by Sean McClowry
January 10, 2008 at 3:50 am
· Filed under Enterprise 2.0, FISDEV, Sustainable Development
One of the areas I have been working for some time is the idea of Sustainability 2.0: Applying Web/Enterprise 2.0, Information Management and Open Source concepts to Sustainable Development. I’ve recently launched www.open-sustainability.org, the primary goal of which is to provide an open and collaborative approach that organizations can apply to introduce better Sustainability practices into their existing corporate delivery practices. The approach is called FISDEV (Framework for Integrated Sustainable Development) and it is an open standard to which anyone can contribute.
FISDEV is in the very early stages of development and at this stage most of the content merely provides a general framework for delivering an open source methodology, as opposed to specific content for Sustainability. Now that the “infrastructural content” is in place, there is a framework for building functional content in the context of an open method. This includes mashing up content from sites with lots of great content around Sustainability (especially on the environmental side) like Appropedia. The approach is summarized in this overview on Sustainability 2.0.
FISDEV takes a systems and architectural-based approach to Sustainable Development. The goal is to facilitate the creation of a new competency for Sustainable Development that can be implemented in an organization, starting with a strategic approach.
It references content from the MIKE2.0 Methodology under the Creative Commons, which used these same techniques and technologies to create a new competency for Information Development.
I’m optimistic that collaboration, transparency and an evidence-based approach can help shape this needed standard and that Enterprise 2.0 and Open Source can make it easier to fill a major need in helping companies improve their practices around Sustainable Development.
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Hi Sean,
You meant Appropedia, not Aggropedia (but the link is right).
Have you heard of the Open Sustainability Network? I’m sure you’d have a lot to talk about with the folks mentioned there – Joshua Pearce (Clarion), Tom Colledge (Pennsylvania State), Lonny Grafman (Humboldt State), and Ryan Legg (Cornell).
Lonny Grafman is also the founder of Appropedia – and you should definitely talk to us at Appropedia. Openness, collaboration and sustainability are very much what we believe in.
Will be interested in hearing more of this, and hope we can find a way to work together. Always good to find a kindred spirit.
Hi Chris,
Sorry about that! I’ve corrected the error. I’ve read at a high level about the Open Sustainability Network and I’m quite interested – it sounds like a great initiative. I’ll definitely be in touch soon and in the interim I will keep trying to build out the content on FISDEV – I am hoping to get the framework a bit further along so it helps make the goals of the site more clear (I think its a bit fuzzy now).
Hi Sean,
Glad to see that your passions are very much the same as mine (and the rest of the Appropedia gang)!
I must be bold, in the wiki tradition: as far as I can tell, Appropedia wants to be the same thing that Open-Sustainability aims to be. Is it better to have 2 such sites, or one? How can we integrate our work to help achieve the critical mass that smaller collaborative communities need? We’re looking to expand languages and functionality to improve usability, etc.
FISDEV looks excellent and would be totally welcome at Appropedia. You’ve clearly got some great wiki/web talent as well, and it would be so killer to join forces since we’re tackling many of the same technical problems. We’ve also recently acheived 501c3 status.
If this is over the top for a blog comment, please ping me (curtbeckmann, or Chriswaterguy or Lonny) at appropedia.org.
Thanks for your great work in Making Stuff Happen!
Curt
Hi Curt,
Sounds interesting – I will contact you guys at appropedia.org and will also put a bit more work into the site over the weekend to give a better idea of the objective. I will also look in more detail at appropedia.org and OSN.
The pros/cons of bringing together wikis is quite an interesting topic – worth a post in its own right!
I’ve always favored merging – and started [http://www.wikiindex.org/The_Wiki_Synergy_Project The Wiki Synergy Project] (more of a “page” than an actual project) to help present the argument for this.
Another approach is that of the Hexayurt – all the wiki stuff has been moved to Appropedia, but he’s chosen to use that as a homepage with all the relevant links, as a way of helping maintain a project identity.
I wonder if, in time, we’ll care less about web real estate, as search engines have improved so much. I don’t even bother to type in full urls now. If I know the site name, I put it in the address bar of Firefox and Google will usually take me straight there. If
pardon the messy link – used wiki markup instead of HTML 
Not only was the link messy, it was a bit out of date. I’ve done some updating – the following link is the argument for the benefits of collaborating (on a single wiki) on sustainable development information.
Hi Sean,
Congratulations. I just visited the FISDEV site and seen your presentation on sharedslides. It’s a great start. What you call Sustainability 2.0 is very much in line with what I sometimes refer to as “Development 2.0″ (http://www.freepint.com/issues/240507.htm#feature). Just like you, I think that web 2.0 is much more than technology. As well as an attitude, it is about business models. Traditional development is, alas, still very much “vertical” in its way of operating, and, in spite of much rethorics about “knowledge sharing”, still bogged down by many information silos. Web 2.0 challenges this model by introducing “horizontal” structures and forcing organisations to acknowledge that the best knowledge might well reside outside of their boundaries. It is time to rethink the development model to take this whole brave new world into account. What do you reckon?
Btw, other sites you might be interested in (in case you haven’t seen them already)
http://www.internetartizans.co.uk
http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/business-models/radical-collaboration
http://www.crisscrossed.net/
Look forward to seeing FISDEV evolve!
Giulio
Giulio,
Thanks for your feedback and the links – I really liked the article on FreePint as well as the other links you have sent – I was not aware of them. I think we are definitely on the same page!
FISDEV is obviously very early stages, but the area where it will specifically focus is on the development of a sustainability model for corporations, including their impact on all areas of Sustainable Development. I put together a new presentation which I believe explains this better than the intro:
http://www.slideshare.net/sean.mcclowry/sustainable-development-20-governance/
I’ll keep working on FISDEV and thanks again for the help and feedback!
HI Sean
thanks for the feedback. Don’t know whether you are planning to focus on sustainability in corporations in emerging markets as well?
If you are, you might be interested to check out the work of my colleagues, who focus on CSR in emerging markets
http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/enviro.nsf/Content/SocialResponsibility
Also, Earlier this week, we released a report on sustainability leaders in emerging markets
http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/media.nsf/Content/Market_Movers
Also, I imagine you heard about Sustainability and their work (http://www.sustainability.com)?
hope this helps!
Cheers,
Giulio
Hi Giulio,
Yes, definitely the scope is to focus on emerging markets. On multiple fronts:
- How a business can become more sustainable in an emerging market on their KPIs (e.g. environmental impact from resource excavation)
- Ensuring those KPIs include other areas of sustainability a bit more indirectly measured (e.g. economic impact from a company moving operations to N. Africa)
- How organisations making decisions in countries that are not emerging markets impact sustainability a bit more indirectly (e.g how a retailer deciding not to fly in food from Africa to reduce their carbon footprint impacts poverty)
I am coming from an Information Management and Technology Architecture perspective and am working on trying to draw this out better, based on the SAFE Architecture.
Once, again thanks for the very good links – you’ve given me some serious reading to do!
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