In September 2015, at the United Nations, world leaders agreed on seventeen Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. This book extrapolates the SDGs into the idea of a purposeful world. In this context, the purpose for humanity is to thrive sustainably alongside other life forms and to consciously celebrate the process. The SDGs serve as a powerful vision, time-stamped at the 2030 time horizon, not just for world leaders but for us all. However, faced with the challenges of implementing the SDGs, we (including business leaders, government leaders and anyone wishing to make a difference) can feel overwhelmed. Wilson takes the reader on a journey of thought and invites them to work out their personal role in sustainability as well as their collaborative role alongside others in their communities and organisations. Written in a very accessible style, the book celebrates some of the many achievements made by ordinary people as a catalyst for hope, sets out a number of achievable goals and provides exercises to enable the reader to adopt practices that help to make a difference. It is the perfect book to help turn the SDGs into action at every level – governmental, organisational and personal.

Globalization, competition and recession have created an overwhelming pressure on organizations to deliver growth. This has often resulted in tough performance targets being pushed down the line. Hard-hitting management may deliver short-term results but in the longer term key people burn out or leave, and business performance falls back. Designing the Purposeful Organization explains how to implement a more enlightened and authentic leadership style that aligns people's strengths to the delivery of a compelling future. Designing the Purposeful Organization draws on a unique framework that helps leaders manage the eight elements essential for high performance: purpose, vision, engagement, structure, character, results, success and talent. It moves beyond the boundaries of transactional performance (pay me X and I'll deliver Y) to a purpose-centred performance that releases talent, creativity and engagement. It features case studies from Google, Whole Foods Market, the NHS and the London 2012 Olympics and is ideal for practitioners in organization development, senior HR managers and business leaders. This book demonstrates how business performance can be inspired beyond boundaries by aligning people to a compelling purpose.

"I know what I should do...I just don't know why I don't do it." This phrase captures a universal human experience--we can't always get ourselves to do what we know is best for us. In Well Designed Life, you will learn that the solution to this stumbling block resides in coupling two disciplines: brain science and design thinking. Brain and behavior sciences have exploded in recent years. This catalyzes new insights into why we do what we do--and how we can change. Meanwhile, major advances in consumer technology, service industries, and public health are rapidly changing how we live. This boom of innovation has been fueled by a creative approach to solving problems called design thinking. We are living in the age of design--and designers are the new rock stars. Dr. Kyra Bobinet brings together over 25 years of successfully designing interventions, products, and experiences that change lives--to empower you as the designer of your life. Dr. Bobinet has gathered ten key concepts from psychology, behavior and neuroscience and applies each of them to changing your health, relationships, and well-being. Bobinet insists that the success or failure of changing our lives hinges on both understanding what's going on inside our head and applying the flexible mindset of a designer. She writes, "Adopting the mindset of a designer puts you in the driver's seat of making life work. Grounding yourself in the science of how we see the world and how our brain responds helps you design behaviors that work--in real life. This is about you acting on what you always wished you would do. It's about stepping out of any areas of helplessness and into creative self-direction. You have a choice: design your life or let it design you!" Infused with relatable narratives that are at once witty and gripping, professional and personal, Bobinet takes you on a journey through the origins of your self-image, motivations, decisions, and unconscious behaviors--leaving you with the keys to free yourself from your conditioning and lead a well-designed life.

"This comprehensive volume - containing 27 chapters and contributions from six continents - presents and discusses key principles, perspectives, and practices of social learning in the context of sustainability. Social learning is explored from a range of fields challenged by sustainability including: organizational learning, environmental management and corporate social responsibility; multi-stakeholder governance; education, learning and educational psychology; multiple land-use and integrated rural development; and consumerism and critical consumer education. An entire section of the book is devoted to a number of reflective case studies of people, organizations and communities using forms of social learning in moving towards sustainability. 'This book brings together a range of ideas, stories, and discussions about purposeful learning in communities aimed at creating a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect. ...The book is designed to expand the network of conversations through which our society can confront various perspectives, discover emerging patterns, and apply learning to a variety of emotional and social contexts.' From the Foreword by Fritjof Capra, co-founder of the Center of Ecoliteracy. 'Joining what is so clear and refreshing in this book with the larger movements toward a critically democratic and activist education that is worthy of its name, is but one step in the struggle for sustainability. But it is an essential step if we are to use the insights that are included in this book.' From the Afterword by Michael Apple, author of 'Educating the ""Right"" Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality'."

This book " offers resources and programs by which individuals, groups and organizations can learn to create a common ground, collectively define values and qualities they seek to realize, envision ideal images of a desired future, and bring those images to life by engaging in the disciplined inquiry of social systems design."

Meaningful or meaningless? Purposeful or pointless? When we look at nature, whether at our living earth or into deepest space, what do we find? In stark contrast to contemporary claims that the world is meaningless, Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt reveal a cosmos charged with both meaning and purpose. Their journey begins with Shakespeare and ranges through Euclid's geometry, the fine-tuning of the laws of physics, the periodic table of the elements, the artistry of ordinary substances like carbon and water, the intricacy of biological organisms, and the irreducible drama of scientific exploration itself. Along the way, Wiker and Witt fashion a robust argument from evidence in nature, one that rests neither on religious presuppositions nor on a simplistic view of nature as the best of all possible worlds. In their exploration of the cosmos, Wiker and Witt find all the challenges and surprises, all of the mystery and elegance one expects from a work of genius.

The 2020s present a decade of unprecedented disruption. We have now reached a point where people are overwhelmed and numb to the ever-present news of threat after threat, and challenge after challenge. It's time for leaders to tell a different story of six powerful aspirations - connection, vitality, peace, abundance, opportunity and wisdom. This is a vision "Beyond Sustainability", to inspire organisations and people to bring the best of who they are into service of the brighter future that is already emerging. Alongside the obvious disruptive challenges of climate change, wars, and the pandemic, technology has evolved at a blistering pace. Through technological advances in five sectors - energy, transport, materials, food and manufacturing - we are already transforming the world as we know it. The book seeks to give readers the confidence that there is real hope for a brighter future for our world using these developments and other innovations. The text is supported by inspiring case studies of people and organisations who are already doing amazing things. Crucially, the book highlights the many ways that leaders and organisations can contribute to a better world and encourages dialogue between organisations and people who might not naturally connect. It describes twelve archetypes in organisations that must collaborate in teams to deliver solutions. It also emphasises the need for wise leadership and conscious alignment of everyone to our "brighter future". A manifesto for positive change, this is the perfect book to help turn the UN Sustainable Development Goals into action and to envisage a positive future for leaders at every level in organizations.