Civic Exchange developed the concept of "Sustainability Tools" so that there could be a set of coherent practical skills that stakeholders can learn in order to improve government-civil society relations to prevent and resolve conflicts and complex problems.

The principles Sustainability Tools processes can be easily understood when they are broken down into their various components. These include ‘tools’ such as how to bridge the communication gap, sending clear messages, active listening, speaking and presentation, organizing successful meetings, group facilitation, mediation, conflict transformation, dealing with assumptions, and understanding thinking preferences. There are two important points to note about Sustainability Tools: Firstly, that conflict prevention/transformation work is done in group settings; and secondly, the nature of the tools themselves are deeply democratic in the sense that they are arise from values of equality, mutual respect, participatory engagement between power-holders and citizens.

Knowledge in conflict prevention/transformation work come from studies and research in brain science, psychology, communication, and organization management. Many of these 'tools' are in fact used widely in the business world. Yet, in the political and international relations sphere, there seems to be relatively few examples of practices that can help officials and civil society to prevent and resolve conflicts.

More than ever, those in power need to find new ways to connect with the people. When there is opposition to government policies and decisions, there needs to be effective ways for genuine dialogue to take place and for the output of the dialogue sessions to be reflected upon by all the stakeholders. Governments face serious competition on ideas, challenges on how they govern, and demand for greater accountability. To rebuild trust with the public, taking into account both that knowledge does not rest with the few anymore and that modern societies need new governance systems to connect the government with the people, new tools are needed to redesign consultative and public participatory processes.

Thus, Civic Exchange's Sustainability Tools are in essence a set of knowledge management techniques aimed at developing a set of core competence skills that can be used by stakeholders when gathering in groups to achieve better mutual understanding and lay the foundation for consensus-building, conflict resolution, and problem-solving in public affairs. It may be said that Sustainability Tools help the managing of the 'Next Society', which applies to China just as well as other societies. The old style communication methods of those in authority telling the people what the political decision-makers want to say has become harder to sustain, even in China. Beyond using the propaganda machinery to inform the general public of government decisions, an important way to work with stakeholders and for stakeholders to collaborate among themselves is through groups because it is through groups that people have a chance to work with the idea pollinators in society. Thus, the ability to work with groups of various sizes has become a core competence in the management of politics and public affairs.

Click here to read Civic Exchange's publications on "Sustainability Tools".