Crowdsourcing Sustainability

The 4-Day Workweek with Jon Leland

August 19, 2021 Ryan Hagen Season 1 Episode 13
Crowdsourcing Sustainability
The 4-Day Workweek with Jon Leland
Show Notes

In this interview with Jon Leland, we talk about climate psychology, climate action, and then dive into the wide-ranging benefits of the 4-day workweek (it could simultaneously benefit people, the companies they work for, the communities they live in, and the climate!)

Jon is the Vice President of Insights & Head of Environmental Impact at Kickstarter. He has also launched two projects on Kickstarter that I really like for their tough-love approach to awareness-raising. They’re stickers saying “This place will be water” and “This place will burn” that you put in public places that are at risk according to science-based projections. These projects give people the tools to understand and communicate the local, near-term impacts of climate change and mobilize their community to take action on the crisis. Most recently, Jon has turned his focus towards the 4 Day Week campaign as it'd be a major win for both people and the planet. 

Timeline:
0 Intro
1:10 Jon's climate journey.
9:27 Motivating communities to speak up and act with "This Place Will Be Water" & "This Place Will Burn" projects.
14:40 Jon's favorite stories that have come from the projects & thoughts on climate action.
21:35 History of the 5-day workweek.
24:50 Movement for a 4-day workweek.
25:55 Results from Iceland's 4-year study on a 4-day workweek.
27 The numerous benefits of a 4-day work week for people/employees & how they spend their time.
31:13 4-day work week from an employer's perspective.
36:15 The 4-day work week as a climate solution.
41:20 It seems impossible to achieve this - how could we make it happen? 
46:10 Will this work across industries?
48:20 Short and long-term goals of the 4-day work week campaign.
50:30 We need a shift in mindset.
51:30 Jon's book recommendation and final message for folks.
54:40 The economy grew when it switched from a 6 to a 5-day workweek.
56:10 What should employees do if they want to help make this transition where they work?

Follow Jon, sign the petition and learn more about his campaigns here:
Sign the 4-day week petition: https://www.action.4dayweek.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JonathanLeland & https://twitter.com/4dayweek_global
This Place Will Be Water: https://www.thisplacewillbewater.org/
This Place Will Burn: https://www.thisplacewillburn.org/
Uncharted guide to a 4-day workweek: https://medium.com/this-is-uncharted/how-we-designed-a-4-day-workweek-experiment-cbdd80b88bab

Crowdsourcing Sustainability links:
Sign up for the Crowdsourcing Sustainability newsletter! https://crowdsourcing-sustainability.ck.page/c34a46ed01
Website: https://crowdsourcingsustainability.org

And a huge thank you to Diego Rentsch for editing as always!!

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