Marine CoLAB workshop

Present; Giles Bristow, Louisa Hooper, Sandy Luk, Andrew Farmer, Amy Pryor, Mirella von Lindenfels, Aniol Esteban, Manuel, Sarah Ridley. online; Sue Ranger, Heather Koldewey

Facilitators; Maja Kuzmanovic, Nik Gaffney, Vali Lalioti

by Andrew

The CoLAB has impressive outputs so far, more focused work is needed to bring implicit ideas to the surface, clarify what the LAB is about. What may be needed at the moment is something like a Nicholas Stern report for the ocean ( cost / benefit / cost of delayed action ), as there is a window of a few years to press these issues internationally. It is time to pick up the pace the pace and shape Marine CoLAB’s operating model. CGF is discussing a possibility of bringing in business consultants who may be able to translate the work of the CoLAB into business models with financial sustainability. Institutional buy in from organisations remains a challenge - how to share and formally engage Marine CoLAB organisations.

(include Maja's notes)

Benefits of Marine CoLAB ( see writing exercise )

Shared values:

• Awe of the vastness, immensity, beauty, power, sound of the ocean, while experiencing the smallness of a single human being in, on and next to the ocean
• Engaging with the earth: help people experience the connection with oceans (a pebble in a pocket) and its diversity, living with the environment and experiencing how it changes people (genetically, emotionally…)
• Collaboration: Small changes for the oceans are big changes for individuals - all of our fingerprints are needed to save the oceans; there are different approaches to caring and connecting to oceans
• Diversity: There isn’t one but many experiences of the sea, and as many co-existing (and often conflicting) values - we shouldn’t impose values on people, but find ways to align them
• Togetherness: Summer rituals, pilgrimage to the sea, family holidays, best conversations had while walking along the beach…

… Distilled from personal stories of the participants, illustrated with an object or image:

1. Giles; fishing boat, evolutionary adaptation to living in canoes, oily skins, women with large lungs, “living like seals” book; Spidrift, Peter Reason
2. Louisa; turner inspired seascape; sense of awe, aesthetic response, power, viewing form the land
3. Andrew; vast blue grey, endless horizon, vastness, seascape, experience of immensity, issues “big for individuals, small for the ocean (as totality)
4. Sandy; mug which says “save the ocean' on the side, fish made from finger prints, with space for the holder's fingerprints, work on trying to stop fishing in protected sites, legal tools which make the “system work”, conservation and fishing working together, connecting people to create a shared value of the ocean, fishermen, regulators, public, photo of Tim
5. Amy; Inuit carving of a seal, challenges of seal hunting as tradition practice of Inuit, disconnect between environment and consumption. working with conflicting and divergent values (Tanya Tagaq)
6. Mirella, beach people, from when she moved form London to live by the sea as a child, sound of the sea, waves over stones, shingles, background noise, stone as a connection to something that is bigger, more turbulent, powerful than the 'everyday'. equivalent of 'finding a pebble in a pocket' for people
7. Aniol; plastic octopus, time as a child when he made an octopus farm, coastal holidays on costa brava, dropping building bricks at 3~4 metres depth as a place for octopuses to live. snorkelling.
8. Sarah; photo form kitchen table, family holiday in southern Turkish coast, near roman port, sand spit and turtle nesting, protected are for turtles, now focus for tourism. people in complete different range of clothing (tiny bikini to full burkas, young old). more people in space than crossed the pacific alone.
9. Manuel; sea as psychological comfort, something he misses in london, ineffable.
10. Sue; photo of her sitting in a rock pool as a child, transition from grass veld to coast, travelled upto 12 hours to get o the coast for holidays. best way to make a connection with someone around shared values on the coast, fishing port in Cornwall or beach in Sri Lanka

The values based approach aims to uncover, understand, recognise, align, enable and amplify values to create significant change, a value shift from dominance of the economic value of oceans, towards inclusion of a wider range of intrinsic and extrinsic (social and cultural) values connecting people and oceans; providing tools (e.g. legal frameworks, campaigns, etc) to do this would be a part of the Marine CoLAB approach. The long term goal might be to change the paradigm of growth economy; in the shorter term it is important to look at ameliorating the current system to enable or amplify different existing values, thereby tempering existing/dominant values of 'cost to business', extraction, exploitation, etc+. Is valuing the ocean enough? is an economic approach necessary AND sufficient to value the ocean. There is a need to capture value in order to change things within the current system, improving things gradually. What values are required to do this? Both having the ambition to change the dominant paradigm and gradually shifting values from within the current system are included in the values based approach.

Possibly “values based approach” isn’t the right term, instead say “work with the values people place on the ocean” or “work with the values that connect people and the ocean”.

Hypothesis:
By uncovering, understanding, recognising, aligning, enabling and amplifying values, people may change their behaviour in a way we consider to be positive. A range of possibly conflicting values can inform a set of coherent positive changes.

How could this hypothesis be tested? The Marine CoLAB could include three workstreams, connected through continuous feedback-loops of of interrogation and learning:

• Exploring new thinking / philosophical striving (a think-tank) towards adapting or changing the paradigm of economic growth and exploring how we can do things otherwise, how to “uncover, understand, recognise, align, enable and amplify” values (c.f Kate Rawles and Outdoor Philosophy. http://www.outdoorphilosophy.com/)
• Testing and learning programme of experiments and projects (a lab), creating Marine CoLAB experiments from scratch, aimed to test a values based approach
• Disseminating (sharing, connecting, amplifying…) of ideas and best practices, finding ways to communicate about existing projects from a values perspective

We exist because current solutions are not creating the impact required to meet the scale of threat facing the oceans

We tackle issues together by creating a space to think differently and experiment with new ways of approaching problems

We bring together experts from different fields we catalyse new and more effective solutions to marine issues

We aim to shift the values humans put on the oceans

The Marine CoLABoration is a collective of organisations working together to tackle marine issues

• Problem: Current solutions are not creating the impact required to meet the scale of threat facing the oceans
• Impact: We aim to [shift] the values humans place on the oceans to find effective solutions to marine issues
• Approach: We, a group of experts from different fields and organisations, tackle issue together by creating a space (“a laboratory”) to think differently and experiment with new ways of approaching problems

NOTE: (Still in need of editing, to emphasise the LAB approach and values connecting people and oceans)

What is our ambition?
Marine CoLAB brings together different approaches to working with values in a collaborative, learning LAB, to change the Landscape (the operating environment) making it less hostile and more receptive to difference. We are working with people’s values to find effective solutions for improving the health of oceans and changing the operating environment. We aim to achieve impact by uncovering, understanding, recognising, aligning, enabling and amplifying values connecting people and oceans through a set of experimental actions/projects. The outcomes of the CoLAB are threefold (for “me”, “my world” and “the world”):

• outcomes for the projects
• outpaces for the lab
• outcomes for the world: “healthy oceans”

What seems to be missing from the mission is the emphasis on the “LAB” aspect of the CoLAB – that it is a Laboratory for learning about how to create systemic change through a Values based approach: i.e. why this was set up as a LAB as opposed to just a network or discussion group etc. The LAB is a means to an end , and its purpose is to overcome the problem that the current solutions aren’t creating the impact required to meet the scale of threats facing the oceans. In order to do that, the end state should be a more receptive operating environment for the organisations and their initiatives. The CoLAB could be an example of such an environment. This operating environment should allow different approaches and values to co-exist, there should be a willingness to co-operate, to work with values that connect people and oceans in order to enable positive actions.

What is a Lab for system change? A lab is a place for people to collaborate, take action and learn together in order to create change.

Action research cycle could be a framework to keep continual inquiry for the lab, and helps to not get too near-sighted on specific projects. A CoLAB would include diverse perspectives, an experimental mindset, a robust process design and rigorous analysis to learn from the actions/experiments/projects developed in the lab.

Existing examples: Finance lab, Forum for the Future’s Lab for System Change, other public sector and social innovation Labs (https://www.marsdd.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Labs-for-Systems-Change-Event-Report-2014.pdf)

The action research cycle consists of four elements:

• Questions and knowledge: What questions are you trying to address? What theories and practice already exist that might help us address these questions? For Marine CoLAB: What are the questions the lab holds? How to create change through values? We could take multiple approaches, drawing for us and others. Where are the gaps in our knowledge? What do we need to skill up?
• Plan and Strategy: How are we going to address these questions? What is our overall approach? How will we organise collaboration, action and learning? for Marine CoLAB: what are interesting new ways of doing things?
• Action (in the CoLAB these are the experiments): How are we creating change – what are the projects we want to learn from? What experiments should we be doing together together? How do we incubate interesting projects (see notes from the incubator session below)?
• Observe and Reflect: What insights do you now have about your questions? What have we learnt? How do we learn? This is still the weakest link for Marine CoLAB, it needs more emphasis on 'observing and reflecting’, in order to understand how can Marine CoLAB could exist in it's own right, to become self sufficient and to design better projects. How do we evaluate projects and activities of the LAB and the CoLAB itself?

¹⁾)))

Before coming up with a plan for 2016 and a longer term strategy for Marine CoLAB in 2017 and beyond, the action research cycle could be used to line up the open questions, which can be tackled in the Marine CoLAB sessions in February and March, which will focus on how will we operationalise the LAB.

• Knowledge: questions around values, systems, the lab… which knowledge needs to be acquired from outside, etc.
• Plan: questions about who, what, when, how… related to membership, decision-making, targeting, communication, funding, emerging themes/challenges, etc.
• Action: questions about alignment of experiments, incubation, focus, emerging issues and opportunities, values based frameworks, etc.
• Reflection: questions related to learning, impact, evaluation, inquiry and feedback loops, sharing, dissemination, field-work, etc.

For the full set of open questions see: Action Research Questions

Learning pathway

Benefit of the incubator: Working with existing projects can focus conversations by working with tangible outputs. People working on the projects are excited about them and the LAB can benefit from an “Excitement transfer”. As everyone is so busy, the lab could make the most of existing opportunities, rather than overloading the group with new projects. It would help to reconcile time & engagement barriers. The incubator could be a bottom-up starting point to identify strategic lines of work.

The challenges:

• How to bring the projects together, how to create a shared agenda, how to maintain the network?
• Can we define what mean by Values-Based-Approach in a clearer way? Can we translate what we mean by Values-Based-Approach into user-friendly, easy-to-remember, so that we communicate better internally and externally?
• How to align all these forces – projects – energies – constituencies around a common Marine CoLAB agenda? What is this agenda? what are the principles and values that underpin it?
• Can we co-create a common agenda all together (e.g. a Marine Campaign Lab)?
• What is the infrastructure needed (i.e. a NEON type of platform)?
• How do we give our diverse stakeholders a voice (i.e. a Spokesperson network trained to speak on key topics)?
• Are there effective frames that we need to use to align messaging/communication? (i.e. research by Frameworks Institute)

What could be the approaches of the MarCoLAB incubator?

• To design new projects as experiments based on values
  • (Bucket #1) “Our projects” - Projects by individual organisations of Marine CoLAB participants (e.g. Common ground, etc.)
  • (Bucket #2) “Joined projects” - Collaborative Marine CoLAB projects (eg. SUPB, Game on, possibly Sustainable Seafood in Portugal, Illegal fishing, etc.)
  • (Bucket #3) “Spawning projects” - Inspiring and informing others to frame values questions, start experiments, get involved with the issues, etc.
    • to fill the gaps between existing initiatives
    • to test different approaches to values (e.g. research on frames)
• To enable and amplify existing work, encouraging continuous inquiry
  • (Bucket #4) “Aligning projects” - become more aware of each-other’s work, in order to align the messages, make sure projects co-benefit from each other and if appropriate collaborate, bundle projects into larger initiatives (e.g. Ocean Schools, River Academy, Blue New Deal, #oceanoptimism, etc.)
  • (Bucket #5) “Continuous Learning”
    • Feeding in: Extract learning from existing projects; Knowing what other people are doing (being aware of the whole world out there), inviting external experts to complement and augment knowledge of the group
    • Reaching out: Use CoLAB to learn and spread learning across a wide range of projects and initiatives; get the CoLAB involved in helping to design experiments within existing projects (e.g. Marine Safe)
• To incorporate value questions in organisational DNA of participating institutions and other stakeholders
  • (Bucket #6) Include an explicit 'value statement' in missions, strategies, funding proposals, communication strategies etc. (e.g. Forum for the Future, Coastal Partnership Network, Client Earth, etc.)

• Sustainable Seafood in Portugal (Sandy – ClientEarth)
• Illegal fishing in MPAs (Sandy – ClientEarth)
• Ocean Schools (Sue – MCS)
• MPA campaign (Sue – MCS)
• Common Ground (Sue – MCS)
• Capturing our coast (Sue – MCS)
• Beach-watch (Sue – MCS)
• Co-management (Nic – FFI)
• Capacity Building (Nic – FFI)
• Socio-Economic Analysis of Marine Litter (Andrew – IEEP)
• Blue New Deal – good jobs for UK coastal communities (Aniol – NEF)
• Getting EU EMFF (fisheries funds) to fund the right things (Aniol – NEF)
• River Academy and Thames Guardian Project (Amy – TEP)
• Coastal Partnership Network (Amy – TEP)
• MarineSafe
• #Oceanoptimism
• Research on frames
• SUPB
• Game On

²⁾))))

Emerging topics:

• MPAs
• Fisheries
• Consumption / Supply chain
• Education & public engagement (citizens science)
• Marine litter

Emerging interventions:

• Funding mechanisms
• Capacity-building
• Building alliances
• Narrative / Communication
• New management measures

Discussion:

The Marine CoLAB could be a place where we can design (or get help with a design) tests (experiments) that provide useful results (answers to questions) about values connecting people and oceans. A strategic device or approach is needed to decide what experiments/projects are useful for achieving the required results. If the connection between the projects is that they are a part of a values based LAB, then pick experiments that test different ideas and questions about values, and provide a context to map the results. Joint projects designed specifically by Marine CoLAB (e.g. SUPB) can function as experiments and probes. CoLAB projects or experiments start from 'gaps' in the external world and inform existing projects.

Existing projects (by participating organisations) can be clarified and deepened by investigating them in the CoLAB: asking questions, providing data, making small changes in order to answer existing (values) questions. Also, the CoLAB could help 'reverse engineer' the existing projects to fit gaps for better coverage, closer alignment, more explicit values etc. The CoLAB can help align messaging, focus on synergies between individual projects. What the lab is doing can inform these projects, the projects can provide results that inform the lab (continuous feedback loop). The CoLAB can feed in projects (contributing information/data/answers), as well as reach out (asking specific questions, specific experiment, structured projects). For example, 'Common Ground' project is testing the hypothesis of whether values based approach can create more significant change. It would be a good test-case for this reciprocal learning (in/out of the CoLAB).

Questions to individual organisations: Can new projects be structured to benefit from the lab? Can existing projects be modified to better fit the lab agenda? How to collect, share and analyse information during project lifetime? There are positive externalities of the lab, as forces could be more aligned for change.

Action research cycle could be used to look at what can be learnt from each project, which values is it addressing, how is it working, how can its results be brought into the lab (e.g. providing advice and aggregating results from many projects). The CoLAB can be used to keep track of current progress, project delivery, emergent learning. How would this be done? What is the forum and format for discussion before, during and after the projects?

A sea of change – seeing through the plastics problem. The project has started with meetings in December and January. This is a summary session aiming to update the Marine CoLAB members who aren’t so involved in the project about what happened so far and to ask how they would want to be involved/kept up to date in order to help learn from the project.

Roles and responsibilities have been identified.

Sub objectives:

• Created a ToC to inform the design of project (based on Oak Application)
• Examined roles and responsibilities, governance and operations of the project
• Fed-in to activities around the mayoral campaigns

• What is a theory of change?
• Why are we taking a systemic approach and how does this differ from a more linear model of change?
• We looked at the principles of acting systemically
• We examined the constituent elements of a generic strategy for change (problem, aims, goals, interventions, assumptions [and risks & consequences]
• We introduced the MLP (systems framing) as a way of understanding the SUPB project

• Single, solely material issues → System-wide understanding
• Short term, incremental, technical solutions → Systemic pioneering interventions
• Trying to solve it alone → Partnership and collaboration
• Philanthropy, advocacy, campaigns → Building new, enabling structures for transformation

• Presents the whole picture of the projects work so that it creates a coherent narrative
• Creates a pattern of how different impacts and outcomes are nested together
• Seeks to present the connections between the interventions so that additionality is achieve to scale up our collective impacts
• Names it’s assumptions and is open to change through learning

• The problem and its systemic nature (conditions outside of the project)
• The goals and impact we want to see in the world
• The interventions you undertake (and how they interrelate to create system change)
• The assumptions – the rationale for why you are creating change through these interventions
• (The risks and consequences of these interventions)

Exisitng system → new system

• Water delivered through SUPB → Eliminated SUPB and alternative ways delivered
• Oceans are valued for economic purposes → Oceans are valued in a way that protects and enhances

(MLP: landscape / regime / niche mapping)

• Examine the activities across the different objectives, especially objective one:
• Deepen our diagnosis to understand the existing system – “mapping the system”
• Design our approach to create change and create a coordinated project plan

Has to be quick, as the elections are already in May. It focuses on the landscape around the two key candidates, and works on finding influencers (now it is clear how to go after them and who they will listen to). It is important not to prejudge the long term.

Instead of big media pushes, the campaign will focus on letting the social media do its work. Lots of face-to-face contact, focusing on the message “why wouldn’t you”, targeting personal commitment (and if elected commitment to eradicating SUPB in their buildings, as well lowering the amount of SUPB in London. There will be 1-2 events (with Selfridges) to create noise, link to clean air and social issues.

SUPB roles (for those not directly involved in the project) Everyone agrees to be part of the steering committee, but more like an advisory committee

• How do you want to be updated? Do you follow the traffic on the email? Do we need to flag communications: SUPB, other projects, LAB for relevance?
  • Answer: updates as appropriate, e.g. once in 6-8 weeks, not all details
• How do you want to be involved? How to create sufficient connection with the CoLAB?
  • Answer: as members of the advisory committee, as ambassadors and experts.
    • Advisory committee: Can work akin to a trustee board - questioning and oversight. Use the CoLAB as a lab to test assumptions, extract learning etc.
    • Experts: If a specific expertise is needed for something, reach out directly to specific people. They might need more advance warning depending on the amount of work involved. DO NOT wait for people to become involved, ask specific questions.
    • Ambassadors: Invite everyone to spread the word (in the short term: mayoral campaign); introduce people, connect to existing projects, etc.

In the first year the project will focus on design, planning and research phase, so there is still flexibility in the plan and budget (core spend + flexible spend), for those who want to get involved at a later stage.

What is the role of SUPB/other projects in feeding wider Marine CoLAB ToC

• How will it interact with and feed the aims of the LAB?
• How will the SUPB action research cycle interact with that of the LAB?
• What does this experiment in SUPB tell us about how we create Values based change strategies?
• Various opportunities are arising, how to take them on or evaluate them?
• Asset development → carry through in project and contribute to lab development
• Test how the 'steering committee' works wrt. project & lab learning process
• Explore further connection with circular economy

In 2015 the Marine CoLAB focused on starting the collaboration. In 2016 the aim is to start “doing it (the lab, the experiments)”, to learn what the Marine CoLAB would look like in practice. CGF would like the group to start piloting what they’ve been talking about. In order to do that a 'proto-draft' infrastructure/architecture/operating/business model needs to be designed and implemented (as an experiment), to enable quickly making decisions. This would be evaluated throughout 2016 through frameworks, analysis of the overall approach etc.

The key questions to answer include:

• How to keep Marine CoLAB going?
• How will it to function?
• How to govern it?
• How to create more impact
• What have we learnt about setting up a LAB over the last year?
• What do we not know? In relation to each part of the AR Cycle, esp. LAB purpose? What questions do we still want to ask?
• What questions do we have around making the LAB function? (governance, membership, funding etc etc.)

The workshop on the 11th of February 2016 will focus on creating a workplan for 2016. It will begin by looking at where the group wants to be at the end of the year and working backwards. The aim for the meeting is to produce clear outcomes, activities (projects, experiments, meetings, etc.), operational plan ('how do we organise ourselves') and suggestions how to reflect and evaluate the CoLAB and its activities. CGF might have some suggestions (e.g. TOC, logframe analysis, dynamic systems mapping, etc.). During this workshop it should be clear which questions cannot be answered from the group and which external people might be good to involve (as speakers, advisors, consultants…), in order to address issues related to planning and strategy. One session should be devoted to “doing the lab”, e.g. better aligning one of the existing projects (e.g. MCS’s Common Ground) with the CoLAB’s values work. There is a possibility that a business consultant could participate in a part of this workshop, to meet the group and understand the CoLAB (TBC).

The workshop on the 3rd of March will build on the plan for 2016 and look at a longer term operating and business model, including governance/decision-making, transitional strategy, value propositions, funding and operations. The agenda will be finalised in February.

(before the next workshop)

Giles and Aniol: group the existing questions, particularly ones focusing on planning and strategy. Aniol will send an email to everyone about the agenda. All: send a list of (5?) outcomes, proposed activities for 2016, ideas for operations and reflection. Vali: assist with creating and finalising the agenda before the 11th of February. Louisa: find out if the consultant will be involved in this and/or the March workshops, and what the scope of their involvement will be in creating the business plan for Marine CoLAB. Heather, Sue, Nic: write a paragraph on how Marine CoLAB benefited their work and life so far.