In this new series, The Applied Ecologist is amplifying the staff and student voices from the University of Surrey’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability to showcase their diverse, interdisciplinary body of work and to help inspire the next generation.
In this final post of the series, we share below Walter’s speech as he transitioned to Emeritus Professor this summer.
Sustainability, CES and me: This is not an Obituary
Dear Friends, Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for the lovely and kind words as well as the exceptionally nice speeches that came before mine. I just want to say THANK YOU as a historical reflection of CES and the sustainability agenda, say what CES was (for me), is and should be as well as say a few things about the future.
As a milestone of my thinking about organisations, individuals and sustainability, my PhD taught me two things: That it makes sense to understand organisations as living systems (independent of whether they actually are), and that the urgent need to pursue sustainability must be made and done for the right reasons. While I parked the former, the latter became a recurring theme in my work.
Joining the Centre for Environment and Sustainability
My first contact with CES was my job interview – I came 10 minutes late for my presentation during which I found this Roland Clift person falling asleep and after which the industrial sponsor asked me a pertinent question I had no idea of answering. Great start!
When I joined CES, despite that performance, I found it full of people who pursued passionately ‘their’ agenda, but not to achieve performance goals, but because there was a sustainability issue that needed ‘fixing’, and in an overlay of many different teams, that what they all did. It was a place like no other, a social entity that is pursuing answers to sustainability-related problems not because they could, not because that is where (research) money was, not for fame or promotion, but because these problems need(ed) fixing. Intrinsic motivation as Stephanie Looser would have coined it. I was enthralled as I came from (and have visited since many) places whose only integration was the central heating system. I’m still impressed by Roland Clift, the founder, directing us so elegantly and eloquently showing that care for others, passion and academic excellence are no juxtapositions but that for sustainability, we need a synergy of these.
This really mattered, not just for me. Edward Deming famously is paraphrased to say that organisations that focused on improving quality would automatically reduce costs while those that focused on reducing cost would automatically reduce quality and actually increase cost as well. As a corollary, my experience is that organisations pursuing sustainability will reduce cost while organisations pursuing cost savings (through sustainability measures) will not necessarily become more sustainable nor competitive. The awkward sting is that I (and many others in my field) have argued for decades for the competitive advantages that sustainability brings, in the hope that beyond this initial step, organisations will discover sustainability as the ‘real’ goal in the same way as Deming pushed quality as the only pursuit worth having. Doing the first step – ‘doing sustainability’ if you like – but maintain cost reductions or competitiveness as the core measure of success introduces a ceiling on what companies do which is unlikely to be enough to get us out of the dire unsustainability problems we and our children face. It is irresponsible to push for everything sustainability can give companies but refraining from asking material questions on what organisations can do for sustainability.
Finding answers for sustainability
CES was an astonishingly place, precisely because most of ‘us’ tried to find answers to sustainability problems as it showed refreshing obsession with ‘finding answers’ as opposed to pursue hierarchies performance targets, ‘cost savings’. Over the years, three vaguely related things emerged on different levels: The Agenda shifted towards greater focus on providing meaning, to explain and convey sustainability as a material holistic concern, the University (sector) pushed the commodification of education and the performance aspects of research and I discovered a greater role in supporting others. This is inopportune just as the concept of usufruct starts contributing in earnest the discussion on servicisation.
I discovered the ability to convey and suggest ways forward for others in a way that I hoped were motivating and pushed sustainability. That became dialectic, inasmuch as I gave ideas, I got purpose and meaning back, long before I was helpfully introduced to Ubuntu as a way to maintain mental health. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery more eloquently suggested “There is only one problem in the whole world: It is the need to restore a spiritual meaning to (our) lives, and to reawaken their capacity for spiritual disquiet…. It is impossible to survive on refrigerators, politics, balance sheets, and crossword puzzles, you see! It is impossible!”
There is an old joke about the definition of a drummer as the person hanging around musicians. That is how I felt when I came to CES and being different (in culture, educational background, accent and way of thinking) has been a defining thread in my ubuntu with others. Brexit has made that difference if any more tangible and the discussion on whether or not my stint at Surrey was merited dragged up many of these sentiments. Still, I am in awe of the remarkable intellectual and problem-solving ability of my colleagues, their far greater ability to perform to their strengths successfully and to fix pertinent problems, am proud that most would consider me a respected colleague, proud to have worked with you and glad that I could pilfer odd ideas. I am grateful for your support, kindness, guidance and am very thankful for almost all my bosses to have entertained and nourished my oddities. I hope I could give back some.
And this is a tough profession with high ambitions at times unmatched by opportunities to shine. The former colleagues who took their lives are testament to the need to pursue social and emotional dignity in an increasingly competitive world that pushes performance metrics over substance, cost over quality.
Was I successful? No. Given the current unsustainability of the world (and some parts of the education sector) any other answer is impossible in the cold light of the day. But I have been busy: I was in paid employment with the Uni for 9665 days, marked / commented on 21.4million words in drafts and assignments, supervised 53 doctorate students (50 to success) with another 6 to come, taught 2700+ students (at CES and elsewhere) and since I have not deleted any emails (apart from phishing ones) – against repeated advice from IT – a rough estimate suggests 219000+ emails received and 59000+ sent. This shows longevity more than productivity.
Future reflections
CES was and in due course should (and will) be a unique place. From the start, Sustainable Development is about making this world a better place for the future, although of late, it can feel as if we first have to fight that there still will be a future. For over 30 years, CES has been driving social and environmental change and even though some preferred to work on their own, change has and will be a social intrinsic process. That drive will continue for as long as we face pressing problems.
The fight for a better future will (have) to continue, and is a fight worth having and we owe it to those who came before us to the benefit of those coming after us. If anybody wants to discuss, wants help, ideas, support or a coffee, you know where I live. I do look forward to it.
Ki mua I to huarahi mo ake tonu atu (May the shimmer of summer forever dance across your pathway) as the recognition that all our pathways are shaped by Climate Change and the environment we shape in turn.
Thank you. And let us raise a glass to Our Common Future.
For more information
Emeritus Associate Professor Dr Walter Wehrmeyer (W.Wehrmeyer@surrey.ac.uk)
