Getting Sustainability COMpetent
"Arguments about climate change are really arguments about what we can think" James Bridie
The unspoken problem with climate change is that everyone struggles to get their heads round it. But we promise we’re not judging. Like the internet or Taylor Swift's stardom, climate change is what’s known as a hyperobject: something so vast, sprawling and surrounding that it becomes simply unknowable to the human mind. We are all part of it, we experience it every day and yet it is a void of understanding.
We could spend our time waxing lyrical about the ways this void has been manipulated by those seeking profit from its existence, but we'll leave that chore for a less hopeful agency. What’s more urgent is that we admit our inadequacy, face up to it and come to terms with the consequences. Then we can set about doing something about it.
Because while climate change is a complex scientific phenomenon, it is also a human phenomenon, driven by and impacting the thoughts, feelings and actions of every individual on the planet today. And when we start to consider it as a human issue, with human solutions, the fog of understanding begins to clear and hope for a better future can rear its handsome head.
Mind the gap
At One Minute to Midnight we have always approached the world from a human-up rather than a brand-down perspective. While we are loyal to this mantra across all our work, it is particularly powerful within the sustainability space, allowing us to plenish knowledge gaps with deep human truths that ladder up to long-term societal impact.
The word ‘gap’ features remarkably often when speaking with clients about sustainability. The ‘gap’ between what needs to happen and what is happening. The ‘gap’ between what people say they want to do, and what they do. The ‘gap’ between what our clients hope to achieve, and what they feel they are ultimately able to achieve. Why do so many gaps keep springing up?
Our take is that these gaps result from an ongoing state of paralysis, which is fuelled by people feeling uncertain about how to act upon their core human values when they try to live sustainably.
We are all driven by different belief systems, but what unites humans is that we thrive when we are able to live and breathe our values day-to-day, even in the smallest ways; that could be tapping into the need for security by cuddling up to your cat, or realising the need for excitement by switching on a new TV series. These behaviours are conditioned over time, with some proving more successful than others at enabling our values and emerging as fixed habits (just ask my cat…). However, when it comes to acting sustainably things get messy, as most people haven’t yet figured out how to translate their values into the ‘right’ behaviours, and many then choose the easy route: reverting to the status quo.
There are many forces at play in this state of paralysis, and it’s the twisted totality of them all that is stopping people embracing more responsible habits. But it’s worth highlighting a few prime suspects.
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There’s the general doom-and-gloom that surrounds climate change, with apocalyptic messages from exasperated scientists repeatedly blazoned across our screens. When combined with our cognitive disposition to cherry pick more optimistic views of reality, this is a sure-fire recipe for downing tools.
There’s recent government policies – on both a national and global level – that have done little to clarify what the best course of action is right now other than to set distant and brittle targets.
There’s the ongoing greenwashing debate, which seems to become more convoluted with each passing quarterly report. In a recent study across global markets, One to Minute Midnight found that only a quarter (28%) of the public felt assuredly familiar with the concept of greenwashing, which is remarkable considering the longevity and popularity of the term, best believed to have been coined in the late 1980s. This isn’t necessarily just an issue of public education: it’s about shifting rulemaking that is creating paradoxes of thought. Most disturbingly, it’s been found that strict new greenwashing laws are encouraging corporations to believe the best course of action is to step away from engaging with the topic of sustainability altogether.
We can’t afford to settle for this. A groundbreaking recent study by scientists at the Earth Commission has stressed that while we are already beyond the planet’s safe boundaries, it’s still possible to forge a “safe and just” future so long as change is now forcefully prioritised by businesses. We need to break the paralysis. We can’t let the gaps keep growing.
Getting the people going
So, let’s talk solutions. In response to the state of paralysis, it’s clear that we need to help people feel empowered to make positive lifestyle changes, and here is where a deep exploration of their internal and external environment is critical. One Minute to Midnight’s primary research approach in this area is derived from a famous behaviour change model that encompasses the dimensions of Capability, Opportunity and Motivation in generating new behaviours. To give you a flavour of how effective this framework can be in unpacking people’s potential to adopt more sustainable habits, let’s talk through these three dimensions in turn, with some illuminating examples from key sectors of how behavioural transformation has been achieved by engaging with each of them.
Capability
The first dimension concerns our psychological and physical capacity to engage in more sustainable actions. This is partly to do with possessing the foundational knowledge and skills to carry out these actions – such as knowing how to set your washing machine to operate on a lower temperature – but also having the mental space to remember, focus on and reflect on new behaviours. Those with a very high Capability for sustainable behaviour change will pay attention to the benefits of more eco-conscious activity and weigh these up against the traditional behaviours they are trying to move away from.
Only 40% say they have enough headspace to think about how to behave more sustainably in daily life
Restrictions on people’s Capability for embracing more sustainable lifestyles come from all angles, but they are increasingly tied to the advance of technology. A specific example is our lack of hands-on knowledge of what the devices that dominate our daily lives are made from and how they really work. Equipped with more sophisticated knowledge, it’s possible for people to develop stronger relationships with their possessions and feel capable of making more responsible decisions over their use, maintenance and end-of-life. The Amsterdam-based phone manufacturer Fairphone are a shining example of how this can be realised. Since their early days raising awareness of the damages wrought by conflict minerals in the electronics sector, this disruptive brand have prioritised both supply chain transparency and proactive user education on their phones’ design, materials and inner-workings, ensuring their customers feel empowered to make repairs and care for their devices for longer. Their relentless questioning of industry standards continues to attract demand and they were recently awarded the ‘Best Mobile Innovation for Climate Action’ at the Global Mobile Awards. Congrats to them.
Opportunity
Our ability to do something new is not only determined by our personal faculties – it relies on the right alignment of factors in our external environment. These factors can be very person-specific, such as having the disposal income available to invest in solar panels for your home, but also more societal, such as owning solar panels becoming a desirable home aesthetic.
This type of environmental restructuring is no easy ask, but inspiration can be taken from Renault’s transformation of the hamlet of Appy into the ‘first 100% electric vehicle town in France’. By providing every household with their electric ZOE model and installing a central public charging point, Renault aimed to challenge assumptions that electric vehicles are only fit for large cities. A documentary series about the project was released, and captured how the residents of Appy – all of whom had previously objected to electric – were won over not just by the cars’ qualities, but by the physical reshaping of their town and the shared communal experiences that rewrote the norms of car ownership.
Only 33% say that people around them are trying to behave more sustainably in their daily lives
Motivation
The final dimension to consider is, arguably, the most decisive. Because let’s face it, you can be eco-aware and do absolutely nothing about it. You can also be put in the best possible position to act sustainably and choose to look the other way. In order to act, we need to energize and direct our decision-making, and the impetus to do so relies on an interlocking network of feedback mechanisms. We need to associate the right feelings with the right actions, we need to align those actions with our own sense of identity and we need to trust in our own effectiveness. When these all fall into place we will feel motivated to proceed, and once that Motivation becomes ingrained we can start to build long-lasting automatic habits.
Trainline’s ‘I Came By Train’ campaign is a valuable example here, with the booking platform urging commuters to save on CO2 by pledging a journey by train rather than driving. What stands out is the distinctly down-to-earth and contemporary tone of voice Trainline use, with a Craig David soundtracked ad and ‘Being lit is for influencers not forests’ and ‘It’s getting hot in here’ available to select as reasons for your pledge. It’s a stark attempt to appeal to the cultural identity of Gen Zs and Millennials from a typically universal brand, aligning sustainable travel choices with this audiences’ tastes and sense of humour, and relying on the emotional connection this builds to make them more enthusiastic about train travel. We’re still just slightly shocked they didn’t include ‘Because I was Born to Do It’ as a reason.
Only 39% say that they get a positive feeling when they behave sustainably in their daily life
Stepping back
While it’s useful to dissect Capability, Opportunity and Motivation as we have, it’s also vital that we don’t treat them as distinct layers. They interact with each other and are part of a much larger feedback loop. They connect to our human values and ultimately impact how we think and what we do. And it’s only once we become sensitive to this entire system of behaviour that we can start to take meaningful steps to influence change and break the paralysis. This is exactly what spurs us on at One Minute to Midnight to keep digging deeper and thinking bigger about how we can rewrite business-as-usual and make the human the heartbeat of sustainable transformation.
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