Sustainability Bites

Everyone has a ‘theory on change’ though, for most of us, it’s not something we explicitly articulate. Maybe we should. Given the failure of society to engage with the existential issue of sustainability, maybe it’s about time we all started thinking and talking about what we think enables change.

My last four blogs* have been about change, and why it is so challenging to bring about.

It’s an important topic because, at the broadest scale, humanity is destroying the support system that allows humanity to survive – which, of course, includes you and your children and their children. We have pushed planet Earth out of a safe space for humanity but rather than acknowledging that we need to change for the very survival of our species, our political leaders refuse to act, society refuses to change, and the debate on what to do is mired in polarized contestation and misinformation (accelerated in recent years with the rise of social media and AI).

There are many theories of change across the spheres of academia, management and policy – that is, what is the process by which people and communities change – and all of them contain some value, some truth and some utility. None of them explain everything, and none of them have catalysed an enduring change for sustainable solutions across society.

However, I think it’s important for anyone working for change to have at least reflected on their own ‘theory of change’ and how it has performed against real world experience. For my own part, my ‘idea’ on what brings about change has profoundly changed over time.

Let’s be rational about this

In the early days of my professional life I was a science educator working for Australia’s research agency CSIRO (as a writer, editor and magazine publisher). I was young, energetic and confident in the power of science and technology to understand and tackle a growing list of environmental challenges.

My ‘theory of change’ back then, we’re talking the 1980s and 1990s, was one of education and ‘knowledge diffusion’ – explain it well, people will understand, and things will change. This approach is also commonly referred to as an ‘information deficit’ model (and I often refer to this approach as ‘research push’: do the research then push it in different ways to different audiences). Provide more information in better ways and people will respond. Build a better mouse trap and people will use it. Point out the growing harm from unbounded carbon emissions and society will choose different ways to run the economy.

Of course people will respond because, as I thought back then, it’s the only ‘rational’ thing to do.

The detection of the ozone hole (connected with the threat of an eroding stratospheric ozone layer) and the international response (via the Montreal Protocol) to stop using ozone depleting chemicals was proof positive that humanity was a rational entity, capable of wise stewardship when shown the evidence.

Unfortunately, the Montreal Protocol was more the exception than the rule. It turned out that we could use different chemicals for things like refrigeration without rocking the boat too much. For most of our other environmental challenges (think carbon emissions, biodiversity decline, resource consumption, pollution) the mounting evidence of damage and decline didn’t seem to alter humanity’s trajectory one jot. More information better explained wasn’t actually changing things at all; that’s probably because the solutions turned out to be much more challenging than a switch in refrigerants.

Deeply invested in the status quo

But my belief in the ‘rightness’ of business as usual was deep seated, and this brought with it a cluster of other ideas.

As a younger person I saw the problem of sustainability as something that could be solved with better application (and communication) of science and technology. But I didn’t see anything fundamentally wrong with the status quo of the world. Why would I? I had been born in the right time and place, and the status quo had done me very well in terms of health, education, employment and freedom, and all the opportunities that come with these things. So, while it might not be providing enduring solutions to sustainability, from my perspective we just needed to refine the status quo, not transform it.

Along with this thinking, I implicitly accepted the general order of things. I believed in command and control, top-down order (and solutions) and stability; and I expected efficiency and rationality would eventually solve the vexed issue of sustainability.

However, as I saw time and again, the promise of technology and efficiency has never delivered an enduring solution to the environmental degradation blossoming all around the globe. As a society, we have failed to put humanity on a more sustainable trajectory.

Sure, productivity soared in many places but rather than making the world safer, fairer and a more sustainable place, we seemed to be actually moving away from a safe space for humanity. The richest got richer (obscenely rich in some cases); the poorest remained poor and increasingly vulnerable to a world in climate crisis; and the Earth System kept creeping towards planetary boundaries (several of which have now been breached).

I no longer believed the sales pitch of technology. And I stopped being a cheerleader for science.

With experience (and age) my confidence that the status quo will deliver us (even with tweaks) has waned. I no longer believe the neoliberal market world of economic growth is lifting all the boats or moving humanity into a more sustainable space, that top-down control is working, that efficiency will save us or that the promise of science and technology is enough.

The evidence for fundamental change is overwhelming yet the status quo, business as usual, is not only not moving us in the right direction, our deep seated belief that business as usual will deliver us is actually blocking all efforts to bring about deep change. Something’s got to give.

Let’s work together on this

So, if deep and enduring change is not going to be delivered through a (top down, command and control) information deficit model (business as usual with tweaks), what might work?

Over the last two decades my theory of change has moved away from knowledge diffusion towards a belief in a ‘knowledge co-production’ model. What that means is directly engaging those with a stake in a process in the design and implementation of that process; don’t just thrust the results of that process onto people at the end but include them from the beginning.

In the field of conservation science and natural resource management there are many examples demonstrating that when stakeholders (eg, land managers and owners, First Nations peoples, policy makers, the general community) are involved in the framing and implementation of research that the results of that research will be respected by those stakeholders. Trust in the process is enhanced, and implementation of research recommendations is easier with greater compliance and enduring impact.

Okay, my ‘answer’ here is half baked in that I need to provide examples and then extend this approach to different scales of engagement on sustainability, something I will do in future blogs. For now, I would just like to contrast knowledge co-production to information deficit models. Co-production puts the emphasis on sharing, respect for diversity (in backgrounds, cultures, approaches and local knowledge) and the development of trust. Information diffusion is about command and control, top down (one way) information flow and acceptance of the status quo. Both approaches have their places but co-production is rarely afforded the priority it deserves.

My theory of change

Okay, that’s my theory of change. People change when they work and share together in the solutions they need to develop to cope with a changing world. Society changes when the existing status quo loses its capacity to meet the changing demands of its people, though it will normally require a disturbance to overcome the resilience of this status quo.

It’s a complex world. No one is in charge. And you can’t hold the system in one state indefinitely, which is exactly what a ruling status quo attempts to do but with diminishing success over longer periods of time.

When the status quo is finally overwhelmed, levels of social, economic and ecological capital in the broader community will determine what kind of society emerges on the other side.

Yes, as theories go, it’s long on generalities and short on specifics and requires way more substantiation and evidence than I have provided here. However, for me, for now, I’m happy with it.

What about you? Do you think humans are heading for trouble or do you believe the status quo will deliver us (and future generations) from serious harm? And, if you think we need to change, what’s your theory of change? And how is it working for us so far?

*Reflections on change (My last four blogs)

1. Time for a change – how are you going to make it happen?

Time for a change – how are you going to make it happen?

2. Changing things for sustainability: How come we get increments when we need giant leaps?

Changing things for sustainability: How come we get increments when we need giant leaps?

3. Change is hard, it’s also remorseless and effects everyone including the government

Change is hard, it’s also remorseless and effects everyone including the government

4. Ready or not, big change is coming. What will we want from society after the shift?

Ready or not, big change is coming. What will we want from society after the shift?

5. What’s your theory of change? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours

In other words:

The first blog (1) is about how hard it is to catalyse change. It discusses a number of oft cited ‘change agents’ that people believe bring about change with evidence suggesting that even these usually don’t work. The second (2) describes how policy for environmental change is usually incremental,and that policy development is path dependent (often described as muddling through). The third (3) brings a complex systems perspective to change suggesting that the status quo (in this case, the government in control) becomes brittle over time and a disturbance (eg, demand for change) may fail at one time but may then succeed at a later time when the government’s control has diminished (which inevitably occurs over time). The fourth (4) discussion focusses on how society will cope after a shift from the status quo, and discusses the importance of general resilience and the social capital that engenders it. In this final blog in this series (5) I present my own theory of change emerging from blogs 1-4, and invite readers to reflect on their own theory of change and how their ideas of change have modified as these ideas have interacted with their own life experience.

Banner image: Change is never easy, rational or straightforward. Sometimes the status quo seems immovable, sometimes shifts in the status quo happen suddenly and unexpectedly. What’s your theory of change? (Image by Flore W from Pixabay)