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  • Essay / The importance of systems thinking in solving sustainability challenges using the example of homelessness in Australia

    Systems thinking is essential in developing solutions to sustainability challenges. Sustainability has attracted the attention of academics and practitioners and has been found to be an important concept (Aras and Crowther , 2012). Sustainability can be defined as the adoption and incorporation of environmental and social principles into decision-making processes (Bodkin and Keller, 2004). Sustainability is used to prevent and mitigate undue harm faced by people in society and the environment. Due to today's environmental and social challenges, there is a growing need for sustainability in all sectors around the world. Therefore, it is important to implement systematic methods in order to minimize negative environmental and social effects, especially from different organizations (Aras and Crowther, 2012). Systems thinking is a concept that can be used to solve sustainability problems. Systems thinking is a concept that has the ability to eliminate sustainability challenges if implemented effectively. Systems thinking can be described as a concept of considering a problem in relation to other elements or problems with which it interacts. This article will describe and justify the importance of systems thinking in addressing sustainability issues, particularly homelessness in Australia. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Today's world faces many challenges when it comes to addressing sustainability challenges. Sustainability is influenced by many stakeholders and involves several factors and dimensions such as energy, biodiversity and oceans, among others (Lerner, 2015). Although the dimensions of sustainability are distant in time and space, they are interconnected and closely related in a complex sphere. For this reason, it is impossible to take a one-dimensional approach to solving sustainability problems (Arnold and Wade, 2015). Sustainability interventions involve a large number of complex feedback loops, long lead times, and non-linear causes and effects that make outcomes unpredictable. Sustainability is a new challenge facing the world today and as new challenges require new solutions, old tools cannot solve sustainability problems (World Bank, 2015). Since the world is dynamic and interconnected, decision-makers tend to make decisions using reductionist and static mental models. Static and narrow solutions are not the solution, as they can lead to unintended consequences. In order to successfully resolve sustainability challenges, it is necessary to strike a balance between short- and long-term solutions (Bodkins and Keller, 2004). In order to develop a resilient solution for sustainability, integrated and systemic techniques are required. Often there is a need to adopt a new way of thinking that challenges old models. Sustainability encompasses several divergent interests and perspectives such as political-governance, natural-environmental as well as socio-political domains (Kim, 2012). Decision-making in this context is very difficult and complex and is accompanied by many uncertainties. Additionally, long delays create a huge gap between decisions and expected outcomes and lead to unintended consequences. This is evident in the world of finance,climate change and the environment. Conventional mechanistic and narrow thinking is not enough to intervene on complex and multidimensional sustainability issues. No single paradigm can solve sustainability challenges (Aras and Crowther, 2012). Systems thinking helps people see the world as a complex system. It deals with complexity and mental models and helps decision-makers understand the consequences of their actions, policies and strategies (Cabrera, Colosi and Lobdell, 2008). Systems thinking is more than just a mechanistic system because it recognizes the role of people as drivers of complexity and change. Systems thinking helps solve sustainability problems because it views things from a macroscopic perspective rather than a shorter perspective. There is a huge difference between systems thinking and traditional thinking (Stroh and Goodman, 2007). Traditional thinking focuses on content already studied, while systems thinking focuses on the relationships between components of a system. Sustainability is a new challenge and therefore traditional thinking is incapable of handling its complexity and novelty. As a new way of thinking, systems thinking has the capacity to solve the complex problems posed by sustainability (Aras and Crowther, 2012). Furthermore, sustainability challenges are very complex due to technological advancements and globalization. This makes it impossible for decision-makers to solve sustainability problems using old methods and models (Gregory and Miller, 2014). Since sustainability challenges are very complicated and complex, the strategies to be used to solve these challenges must be dynamic enough to use multiple approaches. Additionally, the influence of multiple elements on sustainability issues makes it difficult to scale a solitary problem-solving initiative. It is important that sustainability challenges are solved by different parties working collaboratively (Gregory and Miller, 2014). It is difficult for a single organization to successfully address sustainability changes. It is important to establish collaborative relationships with non-governmental organizations, government, local community and other business organizations as this ensures a more competent pool of resources. For example, to solve the problem of homelessness in Australia, social change is necessary. However, this can be difficult to achieve since our behaviors and those of the wider community are linked to the behavior of the national system. Systems thinking is important because it gives people a chance to recognize and appreciate the importance of a social system. Thus, changing only physical infrastructure will not create system-wide resilience (Soderquist and Overkkar, 2010). To address homelessness in Australia, systems thinking is developing a new language for communicating interrelationships and complexities (Australian Government, 2007). The challenge of solving homelessness lies in gaining knowledge of best practices and motivating people. There are several steps to using systems thinking to address homelessness in Australia. The first step is to understand the problem (Arnold and Wade, 2015). It is possible to understand the problem by looking at the entire system rather than individual parts. This can be achieved by meeting with different stakeholders to share the vision of the situation. New relationships with government, local community and other business organizations need to be establishedto provide a more competent pool of resources to address homelessness (Jackson, 2003). The next step is to identify the structure in order to understand the problem at hand. Having a clear view of the challenge will make it easier to develop a solution. Then, systems thinking ensures that the challenge is fully identified by digging deeper into the problem (Hamid, 2009). This will identify the purpose of the system, mental models and roles in the situation. Once this is done, the information collected is used to plan an intervention that attempts to achieve the desired outcome. Traditional thinking for solving homelessness is to provide more resources to reduce the number of people on the streets (Stroh and Goodman, 2007). In the long term, this does not mean that the problem is entirely resolved, as more and more people will also take to the streets due to other unresolved factors. Subsequently, the level of homelessness increases even after more and more resources are pumped into the system. Systems thinking suggests seeking a solution that reduces the causes and effects of homelessness in the long term without impacting the environmental balance (Stroh and Goodman, 2007). To address Australia's homelessness problem, systems thinking supports the effort to determine why people come off the streets. Additionally, it is also important to know what prevents people from seeking permanent housing (Stroh and Goodman, 2007). Based on these analyses, it will be easy to find different types of interventions that could solve the homelessness challenge. Systems thinking increases the precision of the scale of the challenge and the motivation of society to solve it permanently. For homelessness to be completely resolved in Australia, there should be increased collaboration between different providers to implement a permanent solution (Stroh and Goodman, 2007). Additionally, steps should be taken to increase collaboration and community investment. This will help reduce competition for existing funds and support for needed housing services. Reducing homelessness in Australia can also be achieved by increasing access to permanent, affordable housing (Stroh and Goodman, 2007). One of the main causes of homelessness in Australia is substance abuse and mental problems. Therefore, addressing these issues by providing services to reduce substance abuse can help eliminate homelessness (Stroh & Goodman, 2007). Furthermore, another solution to homelessness in Australia is to improve the economic development of a country by increasing access to paid employment for a living (Stroh and Goodman, 2007). This can only be implemented through a partnership between different government and non-government agencies. Ultimately, systems thinking ensures that interventions used to address homelessness rely on preventing homelessness in the first place (Stroh and Goodman, 2007). The systems thinking tool has the ability to challenge the inherent process of finding solutions to wicked problems such as homelessness. Instead of simply reacting to challenges and problems that are beyond our scope of thought and action, systems thinking teaches people how to adapt to the endogenous worldview in which people think about how their own actions contribute to the challenges we face today (Stroh and Goodman). , 2007). Therefore, partnership between different stakeholders challenging each other can pave the way for a transformative homelessness agenda. The complexity.