Log In
The Inner Development Goals were developed to equip individuals and organizations with the inner qualities that enable them to take the kinds of action that will result in transformative efforts around climate change.
A description of the Inner Development Goals (IDGs), a set of 23 key human development skills across five dimensions, includes such terms and phrases as “being,” “relating,” and “inner compass,” which can come off as overly abstract and hard to pin down. Even Daniel Hires, chief marketing officer for the nonprofit Inner Development Goals Foundation, which created the IDG Framework, thought the IDGs sounded “a little woo woo” when he first heard them, he told Convene in an interview earlier this year.
Daniel Hires
But the intention of the IDGs couldn’t be more down to earth. Based on global research drawn from fields including psychology, sociology, and sustainability, and created as a companion to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the IDGs were developed to equip individuals and organizations with the inner qualities that enable them to take the kinds of action that will result in transformative efforts around climate change.
There is a gap between knowing and doing, said Hires, who will lead a workshop on Thursday, Oct. 3 at PCMA’s Convene 4 Climate in Barcelona. From a from a technical and scientific standpoint, “it seems that we almost have all of the solutions out there,” he said, “but if we are just looking at [sustainability] as a technical problem — as renewable energy capacity, or how much percentage of our waste is in the circular economy — we’re missing a big part of this. Are the organizations that we have created able to make the bold and courageous decisions, perhaps, that we need [them] to?” The ability to work collaboratively within complex systems, to incorporate empathy and social justice, and exercise creativity and hope, are the kinds of skills IDGs are intended to build.
Since its founding three years ago, the Inner Development Goals Foundation and the IDG framework’s influence have mushroomed. More than 600 IDG hubs in 80 countries have popped up around the world, from Lima, Peru, to Cape Town, South Africa, to Portland, Maine. The IDG foundation also has entered into business partnerships with multiple corporations ranging from IKEA to Google, and is working with organizations, including the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Through a partnership with PCMA, the IDGs are finding their way into the business events industry.
From Oct. 16 to 18, the foundation will host the IDG Summit 2024 in Stockholm, Sweden, and online, where it will bring together global artists, storytellers, and speakers from academia, business, and government, with the aim, according to the IDG website, of “shifting the narrative on sustainability and human development toward more hope and action.”
Events have a huge potential for making a difference in sustainability because of how many people they reach, Hires said. And the events industry is one that finds value in doing things differently — “nobody wants to have a boring event,” he said. From his perspective, however, while the industry also has huge potential for disruption in terms of sustainability, the possibilities haven’t been fully tapped. He said he has heard audible sighs when the topic of sustainability has come up in audiences made up of event professionals. There’s been a tendency to think of sustainability chiefly in terms of logistics or incremental 5-percent changes — which is not very inspiring, he said.
But “there’s magic waiting beyond the idea of just ticking a box or hitting a benchmark,” Hires said. “I see a lot of potential [in the events industry] to go to where the magic happens,” he said. “And I think this will be risky and probably there will be some failure along the way. But I think, since the pandemic, people are just longing for something different.
“If we could start with just this idea of your inner compass, which is one of the IDGs, I think there would be very few people whose inner purpose is not in some way related to leaving the world a better place for the next generations or our children. And if we start at this place, I think then we can also get to a place of, ‘Ah, yes. This is how I can contribute.’”
Barbara Palmer is deputy editor of Convene.