EMPHASIS HAS BEEN ON SERVICE PROVISION RATHER THAN THINKING ABOUT THE WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF DECISIONS – INCREMENTAL TWEAKS HAVE BEEN MADE RATHER THAN REALLY UNDERSTANDING FIRST PRINCIPLES .
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quite sad that we are bombarded with so much negative information that people are almost feeling as though they have to shut off . One of the things that we have tried to do with students who feel disempowered is to encourage them to recognise that the cumulative effects of many people doing one small thing can be very positive .
We ’ ve also tried using reverse psychology to make learning about sustainability and unsustainability really good fun . In education , you ’ re always encouraged to do the ‘ right thing ’, so we developed a project where students had to develop the most unsustainable solution to a challenge that they could possibly think of . They also got points for trashing as many sustainable development goals as possible . Initially , they couldn ’ t quite grasp the idea that they were being asked to do something bad , but once they got over that hurdle , they went crazy – they loved it .
We applied the principles of reverse psychology at an international life cycle management conference last
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EMPHASIS HAS BEEN ON SERVICE PROVISION RATHER THAN THINKING ABOUT THE WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF DECISIONS – INCREMENTAL TWEAKS HAVE BEEN MADE RATHER THAN REALLY UNDERSTANDING FIRST PRINCIPLES .
year . Through a workshop , we tried to encourage white , middle-class , Western European delegates to think about the Global South and SDGs in a more sympathetic , empathetic and understanding way .
Again , we got the delegates to think about the worst , most unethical things that they could possibly do if they were introducing a project in the Global South – and it worked very well . We did mention that in all circumstances these practices shouldn ’ t be taken up , but it was a good way of getting people to think about challenges from a different perspective . Delegates from the Global South relayed back that they enjoyed it and approved ; they added real value to the comments that were made .
One of the main things we can do is to lighten the subject in a way to make people feel more empowered . The idea that every little action – when you aggregate and accumulate – can bring about real change . Whether members of the data centre industry tend to be a bit more serious than some of our students , whether they would be open to our reverse psychology approach , we have yet to see . �
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