GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
The Prosumer Society, with Uygar Özesmi
What if the key to addressing global environmental issues lies not in isolated efforts but in reshaping our entire economic structure?
Uygar Özesmi, the visionary founder of Good4Trust, joins us to challenge the status quo by introducing us to prosumerism, a concept that champions interdependence and ecological sustainability.
Uygar urges us to rethink our roles in a world where every action impacts on the planet. By drawing parallels to the intricate harmony of the Amazon forest, Uygar invites us to envision an economic model that thrives on collaboration and ethical principles.
Let Uygar's insights inspire you to become part of the solution, one good deed at a time – a prosumer!
Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.
Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone, you are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency, istanbul, and.
Speaker 3:This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester, so this podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.
Speaker 2:So in this episode, we're going to talk to Uygar Özesmi, a social entrepreneur and the founder of Good4Trust, With over 30 years of experience in leading and supporting various initiatives for social and environmental justice. Uyghur is a social entrepreneur, as I said, and an Ashoka senior fellow who is passionate about empowering people to create positive change much like us, right, Steve?
Speaker 3:Oh, exactly. So. Uyghur is the chair of the board of the Prosumer Economy Society and I think we're going to dive deep into prosumerism on this podcast episode. Also on the global network of social innovators. You're completely plugged into Uyghur, so I want to know what social entrepreneurialism and innovation looks like. You're an investigator of goodfortrustorg that I think we're going to talk about a platform for sustainable lifestyles and ecological and social well-being and you founded changeorg in Turkey in 2012, I think and you were exec director for that amazing online platform for citizen-led campaigns. So, olga, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to Damir and myself.
Speaker 4:It's a pleasure, it's wonderful to be here. So much for taking the time to talk to Damir and myself.
Speaker 3:It's a pleasure, it's wonderful to be here, brilliant. Well, let's dive straight in, and if you've listened to the podcast, we always like to start with a bit of a personal story. What was the turning point in your life that you thought?
Speaker 4:now I've got to be a social entrepreneur. What's your journey been like? Well, I think there are many turning points in my life. I first started as an academic and then seeing what was happening to nature, the level of biodiversity loss on the planet. I started from being a conservation biologist, also being active in civil society, in nature conservation organizations, and that was essentially because I thought that research was fantastic and very important, but not enough by itself, that we needed actually also civil society organizations for conserving nature and biodiversity.
Speaker 4:And then I started working with NGOs. So I led environmental NGOs and then there I came to realize that every time we had a win we had two more losses, so we were constantly pushed back. So the struggle in civil society was also not enough. So I thought then what's really the problem? I mean, why do we have the signs, we have the social struggles, but still why are we losing against the system? And I understood the real reason for all. That was how our economy was structured. So at that point I said, okay, I need to deal with the economy as well. And that's why I sort of left the civil society realm of things and jumped into social entrepreneurship, and I've been there ever since.
Speaker 2:So the term prosumer stands out in all of your work. Changing the ongoing economic system is always a hot topic, which, as Steve knows, I like very much, and especially with the climate crisis we have now. So most of the discussion about this focuses on production and trade, but the prosumer frames the conversation from the consumer angle.
Speaker 4:Why? Well, it actually frames it exactly against the notion of consumption and against the notion of production. You know, remember, I'm a conservation biologist. So when we look at every being in the world, they are all prosumers in the world, they are all prosumers. There's no consumer, there's no producer. I mean, the only one that gives, the prime giver, is the sun. Everything else uses that energy and transforms something to something else and then thereby is a prosumer by definition. So we don't like this duality. Because of that duality we have created this kind of economy that we live in right now. So we're thinking in much more biological terms and therefore we think, like, every being on the planet is a prosumer, every living being is a prosumer. So humanity and the sort of entities that humanity creates, like companies and others, should also be a prosumer. And therefore we advocate against the notion of the consumer, against the notion of the only producer, the notion of prosumer, knowing that we are all embedded and interdependent with everything else on the planet.
Speaker 3:Wow. Well, we're early in the podcast, uygar, but my mind's blown a tiny bit already, but it's about to be blown a little bit more because we're going to get into forests now. So your paper on a post-human economy is titled being Like a Forest, which I love so much, and you propose in that embracing what you call post-humanism for a regenerative future. And perhaps, as a subset to this question, oigo, we can get into your thoughts on the whole topic of regenerative economies and what that term means, but can you tell us first a little bit more about what you mean by embracing post-humanism? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean right now, let's see what humanism says. Right, humanism believes in the power of humans to change things. It puts humanism, puts humans on the pedestal and sort of has this arrogance that we humans are above everything else and we can rule everything. Right, it's about ruling, it's about power, it's about, you know, human enlightenment and how humans are so smart and much smarter than anything else in the world. So it's like this sort of really very arrogant stance.
Speaker 4:Post-humanism, on the other hand, says okay, now get a grip. You know you're nothing, you're a speck of dust in the whole universe. So you know you're first of all, you know, get rid of this arrogance and realize what you are and where you are. You are actually nothing without everything else. So it takes sort of the human-centric, the anthropocentric perspective and puts it into an ecocentric, into a perspective of humans as a being that is entangled with everything else and the planet and is in no privileged position and it needs to act accordingly and be a being of being a part of something rather than being a part of something.
Speaker 3:Got you. So, if I can, that's a really quite profound bit of analysis, because on a previous podcast episode we were talking to my friend, mark, who's a landscape architect in the US, and we were talking about regenerative agriculture and regenerative approaches to nature versus rewilding and the whole question of human agency and design into in creating a sustainable future. And what do you see a conflict there between, if you like, being uh detached from uh any kind of sense of agency or, as you've described it there in post-humanism, simply being part of this very rich ecology? When you hear people talk about regenerative economics and capitalism, what do you feel?
Speaker 4:Well, I mean, everything in nature is abundant, so regeneration actually feeds on and mimics the notion of abundance and redundancy that exists in nature. So there are fantastic agricultural traditions which are also regenerative, such as, you know, fukuoka's One Straw Revolution. He has a great book on natural agriculture as well. There's the Shumei movement which does the same. So nature gives us in abundance anyway. So we really don't need to actively design, but we really need to nudge nature and become part of nature so that we get the benefits, our share, of the abundance that nature provides us. And I think that's the way and that's how regenerative agriculture is trying to be as well.
Speaker 2:Well, once again we are with the French philosophers, right, steve, as you like it.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:So Uyghur, it's great to have this perspective, but on the other hand, we have the global context. So prosumer economy is also a call for global consciousness. And after decades of global civics efforts and in the face of a global crisis, we see the leadership of G7 countries are tested by silo thinking and protective economic backlash. And how shall a global climate action navigate this change? How are we going to make it? How are we going to make it?
Speaker 4:Well, I mean, it's a big question, right. It's about will to change and it's about really social movements. At the existing juncture where we are, everyone is aware that you know there is a climate crisis and that if we continue with the practices that we have, there's not going to be a human civilization or a collapse of human civilization, starting with 2050 and onwards, if we continue on this track and not make any big changes. I mean, if you look at the commitments of the nations in terms of NDCs based on the Paris Agreement, the Paris Climate Agreement, the NDCs, if you put them together, puts us at 3.5, 4 degrees Celsius future and that means essentially, the collapse of human civilization as we know it. So therefore, I think the urgency is now clear.
Speaker 4:The point is how do we continue with the kind of social movements to force this change to happen? Because if you leave it to the politicians, they're not going to make it happen. They all think short term, from election to election. Companies think in terms of their yearly annual revenues, the big companies, at least not the post-growth enterprises. So, if you put all of those together, the only way for change, as it was also in the past, is strong social movements and their push for change in society, and I think that's part of what we are doing with organizing a new kind of economy as well.
Speaker 3:So I'm so glad you used the term juncture in there, because I think we are a critical juncture and it's so easy to miss the fact that we, I think, all of the trends that we're watching whether it be the biodiversity crisis, the climate crisis, political unrest, technological shift the list goes on, doesn't it and there are all these sort of mega trends that are accelerating, and it would be foolish to think that we're not at a critical juncture, and it's so hard to see history when you're in it, but I feel we are Now.
Speaker 3:You're not you're very much not a passive observer of this, are you? I know you said you started out as an academic, but you're very much active in that space and trying to make a difference at the moment. So I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about good for trust as something that you put out there so that goodness can spread by sharing this pattern, this platform for sustainable lifestyles that lead towards ecological and social well-being. So you're encouraging people to actively become prosumers and bring people together with producers. Could you tell us a bit more about how that system works?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, essentially we want to create a prosumer economy. We want to create an economy that's like the forest, right? I mean, look at the Amazon forest. The Amazon forest annually produces benefits to society, provides services, and if you quantify those in terms of the profit it distributes to people because the Amazon Forest continues living, right, If you don't destroy it, of course, but it's in its current form, let's say provides an incredible amount of profits to people. And if you take like the 20 most profitable companies in the world and you put them together, they actually produce one fourth of the profits that the Amazon forest provides. So the Amazon forest provides four times more profits than the 20 most profitable companies on the planet, which most of them are like fossil fuel companies, car companies, tech companies, all the things that actually pretty much destroy the world, right? So here we have an economy that is much more profitable and is also not harming the planet but actually contributing to it.
Speaker 4:So why can't we have an economy that is like the Amazon forest? And that's why we started Good4Trust. I mean, we are trying to prove that the prosumer economy being like a forest is quite possible, and for that we have brought together individuals, companies, SMEs, co-ops, social enterprises. We have more than 800 social enterprises and companies and co-ops that are part of the system now and more than 26,000 people who are members of this, of this platform, and they've built kind of like this ecosystem and in this ecosystem they're trading, they're essentially getting their needs out in the system and the needs are produced by these companies, and the companies are deepening their supply chains within themselves, creating circular supply networks, and we're kind of like creating this forest with Good4Trust. Of course, we're nowhere near the Amazon forest, but maybe we're a little grow in your backyard, right. So that's where we are right now. That is like an ecosystem, productive, profitable, something that actually provides for people rather than destroys their livelihood. I think that's possible and that's what we're trying to do at Good4Trust. Amazing Damla if I could just.
Speaker 3:Can I quickly just follow up on that? Sorry to cut across, but I just want to follow up. You go ahead If you don't mind, but I just what struck me there let me go was um, the forest, the amazon, the, the way in which you talk about um people being prosumers, um it. There's a lot of logic and rationality in what you're talking about um, but also it feels quite emotional and romantic. Do you and for for damler and I, as communications people, I can, I can feel all these very rich stories that could be told, and do you find that if people become involved in good for trust and become prosumers, it almost becomes quite an emotional relationship with having a real positive difference on the future?
Speaker 4:I think that's all of us want to have a positive thing for, not just a positive impact, not just for ourselves, but for the community, for nature, for the planet. I mean this whole notion that, you know, homo economicus is essentially proven to be just a myth when you look at people. People are collaborative, they're helpful, they don't want stress, they don't want arguments, they don't want essentially to harm anything, they don't want war, anything. They don't want Definitely they don't want war and they don't want conflict. They want essentially peace and harmony and being able to have good relationships with their neighbors and with nature and so forth. That's the essence of humanity. However, we've built, like all these systems to conform people of being this homo economicus and we have created a nation state than which forces people to create violences and people resist that.
Speaker 4:I mean, if you think of it, in the Second, in the First World War, there was these trench wars and in the trench wars people were helping each other from across the trenches and they started coming out of the trenches and making peace, and then the generals needed to step in and force them to be you know, force them against their good nature, to be like harmful to others. You look at, you know, force them, against their good nature, to be like harmful to others. You look at, you know, the civil war in the United States. You know you fill in your gun and then you shoot it. Right, they found out that there are 12 bullets in one rifle because they put out their rifle but they didn't push the trigger because they didn't want to kill anyone.
Speaker 4:So essentially, when you look at it, we are forced to be bad and we are forced to be like looking only after ourselves. We are forced to be like people. That. But if you look at it, you know, all the religions despise those kinds of people. We despise those kinds of people, we all. When we look at our ethical framework, we're a collaborative, social, pro-social species and that's what it is all about and that's what we need to reclaim back to be, you know, able to create this new economy as well.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, with the energy, with the words, with the story he builds to you, can you see the activists just going in front of the big masses and changing us?
Speaker 3:Oh, completely.
Speaker 2:Uygar, you are great, but I have to also ask about how to make this happen. So you had built up a very, very important experience in the Good for Trust, with the good and the bad, and what's working and what did not work. When you think of that experience, could you just throw us a blueprint of a prosumer mechanism that can work in different cultures and contexts?
Speaker 4:Definitely. I mean for the prosumer economy to be called a prosumer economy, we have essentially four principles. The first principle is start with ethics. Start with, for example, the golden rule Don't do unto others that you don't want to be done to yourself or, in the active, do it but first ask for permission. This is like a basic ethical rule.
Speaker 4:So start with ethics. Establish an ethical existence, an ethical way of behavior within your community. That's the number one important thing. Then the second thing is make sure to have solidarity and mutual aid frameworks in there. So create win-win scenarios and create relationships that are based on solidarity, mutual aid and helping each other with everything. Avoid competition, despise competition. Have collaboration. That's the second rule. And the third rule is in whatever you produce, in whatever you use, make sure that your supply network is ecologically and socially just. So deepen and circularize your production systems. If you do that, that means you create presumption. So deepen and circularize in ecologically and socially supply networks is the third rule. And the last fourth rule is local democratic governance. Is local democratic governance. So if you, whatever economy you have, have a local governance and have it democratic. That's essentially the four rules of creating a prosumer economy.
Speaker 3:Wow, damla, I'm going away from here with ethics, solidarity, justice and governance as the words I'm going to take with me for the week ahead. Oh yeah, that's really powerful, and you really have. You've risen to the challenge of a mechanism and a methodology that could spread across all sorts of different cultural contexts. That's amazing. So we are, however, just about out of time. So our final question for you, um, is around our network, so our network of agencies, is ironically called do not smile, because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. That's what we know. So our final question to you is what object, place or person always makes you smile?
Speaker 4:uh, you made me smile today, that's for sure. With people who want to do good and talking about good things, that puts me a smile. I think you know, the biggest smile that I see is like any other human being see someone help someone else, someone do something for someone else and make them smile. Seeing that and observing that puts a big smile on my face and sometimes even tears.
Speaker 3:Well, that is possibly the most perfect note to end on Damla Over to you.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks to everyone who has listened to our Good Guys podcast, brought to you by the Do Not Smile network of agencies.
Speaker 3:And as you collaboratively and ethically go through your day, make sure you listen to future episodes, where we'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future. So, Uyghur Damla, see you soon.
Speaker 2:See you.
Speaker 1:Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability Hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
