How individuals can promote systemic change towards sustainability
What role can individuals play in promoting a more sustainable society? This blog post explores how citizens can contribute to systemic change, not only through their consumption choices, but also by engaging in actions that influence political, economic, and social structures in support of a circular economy.
Understanding how citizens can influence political, economic, and social systems to support circularity
When I started my research in the Environmental Psychology group at the UG, I was planning to look at people’s consumption behaviours and what drives them to behave more sustainably. However, soon I began to wonder if “consuming” is all we can do. So I started to broaden my view and look for more behaviours citizens can show.
Indeed, citizens have much more power to make systems change than they might realize. This often seems forgotten in sustainability-related research. But we can urge governments, businesses, and other citizens to act as well, and thereby accelerate the overall transition to more sustainability, or more specifically, for my research, a circular economy.
I am Isabel Pacheco, a PhD candidate at the Environmental Psychology group of the UG, where we look at what motivates people to behave more sustainably. Together with my supervisors and co-authors, assistant professor Ellen van der Werff and professor Linda Steg, we recently published a paper about what citizens can do to promote more sustainability in general, and a circular economy in particular.
A circular economy is a system where we reduce our overall use of new resources, share more, and reuse, repair, refurbish or recycle existing materials. Our current economic and political system often makes it hard to act sustainably. That’s why we need more systemic changes. When systems change, it becomes easier and more attractive for us to change our own consumption behaviours as well. Think about the university cafeteria, how much easier is it to behave sustainably if there were reusable porcelain cups available, not only throw-away cups? In our research, we demonstrate that there are actions we can take to influence other “societal actors”, like governments, businesses, and other people.
→ See Figure 1 from the manuscript
We identified three circular citizenship behaviours that can encourage systemic change:
Number one: We can shift the demand towards circularity by influencing others around us, for example, by motivating our friends and family to be circular or praising them when they act sustainably.
Number two: We can support the circular supply of products and services by spending our money on sustainable companies or boycotting certain businesses. We can also call on our workplaces to develop circular products and services.
Number three: We can press for a political context that facilitates circularity. We can do that by influencing governments through protests, petitions, or contacting a government official.
Additionally, there are actions that might influence a variety of different actors at the same time or can be targeted at different actors, such as volunteering at or donating to an environmental NGO.
→ See Figure 2 from the manuscript
When systems change, it becomes more appealing and easier for more people to engage in even more circular behaviour, so we can tackle environmental and social problems faster and more effectively.If you want to dive deeper, have a look at the full paper.
Circular citizenship behaviors: How individuals can promote systemic change toward a circular economy
Isabel Maria Pacheco, Ellen van der Werff and Linda Steg
Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen
Summary
In this post, I demonstrate that individuals have more power to drive systemic change than is often assumed. Based on my research and a recently published paper together with Ellen van der Werff and Linda Steg, I introduce the concept of "Circular Citizenship Behaviors." We outline three main pathways through which individuals can influence societal systems: by encouraging others to adopt circular practices, by urging businesses to improve their supply of circular goods and services, and by advocating for political measures that facilitate circularity. Such actions can accelerate the broader transition toward sustainability and make circular behavior more accessible for all.
I am Isabel, a PhD at the environmental psychology lab at the UG. I studied psychology in Munich, with exchanges to Ireland and Spain. I came to Groningen to research what motivates people to be more sustainable. My research project is part of the European project CircEUlar, for which I examine circular consumption and citizenship behaviours. I love learning more about ways in which we can contribute to meaningful change. I believe that together we can make this change happen and take care of not only the environment, but also people around the world.