How to accelerate social change towards sustainable lifestyles

Public concern about climate change has been increasing in the past several years — and now it is at an all-time high in many countries. Despite a general sense of alarm among citizens globally, awareness around climate change and personal risk perceptions are unevenly distributed across the world.

In developing nations, most people are worried about climate change but relatively few believe it will harm them a great deal personally. In comparison, public risk perceptions are higher in emerging economies, which is consistent with the disproportionate effects of climate change experienced in the Global South. However, awareness is relatively low in the developing world —and a staggering two billion adults worldwide know little to nothing about climate change.

Two broad communication priorities can help address these challenges:

When considering the aspiration-action gap for people wishing to lead sustainable lifestyles, it is important to understand for whom it applies. The aspiration-action gap is particular concern for those who already have basic intentions and/or are taking some action to shift their consumption. This audience can be motivated towards more significant lifestyle changes if they are presented with climate-friendly options and defaults.

Yet, we currently find ourselves in a climate responsibility stalemate. Sustainable alternatives for people often require a sacrifice in cost or convenience — if these options are even available at all. Consequently, consumers expect more support from industry and government to help them in shifting towards sustainable lifestyles. Meanwhile, many businesses tend to wait for increased demand for sustainable products so that they can be assured of profit and customer loyalty.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Net Zero Living convenes subject matter experts to drive thought leadership on key opportunities for collective institutional action that can promote a global shift towards sustainable living. Central to the council’s mission is to drive a transformation in social norms and to catalyze flywheels of systems change that can break this climate responsibility stalemate.

Organizations must take the lead in changing the available options and defaults to engage and empower people towards sustainable living. They also have a vested interest in breaking the climate responsibility stalemate as this systems shift can unlock opportunities for new value creation. For instance, widescale adoption of electric vehicles did not occur in a linear way and first-mover companies benefited from early customer acquisition and integration of new technologies.

The importance of institution-led reform is reflected in the recent Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which emphasizes the instrumental role of the right policies, infrastructure and technology in enabling lifestyle changes at scale.

As such, there is significant untapped potential for institution-led action to catalyze flywheels of systems change towards sustainable living. There exists, however, an evidence-based model for accelerating social change, which offers guidance on ways to build momentum for systems transformation to accelerate sustainable lifestyles at scale. The model encompasses key principles that articulate how social movements occur and learnings for sustainable living.

To start with, social movements are often considered to be grassroots efforts that start from the bottom-up. Although this view is not incorrect, it is an incomplete assessment as it overlooks the fact that movements are both bottom-up and top-down phenomena.

This becomes clearer when we consider cases such as how the environmental movement helped foster the growth of the wind-power energy sector. Research shows that environmental movement actors helped to stoke demand for renewable energy, acting as brokers that helped to shape industry perceptions, which industry actors could then utilize as they sought to expand the sector. As another study put it, environmental movement influences were stronger than the availability of natural resources in shaping the industry’s growth.

Large-scale change in social norms and behaviours also begins with an initial catalyst that affects early public consciousness on a particular topic. Catalysts can be endogenous actors such as groups engaged in advocacy or organizations that function as strategic and neutral facilitators. They can also be exogenous events that fundamentally alter society.

Movements can act upon evidence of environmental harms after exogenous events like the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, which raised environmental consciousness and generated activism. But those looking to bring about change can also generate their own sources of engagement, as participants did in the US by pressing states for Renewable Portfolio Standards or changes in the regulation of energy utilities to press toward greater sustainability.

Importantly, the most effective way to accelerate social change towards sustainable lifestyles is not by engaging people as individuals but rather as part of communities. Generally, people make decisions based on a set of preferences across their respective social groups. These signals are helpful for organizations to create new markets in a community- and relationship-based manner.

We are seeing large-scale policy changes linked to the Inflation Reduction Act and also the G-20 High-Level Principles on Lifestyles for Sustainable Development. Both of these measures rely on the changes that involve supply-side decarbonization linked to goals for demand-side changes, and which can be linked to the social identities that participants may hold.

We need a future that helps to find unified strategies that engage with both institutions and their interface with key social constituencies. This approach has the potential to support the urgent need for a broader transition toward both sustainable industries and linked changes to all of our personal lifestyles.

Co-Authors:

Edward Walker, Professor and Chair of Sociology, UCLA

Thom Almeida, Lead, Circular Economic Systems, World Economic Forum