The Reality of Resilient Regions in the COVID Economy & Beyond
Given the disruption being experienced across Australia, for any region or community to assert they are resilient they must first pass the test of a new definition of resilience that is beyond the norm of bouncing back from shocks to resume ‘business as usual’.
The new definition of resilience is to ‘change ahead of change’. Investment in any other strategy is both a waste of investment and lost opportunity.
Prior to 2020 exponential disruptive change was already volatile mix of automation, digital saturation, energy chaos, a new future for work, social change, sclerotic government, immense domestic and sovereign debt and the ineptitude of political leaders to actively respond in a timely way to climate change.
If prior to 2019 wasn’t enough to wake up those responsible for community-based strategy, the current pandemic (there will be more) rapidly devastated ‘business as usual’, fast-tracked change that was already in the wings (e.g. accelerated digital saturation, remote work, tele-services) and generated at lightning speed a whole new economy – the COVID Economy.
Within these conditions many were unconsciously already in a state of M.A.D. - Managed Adaptive Decline whereby an organisation or community adapts to ever-declining conditions, albeit in well-managed manner, as they exponentially fail to generate sustainable value.
For those in this state of MADness this pandemic was the final straw. They now have a name that describes them well – ‘zombies’ – the walking dead.
For those able to continually pivot in sync with the CVD-19 disruption and formulate strategies consistent with the new COVID Economy will survive and potentially thrive.
The disruptive upheaval to the social-economics of communities has been broad and deep, and will continue to manifest as the world adapts socially and economically to new ways of being COVID Normal. This will last for at least well into 2022.
That is the first challenge in ‘changing ahead of change’ for a resilient region.
The ultimate challenge is to position a COVID Economy strategy over a two year period so that it directly links to and lays the groundwork for life and work in the REAL CLIMATE Economy.
Over the next five to ten years – 2025 to 2030 the REAL CLIMATE Economy will rapidly emerge. In some ways this economy will be a choice for the prepared. But mostly it will be determined by the inevitable disruptions from the past failure to ‘change ahead of change’ when the emergent environmental and subsequent social-economic conditions surrounding climate change were known, and largely ignored.
This ultimate challenge for the regions within Australia must be front and centre as responding and adapting to the REAL Climate Economy can only be effectively and efficiently led, developed and implemented at the regional/community level.
The time from now until 2030 will not just be complex, but will also require a ‘whole-systems’ approach to local strategy that identifies the conditions behind the interdependence of key systems (social, economic, environmental, transport, energy, built form etc) and robustly reveals the opportunity that may be pursued, and risk mitigated. Government at state and national levels will not be able to act at the local scale in an effective, efficient and timely manner.
Coming to terms with this new reality is the first step for regional leaders to begin the urgent process of asserting resilience through ‘changing ahead of change’ to leverage disruption to generate sustainable value for people, communities and organisations.
