VITAL SYSTEMS
What keeps a society vital — and what damages it.
A thinking and working framework to see the systems on which our lives depend as they are: living, vulnerable, intertwined.
ONE — ALL WITHIN SYSTEM EARTH
One earth system , four spheres, a continuous flow of energy.
Our life, life, takes place in the only life-giving system we know: system earth. System Earth creates and contains life because it has an ingenious composition and has a continuous energy source. It is an interplay of four major spheres that overlap and interpenetrate each other: atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere. What happens in one affects the other. Nothing in the Earth system exists in isolation.
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And over this entire interplay falls the energy of the sun - short-wave irradiation that controls all four spheres. What energy goes in also goes out — as long-wave radiation, as heat. The balance between the two determines the climate. The disruption of that balance is the central physical fact of our time: warming of the earth system.​
Nature is the term we give to the outward appearance of what the Earth system produces. In everyday use, "nature" stands for "everything that lives", "diversity", "evolution", "wildness", "life force", "dynamism". I use both terms as synonyms of each other.
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System earth is the scientific name for the engine that keeps everything running.
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This is not a complete picture of earth system science. It is the minimum model needed to talk about the vitality of the Earth system without drowning in details.
TWO — THE BASIC FORM
We live with the help of sociotechnical systems, but not autonomously, because always within nature.
Humans and ants are both eusocial organisms. Eusociality is the most integrated form of social organization in the animal kingdom and is characterized by cooperative brood care, division of labor, overlapping of generations, and altruistic behavior. The collective of individuals creates - in cities and in anthills - countless ingenious systems that are absolutely vital for survival and growth as a collective. These vital systems sometimes have a mainly technical character (such as sewerage, electricity grid, mobility infrastructure) and sometimes a more social character (such as education, healthcare). Together we call this the whole of socio-technical systems.​
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All vital systems (whether they belong to the social family or the technical family) work as densifiers and accelerators of nature. They ensure that in a small space with many individuals, essential living conditions are available everywhere and in sufficient quantities: water, energy, communication, travel, materials. Cities (and anthills) can only arise thanks to these vital systems. But... those vital systems can only continue to do so because they are situated within something more encompassing: nature. They continuously extract raw materials and energy from nature and return heat, substances and waste. The boundary between the terrestrial system and the urban vital systems is permeable, they cannot be separated - even though we almost always pretend that they are: with catastrophic consequences.
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Our technical systems only exist because they contain social knowledge, craftsmanship and meaning. And our social systems only exist because of the technology with which we live, eat, move and communicate with each other. Technology and social are two aspects of one reality: the sociotechnical.​​​
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The basic form outlined here determines what follows in this context. Everything we mean by vital systems lives on the two levels visible here — and in the exchange between them.
THREE — SOCIOTECHNICAL INSIDE
Eighteen vital systems that enable densification in our cities.
Eighteen systems on which our daily lives depend — nine we call the social family (on the left side of the picture below), nine we call the technical family (on the right side of the picture). Together they form the fabric in which a society lives. There is not a single one that society as a whole can do without, not even for a moment; that is why they are "vital": essential as an entity, crucial to the whole.
​They're not all the same type of thing. Some are domains of activity where people make meaning (community, culture, art). Others are organized devices that address problems (health care, security services). Still others are physical infrastructures (energy, water, built environment). And a few — food, housing — are both rooted at the same time: socio-culturally and technically.
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Cities are the place where these eighteen systems cause intense densification. A lot of people crowded together requires particularly advanced infrastructures and arrangements — to organize nutrition, mobility, energy and care on small surfaces, to keep administrative complexity manageable, to live together in close proximity. That is why cities are both the laboratory and the highest stakes of vital systems thinking.
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In the center of the image: two types of health. Not as yet another system in a row, but as what all those systems produce together. More about that below.
FOUR — FIVE CHARACTERISTICS
How a system is vital — or no longer.
"Vital" has two meanings: "essential" and "full of life force". The vital systems in our methodology should have both meanings in order to function properly. Here we describe the five properties necessary for a system to be viable. The values ​​of these five properties together indicate whether a system is truly alive or merely functioning.
Vitality
A system has an inner core that radiates, renews itself, and has life force. Not just working, but continuing to live through change. The system breathes, moves, recovers.
Layered
Each vital system operates at multiple scales simultaneously — from individual to city to region to planet. Anyone who only sees one level misses how the system actually works. The layers are not equivalent or interchangeable.
Multiple
A vital system cannot be captured in one unit of measurement or one perspective. It has multiple manifestations, multiple logics, multiple validities side by side. Reduction to one size is a dead giveaway.
Relational
Vital systems exist in and through their connections. Not as separate nodes that happen to be in contact with each other, but as nodes whose identity is supported by the relationships themselves. Whoever isolates a knot kills it.
Contextual
What is vital in one context is fatal in another. A vital system adapts to its environment, or that environment adapts to the system. Context helps determine what works well — there is no universal blueprint.
FIVE — WHAT COMES FROM IT
Two types of health, both emergent from the interplay.
When the systems work together, they produce something that no single system can produce alone. Not their output added together, but something emergent, something new, with new properties — a state of the whole that we can call health. Two types, inseparable.
Planetairy health
The condition of the Earth system as a whole, visible in the planetary boundaries: climate, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles, freshwater, land use. Nine indicators that together tell whether the Earth is still functioning within its safe operating space. We are now in the danger zone on six of the nine.
Humanitarian health
The condition of humanity as a whole, visible in physical and mental health, social connectedness, social security, equality, meaning. Not the health of individuals separately, but what characterizes the collective — and how it relates to what is humane.
Both health conditions arise from the interplay of all vital systems, technical and socio-cultural. Any intervention, anywhere, has an effect on both. And vice versa: every change in health — a pandemic, a climate shock, a war — affects every single system. There is no escaping this link. That is the essence of a vital system: it has no outside.
SIX — WHAT I OFFER
In this field, I work in four ways.
The conceptual framework above is not an academic exercise. It is a tool for what an organization or city concretely needs. In the field of vital systems, I offer my contribution in four forms — which I often combine, because the work rarely fits into a single form.
Methodology-development For programs or organizations that want to develop or further develop their own vital systems approach. I work in working groups, not as an external consultant — as a thinking partner who co-designs and co-implements. Often in collaboration with other systems thinkers.
Advice on "new", stalled or messy issues For leaders, program managers, or policymakers who find that an issue cannot be solved using conventional methods. I take a look, ask different questions, and help reframe the problem.
Keynote and/or masterclass For conferences, day sessions, and internal knowledge gatherings. A keynote (45-60 min) introduces the conceptual framework into your organization as a stimulating experience. A masterclass (half or full day) makes it applicable to the participants' own practice.
Connecting work between organizations For cities, knowledge institutions, and programs that want to connect their vital systems work with that of others. Boundary-spanner role — thinking, translating, and mediating between worlds that need each other but do not naturally speak each other's language.
SEVEN — HOW COLLABORATION BEGINS
Every collaboration begins with an initial conversation.
For issues that cannot be captured in a rigid project description, a tightly structured quotation process rarely works. My work therefore almost always begins with a conversation — brief and without obligation — to discover whether the issue and the approach are a good match.
Initial conversation An hour or an hour and a half, online or on location. No preparation needed — a mental sketch of the issue is sufficient. Goal: to see if there is a match in content, approach, and chemistry. No costs.
Tailored proposal If we click and the issue fits, we will formulate together what a meaningful first step would be. This could be a keynote, a workshop, an ongoing role, or something we come up with on the spot. The proposal follows the conversation, not the other way around.
Getting started Clear agreements regarding content, scope, rhythm, and rate. For ongoing engagement, I prefer to work with a brief interim evaluation after a few months — so we can make adjustments before the wrong pattern becomes ingrained.
EIGHT — IN PRACTICE
For, in, and between which this will work.
The Vital Systems work never stands alone. It unfolds in daily practice. On the street, beneath the street, above the street, beside the street. It derives its value where systems truly grind to a halt and/or come into conflict with one another — where conventional solutions fall short because they addressed "old" problems. Below are three system issues in three different systems with the same typology — "congestion" — and corresponding underlying causal structures, where this framework makes the difference.
Netcongestion The electricity system is running up against its limits. Sometimes there is high demand, sometimes high supply, but often not simultaneously; and when they do occur at the same time, there is congestion and backlogs during the transition from supply to demand. This is not a sudden event, but something that anyone looking at it with any sense has seen coming for years. Negligence, decision-making and implementation sluggishness, and conflicts of interest in management and development. "Unexpected" events on the geopolitical stage (the war in Ukraine) then cause things to go "suddenly" wrong when companies accelerate their electrification. The usual reflex: continuing to think for a very long time that "it won't be that bad," followed by increasing panic as the realization sinks in that it will take ten years to get out of this situation using the usual interventions.
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As is usually paradoxical, the only way out of this is by making "the problem" bigger and more complex, and thus also increasing the scope for solutions: how does the energy system relate to all other vital systems such as heat, mobility, the built environment, water, material use, communities, knowledge, and governance? And: recognizing that grid congestion is the manifestation of deeper-seated structural problems: silo thinking, a lack of political vision and courage, always prioritizing efficiency over redundancy... Whoever begins to view "the problem" as a larger whole will also find and see other directions for solutions.
Soil congestion Beneath our cities lies an invisible "puzzle": tree and plant roots, cables, pipes, sewers, geothermal energy, rainwater buffering, groundwater flows, salinizing and subsiding soil layers, underground parking, buildings and infrastructure with foundations, warming and drying soil, soil pollution by PFAS and nitrogen... Here, too, anyone with even a passing understanding (see the grid congestion case study alongside) could have foreseen for decades that the widely applied spaghetti strategy (just cram it in, it doesn't matter how) would grind to a halt. Every cubic meter of soil eventually becomes full and thus clogged: nothing can be added or pass through anymore. Congestion. Just like grid congestion, soil congestion is, in essence, not a spatial problem — that is merely the way it manifests itself. It is a "lack-of-direction problem", a "it-will-work-out problem", a "this-is-not-my-problem problem", a "lack-of-vision-and-courage problem". A Vital Systems perspective makes visible which trade-offs are implicitly (not) made and where new directions for solutions must be found.
Water congestion Too much water at one moment, too little at the next. Drinking water is becoming scarce. Sewerage systems cannot handle peak loads. Water treatment plants cannot handle the pollution load. Surface water is becoming polluted and heated, groundwater is sinking and becoming saline. Our water systems are losing their balance – they are no longer designed for the changing circumstances. Where for decades we focused on draining and pumping away water as quickly as possible, there is now a need to retain water. Didn't we see that coming? Of course we did, but read the stories about grid and soil congestion; here too, every possible approach stalled at an early stage due to compartmentalization, indecisiveness, and underestimating the urgency. The Vital Systems approach helps to view the water story as part of the whole, not as a separate file.
Polycrisis What was once "occasional" is now permanent: multiple crises are playing out simultaneously, all the panels are shifting at once. Earth system boundaries have been crossed on a large scale (climate, biodiversity, pollution, disrupted cycles, etc.), and the transitions necessary due to these earth system crises (energy transition, water transition, mobility transition, etc.) are stalled or severely delayed and bogged down. No crisis stands alone. How do we relate to this self-inflicted mega-complexity? The Vital Systems framework is uniquely suited for this situation because it makes the interplay visible — not the isolated problems.
The world in which we live is not sick because its systems are failing, but because its vital systems have lost their inner and interconnected vitality — and that vitality is not something we possess, it is something we must maintain and reinvent.