Reasons why your current coach and supporters won’t help you win a sustainability marathon
If you were to prepare yourself for a marathon, which muscles would you prioritize to strengthen and exercise to improve your results? Most of you would probably say your glutes, thighs and legs. So why is it then, that when we prepare for a “sustainability marathon”, we tend to focus on insignificant muscles such as those in our toes and fingers?
I find that adapting to a sustainable lifestyle in many ways can be compared to preparing for and performing a marathon, and I will soon explain why.
Most people in industrialized countries have consumption patterns that are highly unsustainable. The Footprint Network estimates that the entire human population actually needs 1.7 planet Earths to sustain the current use of resources, despite drastically lower consumption rates in developing countries. For many, global environmental problems and climate change is perceived as a challenge too big to take on, and we tend to think that our daily activities are insignificant compared to the big industrialized polluters. This is however not quite the truth. More than 60% of global GHG-emissions and somewhere between 50–80% of total land, material and water use can be traced backed to household demands.
In general, three areas of our lives make up the largest share of our household impacts. These are our homes including the electricity we use, our diets and the way we travel and get around. The good news is that simple actions can be done within these areas that will drastically reduce our individual footprint. Replacing red meat with poultry is one of the best examples.
The bad news is that politicians, the established industries and media are not necessarily communicating the most effective actions to us, and there are several reasons for this. Politicians are inherently afraid to interfere in how we live our daily lives, because they are relying on our votes in the next election. Similarly to companies selling unsustainable products and services, politicians also often have stakes and jobs to protect in the established economy. Media does their best to fill in some of the information gaps, but when it comes to the environmental problems that we face, they tend to focus on the problems and not the solutions. Consequently, we are in reality left on our own to identify the best solutions for reducing our environmental footprint. This leads us to often spending too much time on reduction activities with marginal effects, such as cutting down on the use of disposable coffee cups, instead of actions targeting the three above-mentioned areas of our lives.
So what does all of this have to do with a marathon? Well, if I were to illustrate the paragraphs above with a “sustainability marathon”, it would probably look something like this: Before you start you marathon, your coach — the politicians — are deliberately not telling you how you should exercise because they are afraid you will be mad or because they are also working for your contestants. Consequently, you decide to try a random exercise program targeting muscles in your toes and fingers. Once you start running, your contestants — the unsustainable businesses and industries — are putting obstacles in your road and trying to get you to take a longer route. While at the sideline, your supporters — the media — are yelling that you are in such bad shape and that you probably will not be able to make it to the finish line.
Does that make for a good run?
It is a shame, because what we actually need is someone to help us set up an effective exercise program, to put us in connection with people that can help, and to cheer us further up in speed once the going gets though. I believe that experiencing the significance of doing the right actions and to do them in cooperation with the people around us will be crucial in adapting to and enjoying a truly sustainable lifestyle.
At UNLEASH LAB in Denmark, I will be joining 1000 fellow SDG talents to explore ways to develop and promote sustainable solutions of true significance. Insight in to behavioral psychology will be key in this process because we need individuals such as you and me to drive the sustainable development through changes in our consumer demands. I believe that a sustainable lifestyle can be made fun, easy and accessible for all of us, we just need to find ourselves a better team of coaches and supporters.
