Democracy in Practice: Empowering Grassroots Community Groups
Our systems are letting us down. The mechanisms that are meant to support us to live healthy, happy and meaningful lives are inherently flawed. This is because economic growth is prioritised before people and the planet.
How did we get here and what can we do about it?
A man who has been at the forefront of societal change, specifically related to climate policy and empowering grassroots community movements, is Stephen Bygrave.
After completing his PhD studying renewable energy in the remote islands in the pacific, Stephen worked for the Office of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) where he was involved in climate and energy policy discussions in Paris. Stephen also worked to develop carbon pricing mechanisms under Prime Minister Rudd and Gillard, before he went on to develop his own think tank called Beyond Zero Emissions. Beyond Zero Emissions focused on how community action could reduce carbon emissions in energy, building, transport, waste, industrial processes and land use sectors.
Through this work, Stephen met with with the Mayor of Byron Bay where he pitched the Mayor on the concepts of a “Zero Carbon Community”. Less than 24 hours later, Byron Bay Council committed to developing and implementing strategies across sectors to support the transition to zero carbon. Byron Bay is now one of 90 Zero Carbon Communities around Australia, providing a proof of concept where mobilised community residents and councils can be empowered to lead the transition to low fuel economy communities.
Stephen’s journey with Transition Bondi began when he hosted a guest dinner and conversation in October 2023. He shared his vision for a grassroots community group, such as Transition Bondi, to utilise our networks and the social influence of Bondi to inspire similar grassroots movements around the world. During this inaugural meeting with Stephen, we explored how our community could be the change across five key sectors: energy, building, transport, land use, and waste.
This kicked off an exciting renewal of the strategic thinking behind the impact that a group such as Transition Bondi could have in our community and across the world. In a follow-up meeting, Stephen handed the baton to another member of Transition Bondi, Jess Taylor, where she led a co-design ideation workshop to better understand the interests and ideal priorities of the grassroots community. Several insights were extracted from this activity, which empowered the group’s steering group to better inform the strategy alongside the sentiments and views of the members.
Jess is a Strategic and Human-Centred Designer with a background in Climate Tech, Customer Experience, Service Design and social impact government projects. Jess was inspired by the innovation and determined will present in the Australian and New Zealand Climate Tech ecosystem while leading the partnerships program at Climate Salad. Here, Jess came to identify a barrier for systemic, long-lasting change: a lack of Systems Thinking in how we collectively strive to live within our planetary boundaries and save our planet and all of its living inhabitants (yes, including us humans!).
As part of the next phase in these thought-provoking discussions and strategy sessions, we are hosting a town hall-like event that’s open to the public. If you have a gut feeling that our current mainstream systems can’t be the best way for society to operate; if you are scared for the future of our world and for us; if you just wish something could be done, we invite you to join in on these conversations and to be part of the endeavour to strategise how we can realistically achieve such change.
Jess will lead us in the exploration of our history as a species stemming from the 1300s, the ideological shifts to believing that we are separate from the natural world (dualism) and its subsequent ramifications. We will discuss concepts of ‘green growth’ and ‘degrowth’, identify the problems we face, and identify how we can apply Systems Thinking to hypothesise potential solutions.
The Guest dinner: Democracy in Practice – how we have the power to create a better future – with Jess Taylor, will be on Thursday 21st March 7-9pm. Bookings via info@transition bondi.org
We acknowledge that this is a daunting task and many of us feel overwhelmed by the challenges at hand, but we wholeheartedly believe in the capability of humans. We have overcome seemingly impossible challenges before and succeeded.
And so we leave you with a question: if we have the opportunity, creativity and ability to create a world where we could all live healthy, happy and meaningful lives, why wouldn’t we at least try?
