The purpose of the Alliance is to mobilise a national commitment to creating an ecologically sustainable and socially healthy society that is pleasurable to live in.

We have established a national network of facilitators in major cities across Australia to catalyse discussions and workshops that enable people to think through what is needed to evolve a viable society.

In addition, the vision of achieving sustainable wellbeing needs to be widely articulated in as many forums as possible. So we also produce magazine articles, lectures, individual briefings for influential people, online forums, You Tube videos and so forth. The goal of creating a healthy society needs to become top-of-mind.

The core direction of society as a whole must change. So I invite you to consider rising to a new level of personal leadership and directing some of your effort to evoking a national commitment to healthy change. The Alliance has been established to be a vehicle to help you do this.

If we succeed, future generations will thank us for it.

If you wish, you can sign up for our netletter Catalysing Good News. Or you can join us.

By scrolling down you can find out about the Alliance in more detail

Why should we be aiming to catalyse a national commitment to sustainable wellbeing?

Isn't it enough just to do our bit?

Regretfully, no.

As Ross Garnaut once said, "Economic growth would be a good thing if it weren't for its effects on the environment.”

As you are doubtless aware, the current national focus as articulated by the government, the media and business interests, is on economic growth. However, there is a direct connection between increasing industrial production and increasing environmental damage, including global warming. The more we make the worse things get.

So overall the local environmental gains we make by doing our bit are swamped by the industrial damage created in the pursuit of economic growth. We should celebrate our local achievements. But frankly, when we look at the big picture trends it is clear that we are losing it.

Naturally we need a healthy economy. At minimum a healthy economy will operate within environmental limits. Ours does not. So we need a new direction, a new vision.

Our appropriate new national intention should be to achieve sustainable wellbeing.

If as a nation we become passionate about achieving sustainable wellbeing, then many of the individual initiatives that good-willed people are working on will become vastly easier to carry forward. They will be supported, not resisted.

Therefore I suggest that in addition to doing our bit with a local perspective - valuable though that is - a portion of our effort should also be devoted to changing our national direction.

So - how might we influence a whole culture to intentionally evolve in a healthy direction, to become sustainable?

Or rather, how can we accelerate the change - because in important respects it is already happening?

We think the key is in encouraging people to think more comprehensively about what's going on, and make a whole system change to viability the conscious goal.

Our thinking shapes our behaviour

Thinking involves much more than words in our head. At a deeper level, thinking involves our understanding of the world, and how we organise our activities to accomplish our results. As our understanding changes, our behaviour changes.

In the past, many people have attempted to change other people's thinking by programming them. Marketers send messages. Sales people look for emotional triggers. Some organisations indoctrinate people. This is not what the Alliance does.

We are after something much more profound, and more good-hearted. Our aim is for people to understand how the way our system is currently organised accelerates environmental and social deterioration (including global warming) so that we can intelligently seek alternatives. Therefore we stimulate thinking by creating forums for facilitated discussions across Australia that help people see the big picture clearly.

Having a coherent map of how things work equips us to support constructive leadership when it emerges, and to exert leadership within our own sphere of influence.

In addition, in a healthy society people will be more emotionally centred, resilient and creative. So we support workshops that foster these qualities.

How might we reach enough people to make a real difference? In Australia there are already thousands of networks across Australia of people with positive values. You may be a member of one or more. You may be involved in environmental education, Yoga, Aikido, community organising or lawyers for social justice. You may be an alternative energy supplier or an insightful academic.

Taken as a whole, members of these and other groups are an untapped resource for positive social change.

Our organising model is for people in such groups to invite people they know to introductory discussions to talk about how Australia can actually become environmentally sustainable and socially healthy. Conducting an introductory discussion is not hard. It might only take an hour and a half or two hours. It can be done informally with just a few people in your lounge room.

We provide support, including an easy to follow manual with special diagrams. The diagrams are thought starters. We already know a lot. The diagrams help us connect the dots and put what we know into a larger framework. By talking the diagrams through we can understand more clearly how our current system is dysfunctional, and we can identify constructive points of change that can make it come right. The manual is called Orienting to Creating a Viable Future. A Facilitators Guide is also available

Having only a few discussions isn't enough

To be honest, having just a few such discussions will not make much difference. Our goal is to mobilise thousands - well, hundreds of thousands - of discussion groups across Australia as rapidly as possible. We are in a global emergency with a short timeframe. The shift in understanding and intent that will lead to a bright future must happen with unprecedented speed, or it will not happen at all.

If we succeed in getting thousands of people who have not thought much about these great issues to engage in the conversation, we will have found a way of getting past "preaching to the converted" and begun the real on-the-ground process of revitalising democracy. Invest in the big picture

As we said before, if we succeed in shifting our national intent to sustainable wellbeing then many good-willed local initiatives will become far easier to carry out because there will be support for them. So we believe that at least a small portion of our time and effort should be invested in catalysing the national will to create a viable society. This can be done in conjunction with our other activities.

I invite you to join us and explore ways you can contribute to creating sustainable wellbeing as our new national intention. If you are a businessperson, you may connect you environmental products with this new national vision. If you are a facilitator or lecturer, you can mention the goal of developing sustainable wellbeing in your presentations.

Most of all, I hope you will consider hosting at least one facilitated conversation with people you know. This will deepen your own understanding, and it will be a small but significant contribution to the shift in consciousness necessary for creating a viable society. You will not be alone; thousands of other people will be doing it

With warm regards,

Andrew Gaines
CEO, Alliance for Sustainable Wellbeing