When We Drop a Pebble In The Water
"One small ripple can reach further than you think. Big change starts with a single honest action." - David Hudson
Photo by Sergej Eckhardt
Hi Everyone
I’m David, I’m a sustainability🌱 advocate and the founder of 169to1.com and 169to1.org. And I would like to share with you my story…
Back in 2015, the world gave us a bold new framework: the Sustainable Development Goals. Seventeen ambitions. One shared deadline. A total of 169 targets.
But for all the promises, most people never got the full story, let alone a clear next step. We gave the world goals. But we never gave them roles.
We didn’t fail the SDGs because we didn’t care. We failed them because we never told people what they were supposed to do on Monday.
So I asked myself one critical question…
What if we just made it simple?
One institution. One target. Five years. That’s it. After all sustainability is meant to be simple.
And then, what if we multiplied that one institution by 169,000?
That’s not the whole world. It’s just 0.01 percent of the academia, clinics, businesses, NGOs, youth programmes, councils, and cooperatives on the planet. But it’s enough.
Because change never starts with everyone. It starts with the few who choose to act, anyway.
I’ve spent the last two decades solving problems in places where no one was waiting for a UN roadmap. Schools trying to patch leaking roofs. SMEs juggling deadlines. Startups, clinics, and community groups just trying to make tomorrow work.
I’ve seen what happens when you give people systems they can actually use. And I’ve seen how quickly momentum spreads when action feels possible, practical, and real.
Let me show you something simple - 6174
Now you are probably wondering why did I give you a random four digit number?
Because selecting a simple number can show the power of a steady process.
It’s called ‘The Kaprekar Constant’, 6174, appears to be an ordinary number, yet it reveals something important. If you take almost any four-digit number, reorder its digits from largest to smallest, subtract, and repeat the sequence, the process always settles at 6174. It does not matter where you begin. The steps create the stability.
Here is what happens with my own birth year, 1976.
1976 → 9761 − 1679 = 8082
8082 → 8820 − 0288 = 8532
8532 → 8532 − 2358 = 6174
The pattern always converges. It works because the steps are clear and repeatable.This is the point. A clear, repeatable method turns disorder into direction. The number is not special. The process is.
169to1 works in the same way. You choose one SDG target, take one action, record one piece of evidence, and continue the cycle. No matter how uncertain the wider world becomes, the structure holds. The pathway remains stable because the method is simple.
The Kaprekar Constant shows that even from a random starting point, a consistent sequence leads to a clear conclusion. That is the benchmark behind 169to1. A steady process that creates progress, step by step, for everyone.
