The Western Initiative at XLabs LIVE

This May, The Western Initiative (TWI) team attended XLabs LIVE, a week-long circular design sprint hosted by Circularity, which saw multiple organisations from across the motu come together with the common purpose of shifting from a linear economy to a circular economy.  Recognising the urgent need to redesign the way our economy works and lessen its impact on the planet, XLabs LIVE was a space for to listen, learn and collaborate to develop solutions to the respective challenges those in attendance are facing in their sectors.

Throughout the week we heard from numerous organisations and key note speakers who used circular economy theories that are underpinned by the widely socialised ‘butterfly diagram’ which illustrates the continuous flow of ecological and technological materials within those two paradigms.

TWI approached this design sprint with people, social equity and mātauranga Māori at the center of their systems thinking. As the week went on, it became clear to TWI that there was in fact a third paradigm that was not represented in the butterfly diagram – a paradigm they have temporarily named the ‘Cultural Nutrient Cycle’.

TWI leant into their understanding of another framework that is Te Tokotoru and acknowledged that the unbreakable three of Healing, Responding and Strengthening provided a robust foundation to inform and shape the Cultural Nutrient Cycle. TWI presented on Day 5 to the audience of teams and visitors which included Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, Callaghan Innovation, TEC NZ, Ministry for the Environment and other key stakeholders within the circular economy space. They shared a powerful narrative that spoke about the need for healing and regeneration of cultural capital for Māori. And, while the appetite for all things Māori in recent times has grown exponentially, the cultural reservoir is severely depleted, and Māori still face the highest levels of social, health, educational and economic inequity. So, TWI argued that what is currently being done may be enough to mitigate any additional trauma being placed upon Māori but is not enough to heal the systemic trauma that tangata whenua still carry with them.

Ko au te taiao, ko te taiao ko au – I am the environment, and the environment is me was an idea that was verbalised on a daily occurrence throughout the week and all in attendance shared that it resonated deeply with them. TWI went beyond this idea and provoked the thinking of the audience that if they all believed this notion to be true, then surely, they could acknowledge that if Māori still have trauma, then so does the taiao in which we live. Simply responding to the depleted health of our environment here in Aotearoa was not going to be enough, there is a responsibility to centralise people, in particular Māori, in the systems thinking when developing circular economy solutions. The linear extraction of all things Māori, this being articulated as ‘take - make - dispose' must be replaced with a circular model of ‘respond - strengthen - heal'. 

TWI closed their presentation by sharing an aspiration for ‘A decolonised circular economy that closes the gaps and regenerates cultural nutrients’.