Stepping into 'The Rift' - Sustainability Accelerator to launch new research cycle

With the cherry blossom in bloom and the sun setting at 8pm, it certainly feels like the season of renewal has arrived. In keeping with that Spring spirit, the Sustainability Accelerator is about to undergo some evolutions of its own.

On the 29 April, we’ll be launching a research cycle which we’re calling ‘The Rift’. We won’t get into the nuts and bolts just yet (watch this space!) but over the last 6 months, we’ve come together as a team to discuss how the Accelerator should be tackling our evermore challenging reality.

Here we bring you one such conversation between the former head of the Accelerator (now Director of Chatham House’s Environment and Society Centre) – Ana Yang, and her successor, David Gunn. Read on for their thoughts on the past and future of Chatham House’s Sustainability Accelerator…

ANA: When we were creating the Accelerator, there was an experimental mindset that we brought to the process. We were in the midst of COVID, sat behind computer screens thinking “how can we pivot to a new direction of travel?” In the first few years there was some reckoning about how Chatham House could look more to the future – that was the genesis of the Accelerator.

DAVID: I always found that constructive engagement with the future really appealing. Someone once said to me that all projects come out of a place of fear or love. From the start it was clear to me that - whatever was going on in the world - the Accelerator’s projects came from a place of love. One of the interesting and lovely parts of the Accelerator was to step into a period of messiness with a sense of humanity and optimism.

ANA: This is something that we really cared about – we wanted to host spaces in which a diverse range of people showed up with the idea that there is a possibility to create a better future. We were able to meet a lot of cool people, and we enabled them to meet each other. We didn’t have to be in the middle of it, but they would come and say “Thank you for this space, for this idea” and that makes me proud. Moments like the UnConference make me really happy to look back on.

ANA: But, with all that said, today, things feel different than they did five years ago – the crisis that we’re in feels like more of a structural one. When everything in the world feels like it's slightly crumbling, we need space to think about new foundations and where we’re going next - we have to think about how we can be of service to the world.

DAVID: I agree that things feel different now to five years ago. We’re living in weird and wild times. At an emotional level – I think many are still in the long hangover after the party of COP26. For lots of people, Glasgow generated a huge emotional high because all the issues they cared about deeply were at centre stage, and there were some really ambitious commitments across broad sections of society.

But then came the hangover of that party. For many, it was thinking “Oh my God did I really just say that… did I really just commit to all those things?” For others, it was realising, in the cold light of morning, how tough some of these commitments are to turn into reality. So in many ways the last few years has been wrestling with the afterimage of that moment. Both interrogating the framing that stood in for progress at those events. And also how hard driving even that kind of progress is within the current system.

Now, when we’re thinking about plotting a path forward, it isn't just about continuing with the logics of that past, but being more present in the contradictions and opportunities of this present - being alive to what we want to bridge into the future, and what we need to let go of in order to get there.

DAVID: At the heart of the new strategy process was a respect for and enjoyment of what the team has built in the first years of the Accelerator – the passion and enthusiasm for bringing people together, for being truthful, open and generative – we’ve thought a lot about how to honour that core piece of DNA but bring that to bear on a reality that is different from four or five years ago. We want to create interesting and fruitful bridges between a range of actors and stakeholders to envisage and build collective and better futures.

ANA: I agree, and I think that that generative element remains essential – we’re just applying it in a different context. We want to look at how we can foster hope in a time of crisis – we want to touch the hearts and minds of people and expand diversity of thinking. We want to continue pushing the envelope, bringing humans together to imagine, and then produce, something different.

ANA: The approach to the new strategy reminded me of something I learnt once, a story which has inspired me throughout my career. When I was backpacking around the Amazon, I was told that when a big tree is cut down, it drags a lot of stuff with it. But then, immediately after, the diversity of flora and fauna in that area increases, because that huge old tree isn’t preventing light from reaching the ground. That knowledge has always provided me with hope because it shows that when stability is shaken, new light and new life comes in its place. In a moment of crisis, a lot of new, positive stuff happens, and that’s exciting, and I think that encapsulates the kind of attitude we should have toward the current moment.

DAVID: That’s a hard story to top. I was re-reading Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘Spain, 1932’ a few weeks ago, and that also has some great paragraphs which capture the kind of approach we need to take to the transition right now: “When a sailor lights a cigarette on his boat, he uses a flintstone and a fuse, like everyone else. In a boat that’s the best way, the wind blows the matches out, but the harder the wind blows, the more the fuse glows.”

So, in a few days’ time, we’ll be launching our new research cycle.

We’ll be seeking to help communities, decision-makers and everyone in-between find and nourish the fuse glowing in the gale, or the flower growing out of disrupted soil. Although these weird and wild times of political hangover are difficult to navigate, they are also full of potential and opportunity. 'The Rift' will be about embracing our current predicament and finding the good we can bring out of it.

Keep an eye on our microsite for full launch information and deep dives into the themes we’ll be exploring.

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