Every civil servant will have to deal with halving greenhouse gases and resource consumption in the next 97 months: how do you deal with that? Fortunately, we already know a lot about it! We shared that knowledge and power December 9 together with Duurzaam Door in the online 100MTC Beyond Zero Experience called "The civil servant with guts!". Led by André van der Zee, host of many sustainable events and TV programs, more than 100 civil servants followed the online livestream of the 100MTC Powertalk and film screening of Beyond Zero on December 9.

Tessa de Haas, program leader Circular Economy at DuurzaamDoor, talked about the lessons she gathered with pioneers in the circular economy to help officials accelerate the task. 'We are from learning to transform and in recent years we noticed that civil servants in particular have a crucial role in accelerating the transition tasks. We learned what works and what needs attention, looking at many pioneers and real-life case studies.'

Formulate propositional vision

The good example of a pioneer like Interface and the related lessons from 100MTC in the 4C model are useful tools for many public servants working on transition challenges in practice who could use a boost. We also know this from a study we did and all our work over the past 10 years. The crux is that we are very quick to jump into action on our own, but the trick is to know where you stand in the task and that you only move when you have a few preconditions in place. Formulating a conceivable vision is the most important thing. But if you don't do that every day, it takes some getting used to changing tack. In this webinar, we show that it works.

Formulating actions

After a brief review of "10 years of DuurzaamDoor," attendees watched the inspiring film documentary Beyond Zero. This told the story of climate pioneer Interface that transformed from a highly polluting manufacturing company to one that is now climate positive. Charlotte Extercatte of 100MTC then challenged the officials to formulate their actions: what are you going to do this month so that we will meet the climate goals? On the spot, in a Call for Action, the participants' actions were collected via a smart tool. "This data is very valuable, with it we really learn what professionals in the field want to do more of and so we can learn together what else they need in order to do their transition work well," Charlotte said. For example, this story in City Affairs tells the story of a civil servant as a cooperating foreman in Zeeland.

Power Sessions

Participants were not only challenged to formulate an action, they are also welcome to attend one of the Power Sessions in the 96th to 94th month! 'What we want to pass along to all those officials who are already doing great work around transformation and resources is: put vision first, commit to Accelerators and Persevere. Working on a transition task is not always easy. It is nice to be able to spar with like-minded people and hear how they deal with the complexity and speed of this subject. As DuurzaamDoor's Circular Economy Table, we are determined to shape our role in learning to transform in such a way that we can accelerate even more and start meeting those sustainable and circular goals!" said Tessa de Haas. 'In the Power Sessions, peers can spar with each other and we learn even more about the practice again. We pass on these lessons at scale. We also keep people in the Power Session focused on their formulated action, as a stick. My own action? Making sure that next year we reach 1,000 civil servants as soon as possible and encourage them to go the extra mile with this story.'

Fantastic to work with Tessa de Haas, program leader Circular Economy of DuurzaamDoor, and others to inspire and empower professionals in this work! On to the 1 million!