Structural Design for Sustainability : Some Insights from Organisational Cybernetics

Sustainability requires a sophisticated understanding of the interconnectedness of nature and the social domain, and willingness by the practitioner to adopt less top-down, hierarchical approaches to tackling the entailed issues. In order to support the networks and programs that are required to foster sustainable development, there is a need for a holistic approach to organisational and programme design, and a holistic insight into the entailed problems. Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) provides a comprehensive set of guidelines for such an approach, one that offer criteria for designing more adaptive structures, where control is devolved to the operational level and operational levels are co-ordinated through democratic management. The paper refers to the different levels of organisations and social interactions needed for environmental management ranging from government down to individual citizens. It goes on to describe why the VSM is invaluable for structural diagnosis. .It finally outlines structural design criteria the VSM would recommend for organisations dealing with issues of sustainability, in particular regarding the relationship between government, communities and their ecosystems.