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credit: Center for Systems Solutions at EIT Climate-KIC
Green
& Great – a game targeted at business managers who face the challenges of
transformation towards sustainable development and socially responsible
business.
Active in 24 countries with 28
offices across Europe, including the major cities of Brussels, London, Paris
and Berlin, the EIT
Climate-KIC is a European knowledge and
innovation community working to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon
economy. Supported by the European Commission through its Institute of Innovation
and Technology (EIT), they identify and support innovation that helps society
mitigate and adapt to climate change.
The Center
for Systems Solutions at EIT Climate-KIC is an international
organization established in 2005 with an aim to develop and apply innovative
methods and system tools, such as social simulations and computer
modeling, to enhance knowledge brokering, science-policy integration and social
dialogue.
They belong to the emerging fourth sector that integrates social and
environmental aims with business approaches. The Center’s interdisciplinary
team of experts consists of more than 40 people and implements international
and local projects in the realm of broadly understood sustainability.
One of the biggest challenges with teaching sustainability is
highlighting how certain decisions may impact the bigger
picture; helping people visualize and understand the holistic
benefits of adopting more sustainable methods is key to having
these methods catch on in society.
In a recent interview, Piotr Magnuszewski, Program Leader at the Center
for Systems Solutions, explains how social simulations can
empower sustainability educators, and contribute to
sustainable transformation.
Social Simulations Help
Navigate Complexity
“In the most widespread use, social simulation applies to
computer-based models that analyze human social behavior in various
environments and generate a range of possible outcomes of social interactions
that are abstracted from real-world situations,” says Piotr. “The social
simulations developed at the Center for Systems Solutions partially
originate from such methods; however, we do not rely on computer algorithms to
study social behavior. In fact, our unique design has much more in common with
dynamic role-playing or Serious Games.”
“To put it more precisely, I would say that a social simulation
is a type of Serious Game with elements of systems analysis, creative group
scenario building, and role-playing,” proceeds Piotr. “To be effective, it has
to offer a social experience that can be easily translated into our daily life,
triggering reactions and solutions that may be applied to challenges faced
outside the simulations’ reality.”
Social Simulation - The World’s’ Future, A Sustainable Development Goals Game
In
September 2015, world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals for Sustainable
Development which could mean an end to extreme poverty, inequalities and
climate change by 2030.
The World’s’ Future Game revolves around the topic of the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). In addressing this, the uniqueness of the social
simulation lies in connecting abstract ideas to tangible actions and
consequences, allowing participants to experience the interconnectedness among
the SDGs in a compressed time and space. This compression of time and space
combined with instant feedback enables players to have an insightful outlook
into a possible future. In the safe environment of a simulation, testing
strategies and making mistakes is easier and may result in truly innovative
ideas.
The World’s Future - Gameplay Example
Image
credit: Center for Systems Solutions at EIT Climate-KIC
The
World’s Future is a social simulation in which players adopt high-level
leadership roles within a world much like ours. As the simulation progresses,
they experience the pressure of making tradeoffs and the thrill of finding
synergies involved in pursuing sustainable development.
“With the growing threat of negative impacts of climate change, most
people nowadays acknowledge the problem. Yet, the mechanisms of climate change
often remain unknown to the general public. So, in order to represent the
negative impacts of human activity on climate in this simulation, we employ a
very simple mechanism for generating carbon dioxide (CO2) and accumulating
greenhouse gases (GHG),” says Piotr. “They are symbolically represented by
cubic grey tokens that appear whenever a player decides either to change the
land use (e.g. by building a factory on a natural area, or as a byproduct of
their manufacturing activity). At the end of each round, the grey tokens are
collected from the board by the moderator and distributed evenly between two
tracks—one represents the atmosphere, the other represents the ocean. Then, as
in real life, when the concentration of GHG in the atmosphere and/or CO2 in the
ocean exceeds certain levels, extreme events, such as hurricanes or floods,
sweep off players’ assets, reducing their income, well-being or level of
safety. At this phase of the simulation, most participants realize that it’s
high time they adopted a decarbonization strategy, and invest in the
zero-emission production facilities. Content with their “positive
transformation”, they are truly shocked when, at the end of the next round,
they are again struck by a disaster. Why? They usually ask. The answer is
simple: Global Warming that causes extreme weather conditions may be
irreversible in our life span. In other words, the effects of the sustainable
transformation that we are launching now may not be observed instantly. We
could be looking at hundreds of years of warmer temperatures, even if we make
dramatic cuts in GHG emissions right now.”
Social Simulation – Energy
Transition Game
Image
credit: Center for Systems Solutions at EIT Climate-KIC
The Energy Transition Game is a game-based simulation where players
decide about the future of the energy sector. The mechanisms embedded into the
Energy Transition Game mimic the changes the decision makers face in the
process of energy transformation from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
Each player takes a different role within a complex energy system
landscape. Each role has different responsibilities and decisions to make: become
an energy producer, energy provider, technology start-up, a representative of
one of the government departments or a member of a non-governmental
organization and create new solutions for the energy system!
In the game, players experience and understand the complexity of the
system-wide change to the renewable energy sources, explore transition
strategies to new energy sources, learn how to navigate through the challenges
of energy transition, develop skills for effective communication and
collaboration, and learn how to foster and integrate both technological and social
energy innovations.
The game requires a tablet or PC two tables, 12-36 players and takes
5-6 hours of gameplay.
Piotr Magnuszewski acknowledges that social simulations surface only a
“simulated” solution, one of many possible scenarios, yet without such a “trip
into the future”, we might not be ready to launch necessary transformations on
multiple levels, be it individual, organizational or national.