Collaborations for Innovative Solutions

It would need everyone to stop shouting at each other and start having productive conversations. Is that too much to hope for?

Most Friday nights, I attend the Connects/Strategic Doing zoom. In Brisbane, it starts at 11pm, or midnight when the northern hemisphere is on summertime.

I do it for a few reasons, but the main one is that it gives me hope.

Issues around climate change, sustainability, and biodiversity loss, are complex problems. Solutions have to combine environmental, economic, social, and cultural outcomes.

Nobody, no organisation, no sector, no discipline has the answers to these complex problems. We need collaborations to find ways of coming together to create innovative solutions.

To do this, we need to bring the sectors together: education, government, business, citizens, environment. The adversarial conversations I hear every day make that level of collaboration seem out of reach, which is why I find it’s worth making time for those late Friday night zooms.

Strategic Doing is made for tackling complex (wicked) problems with innovative collaborations.

Toondah Harbour

The Redland City Council, and Redlands business and community have a complex problem. They need to rejuvenate their economy, creating local jobs and business opportunities. They also need to provide housing and services for their share of the increasing population in South East Queensland.

The proposed solution for a massive development at Toondah Harbour raised the ire of environmentalists and has just been rejected by the Federal Government.

The proposed development deserved to be rejected because it wasn’t a good solution. But that leaves the people of Redlands no closer to a solution - and a community divided by a lengthy “economic development versus environment” battle. The battles will continue.

Let’s look at it through the Strategic Doing lens and start with a question:

What if a collaboration of all affected participants could find a solution that worked towards a thriving local economy that provided housing, and local jobs and services for their share of the increasing population in South East Queensland, while protecting and nurturing their environment? What might that look like now, in 10 years, in 20 years?

Sounds a bit pie in the sky?  Let’s look at the location and the assets.

• Toondah Harbour, the focus of the current dispute

• Designation as a Priority Development Area (PDA). This makes innovative collaborations possible, but not guaranteed.

• Proximity to Stradbroke Island (hence the ferry terminal and car park)

• Ramsar-protected wetlands

• Cleveland business and cultural centre nearby

• Current tourism that caters mainly to daytrippers in private cars.

Environment, Education, and Innovation

What if we leveraged the Ramsar status to redevelop the site of the current ferry terminal and car parks to combine a world-leading research centre into the role of wetlands in nature-based solutions, combined with the new ferry terminal?

The Mill at Moreton Bay PDA enabled the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Moreton Bay campus - more details.

Housing and accommodation

What if the accommodation for workers and students was away from the waterfront?

Residents of mid and high density, including social housing, are better served by being close to the business centre and railway station. This is outside the current PDA and could be done as a PDA-associated development

Existing hotel and motel businesses in the surrounding area could upgrade when and if the demand for tourist accommodation makes it viable to do so.

Tourism

What if the focus of tourism was shifted away from private-car daytrippers (who don’t contribute much to the local economy) to tourists arriving by train, with public and active transport connections to the ferry terminal.

This would mean increasing the public and active transport options and guided tours on Stradbroke Island - increasing tourism revenue and decreasing traffic congestion and demand for carparks on the island.

Business

Conference centres (for the new research centre), cafes, and entertainment could all remain centred around the current Cleveland business centre.

Existing businesses would benefit from the increasing numbers of residents and tourists on foot in their current locations.

Transport

Public and active transport catering for both residents and tourists, including frequent, regular shuttles between Toondah Harbour and Cleveland Railway station would underpin the move from car-based tourism to a more environmentally sound active transport based offering.

This is in line with lifestyle changes required throughout the South East Queensland region over the coming decades, and it makes everything more accessible for people without private cars, including international visitors.

Employment

All of these initiatives would create local employment and training options on the mainland and on Stradbroke Island in tourism, hospitality, education, and cultural experiences.

Does the original question sound more possible now?

Do we have the collaborative muscle to make something like this work?

This is not my proposal for Toondah Harbour. What would I know compared to the collective wisdom of all the relevant professionals and the local council, businesses, and residents?

It’s just a quick illustration of what sort of solutions are possible if people come together with a spirit of curiosity and openness to viewpoints and priorities that don’t align with their own.

It would need the local community leaders and residents to decide that they want to take a chance, and have the courage and conviction to pull the necessary pieces together. They might come up with a development along these lines or something else altogether.

It would need everyone to stop shouting at each other and start having productive conversations.

Is that too much to hope for?

Regen Brisbane

Doughnut Economics and the Sustainable Development Goals provide helpful frameworks for imagining a more sustainable future.

The local Regen movements inspired by Doughnut Economics can provide a vehicle to bring people together in a neutral space to create a diverse network to explore ideas and build collaborations for their cities or region.

The purpose of this Substack and this post is to help get a Regen Brisbane network based around the Doughnut Economics model moving. If you’re keen to be involved, please subscribe and take part in the comments and chat.

Strategic Doing provides a way of operating and managing conversations to bring it all together. To find out more about Strategic Doing, see https://strategicdoing.net

If you want to practice collaboration skills and build your collaborative muscle, start with your verge garden following the Shady Lanes Project guiding principles, then move on to a group verge gardening project.

To join the Friday night zooms, join the Strategic Doing open community.