SiD Overview
What is SiD?
SiD is a framework to develop symbiotic, sustainable solutions. It is a complete process from idea to implementation, aimed at teams of cooperating experts and individuals alike. It combines a holistic systems approach, interdisciplinary collaboration, design thinking, and light-weight iterative development cycles.
The results are top-down systemic strategies, activated by bottom-up interventions. These interventions are pushed towards implementation using short-term action plans that follow long-term roadmaps towards systemic change. The outcomes are resilient, harmonious, and autonomous organizations, cities, nations, and industries.
Why Use SiD?
If anything the past has told us, it is that no matter where in the world we want to act -- big or small -- we have to consider long-term consequences of our actions. We recognize that we need to take into account all aspects of society in our challenge to end up with a better world. Just focusing on sub-aspects such as energy or food is insufficient, as they are all related and eventually affect each other.
SiD enables you to take the full system into account at all times, and uses this as a strength to find the most effective solutions that cost the least amount of effort and resources. SiD does not tell you what to do, nor what is right and wrong. Instead, it allows you to figure out what the right questions to ask are in any given situation.
SiD's Four Components
SiD consists of four main components, nested inside one another:
SiD Theory covers the fundamental concepts at SiD's core: the sustainability definition, the anatomy of systems, networks, objects, system dynamics, system transitions, and roadmaps.
SiD Method describes how the theory is applied step-by-step: goal setting, system analysis and understanding, solutioning and roadmapping, and evaluation. The method is iterative -- during a single project it is cycled through several times.
SiD Process focuses on day-to-day practice: how to build a working process from A to Z, build a team, involve stakeholders, and manage a project.
SiD Tools lists a variety of useful aids that can be used at various stages of a SiD process, from Life Cycle Assessment and biomimicry to backcasting and circular economy.
SiD Takes Time
Mastering SiD, or any systemic sustainability approach, takes time and effort. The topic of sustainability is inherently complex and rich in knowledge. SiD helps to streamline and accelerate this, but cannot make the challenges simpler in their essence.
In our experience, it takes a few years of full-time engagement to master SiD from start to finish. Thankfully, it is not necessary to understand SiD entirely for it to be useful. Many tools and approaches work well on their own, so you can learn step by step and start implementing immediately.
Once you have done a few SiD projects and allowed yourself to become familiar with the theory, it becomes useful even in a day-to-day context. Once you have reached that stage of systems insight, practicing SiD can be a straightforward affair -- almost like an invisible intuitive process in the background.
The A-ha Machine
In our experience, SiD is great for getting those unique "a-ha" moments where you suddenly see "it" -- that one epiphany that makes all the difference, that perfect solution that afterwards seems so obvious.
SiD's method "uploads" available information about the system to your mind, where it is processed to recognize patterns. To suddenly see patterns in complex systems and derive a way forward, we have few tools to rely on but our own brain. These patterns are often the key to great solutions, but your brain needs to marinate in the challenge to find them.
In this mental process, which is to a large degree subconscious, it is vital to allow yourself room for creativity and relaxation. Just as Archimedes needed to be forced by his wife to take a bath, resulting in his "Eureka" moment of discovery, so too will your brain need mental rest to process in the background.
Modular and Open Source
SiD is a modular framework that allows existing tools from outside the framework to be slotted in when necessary. It is not a belief, dogma, or certification system. It is flexible, adjustable, and open for you to add your own techniques. Feel free to apply tools you already know at any point in the process.
SiD stands on the shoulders of giants, learning from ideas and frameworks developed by others. To support this process, SiD is made open source under a Creative Commons license. If you make any tools, or improve the ones available, please share them back with the community.
SiD and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
The United Nations published its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 as part of its 2030 agenda. The SDGs emphasize a holistic approach with 17 global challenges. SiD can be used to analyze SDG impacts, organize processes to develop solutions for them, and as a reporting framework.
However, the SDGs do not by themselves provide a working framework or stimulate a systemic approach. While systemic in their origins as a whole, each SDG goal is in itself object-oriented. This is where SiD comes in: it can explore the SDGs given a certain challenge, map their impacts, detect interrelations on a systems level, show system dynamics, and find powerful systemic solutions that positively affect multiple SDG areas at once.
The Happy Alien Colony
To get a feel for the base principles of SiD, consider this thought experiment. Imagine an alien colony floating around in space. What does it take for it to survive?
The colony needs Autonomy. All life needs input of resources -- sustenance, heat, medicine. The colony needs an indefinite supply of these resources and an infrastructure of extraction, production, and distribution. Autonomy is about self-sufficiency.
The colony needs Harmony. It is fine to have enough food and shelter, but if there is so much tension that they keep killing each other, their existence is threatened. Things that may cause upset include how resources are shared, power structures, and participation. Harmony points to the management of internal tensions.
The colony needs Resilience. Floating in space, anything can happen -- a meteor, a loss of light. They need detection, awareness, flexibility, and redundancy. Resilience helps the colony survive unexpected and sudden changes in their environment.
The colony needs healthy system dynamics. Autonomy, harmony, and resilience influence one another. Increasing resource intake may reduce agility. As the colony grows, it cannot grow indefinitely using the same structure. Understanding these interactions -- system dynamics -- is critical to survival.
"All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else." -- The Buddha