# solvesustain


## Posts

- [exploring systems thinking & sustainability](https://solvesustain.com/exploring-systems-thinking-sustainability/): “There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.” Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance In a 2012 paper, Prof. John Sterman of MIT raises the intriguing question: Is the sustainability movement itself sustainable? Do current approaches to sustainability make any real difference to the long-term sustainability of human society? Most efforts by firms, individuals and governments- like reducing waste, cutting energy & material footprints, reducing GHG emissions etc.- are directed at the symptoms of unsustainability. While necessary, these measures are insufficient where they fail to consider and address underlying causes. Further, sustainability is […]
- [How I became a 'sustainability problem-solver' - Part 3/3](https://solvesustain.com/how-i-became-a-sustainability-problem-solver-part-3-3/): [This article was originally published at The Interview Portal, where you can find more “offbeat, unusual, unconventional and interesting” career interviews! Oriented towards students from 8th grade to graduate, I’ve tried to ‘unpack’ my journey in way that might be useful to any young person considering a career in sustainability!] Jump to Part 1 or Part 2. Becoming A Sustainability Problem Solver Just as my work on food security and participatory governance ended, COVID-19 broke. The world changed overnight, with the future looking more uncertain than ever.  Despite this, I have been lucky to experience a period of incredible growth, […]
- [How I became a 'sustainability problem-solver' - Part 2/3](https://solvesustain.com/how-i-became-a-sustainability-problem-solver-part-2-3/): [This article was originally published at The Interview Portal, where you can find more “offbeat, unusual, unconventional and interesting” career interviews! Oriented towards students from 8th grade to graduate, I’ve tried to ‘unpack’ my journey in way that might be useful to any young person considering a career in sustainability! Jump to Part 1 or Part 3.. ] — I’ve shared with you the story of my life upto the age of about 28 – when it seemed that, for all my early talent and promise, I was burned out and staring at a dead end.  Now I want to […]
- [How I became a 'sustainability problem-solver' - Part 1/3](https://solvesustain.com/how-i-became-a-sustainability-problem-solver-part-1-3/): [This article was originally published at The Interview Portal, where you can find more “offbeat, unusual, unconventional and interesting” career interviews! Oriented towards students from 8th grade to graduate, I’ve tried to ‘unpack’ my journey in way that might be useful to any young person considering a career in sustainability!] Jump to Part 2 or Part 3 — Hari, tell us about your background? I was born into an interesting family tree with many creative and unique individuals – artists, musicians, teachers, ecologists, engineers, scientists, mathematicians, writers, diplomats, judges and doctors among them. My father grew up passionate about wildlife. […]
- [test-podcast](https://solvesustain.com/test-podcast/): This is a test post 🙂
- [governing sustainability transitions](https://solvesustain.com/governing-sustainability-transitions/): In the previous article in this series on sustainability and systems change, we looked at the “drivers” of transition to sustainability, according to recent research. In this article, we will look at the question: how can we “govern” the transition to sustainability? In particular, we will look at an approach called “Transition Management” which, like so many developments in the field, has its origin in research and experimentation in the Netherlands. Before we dive into the topic, it’s helpful to ask the question: what does it mean to “govern” something, anyway? A “classic work” says that governance is: “the totality […]
- [the drivers of transition](https://solvesustain.com/the-drivers-of-transition/): What might it “look like” to “achieve sustainability”? It seems to me that this desirable process wouldn’t occur as a “monolithic”, simultaneous, homogenous, all-encompassing global or societal movement, but rather as the converging transitions of many, many different individual systems and sub-systems. These could be, for example, a city’s mobility system, a region’s water system, a country’s food system, or the international system for costing and limiting carbon emissions. Transition might happen across different scales of space and time, and many different specific contexts. We can then ask: what are the “drivers” of transition in a particular system or context? […]
- [evolutionary aspects of the multi-level perspective](https://solvesustain.com/evolutionary-aspects-of-the-multi-level-perspective/): In the last few articles, we examined the need for a “systems science” in order to “achieve sustainability”. We further examined one specific scientific “theory”, the Multi-level Perspective on Socio-technical Transitions (MLP), that has gained prominence over the years as an approach to understand systems change. In this article, we will take a closer look at the MLP – what are the principles it is based on? How does it work? along with the overall guiding question – how can we apply it to do something useful towards a “sustainability transition”? Let’s start with two key questions that every “systems” […]
- [the multi-level perspective in sustainability transitions](https://solvesustain.com/the-multi-level-perspective-in-sustainability-transitions/): In the last couple of articles, we motivated the need to look at “sustain-ability” from a  “systems” perspective. How can we use methods of science to examine a community’s water system, a city’s transport system, a country’s food system, or even the “world-system”, to understand how, why and in which specific ways unsustainable outcomes are created by these? And use this understanding to develop new systems that will secure sustainability into the foreseeable future? In this article, we will take these somewhat abstract ideas and examine them through a specific and very interesting example – the Dutch energy transition (DET). […]
- [the science of systems, the systems of science](https://solvesustain.com/the-science-of-systems-the-systems-of-science/): In the last blog post, we looked at what sustainability (or “sustain-ability”) might mean, for different systems in society – such as the food system, the energy system, a local community, a city, the world etc. We saw that for any system of interest, interesting questions could be raised. For example – does the structure of a system determine its dynamics? How and to what extent? With interesting ideas like these on the plate, it’s worthwhile asking what a “science” of systems might look like. Is it possible to scientifically study systems? What is science, anyway? We couldn’t do better […]
- [sustain-ability & systems science](https://solvesustain.com/sustain-ability-systems-science/): I have been thinking over “what sustainability means” for a while now. I suspect that there is no universal definition for the term. Let’s try to examine it from first principles, then. We might break up the word into “sustain-ability” – the ability of a system of interest – whether a local community, a corporation, a society, the world – to sustain, or continue operating, into the future. If we could measure it somehow, we would probably find that the sustain-ability of a system wouldn’t be perfectly constant. It might be more, or less at particular times, depending on the […]
- [exploring the limits to growth](https://solvesustain.com/exploring-the-limits-to-growth/): In 1972, a group of top scientists from MIT published a ground-breaking book called The Limits to Growth. The researchers, lead by Dennis Meadows, applied the newly created field of systems dynamics to explore what they called the world problematique – the complex of problems affecting the globe including poverty and inequity, environmental degradation, institutional failure and economic disruption. The scientists had created a systems model called World3 based on five interacting subsystems – population, food production, industrial production, pollution, and the consumption of non-renewable natural resources. The model was created using historical data going back to 1900. World3 broadly […]

## Pages

- [founder's bio](https://solvesustain.com/hari/): Hari DK (LinkedIn →) incorporated Solvesustain in 2021 as Sustainability Problem Solver (OPC) Pvt. Ltd., a one-person R&D studio to collaboratively research, design and develop solutions and models that enable and accelerate sustainable development outcomes. An engineer by training, Hari is a generalist problem-solver at heart, with 15+ years of rich and varied experience in sustainability and social impact. He has worked on challenges across clean energy, energy access, water use in agriculture & industry, food-security and community-based sustainability transitions, circular economy and more. He is passionate about science & technology for social benefit, and keenly interested in innovation, human-centred […]
- [about](https://solvesustain.com/about/): >what does it mean to ‘achieve sustainability‘? >how can we practically do this? >how can we have (great) fun working collaboratively on the ‘nexus’ challenges of sustainable development? Motivated by these questions, solvesustain collaboratively researches, designs and develops solutions and models that enable and accelerate sustainable development outcomes. These for-impact approaches cross the spectrum from for-profit to non-profit, including developing scalable business models, theories-of-change, governance models and the design, technology, entrepreneurship and advocacy that accompanies them. These efforts are facilitated through a collaborative and flexible ‘network’ approach that engages appropriate stakeholders and ecosystem resources to solve for the complexities of […]
- [concepts](https://solvesustain.com/concepts/): Solvesustain actively collaborates on a portfolio of concept projects and approaches to enable and accelerate sustainable development. These are in various stages of engagement, from early ideation and public discussion, to being under full-swing R&D prototyping and implementation by the collaborating stakeholders. systems science water digital twin AI, privacy and governance covid-19 resilience
- [podcast](https://solvesustain.com/podcast/): deep-dive discussions with inspiring sustainability problem-solvers
- [welcome to solvesustain](https://solvesustain.com/): podcast / concepts / about
- [AI and Climate Justice](https://solvesustain.com/ai-and-climate-justice/): How can AI can play a role in addressing climate injustice and contribute to more equitable and sustainable outcomes? Advanced Solar-Irrigation Scheduling for Sustainable Rural Development: A Case of India
- [Covid 19 Resilience](https://solvesustain.com/covid-19-resilience/): Covid 19 exposed fragility and unforeseen risks in linked economic, socio-environmental and health systems. How can we learn from the pandemic and work towards building and maintaining resilience in society? How may we transform crisis into opportunity, and address address not just health risks, but also other emergent risks from climate change? Building a Post-Covid 19 Resilient India through Sustainable SolutionsNowcasting COVID-19 Hotspots in Hyderabad City
- [AI and Privacy](https://solvesustain.com/ai-and-privacy/): Artificial Intelligence and other emerging technologies have the promise to create large-scale societal benefits and accelerate sustainable development, through appropriately designed digital public infrastructure (DPI). However, these tools have their own privacy implications, tradeoffs, risks and mitigations. Solvesustain has worked with the Indian Smart Cities initiative for several years towards developing a secure “privacy layer” for data exchange and AI-based DPI in the Indian context. Security and Privacy in Indian Smart CitiesDifferential Privacy for Smart Cities
- [systems science for sustainability transitions](https://solvesustain.com/system-science/): Systems thinking, and science, play an important role in understanding real-world un-sustainability, and provide theories, frameworks and toolkits to use this understanding to accelerate the transition to sustainability. This series of articles explores systems science from a first-principles approach, reviewing the relevant research literature from the perspective of understanding “what” the best available science says about “how” we can “achieve sustainability”. Sustainability in the Information SocietyGoverning Sustainability TransitionsThe Drivers of TransitionEvolutionary Aspects of the Multi-level PerspectiveThe Multi-level Perspective in Sustainability TransitionsThe Science of Systems, the Systems of ScienceSustain-ability & Systems ScienceExploring the Limits to GrowthExploring Systems Thinking and Sustainability
- [Water Digital Twin](https://solvesustain.com/water-digital-twin/): The Water Digital Twin (WDT) is a virtual representation of a physical water system, providing real-time data and simulations to monitor, analyze, and optimize water-related processes. Using WDTs could result in more efficient resource utilisation in the water-scarce Indian Smart Cities, thereby addressing key aspects of the urban water challenge. This concept is built through collaboration with the IET Smart Cities Working Groups. Water Digital Twins for the Indian ContextDigital Twins will be Key to Water Management in Indian Context
- [media](https://solvesustain.com/503-2/): Water Reuse & Management: A Conversation: https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:6805727299946758144/
- [connect](https://solvesustain.com/connect/): Would you like to discuss a sustainable development challenge you are working on with your startup company? Or join me in working on a problem? Would you like to collaborate on advocacy, communications or other for-impact activities? Or have me speak or facilitate at your conference or event on aspects of sustainability, entrepreneurship and technology? Get in touch! I’m always looking for new challenges and collaborators.
- [events](https://solvesustain.com/events/): Some of the talks, panel discussions and workshops I’ve been at. Would you like me to speak/facilitate at your conference/panel discussion/podcast on aspects of sustainable development, technology and entrepreneurship? Don’t hesitate to get in touch! November 2020 – with TRESTLE – Workshop on Environmental Policy & Governance: a Systems Change Approach Indo Data Week 2020 – Mentored at the Hackathon For Good! Indo Data Week 2020 – Moderated a panel discussion on Data and AI for the Food-Energy-Water Nexus TEDxSusMafia 2020 – Workshop on the proposed Draft Environmental Impact Assessment 2020 ZUBI LETCON 2020 – Keynote on The Impact of […]
- [blog](https://solvesustain.com/blog/)


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