Unlocking potential for deep social transformations towards sustainable lifestyle

Never has there been a better time to ask big questions about how we might need to change our lifestyles so that we can address the magnitude of the climate crisis. Where might we look for a way forward? There are many ways to understand how change happens, based on experience and practical attempts at creating change and the wider theories that are based on how individuals, society and our systems operate.

As a systems change action researcher and practitioner I am constantly grappling with such questions. Trying to marry the worlds of theory and practice in order to support and work with change makers in their quest for cultivating systemic change. The Boundless Roots Community is one of these. A community of sustainable behaviour practitioners looking to cultivate radical and ambitious transformation to address the magnitude of the climate crisis.

This article draws from my and others action research into cultivating systemic change, and is influenced by multiple and intersecting fields of theory and practice to (hopefully) help frame and contextualise in theory (from my perspective) the inquiries and projects that have emerged out of this group in the last year. Please note that the emergence of these inquiries is not from the theory and this paper aims to place what emerged from the action inquiry process of the community and link it back to some of the theory as I understand it. Like a map it seeks to represent the territory in a simple way so as to help locate and navigate the field.

Framing

As mentioned, there are many ways to understand how change happens in the context of sustainable behaviour, lifestyles and systems, for example through sustainability transitions, socio-technical systems, sociology, psychology, economics and the political or ecological economy. There are multiple methods and approaches, that often triangulate, overlap or form contradicting views. This article doesn’t attempt to go into this ecology of approaches.

What a systemic approach and inquiry invites us to do is go underneath the surface of understanding change, to not just look at what is happening above the surface, in the seen behaviours, the tangible events, but to understand the deeper patterns and structural dynamics as well as the mind-sets or worldviews that inform these dynamics and the behaviours we might see.

From the Iceberg open access tool

It also requires us to understand the multiple levels that change happens and how they are nested or embedded as systems within other systems. For example how our cells are nested within our heart, within our circulatory system, within our body. As individuals who live within social groups and communities, which make up social structures and ways of organising which can be explained through socio-technical, economic and political systems. All of which sit within a landscape of our cultural psyche and within the ecology of our earth.

“A “sustainable lifestyle” is a cluster of habits and patterns of behaviour embedded in a society and facilitated by institutions, norms and infrastructures that frame individual choice, in order to minimize the use of natural resources and generation of wastes, while supporting fairness and prosperity for all.” (Envisioning future low carbon lifestyles)

Underlying patterns and structures we often ignore or devalue

I have experienced working and observing for nearly 20 years in these fields that our focus, as sustainable behaviour practitioners and wider change makers, does not pay as much attention to both the middle ground, the social fabric and infrastructure of relationships, as well as the wider landscapes of our psyche. These two dynamics are also deeper structural issues and mental models that need addressing. In our social fabric, relationships are the dynamic of change and processes of social learning related strongly to relational dynamics of power are what need to be examined. Secondly, our collective psychology — how we identify with the world and ourselves, relate to different waves of paradigms or worldviews — also has a strong role in change.

There might be many reasons why we do not focus on or ignore social and collective psychological realms as change makers, but I propose that it is not part of our current western mind-set; we do not favour the relational, the process, the systemic, but more we look for what is tangible; the rational and more observable elements of society. These often favour change related to individual behaviour changes — around food or mobility choices, policy changes, socio-technical solutions or economic and financial incentives and models that make up production and consumption. These are not wrong, indeed they are a vital part of the change ecosystem needed to create the scale of transformational change required. However, we also need to pay attention to these other dynamics that might also offer deeper routes to the social tipping points and infrastructure required.

Relating socially and power dynamics

We know a lot about what the behaviours are that need to change — from becoming vegan to not flying — however we do not pay as much attention to the process by which we change — the how. First and foremost humans are social beings. We live through our relationships and consequently change happens as a process of social relating, negotiation and social learning. I personally think about how much I have changed over the last ten to twenty years, the different groups and communities I have been a part of, but also how much I am also still part of certain bubbles as well. This often means change initiatives need to pay attention to this process of learning as a social process.

‘critically consider social learning as a transitional and transformational process that can help create the kinds of systemic changes needed to meet the challenge of sustainability’ (Wals and van der Leij, 2007:32).

Who can leverage change

In social groups or communities not everyone has equal influence or change affect in the system. We might look at who the messengers are, the cultural leaders, the community organisers and facilitators of change and how they might leverage greater effect in their groups, for example your Imam or other religious leader. We also need to then understand what capacities they might need or support that is required to bring about change.

Boundless Roots inquiry question: How do we build capacity for millions of trusted messengers to accelerate the transformation to sustainable lifestyles?

Power

The structure of our relationship can often be understood as a dynamic of power, usually seen in the asymmetries of power across different levels and scales of society. This dynamic is also a deep rooted driver of other structural issues in society and as such, if we can work on this, it has the potential to unlock other areas of social change.

“the most hidden, the most occulated, the most deeply invested experience in the history of our culture — power relations.’… we need to understand power relations that permeate the whole fabric of existence’ (Foucault, 1973 in Foucault, 2000:17)

The causes of climate change are predominantly created by the wealthiest nations or peoples, whose wealth accumulations was a result of using and burning carbon so as to (supposedly) improve their lives. It drove dominance in our global economy, through the industrial revolution which is a history deeply rooted in colonialism. The dominance of one nation, peoples over another, which also has the power to control resources and nature itself. The effects of climate change are also acutely felt in those places which are more vulnerable, who have consequently developed in unequal ways. The climate crisis is primarily a crisis of injustice.

These abuses of power have also created individual and collective trauma, which affects the ability of people and societies to transform. People or societies in trauma are trapped in repeated patterns of behaviour. At the point of trauma one part of us goes forward whilst one part is left at that point. This happens at the individual level as well as at the collective level (for example slavery) and can be still experienced through generations. We therefore need to find ways to heal and make whole again what has happened in order to move forward.

If we do not address these power dynamics through our interventions then we are just perpetuating the current structures of the system and not dealing with issues under the surface.

Boundless roots inquiry question: How do we work with privilege and colonialism, collective trauma and power?

A key framing of power is in the process of decision making, who has information, who is involved in deciding about resources and the unconscious processes of power and privilege. As social beings, how we communicate, interact and negotiate our shared way forward can be seen as a process of governance. How we organise, decide and take action, formally or informally, be it for nation states, for organisations, communities or just in different organising groups. Power structures of dominance affect all of these. What is needed is new forms of governance, new structures and processes that help us work together differently. This often requires facilitation, a skill and approach that is often lacking. We need more people to not just learn about sustainable behaviour but to help facilitate and work with groups and communities at all levels as part of a new social infrastructure.

Boundless roots inquiry question: How are we moving away from dominance to a new ‘healthy power’?

Boundless roots inquiry question: Holding contradictions: How do we work skillfully across polarities to create spaces to connect what people need in the moment with collective exploration of the potential?

‘Social learning happens through social experience and social conversations about problems and lead to values, expectations and motivations being questioned and changed’ (Warburton, 2008:22).

There is an inherent tension in social learning and transformation; that we do not have time to build the capacity for personal transformation and change. The process that a person might need to go through to get the depth of change required to really shift how they see and act in the world is just too long and the issues we are facing are too urgent for it to take that long. It can take time for individuals to shift their deeper paradigm and worldview; and yet

‘There’s nothing physical or expensive or even slow in the process of paradigm change [change in the shared idea in the minds of society, the great big unstated assumptions]. In a single individual it can happen in a millisecond. All it takes is a click in the mind, a falling of scales from the eyes, a new way of seeing.” Meadows

This is a tension we need to work and experiment and continue to inquire into as part of our ecology of change. For example what role does connecting to nature and our ecological selves have on agency, that is, our ability to create change. If we can see ourselves as part of our wider ecological planet does it help us make changes in our behaviours or actions or do we need to work with where people are? How do we spread and scale these experiences that support this change?

Boundless Roots inquiry question: How do we balance the urgency of getting people to live more sustainably with the need for deep change?

Collective psychology and change

What has this got to do with changing lifestyles?

The way we perceive the world informs how we act and the way we act informs how we perceive. How we as humans and societies develop and change is rooted in an understanding of our self, consciousness and how our psychology develops. It is also rooted in the collective process of meaning making, not just in the individual, it is a cultural developmental process. This process is an unfolding, emergent oscillating spiralling process (Graves, 1981:1).

A paradigm is ‘a constellation of concepts, values, perceptions and practices shared by a community, which forms a particular vision of reality that is the basis of the way the community organises itself’ (Capra, 1997:5–6).

This pattern of perceptions can be seen as waves, not rigidly separate and isolated but blends, meshes and mosaics like the colors of the rainbow, infinitely shade and grade into each other (Wilber, 2000:7). At any given time, people and social cultural societies are hovering in a pattern of stability around one frame or perspective.

‘Self’s centre of gravity… tends to hover around one basic level of consciousness at any given time’ (Wilber, 2000:35).

This view of the world (worldview or paradigm) has a large impact on the choices we individually and collectively make. It influences how we identify as a person, what we believe, who we choose to be influenced by, what decisions we make and therefore our behaviours and lifestyle choices. It is how we make meaning in our life, how we understand both ourselves but also within a wider collective sphere. This meaning making process is critical to helping us know the boundary of who we are. Our psychology, and especially that of the collective, is usually very subconscious, it is the water we are swimming in and it is hard to step out and see what the river looks like when you are in it.

Boundless Roots inquiry question: What does it mean to work with collective psychology in the context of climate breakdown and radical changes in ways of living?

Boundless Roots inquiry question: Meaningful life: How are we inviting people into an evolving conversation about what gives our lives meaning?

These different waves have different patterns to how we perceive, for example a conventional worldview might see the world from a distance, with rationality and objectivity but can also be highly influenced through what those closest to them are saying and doing. Or a post conventional worldview sees a wider network with competing personal and group perspectives and sees ourselves as socially constructed. Different theories in this space describe a different number of waves, but they all follow a similar pattern. As worldviews are also a set of values it might also relate to what values are set to be activated and acted upon at any given time. It relates to our agency, the capacity we have to either consciously or subconsciously make choices in our lives.

They can therefore also be both activated and transformed in different ways and through different approaches. For example you might use a certain value, identity or worldview to resonate with someone and support behaviour changes so that they are still operating within what is comfortable. The alternative is to support the transformation of that worldview, through either a personal journey of awareness (think learning programmes). There is another way, as social beings, as ones that look to others and society to how we might operate, the social norms or narrative of society might also indicate how we might act. Thus shifting narratives in society can also create an enabling environment for our behaviours to change. The way these narratives shift as a process of cultural developmental process is through leaders or those who frame society as well as through moments of change where new narratives and frames set the context for how we understand our lives and what gives us meaning, indeed Covid-19 and Black lives matter protests are indeed moments of change.

Boundless Roots inquiry question: How do we create the conditions for moments of cultural resonance and visibility?

Boundless roots inquiry question: Cultural waves, How can we work with the momentum of what’s changing culture now and operationalise that in new ways?

What kind of interventions might have the potential and leverage for transformational change — the emerging ideas and projects

Spreading & sharing collaborative culture

We change practitioners noticed that often what is missing in our initiatives or across communities and groups is the facilitators to support community engagement and spread collaborative culture. People hosting collaborative endeavours are often getting stuck, people in organisations and funders are often looking for more participative approaches and people supporting local communities are trying to navigate the many differing needs. The commonality is that they often do not have the capacity or tools to support this. Distributed processes that work towards healthy power, can help people find the right solutions and pathways forwards for themselves. Finding ways to hold space can also help people make meaning and understand both the way they live and the change that might be required so that they are supported to realise a transformed way of living. These methods and models demonstrate a different cultural paradigm, one that is more collaborative. By enacting them we are learning how to live and work together differently. This is about pooling our tools, methods and practices to enable distributed approaches and building capacity in collaborative culture where it’s needed most.

Some of the ideas that have come out include

1. From grassroots to global: Creating an alternative to mainstream climate governance through bottom up system-redesign; exploring the possibility of doing this through citizen assemblies.
2. Sharing and spreading shared forms of governance: using the experience of those already experimenting with collaborative and distributive power governance models to help translate and engage others in experimenting with such approaches in their contexts.
3. Building the facilitative capacity and relational agency of change makers, through learning, inquiring together, diversifying and supporting applications in different settings
4. Working with and across funders to support shifting the relationship, creating trusted spaces to inquire and explore the power dynamics.

Supporting worldview & paradigm shifts

Other discussions included how we can engage cultural leaders across society to explore how we can work with them to have experiences which support the design of new cultural narratives and paradigms that are ‘fit for purpose’ to create sustainable futures. In our experience, changing individuals at the level of values and self perception — at the level of their worldview — results in people cascading multiple changes in their behaviour. Behaviours take care of themselves. People fly less, eat less meat, recycle more, reuse more etc. They don’t need to hear and be exposed to individual campaigns and messaging for change to happen in these areas. To achieve the goal of sustainable lifestyles, it is more efficient and powerful to shift at the inward, worldview level, not the outward, behavioural level. Change the story. Change the person. Change the behaviour.

1. Cultural leaders: identifying 1,000 influential culture makers (e.g. journalists, musicians, social media influencers), and taking them through learning experiences that will get them to explore their worldview and how they might influence millions of people and other content producers across society
2. The new normal: a collaboration that works with the momentum behind the dominant cultural paradigm and pools learning and resources to find new partners at the city scale, bringing together different stakeholder groups from youth influencers to business partners to explore how a new normal in sustainable living can be piloted in different cultural contexts.

Continuing the inquiry

The purpose of systemic action inquiry is to test out ideas, assumptions and new approaches in our work and come together with others to repeat the cycle, learning and exploring what might be needed. We don’t know if these ideas, hypotheses or actions will be the route or path to the social transformations we need for our ways of living to become sustainable, but we need to continue to work with this potential, build capacity across change makers and inquire into the questions to unlock the questions of HOW. This is how communities like Boundless Roots create value as part of the ecosystem of change.

If you are interested in joining these inquiries, experiments or bringing your own questions then do get in touch!