In the session, five stakeholder roles were chosen at random and deliberately not the expertise of the role-player. However, they were able to step out of their role if they had expertise to share on a topic. Over the course of three rounds, a facilitator posed challenging questions to drive the discussion forward: what needs to change?; can it change?; who is responsible, currently and in the future?
With the roles of politician, pioneer user, farmer, urban planner, and Housing Association, and the skillful direction of the facilitators, the discussions were wide ranging, for instance: aligning individual stakeholders with the larger goal; incentivizing change and what would be acceptable sacrifices; education of and knowledge sharing between stakeholders; ownership - of wastewater as an entity, the components of wastewater circular systems, and the products resulting from reused wastewater; renovation vs starting from scratch; responsibilities now and in the future at the micro (individual), meso (community, organization) and macro (municipality, government) level. The conclusion was that nothing would happen until a position statement was made by an oversight organization, such as the government or responsible governance Board, that clarified the goals and responsibilities at a macro level. With this first step, the stakeholders at the meso and micro levels could then be formally engaged and practical planning begin.
The feedback from the role-players was that being forced into the shoes of another stakeholder for the exercise changed how they thought about and responded to the issues raised, and could improve the chance of bridging the collaboration gap amongst the many different stakeholders involved.
“I cannot convince people if they are not attracted to the product....So wastewater innovations may [need to] introduce a different color, a different smell.” Politician role-player.
“I'm prepared to make some sacrifices in my home. But there's always some safety standard, some hygiene standard, that is involved.” Pioneer user role-player.
“Scale implies, obviously, big, which can have advantages, but it might not work in certain situations, so you might also need smaller-scale operations.... I'm sure there's a solution to combine the two, but it adds to the complexity of the situation.” Urban planner role-player.
“If you don't put it in a document now, it will never happen for the next 50 years.” Expert researcher.