With susformation, modern organisations create structures, services, and products that enable sustainable growth. But what does a susformed organisation look like? Gaia partnered with Aalto University’s Capstone course for Creative Sustainability to find out.
Gaia wanted to create an inspiring vision of the future to encourage organizations in their susformation journey. To help with the process, Gaia teamed up with master’s students from Aalto University to envision asusformed organization and its transformation journey. The team was encouraged to visualize and show, what a truly susformed organization looks like in the “end stage”, when susformation has taken place.
In Capstone in Creative Sustainability course students work in multidisciplinary teams towards finding creative solutions to real-life social and environmental challenges brought by partner companies. The student teams consist of students who are in the final year of their master’s degree studies. Their backgrounds range from business to design and chemical engineering and materials science, with an emphasis on sustainability and multidisciplinarity.
“We at Gaia work across disciplines and sectors to create a 360 vision of sustainability. For us, it was important to partner with students that work in the same way, envisioning the future from many different viewpoints”, says Gaia’s Managing Director Maria Sangder.
As a result of the assignment, the team created a visual journey through the day of a Team Manager at the imaginary company, Kanto.
“This is a story about a workplace where sustainability is at the heart of the business. Navigate through the day as an employee at Kanto to learn their stories. How do you envision tomorrow?”
During the day, the reader is taken through the office where employees bustle about, engaged in their work with a palpable sense of purpose. You learn about the ethical business practices and the impact Kanto, and its employees especially, make in society. The reader is invited to a stakeholder meeting, where not only the human stakeholders are present. At Kanto, collaboration, and co-creation through partnerships with other organisations is not only encouraged but prioritized.
“We were extremely happy and excited to partner with the students and are in awe of their creativity, attention to detail, and passion for all things susformation. Not only did we get new insights for our work but hope to have encouraged some of the students to take susformation with them when they take next steps in their career,” Sangder concludes.
You can experience the full day at Kanto through here.
