Why Natural Change?

Written by Dave Key

Thursday, 04 June 2009 09:39

There is much evidence that dominant approaches to encouraging pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) do not result in long-term, large-scale social change. 'Shock and awe' campaigning - showing ecocide and social devastation - in the hope that awareness of issues will motivate people to act, is now suggested to actually make people less likely to take action.

Many large NGO's and agencies have realised the paradox of shock and awe and have sought better approaches in social marketing techniques - using marketing to promote pro-environmental behaviour, rather than using it to promote behaviour that is often deeply unsustainable. However, recent research suggests that the psychological patterns created by marketing may actually reinforce generic consumer behaviour.

In the end can it ever be possible to consume our way out of a crisis caused largely by consumerism?

We need to change the deep-seated cultural and psychological structures that hold many current unsustainable patterns of behaviour in place. This means we need to work with values, beliefs and self-concept (identity). There's lots of evidence that behaviour change can best be influenced in the long-term through psychological approaches that work in this way.

Luckily, such approaches are already widely used in various therapeutic and educational contexts, with great success. Indeed, the entire field of psychotherapy is based on this premise. Natural Change brings these approaches into an ecological context - and to a new audience.

So why Natural Change? Well, because 40 years of environmentalism hasn't delivered the change we need. It's time to really spread our wings, dig deep, to be realistic about the limitations of many current approaches to change and to delve deep into the human psyche where the roots of personal and social change really lie.

www.naturalchange.org.uk

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