Systainability Asia

𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞: 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞.

Not the wrong issue — the wrong level of the system. Too shallow. Too obvious. And often, it makes things worse.

Donella Meadows called these the 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 — the places in a system where a small shift creates powerful, lasting change. The catch? They're rarely where you'd expect.

🎉 We just launched the 𝟏𝟐 𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 — a complete, card-based workshop toolkit that makes this framework practical, hands-on, and immediately usable.

Whether you're a consultant, educator, or team leader working on complex problems — this toolkit gives you and your group the tools to stop fixing symptoms and start changing systems.

📥 Digital download — print-ready files included. Ready to run within hours.

🔥 𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐇 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋: 𝟓𝟎% 𝐨𝐟𝐟 the normal $40 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝟐𝟓 𝐛𝐮𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬
$𝟐𝟎 until first 25 are taken

Use code 𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐇𝟓𝟎 →

https://systainability.gumroad.com/l/LeveragePointsCards
Small shifts. Big change. 🌱

Leverage Points: A System Thinking Toolkit for Strategic Intervention Designed for educators, facilitators, consultants, sustainability practitioners, and changemakers, the toolkit combines systems thinking with hands-on activities to support deeper reflection, strategic thinking, and collaborative solution design.What’s Included Leverage Points Card Set Case Exampl...

World Environment Day: Serious Games Meetup (Chiang Mai)

On the occasion of the World Environment Day (6 June) we are organizing a Series Games Meetup at Weave Artisan Society this Saturday, 6 June 2026.

10:00 am-12:30 Game Play/Workshop followed by Community Lunch,
12:30 pm - 13:30 Community Lunch and Serious Games Intros/Discusssion

Entry is 100 Baht for students and 200 Baht for adults. Includes a drink and food.

We want to raise awareness about plastic pollution, enable systems thinking, discuss who serious games can help create awareness, agency and action. We also plan a TEDx event focus on Serious Games with video, maybe live speakers, and game workshops.

Wonderful opportunity for us to get together! Hope to see many of you. Let’s play some games and also do something for the environment on world environment day! 🌍 https://forms.gle/K3ECWWRbkZXpdQ2H8

Excited to be starting a new eight-week online course developed for ecosystem restoration practitioners, offered through the Society for Ecological Restoration and Ecosystem Restoration Integrated Program Global Coordination Project.

The Assisted Natural Regeneration Practitioner Training Course will focus on assisted natural regeneration (ANR) approaches, benefits, and constraints, addressing essential steps of planning, implementation, and monitoring ANR, for achieving broad socio-economic and environmental outcomes through practices designed to enhance natural regeneration across ecosystems and landscapes.

I was recently asked by one of my colleagues in Laos, "what are good ways to promote awareness of IPBES and IPCC products and activities in the country with ordinary people, civil society organisation and the private sector there?"

In the context of Lao PDR, where I have had extensive experience, one of the most promising ways to promote awareness of Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change products is to connect their global scientific findings directly to local development priorities and everyday realities. Rather than presenting IPBES and IPCC reports as abstract international assessments not really directly relatable to the social, economic and environmental situation of the country, I feel awareness efforts should somehow translate key messages into practical implications for issues that already resonate strongly in Lao, such as food security, hydropower development, forest loss, fisheries decline, droughts and floods, air pollution, and supporting rural livelihoods. Integrating simplified Lao-language summaries, visual storytelling, participatory community dialogues, and locally grounded case studies into government training, university curricula, media programming, and civil society initiatives would make these global knowledge products far more accessible and relevant. Further, effectively engaging trusted institutions such as the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), the National University of Laos, Buddhist networks, youth groups, women’s unions, and community-based organizations would also help bridge the gap between science, policy, and society.

A second effective way is to promote IPBES and IPCC knowledge through experiential, solutions-oriented engagement rather than traditional awareness campaigns by themselves. In Laos, people are often most responsive when information is linked to visible local action and tangible benefits to themselves (not abstract theoretical information that doesn't touch them). Demonstration projects around nature-based solutions, community forestry, wetland conservation, regenerative agriculture, climate adaptation, and river ecosystem protection can serve as “living classrooms” that illustrate the science in practice.

At the same time, expanding digital storytelling, social media content, youth innovation challenges, citizen science initiatives, and participatory monitoring programs could help younger generations engage with biodiversity and climate science in more interactive ways. The growing recognition internationally that biodiversity and climate challenges must be addressed together (not separately) also creates an important opportunity for stakeholders in Laos, and for the IPBES/IPCC, to communicate IPBES and IPCC findings through an integrated “nature–climate–livelihoods” narrative that supports national green growth and resilience goals.

My newest blog article: The World Is Reorganizing Itself - Systems Thinking, Global Scenarios, and the Dangerous Crossroads of Our Time

The World Is Reorganizing Itself - Systems Thinking, Global Scenarios, and the Dangerous Crossroads of Our Time Robert Steele | 8 May 2026There’s a strange feeling many people share right now I feel; a disconcerting and persistent sense that the world is becoming harder to explain and moving rapidly towards something we are not used to, and OK with.Events that once felt disconnected now seem knotted togethe...

🌍 Plastic pollution does not start with the person throwing away a plastic bottle.

It starts much earlier — with oil.

One of the biggest misconceptions about the plastic crisis is that it is mainly a “waste problem.” But the deeper reality is that plastic pollution is tied to an entire fossil fuel and petrochemical system that continues to expand globally.

And this matters because we are now discovering plastic everywhere.

Not just on beaches and rivers.

But in:
🩸 human blood
🫁 lungs
🧠 brains
🌧 rainwater
🐟 seafood
💧 drinking water
👶 even placentas.

At the same time, plastic production is still accelerating worldwide because petrochemicals are becoming one of the fossil fuel industry’s major future growth markets.

This means we cannot recycle our way out of this crisis alone.

The infographic attached tries to visualize the bigger system behind plastic pollution:
➡ fossil fuel extraction
➡ petrochemical expansion
➡ mass plastic production
➡ consumer convenience culture
➡ weak waste systems
➡ leakage into ecosystems
➡ climate, biodiversity, economic, and health impacts.

What becomes clear is that plastic pollution is not just an environmental issue.

It is also:
⚠ a climate issue
⚠ a biodiversity issue
⚠ a public health issue
⚠ an economic issue
⚠ and ultimately a systems design issue.

If we only focus downstream on cleanup and recycling, while upstream plastic production keeps growing exponentially, we remain trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle.

The real challenge for the future is bigger:

How do we redesign economies and lifestyles that have become dependent on disposable materials and endless consumption?

This is where systems thinking becomes so important — helping us see root causes, hidden feedback loops, and the leverage points where real transformation becomes possible.

The good news?

Solutions already exist:
♻ reuse and refill systems
🏛 stronger policy and accountability
📦 redesigning packaging
💡 circular economy innovation
🌱 regenerative business models
🤝 cultural and behavioral shifts
⚖ and a just transition away from unnecessary fossil fuel dependency.

The future of plastic is ultimately about the future relationship between humanity, materials, energy, nature, and wellbeing.

What kind of future are we designing?

This Bangkok Post article “Plastic pollution starts with oil”, which came out in Saturday's paper today, makes an important systems-level argument, that being.... plastic pollution is not fundamentally a waste problem, it is an oil and petrochemical production problem, which i alluded to in my blog piece last week.

The author (Khun Pichmol Rugrod) challenges the common narrative that better recycling alone can solve the crisis. Instead, she argues that the rapid growth of plastic production is deeply tied to the fossil fuel industry’s future economic strategy. As the world slowly transitions away from oil and gas for energy, petrochemical companies are increasingly relying on plastics as a major source of future demand and profit.

One key insight that she brings up is the emphasis on “upstream” causes. Most of public attention tends to focus on the downstream; i.e. litter, recycling systems, beach cleanups, and consumer behavior. While these points certainly matter, they are insufficient if virgin plastic production continues to expand globally, as it is doing. In other words, countries are trying to manage an ever-growing flood of plastic waste without adequately addressing the source that is producing it.

The article situates Southeast Asia and ASEAN at the center of this plastic waste challenge. The region faces a difficult conundrum....

1. Growing economies and rising consumption,
2. Increasing petrochemical investment,
3. Weak or uneven waste-management systems, and
4. Major leakage of plastics into rivers and marine ecosystems.

From a systems-thinking perspective, this article is particularly interesting, because it reframes plastic pollution as part of a larger interconnected industrial system:

Oil & gas extraction → Petrochemical expansion → Cheap single-use plastics → Rising consumption → Waste leakage & microplastics → Ecosystem degradation, climate emissions, and health impacts

This framing matters because it changes we we might pinpoint effective leverage points. If the problem is understood only as “bad waste management,” then solutions remain largely technical and downstream. But if the problem is understood as a structural feature of the fossil-fuel economy, then stronger interventions become necessary, such as:

* reducing virgin plastic production,
* redesigning packaging systems,
* expanding reuse/refill models,
* extended producer responsibility (EPR),
* regulatory caps and targets, and
* aligning climate and plastics policy together.

Khun Pichmol implicitly connects the plastic crisis to the broader “triple planetary crisis”:

climate change,
biodiversity loss,
and pollution.

This is important because plastics are increasingly recognized as not only a marine litter issue, but also should be seen as a climate issue (through fossil fuel extraction and emissions); a biodiversity issue (through ecosystem and food-chain disruption); and a human health issue (through microplastics and toxic additives).

This article, in my mind, encourages people to stop seeing plastic pollution as merely a consumer waste problem and instead recognize it as a systemic outcome of current economic and energy models. That systems framing is increasingly shaping international discussions, including the UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiations.

Plastic pollution starts with oil As Asean leaders gather in Cebu, the Philippines, for the 48th Asean Summit, energy security is high on the regional agenda. The US/Israel-Iran war and the shock it has sent through global energy markets have once again exposed a hard truth for Southeast Asia: economies that remain dependent on foss...

The world is entering a new era of sustainability finance.

As public budgets tighten, traditional development assistance (ODA) contracts, and climate risks intensify, governments, businesses, and communities can no longer rely on “business as usual” financing models to solve today’s interconnected environment and climate related crises.

We are facing a triple planetary crisis:
🌍 Climate change
🌿 Biodiversity loss
🧪 Pollution and waste

At the same time, these crises are deeply connected to growing challenges in:
💧 Water security
🌾 Food security
⚡ Energy resilience
🏙️ Sustainable livelihoods and economic stability

The reality is clear:
We cannot achieve climate and biodiversity goals without fundamentally transforming how capital flows through our economies and ecosystems.
This is why innovative green finance instruments are becoming increasingly important.

At Systainability Asia, we recently developed a new infographic series introducing five key finance mechanisms helping mobilize capital for nature-positive and climate-resilient development:

1️⃣ Ecological Fiscal Transfers (EFTs) - Rewarding local governments for protecting forests, watersheds, biodiversity, and ecosystem services.

2️⃣ Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) - Creating financial incentives for communities and land/resource stewards who protect ecosystems that provide public benefits.

3️⃣ Carbon Credits & Biodiversity Credits - Channeling investment into measurable climate mitigation, restoration, and biodiversity outcomes.

4️⃣ Blended Finance Instruments - Using concessional, philanthropic, catalytic, and private capital together to de-risk investments and scale nature-positive solutions.

5️⃣ Green & Blue Bonds - Mobilizing large-scale investment into renewable energy, conservation, sustainable infrastructure, marine ecosystems, and climate resilience.
These instruments are not silver bullets.
However, when designed strategically, with strong governance, transparency, safeguards, measurable outcomes, and community participation, they can help unlock the scale of investment needed for a regenerative and resilient future.

The challenge now is not only about generating more finance. It is about aligning finance with living systems, long-term resilience, and equitable development outcomes.

At Systainability Asia, we are interested in supporting governments, NGOs, development agencies, academia, and the private sector to:
✅ Understand emerging green finance mechanisms
✅ Identify leverage points and opportunities
✅ Design integrated nature-positive financing strategies
✅ Build institutional and stakeholder capacity
✅ Connect sustainability, systems thinking, biodiversity, climate, and finance together more effectively.

📩 Contact us: [email protected]
🌐 www.systainabilityasia.com