After a PhD in Teaching Methods for Sustainable Development1, I founded AUTREMEN2 in October 2005 with the aim of offering innovative courses on this topic. I believe it is vital to start making connections between our current planetary crisis and our responsibility for individual and collective action. We need to be able to recognise the means at our disposal and understand how to mobilize for action, with each of us making a unique contribution at an appropriate scale. Organising seminars and bespoke training courses is my contribution to progress towards a sustainable world.
“Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract -- sustainable development -- and turn it, too, into a daily reality for all the world's people.” Kofi Annan, Secretary-General to the UN., 14 March 2001.
Sustainability is a complex concept mired in animated debates and conflicting opinions. It seems to me essential to re-emphasize and contextualize the main constituents (the finite nature of our planet, socio-economic and ecological imbalances and the exhaustion of non-renewable resources) and empower individuals to develop their own points of view. Before forming a personal opinion and plan of action, individuals usually need to develop a more profound appreciation of a variety of issues associated with sustainable development. Our individual interests and leanings influence our personal stance so I have rejected dogmatic approaches in favour of methods that encourage reflection and personal choice. This is why I like to use interactive teaching methods that foster a sense of context and allow individuals the opportunity to exchange views on the meaning of sustainability for them. I also try to develop an appreciation of the wider implications of individual actions.
Comprehending such a complex topic as sustainability can seem a bit like climbing a never-ending staircase … daunting! In my courses, I endeavour to make sustainability accessible to everyone so that we can ‘climb the staircase together, and reflect upon progressively more complex ideas one step at a time’. My work involves situational role-playing exercises emphasizing the need to find effective ways to put across differing points of view. On this site I give examples of the types of work I have carried out (see the papers in the reference section for further information).
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(1) “Sustainable Development meets the needs of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet theirs. Two central concepts are those of ‘needs’ especially those of the most marginalised in society (which should be considered first) and the limitations of the environment to respond to our present and future needs.
(2) AUTREMEN: un AUTre REgard sur le Monde et son EvolutioN. (Another Way of Looking at our Evolving World )
