Workshops at ReGeneration Week 2030: From Talking About Change to Building It
Between 22 and 24th of August, the ECOMARINAS team travelled to Mariehamn, Åland Islands, to participate in ReGeneration Week 2030 - a youth-led international gathering focused on climate action and sustainable futures. For the first time, the event featured a dedicated Baltic Sea pillar, bringing together young leaders from across the region to tackle cross-border environmental challenges.
As part of ECOMARINAS project, MARE Foundation contributed a workshop on wastewater discharges from recreational boats - one of the most overlooked threats to Baltic marine ecosystems.
Why This Matters: The Silent Problem
Untreated sewage and greywater from sailboats and yachts discharge nitrogen and phosphorus directly into the Baltic Sea. This triggers eutrophication: algal blooms deplete oxygen, creating dead zones where fish and benthic organisms cannot survive.
The problem is structural. The Baltic is a shallow, semi-enclosed body of water with very limited water exchange—it takes approximately 30 years for its waters to renew completely. Small discharges accumulate quickly. Add rising numbers of recreational boats, and the pressure on the sea becomes impossible to ignore.
Yet the challenge isn't technical; it's systemic. It involves marinas, boat owners, regulators, port authorities, and the cultural habits of sailors who may not see their individual actions as consequential.
How We Approached It: Theory-U and 3D System Sculpting
Rather than present data and statistics, the workshop used 3D System Sculpting - a hands-on methodology rooted in Theory-U, a framework for systems-aware change developed by Otto Scharmer at MIT.
Theory-U is based on a simple observation: most attempts to solve complex problems focus on diagnosing “what is broken” and fixing it incrementally. Systemic problems, such as environmental degradation, often persist, because we fail to see the full picture. Theory-U assumes that real change requires attentive listening to the perspectives of different stakeholders, seeing the system as a whole rather than as a set of isolated elements, suspending habitual thinking patterns that keep us stuck in the same solutions, and prototyping new possibilities before committing to large-scale change. The methodology encourages participants to move beyond analysis and into direct, embodied experience of complex systems.
In the workshop we facilitated this meant stepping outside standard ways of thinking about problems and mapping them creatively. Working with everyday objects, such as papier-mâché figurines, twigs, pinecones, and stones - participants built maps of the selected issue in the context of how sailing affects the ecosystem. They looked at the problem through the perspectives of different stakeholders and also placed themselves within a network of systemic habits, analyzing their own potential influence on implementing systemic change. By building an abstract system with their own hands, they could see how different elements interact: how a habit on board connects to a regulatory gap in a port; how a marina’s lack of wastewater reception infrastructure creates an incentive to discharge at sea rather than dispose of waste on land; and how our social and cultural habits affect the marine environment. This sensory, hands-on process breaks entrenched thinking patterns and reveals hidden dynamics and interdependencies that spreadsheets often fail to capture.
The method does not deliver quick solutions. Instead, it activates imagination and reveals the places where change is genuinely possible.
What Emerged
The workshop brought together young environmental leaders from Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Sweden. As they built their 3D models and discussed what would need to change, a shared insight emerged: individual responsibility matters, but only within functional systems.
They understood that marina infrastructure, port regulations, and boat owner incentives all need to align. Change isn't about blame, it's about proper design.
ECOMARINAS Project
The ECOMARINAS project promotes sustainable marina management and eco-friendly boating practices across the South Baltic region. It works with port authorities, environmental experts, and boat owners to develop practical solutions: better wastewater reception facilities, cleaner antifouling practices, protection of seagrass beds from anchoring damage, and reduction of plastic waste.
But solutions only work when people understand why they matter. That's why we bring these conversations to spaces like ReGeneration Week. Places where the next generation of environmental leaders are learning to think systemically about the problems they'll inherit.
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ECOMARINAS is an Interreg South Baltic Programme project co-funded by the European Union, bringing together partners from Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Sweden to address environmental pressures from recreational boating on the Baltic Sea.