Environment strategy: transformative changes for sustainability

Executive Summary

Demands are rising in academic and policy circles for sustainability transformations. This is due to several factors such as i) perceived failures of sustainability interventions to date, ii) the alarm bells ringing on interconnected environmental and social crises and iii) recognition that incremental approaches will not suffice and indeed prevent the kinds of change needed given the nature of cascading tipping points in socio-ecological systems. This report summarises recent developments in transformative change academic and policy discourses to identify insights for the Scottish Government’s Environment Strategy.

Definitions of transformative change vary, ranging from those that envision changes in a socio-ecological system state, for example, to those that envision deep changes across goals, values and paradigms towards sustainability. Different strands of dynamic systems thinking have dominated transformative change academic discourse and significantly influence policy debates. They emphasise the emergent nature of socio-ecological change and inherent uncertainties in change processes. Change can result from the development of niche innovations at landscape level which reshape wider regimes. Leverage points are a key concept in this field, foregrounding interventions seeking to catalyse change across an entire system via deeper leverage approaches, such as mobilizing values shifts, rather than solely targeting policies or resources – the latter being shallower leverage points. Deep leverage points are harder to achieve in practice. Empowerment approaches to transformative change highlight the fact that transformation definitions and processes will inevitably involve contestation, because there are diverse values and plural worldviews. Emancipatory processes are needed which can allow this contestation and support action, promoted by progressive social movements, such as environmental and decoloniality movements engaged in political mobilisation and cultural change.

A more recent academic field of enquiry is now well established in the social sciences, environmental humanities and arts, namely relationality. This is more than a theory, it is a major turn in philosophy, social sciences, humanities and arts, in which the nature of reality is conceptualised as perpetual flux, and in which human-nature relations are deeply entangled and interdependent. While sometimes challenging to understand – partly because it challenges dominant perspectives and ways of being – such philosophies, arguably offer hope for revitalising sustainability efforts. There are plural relational philosophies drawing upon many Indigenous ways of living and being, as well as some Eastern religions, but they are also found in academia, with some similarities to quantum physics. Applying the insights is not straightforward, but it offers potential. Key aspects include recognizing the emotional and spiritual dimensions of human-nature relations, not just the economic and cognitive. Decentring human priorities is key, and involves recognition and embracing of the agency, subjectivities, experiences, senses, social structures, forms of communication and labour of complex assemblages of non-humans and vibrant objects (plants, animals, infrastructures, technologies, natural and geological forces etc). Non-humans and inhumans play a role in creating unfolding processes of life, albeit with differing levels of sentience and accountability. Recognizing these dynamic relations can give us more reasons to care – i.e. if human-nature relations are already entangled and inter-dependent, then they need to be reciprocal and care-full, to support collective wellbeing, generating empathy and awe of the relations themselves, rather than regarded as solely specific entities or species in nature and giving attentiveness to the everyday not just the spectacular. In these philosophies then, values, goals, and paradigm shifts are needed for transformative change, but also deep change in dominant ways of being, understandings of reality and ethics.

Achieving transformative change is challenging, not least for democratic states, due to the legitimacy requirements on governments to deliver increasing material wellbeing through consumerism, which traps them in webs of capitalism and prevents deeper approaches to post-growth and wellbeing economies. More critical reflection is needed on the capitalist web that traps nations in growth paradigms, and on the idea that the corporate private sector is needed at any negotiating table on sustainability to achieve transformations. The latter under-estimates the intensifying power and wealth of multi-national corporations and elite individuals, including their growing influence on national level decision-making, and their causal role in creating socio-ecological impacts. Many colonial nations have international historical impacts, and contemporary high-income countries and elite social groups outsource their socio-environmental impacts to poorer countries and regions, which often have the fewest resources to adapt and will be disproportionately impacted by climate change. There are thus important questions of justice to consider.

Transformative change in relationality is associated with ethical shifts – towards ethics of care across all relations, relations which can regenerate autonomously, contributing to collective wellbeing in an ever-changing, dynamic world. Thus, relational philosophies can themselves be considered a deep leverage point – one that is more specifically defined than many contemporary definitions of transformative change, many of which assume scientific and technical solutions, market-based options and narrow economic levers are the way forward. Amplifying relational thinking involves creating new speculative imaginaries (shared identities and relations with others and nature) for the future and defending and amplifying existing imaginaries that are already deeply sustainable, i.e. those based upon ethics of care for multiple species such as socio-cultures and practices in ecovillages, commons-based initiatives such as cooperatives and some Indigenous and local communities.

The inherent inadequacies of reform-oriented approaches are detailed. These have been common for several decades, linked to growing awareness of sustainability challenges, but narrowly focused on technical and market-based measures to solve what are in essence much deeper challenges. Examples include voluntary corporate codes and sustainability standards for products in agro-food systems. While these may have positive impacts on certain criteria and at a local level, the impact evidence is mixed, and they potentially obscure the wider types of changes required, such as constraints on consumption. Harder approaches, such as deforestation due diligence, may have greater success in certain places, but also face similar competitive pressures of the global economy and its accumulation imperatives. Questions are already being raised as to their likely effectiveness and possible spillover and leakage effects given that they are not being implemented on a global scale, but only by certain trading blocs or countries.

Commodity sector and landscape-based approaches are widely lauded and may have successes on some indicators in some places, responding to the complex realities on the ground in production localities. However, these again fail to address and often obscure the underlying imperatives and structures of the global economy, advancing corporate influence and contributing to the commodification of nature, at the expense of Indigenous and local peoples. Evidence on green growth suggests that this is not happening on the scale, magnitude and duration required to mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions in line with international agreements. Environmental damage is already undermining economic growth around the world and is likely to significantly affect global incomes, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable nations and peoples, despite their significantly lesser contribution to generating emissions, biodiversity losses and land degradation. Thus, there is a clear need to change how we organise economies, including underlying principles, values and structures.

Deep leverage points for transformation also require more than national government policy levers, but progressive action by social movements more broadly, although democratic governments can sustain and expand civic space for such movements. Further, it will require changes in the nature of the state and the nature and organisation of its politics and economies, rather than specific policy levers or technical solutions alone. As this report is commissioned by and designed to inform the Scottish Government in addressing transformative change for sustainability, it explores what is the scope for governments to act to shape their policy decisions differently. The transformative potential of certain policy levers in four areas – originally identified and assessed by the 2022 Inter-Governmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Values Assessment, based on available evidence - are explored in greater depth and with added critical analysis, and with additional areas such as political levers included. The analysis draws upon more recent research evidence and insights from relationality and More-Than-Human philosophies, dynamic systems thinking and empowerment theories. Some of the IPBES-identified ‘more transformative potential’ approaches are critically examined and with changes suggested and new ones added. This allows the setting out of broad recommendations for governmental actions which could contribute to transformations, in Scotland and beyond. These include process-oriented proposals, which can support contestation of sustainability futures for radical change of the kind now needed, given inadequate action to date by all governments, especially of high-income economies with historical legacies and rising climate and ecological damage.

Table 1: Summary of Deep Leverage Points for More Transformative Change

Leverage Points: Broad and Recommendations

Economic and Fiscal Policy Levers

Reimagine economies toward post-growth & conviviality (new visions and ways of life practices) through arts, community engagement, micro-deliberative democracies, and safe spaces for civil society to contest and enact transformations.

Expanding participation in economic decision-making (exploring ‘living well together’ through abundant sufficiency concepts in social learning and deliberative democracy).

Addressing growth dependency via demand side and supply side measures to redesign economies and break national glass ceilings, building international support for redesigning financial architectures, curbing high consumer impacts, limit long distance trade in unnecessary products, via reductions, substitutions and demand shifts to reduce land use change pressures and dispossessions, support equitable development of less affluent nations while tackling consumerism throughout.

Prefigure & expand alternative economies in practice (abundant sufficiency, ethics of care in human and non-human relations, support for commoning, land redistribution and commons-based public spaces, change ways of assessing national wellbeing, place-based autonomous regeneration).

Change economics and its influence in decision-making (enhance public support for post-growth economic redesign through education (schools, universities).

Legal and Regulatory Policy Instruments

Rights of Nature (support global movements on this, explore options for nationally supporting measures on rights of nature – for example, including naturehood to persons, ecocide, plus restorative justice and environmental courts; support community and civic capacity to hold government to account on environmental harms and ensure transparency and accountability mechanisms; observe international legal commitments and treaties on the environment).

Legal support for community land ownership & access (support local communities to gain greater access to and ownership of land for sustainable management, especially support for Indigenous community customary governance, expand legal support to protect environmental and human rights defenders).

Other indirect legal measures (Legal measures to tackle large corporate concentration such as anti-monopoly regulation.)

Social and Cultural Policy Instruments

Revitalising Indigenous cultures and learning from Indigenous Peoples and relational philosophies (supporting indigenous revitalisation and rights, learning from Indigenous cosmologies and other relational philosophies).

Embed environment across education and mobilise relationality and more-than-human insights (including in environmental education, experiential/sensory/spiritual dimensions of human-nature relations, promote celebration and awe of relations involving humans and non-human and linkages to ethics of care.

Engaging communities, building awareness of relationality and ethics of care (arts for engaging communities emotionally, spiritually, bodily, as well as cognitively, community arts, artist speculation on futures).

Place-based approaches for autonomous regeneration (tailored approaches, mobilizing relational insights and commoning, autonomous economies, building skills and capacities for place-based work and celebration of human-nature engagement).

Radical and speculative future-making (speculative future making by artists, participatory researchers and public, mobilise relational insights, such as giving active voice to nature in decision-making and exploring futures, create political positions that promote sustainable futures for humans and non-humans, and engage with inter-governmental future-making).

Mobilise relationality insights in research and action research (transdisciplinary processes, with more space for marginal critical social sciences, environmental humanities and arts in tackling sustainability, citizen sciences/arts/journalism etc, decolonising research and promoting Indigenous research methods).

Rights-based and Customary Instruments

Invest in and expand Indigenous and local peoples’ customary land rights and land governance (support UNDRIP, increase relational philosophies of human-nature relations, support convivial conservation and post-development approaches, efforts to decolonise and including environmental funding to address reparations and focus on conviviality.)

Political Instruments

Micro-deliberative democracy (expand issues tackled including broad notions of future and wellbeing, not only more focused topics, represent non-human interests in decision-making, link to creative arts for nature having the active voice).

Changing the nature of democratic states & inter-governmental cooperation (build public support for changes in nature of democratic state e.g. taking ownership of highly damaging industries, building abundant sufficiency philosophies and practices, seek to revitalise inter-governmental cooperation on futures, protect / expand safe space for environmental social movements and human rights/environmental defenders).

In conclusion, exploring and acting to achieve transformative change has never been more necessary given the inter-connected nature of social and ecological challenges facing humanity, and the intensifying damage to ecologies and peoples. Transformative change has different interpretations, but deeper shifts are needed in goals, values and paradigms than previously envisioned in many sustainability efforts. This is where hope can be found for more effective future action. Drawing upon existing evidence and new research and ideas, it is possible to think of deep leverage points as those that reimagine goals, values and paradigms, predicated on ethics of care. While change is needed in the nature of democratic states and social movements are fundamental to change, specific policy levers which can contribute to these broader transformative shifts include economic and financial measures (reimagine and redesign economies towards post-growth approaches, including higher scale global and national measures and more autonomous regeneration in places), legal pathways, socio-cultural approaches, rights-based and customary approaches and political dimensions to achieve deep change towards care-oriented outcomes. Relationality thinking offers huge potential for revitalizing sustainability efforts, by challenging anthropocentric perspectives, expanding attention to multi-species living well together.