BlindSpot think tank

             planet-scale fast whole system change
Home      Topics
Print this pageAdd to Favorite

James Greyson is an experienced professional presenter of talks and interactive workshops for groups of all sizes and types, from international corporate leaders to primary school children.  Please get in touch!


 Rapid reviews -  blindspotting  - appraisal
Most reports, proposals and plans describe themselves as creative and ambitious yet they tend to follow organisational, educational or cultural herd thinking. Consequently society continues to invest time and money in projects that often don't work as hoped. James has a rare immunity from herd thinking and a unique talent for quickly assessing blindspots - the assumptions that mask the untapped potential of every project and organisation. 


Local to global to local road-mapping
The world is one system. Solutions to the challenges of your local situation are inextricably tied to similar solutions everywhere. James will work with you to create a road-map of opportunities starting with the immediate concerns of your organisation or group. We will then identify how this fits within global scale systems that are suffering systemic errors. And how fixing these systems can generate wealth and co-operation locally and globally. An interactive workshop.


Advanced Corporate Social Responsibility
Existing CSR practice, of publishing reports and managing company impacts, is basic beginners CSR - necessary but not sufficient for the survival of business or society. Advanced CSR fulfils the corporate responsibility to take part in discussing, designing and implementing the whole-system global changes needed to begin solving multiple interconnected problems at source. BlindSpot aims to work with every organisation considering or active with advanced CSR. 


How to think out of the box
Public and private dialogues are responding to a time of growing uncertainty and insecurity by building 'moral high ground' defensive positions. These offer the illusion of security but not the possibility of achieving security. Systems thinking allows debates, policies and situations that have become stuck to be reframed. This inspires creative flexible thought, building of shared understanding, new opportunities for effective action and a powerful boost to collaboration. 


Harnessing the power of economic growth
Conventional economics spurs society to gallop faster toward the cliff-edge of irreversible difficulties. Sustainability economics is usually found lying down in front of economic growth, in a decades-long protest that just makes going green look muddy and irrelevant. Both growth-as-usual and no-growth miss how markets could be quickly switched to drive a combined economic and ecological revival in every locality. Unsustainability is optional. 


Strategy: less bad is not good enough
Decades of failed efforts to implement sustainable societies should have triggered a response like, "It's not working, is it? Let's rethink and aim higher". The actual response is more like, "Let's try a smaller focus on fewer issues". James can demonstrate 'positive development' strategies, economics and practices that go beyond 'less bad' incrementalism to net positive impacts. Problems resist being slowed down but they can be reversed. 


Hands-on future-proofing skills
Some practical skills are valuable for avoiding future disasters. Others are essential in communities already hit by disasters.  One key skill applies to both scenarios: being able to make and use woodgas cooking stoves that produce a carbon-negative waste product, called biochar, that can regenerate soil and purify water. James designs innovative woodgas stoves and runs workshops in how to make simple reliable twig-fired woodgas stoves from scrap materials. 


Waste is optional
At the level of the product, business or community waste is generally made to sound even more boring by talking about technical options for slowly reducing waste. In fact waste is a window into a world where waste is designed out of our lives, where economic activity instead generates new resources, new ecosystems, new jobs, new wealth and new connectedness in communities. We can go beyond waste reduction and even beyond zero waste!

 
Topics: How to...
Design change to match the scale and speed of what's needed.
Practise creative, out of the box and systems thinking.
Identify leverage points for cascading whole-system change. 
Identify herd thinking, reductionism and other blindspots.
Reverse multiple problems and meet multiple goals.
Match our efforts to the scale of the challenges.
Facilitate learning led by curiosity.
Engage with the sustainability movement in face to face or virtual dialogue.
Switch markets to generate sustainability.
Switch GDP to seek security from conflict.
End the paradigm of problem-solving by force.
Reverse the worldwide loss of nature.
Instil a world-wide culture of guardianship of the entire Earth's surface.
Preserve wealth within a culture of sharing.
Stimulate a culture of systematic wealth sharing.
Create money without accumulating debt. 
Preserve the value of money with a true value-creating economy. 
Handle all externalities preventively. 
Handle most ecological externalities with a single new economic tool.
Reinvent insurance to prevent risks not just mop up afterwards. 
Price carbon without using a tax or capping emissions.
Run international climate talks that work.
Start using the most powerful climate mechanism, the global economy.
Design waste out of the global economy, including excess emissions.
'Precycle' any product so it no longer becomes waste.   
Build and use carbon-negative cooking stoves.
Compost 'impossible' materials such as lawn clippings. 
Help the sustainability movement to become effective.