is that by disclosing this information NGOs can prove that they have nothing to fear. It is more believable that it was created for the right reason and not just as a means for making money. Furthermore, even if they do not disclose this information, the ones that do (make public their information) will be the first to obtain the resources/funds since they have been more open. In this sense, this web site will also purge the NGOs that were created for a wrong reason.

I need to go more in deep on how to measure if the NGOs are really helping? A first approach could be a two ways system: from the people and from the website manager. People involve in the project can comment on the evolution of the project and give his feedback to the manager. The manager could also make a sort of ranking every year based on some especific results. But definitely the experience of the Consolidator and the Anchor NGOs will be needed to choose the most simple and efficient way.

Website Management
Coming back to the Actors topic, this web page is a kind of mix between a social network, internet search and a web-based collaboration: using the best internet tools to organize all the efforts around the world.

People
Finally, the people would just have to sign up for the projects they would like to keep up with in order to colaborate when each NGO requests for help. A system to verify/prove the participation of people in the projects should be established in order to avoid a “free rider” attitude which may be generated by people who start to say that they have collaborated in some project just because they appear as listed for the project but in reality have not helped. This should be easy to manage as long as the NGOs are willing to share that information.

Consensus & Commitment:

I received one comment pointing to the fact that websites have not been seen as a solution for the environmental problem considering that, to obtain social action and results, consensus and commitment must be built at much more basic levels as well as empowering leaders at different positions.

The GWT project proposes that social action and results will arise from all motivated people and enterprises once:

It is understood that there is a unique worldwide action plan
The plan is supported by the principal agents related to this issue
The plan is explained in a quick and didactic way
It is possible to take action immediately

Given these considerations, it would be easier for leaders to reveal themselves and for motivated people to join in at different efforts.

How could the internet be used to promote this?

The internet could be a tool to organize and promote quick activism. For instance, take a look at Andrew Mason’s presentation of his website “The Point”

Andrew Mason, The Point

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSCMw9wSjGU

The GWT is proposing a new way to do this, but it will have to leverage on ideas like those presented in The Point and other websites.

I agree with the idea of promoting consensus among leaders at different levels, which could be definitely more reasonable when there are limited resources to do so. But some things have changed in order to have more resources available (motivated people ready to act) and for the GWT to be possible:

New tools for collaboration and sharing (The Point (Activism), Facebook (Social-Network), LinkedIn (Skills), Jumo/ Amazee (Social Concern), Google (Information Search), Wikipedia (Organized Knowledge))
The symptoms of climate change have been more heavily felt in the last 2-3 years in different parts of the world and the message of urgency is clearer than years ago.
Education has been doing its work and now (I would say) there is an entire generation aware of the environmental problem. There is definitely more willingness and consciousness to become a well-rounded person.
After all the efforts of the NGOs during these last few years, there should be a higher consensus around the environmental problems and prioritization.

Generating consensus on education and empowering (important) people, are critical actions that will help to solve the structural problem. Nevertheless, there are other types of actions, for instance, specific projects over land, waters, animals or air welfare that also need support.

I see these last actions as short term strategies and consensus and education as medium/long term strategies. Both strategies have to be pushed hard and can be supported by this website.

Practical Impact

It is like a management consultancy service for the United Nations

It would …

be easier to capture the willingness-to-help than with the current options that do not offer a complete vision to the people
provide a place where supply of resources could be paired with demand, resulting in a win-win situation for all
be a place where all the NGOs could be visible, offering their proposals and improvements
be easier to attract attention to the most important projects
be easier to share experiences and adapt projects across borders
be easier to identify already existing projects and share know-how
be possible to decentralize the role of the governments and big institutions to the people. In this point, is also could be seen as a weapon against corruption.

If this works for the environment, it could also work for the other objectives of the United Nations.

First Steps

To try to do it alone would be foolish, so I have to “sell” the idea (in the form of a business proposal) to someone who could implement it: United Nations or The World Bank.

For that, after deal with the challenges mentioned in the last section, we should:

Chose the countries that should be use as first example (high internet penetration, large base of environmental organization / activity, and same idiom among countries should be the first variables to identify)
Get in touch with the Ministry of Environment of each country to have access to the list of NGOs in each country and ask for some projects to use as examples for design the website
Design the website, and establish the update system
Work on the marketing plan
Make a draft of the cost of the business plan
Present it to the United Nations or World Bank

Credits

I have been talking about this idea with a lot of friends, colleagues and professors. Thanks to each person that heard this idea, contributed whit some questions or just believed in it and encourage me to continue.

Special thanks to:

César Córdova Béjar (my bother): for help me to improve the proposition of this idea when I recently originated it.
An IDB employee that I do not have his permission to mention his name yet but gave me the support I needed at the beginning to impulse what seems a dream.

Images

Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WqRhxLftAg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSCMw9wSjGU

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December 21, 2010 at 3:29pm

André Ribeiro Winter

That was a neat idea Luis, I just see with a concern that technology (the website) would be the solution, when commitment must be built in much more basic levels...

I learned from an NGO called The Natural Step, some precious lessons on building consensus and empowering (important) people. I higly recommend you finding the book that tells its story and of its founder Dr. Karl Henrik Robèrt (actually, you might even find it on youtube as he lectured about it on a TEDx event in Sweden)

Good luck!

February 17, 2011 at 10:20am

Luis Cordova

Hi André,
I finally found some time to prepare an answer (this MBA is quite involving)!

I think I found what you asked me to look for in YouTube:

TEDxMälaren - Karl-Henrik Robèrt - A Unifying Framework for Sustainable Development

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WqRhxLftAg

I will summarize my answer in the following paragraph, and then insert this answer in the hack. Thanks for your collaboration, it has encouraged me search for more arguments to support the GWT project, and I think I found interesting supportive information / considerations.

Consensus & Commitment

The GWT project proposes that social action and results will arise from all motivated people and enterprises once:

It is understood that there is a unique worldwide action plan
The plan is supported by the principal agents related to this issue
The plan is explained in a quick and didactic way
It is possible to take action immediately

Given these considerations, it would be easier for leaders to reveal themselves and for motivated people to join in at different efforts.

How could the internet be used to promote this?

The internet could be a tool to organize and promote quick activism. For instance, take a look at Andrew Mason’s presentation of his website “The Point”

Andrew Mason, The Point

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSCMw9wSjGU

The GWT is proposing a new way to do this, but it will have to leverage on ideas like those presented in The Point and other websites.

New tools for collaboration and sharing (The Point (Activism), Facebook (Social-Network), LinkedIn (Skills), Jumo/ Amazee (Social Concern), Google (Information Search), Wikipedia (Organized Knowledge))
The symptoms of climate change have been more heavily felt in the last 2-3 years in different parts of the world and the message of urgency is clearer than years ago.
Education has been doing its work and now (I would say) there is an entire generation aware of the environmental problem. There is definitely more willingness and consciousness to become a well-rounded person.
After all the efforts of the NGOs during these last few years, there should be a higher consensus around the environmental problems and prioritization.

I see these last actions as short term strategies and consensus and education as medium/long term strategies. Both strategies have to be pushed hard and can be supported by this website.

December 22, 2010 at 3:23am

Luis Cordova

Hi André, thanks for your comment, it is very helpful to have more points of reference on how to deal with the first challenge about consensus. I have started to check information about The Natural Step.

I will complete the idea about the consensus I am talking about soon, I have been working on it since I published this Hack and it will consider your comments for sure. It would be great to have your feedback about it.

Thanks again and Merry Christmas!

February 5, 2011 at 6:39am

CESAR CORDOVA

Great! I think a webpage that let people get easily conected with those anchor NGO's and guide about how use them and what one could find in them could be a quick way to start.

February 25, 2011 at 4:22am

Elsa Liste

I like the strategic concept and i am sure the concepts could work. Much of the core concepts can also be applied to most forward thinking large projects