In the halls of academia and policy chambers, we often speak of "mainstreaming" sustainability. We integrate climate modules into curricula, add green competencies to job descriptions, and design policies that aim for carbon neutrality. Yet, despite this proliferation of much needed and meritorious frameworks – such as the EU’s competence framework for learning for sustainability “GreenComp”, the “MSCA Green Charter” or the New European Bauhaus initiative – we face a persistent paradox: high awareness does not directly translate into deep, sustained behavioral change. We know what is happening to our planet, yet engaging effectively in environmental care seems elusive. For the past two years, as part of the ODEEN project, I have been undertaking research to address this gap. Using transdisciplinary methods, that is, going beyond academia to include community, embodied and arts-based knowledge, I have been trying to find ways in which to reconnect with nature beyond fact-based and problem-based approaches. 

The main result? A way forward for environmental education and care to truly take root by moving beyond mainstreaming toward "root-streaming." This requires a new type literacy that should permeate research, policy and education: ontological literacy.

The Limits of Secular-Scientific Realism

Most contemporary educational and policy frameworks operate on an unspoken assumption: there is one objective reality, best described by scientific metrics. In this view, a forest is a carbon sink; a river is a water resource; a bee is a pollinator. While scientifically accurate, this framing strips the world of its relational depth. It assumes that if we simply provide enough data, people will act rationally to preserve these resources.

But human beings do not live in data points. We live in worlds of meaning. For some, the forest is sacred; for others, it is ancestral land; for others still, it is a place of spiritual renewal. When education ignores these diverse ontologies – the fundamental ways in which different groups understand what exists and what matters – it risks alienating large segments of the population. It creates a form of "ontological blindness," where only one way of knowing is validated, and all others are relegated to the status of superstition or anecdote.

What Is Ontological Literacy?

Ontological literacy is the capacity to identify, navigate, and co-create multiple realities without demanding assimilation into a single dominant worldview. It is about expanding our pedagogical toolkit to include intersubjective and more-than-human relationships. The more-than-human considers everything to be nature, and nothing to be outside of it: objects, bacteria, love, the stock market, a cat, a girl, an ocean, an idol, God, an asteroid… In the more-than-human nothing exists in isolation; everything and every being plays a role. 

Consider the tree. A scientific approach teaches us about photosynthesis, growth rings, and ecological function. An ontologically literate approach asks: What is my relationship to this tree? Is it a commodity? A neighbor? A deity? An ancestor? By exploring these questions, we move from abstract knowledge to embodied connection. We realize that our stewardship of the Earth is both a technical duty and a moral and existential commitment.

This shift is crucial because it moves us into active, aware and relational participation beyond anthropocentrism. Ontological literacy is an intellectual exercise – more concretely, and in the words of philosopher Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins, hermeunetic labor – that results in transformed action. It is a pedagogical process composed of four overlapping phases that transform how we inhabit our shared planet:

It begins with ontological descentering, the foundational skill of recognizing one’s own worldview by questioning the cultural frameworks that conform and confirm our perceptions. This involves entering a state of mind where what we assume to be true is seen as contingent, creating the mental space necessary to question what we take for granted and remain open to possibilities that previously seemed inconceivable.

Building on this, ontological awareness allows us to articulate our own worldview in dialogue with differing ones, avoiding dismissal or reductionism. It enables us to identify deeply rooted biases and recognize the legitimate existence of alternative ontologies, ensuring that diverse ways of being are understood on their own terms through critical translation mechanisms.

From there, we move toward planetary purpose, which acknowledges the agency of non-human entities and weaves it into shared systems of meaning. This phase moves beyond human-centric goals, aligning personal and professional trajectories with the health of the broader ecological community. By rooting identity in relationships with both human and more-than-human beings, we orient our lives toward reciprocity and cultivate a sense of purpose integrated into a broader understanding of world-making.

Finally, these insights culminate in regenerative action – the practical application of ontological literacy. This involves critical and responsible participation in ongoing processes of world-making, engaging body, emotion, intellect, and territory in collective efforts. Regenerative action transforms ontological understanding into tangible, transdisciplinary practices that sustain life and well-being, addressing systemic crises through holistic, embodied intervention.

Root-Streaming vs. Mainstreaming

"Mainstreaming" implies adding a layer of green content to existing structures. "Root-streaming" goes deeper. It seeks to transform the underlying assumptions of those structures. It acknowledges that environmental justice is intertwined with social and epistemic justice.

For example, in rural communities across Europe, traditional practices often embody sophisticated ecological wisdom: such as moving livestock seasonally to keep grasslands healthy and diverse; building stone walls and hedgerows that prevent soil erosion while providing homes for wildlife; and preserving food through fermentation, smoking, or storing it in cool earth cellars – methods that use natural low-energy processes to keep food safe and nutritious all year round. Ignoring these practices in favour of top-down technical solutions not only wastes valuable local and empirically tested knowledge generation after generation, but also disempowers communities. 

Ontological literacy provides tools – such as "silhouetting ontologies" (mapping who has the right to define truth and value) and "categorizing ontologies" (examining what counts as alive, conscious, or rational) – to make power dynamics visible, conferring agency and decision-making beyond scientific expertise.  It allows educators and policymakers to design interventions that resonate with the deep-seated meaning systems of diverse stakeholders, including non-humans actors.

A Call for Relational Pedagogy

Introducing ontological literacy into religious studies and broader humanities, social sciences and environmental sciences curricula offers a unique opportunity. Scholars of religion have long understood that worldviews shape behaviour. By collaborating with environmental scientists, sociologists, educators, and many others beyond our disciplinary confines, we can develop pedagogies that honour ontological and epistemic diversity as cultural and natural richness.

The ecological crisis we are facing is also a crisis of meaning: we must recover and redefine the stories that connect us to the web of life and what our role is within it. Ontological literacy invites us to think about, challenge and act upon the way in which we exist in our world. 

*All results from the ODEEN project, including methodologies, theoretical frameworks, study protocols, and other relevant tools for the implementation and uptake of ontological literacy are (or will become available in the upcoming months) in the following links: 

• https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101104953 

• https://zenodo.org/communities/odeen 

The ODEEN project is co-funded by the MSCA Actions of the Horizon Europe Programme of the European Union.