Case Study: Reduction Roadmap

How Reduction Roadmap has convinced (almost) the entire Danish Built Environment industry to ask for stricter climate legislation.​

Here's legendary systems thinker, Donella Meadows, to explain a race to the bottom, and how to get out of it, in systems lingo

THE TRAP: ESCALATION

When the state of one stock is determined by trying to surpass the state of another stock - and vice versa - then there is a reinforcing feedback loop carrying the system into an arms race, a wealth race, a smear campaign, escalating loudness, escalating violence. The escalation is exponential and can lead to extremes surprisingly quickly. If nothing is done, the spiral will be stopped by someone's collapse - because exponential growth cannot go on forever.

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THE WAY OUT

The best way out of this trap is to avoid getting in it. If caught in an escalating system, one can refuse to compete (unilaterally disarm), thereby interrupting the reinforcing loop Or one can negotiate a new system with balancing loops to control the escalation
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A real-life Danish negotiation case: Reduction Roadmap

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→ The Danish Built Environment sector is in "a race to the bottom" regarding maximizing profits by neglecting ecological pressures, as are most sectors.

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→ 3 companies got together to negotiate a new system. They couldn't refuse to compete.

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→ They got funding to calculate a safe operating space for CO2 emissions: Going from global to national to sector to housing to CO2/M2.

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→ They turned it into a policy proposal. Asking the government to level the playing field with harder climate legislation. Going from 9.63 kg CO2/m2 in 2020 to 0.40 kg CO2/m2 in 2029.

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→ They then got a second round of funding to find backers for the proposal.

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→ Now, they have 590+ organizations backing it up. That's almost the entire industry!

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→ This proposal is being debated now. Nothing is set in stone yet, especially because a few of the industry's heavy polluters are still fighting it.

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→ If Reduction Roadmap succeeds it could trigger a social tipping point, as companies in other sectors and countries would want to do the same—creating change by leveling the playing field for everyone.
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→ This is an excellent example of a Scaling-up strategy—trying to change the rules that affect everyone. It illustrates that you can be a small company with a significant impact without growing your size. There are 8 popular ways of scaling impact, and in the Post Growth Guide, we follow the Transferring and Spreading strategy. We unpack how and why in Chapter 10 of our handbook, "Setting Limits To Growth."​