9th International r3.0 Conference 2022

• Plenary One – Transcending Incrementalism: Humanity faces multiple crises that now require systemic transformation to a System Value Economy that prioritizes wellbeing for all life. Empirical evidence – and common sense – make it clear that incremental shifts within the existing dysfunctional Monocapitalist economy are insufficient. This session focuses on building on and honoring the successes of incremental efforts while simultaneously transcending them with more inspiring and necessary ambition and practice. The speakers include key players participating in r3.0’s 5-pronged Transcending Incrementalism campaign.
• Plenary Two – Funding Governance for Systemic Transformation: Current funding infrastructure “talks” system change, but “walks” the status quo when it comes to its governance – which influences (and even replicates itself in) the governance of funded organizations and projects. Exciting experimentation is happening on the margins, where new forms of governance (including blockchain / distributed autonomous organizations and Sociocracy) are creating new paths of resource flow. This session features speakers participating in the r3.0 Funding Governance for Systemic Transformation Blueprint, which is documenting this innovation through case studies and action learning.
• Plenary Three – Education for Regeneration: Education requires continual regeneration of knowledge, inclusive of sources and ways of knowing that have been overlooked. This session focuses on widening the aperture of traditional education to integrate Ecofeminist, Indigenous, Bioregional, and Regenerative perspectives that will be the focus of this session. Building on last year’s release of the Educational Transformation Blueprint, r3.0 is updating its Transformation Journey Program curriculum (delivered face-to-face and online) with more diverse perspectives.
• Plenary Four – The Decisive Decades: Looking Back, Looking Ahead: 2012 was a year of promise in sustainability, with the appearance of the Doughnut, the launch of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and the fourth generation of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. To what degree has the field delivered on this promise? Or squandered opportunities? Perhaps more importantly, where do we find ourselves now, and what can we learn from the past to guide us into the necessary transformations of the coming decade? This session features speakers who have played key roles in past r3.0 Conferences over our inaugural decade, distilling learnings from past triumphs and failures as a means of guiding us into the future.

After two fully online conferences in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 global restrictions, r3.0 is retaining the benefits of virtual convenings (reduced greenhouse gas impact; increased geographic reach, etc…) while also taking advantage of the opportunity to return to face-to-face interaction by hosting a Hybrid Conference.

r3.0 strategically schedules our Conference right after the summer break (in the Northern Hemisphere) to help set a sufficiently ambitious tone for the fall conference season – particularly UN Climate Week, the UN General Assembly and many other conferences following in the months of September to December.

r3.0’s work is based around the r3.0 Work Ecosystem: a suite of nine interlinking Blueprints – with of which have already been developed and released, and the final one, on Funding Governance for Systemic Transformation, to be released at the 2022 Conference. In 2022, r3.0 is also continuing to advance our Positive Maverick Thinking by releasing additional Opinion Papers and Case Studies supporting its core mission. We have convened eight prior r3.0 Conferences; we just added a new Community Manager, Liesbeth Willemsen, to curate our Academic Alliance and Advocation Partners networks; we also host Research and Test Lab collaborations, and we are making progress on our Global Thresholds & Allocations Council & Global Thresholds & Allocations Network plans. Finally, we are continuing to organise Transformation Journey Programs for those who want to activate transformation in their organizations and lives. We feel uniquely positioned to gather world-class “game-changing and mind-blowing” speakers in a highly interactive “sleeves-rolled-up” working conference setting.

In our content development phase, we focused on knowledge co-creation (with our global Working Groups), forging a strong foundation from which to now focus on dissemination and implementation. While we “keep our thinking caps on,” we’re also “getting down to business.” We at r3.0 stand prepared to shift further into advocation mode, asserting the necessity of aligning action in the fields we influence with the thermodynamic realities and ethical imperatives we identify in our Work Ecosystem. The time is ripe for r3.0 to shift its focus from knowledge generation to application and action. Based on our collaboration with UNRISD from 2018 onwards, piloting next-generation context-based indicators, we foresee more action-oriented advocation going forward in the transition from insufficient ESG tactics toward the creation of System Value, forming the core theme of this year’s conference: Transcending Incrementalism – From ESG to System Value Creation.

This 9th conference also marks the 10-year anniversary of r3.0, which started as an idea after the Rio+20 Summit in the light of the governments’ plea for a ‘regenerative & distributive economy’ and the obvious gap of tools to address this ideal. This anniversary also marks the finalization of the first generation of the r3.0 Work Ecosystem. The conference will look back at our first decade of impact, and look forward to what’s needed in the next 10 years, known to be the ‘decisive decade for humanity.’