The unseen inner dimension of systems change and sustainability
Lack of attention to the psychological and cultural dimension of systems is widespread – but inner factors are fundamental to global crises like climate change and the approaches we require to tackle them, write Jamie Bristow and Rosie Bell in this guest commentary.
In 1972 the Club of Rome published the world’s first advanced computer modelling of projected climate impacts in the Limits to Growth. That report emerged as a seminal critique of unbridled economic growth on a planet of finite resources, helping to lay groundwork for the global sustainability movement. Fifty years later, however, its sequel, Earth for All, attests to half a century of lessons not learned. Despite its tone of optimism, the report delivers a sobering analysis of the radical socioeconomic transformation now required to prevent ecological and societal collapse.
Earth for All amounts to an emergency to-do list: global policy levers that must now be pulled fast and decisively to avoid collapse trajectories. The report outlines ambitious goals for stabilising temperature and population growth, reducing material use, and tackling poverty and inequality: a framework within which wider networks may fill in the details of process and implementation. Within this and similar models, however, essential questions remain unanswered: who is the ‘we’ who must enact change – and most importantly at this late hour, what is stopping us?
Inner factors at work
Despite having the necessary policy tools, technological innovations and resources, humanity has consistently failed to take action at the rate, scale and depth necessary to prevent catastrophe. Now seven authors, all experts at the intersection of ‘inner-outer change’, have come together to help explain why. Their recent ‘deep-dive’ paper, published by the Club of Rome as part of the Earth4All project, explores the human inner dimension of necessary collective action, highlighting the profound transformations we require not only in our socioeconomic structures but also in the very fabric of human cognition and culture.
The inner dimensions of sustainability and systems transformation are endlessly overshadowed in high-level policy discussions by material priorities, yet are fundamental in creating and perpetuating our current crises. From the rise of consumerism fuelled by materialist values and evolutionary impulses to the fragmentation of collective identity and the innate biases steering our perceptions and political behaviour, inner factors are constantly at work, subtly pulling the levers of our external world. This arena of mindsets was described by the influential environmental thinker Donella Meadows as the “deepest leverage point for change”.
We may hesitate at the concept of ‘intervention’ in inner life – yet human wellbeing is indisputably served by the fuller realisation of innate inner capacities, particularly in a world where material ‘progress’ is pursued at all costs, while inner wealth has been sorely neglected. More alarmingly, our inner lives are routinely manipulated by commercial and political interests, which shape public opinion and consumer behaviour in ways that contribute directly to our polycrisis. It is now essential that we integrate understanding and cultivation of the inner – individual and collective – into systems approaches. Wisdom traditions and scientific research alike show that we are capable of understanding, nurturing and transforming our inner landscapes in ways that support the flourishing of all life. A burgeoning evidence base supports methods for necessary inner development at individual, group and societal levels.
Elements of the neglected ‘inner’
The elements of the ‘inner’ often missing from systems thinking can be understood in two broad categories. First, we risk forgetting the role of paradigms or systems of meaning in shaping societal structures and behaviour. Core cultural narratives about the world are typically experienced as reality itself – leading, for example, to blindness within individualist societies to the interdependence of all life and the complexities of our changing world. Second, we require better awareness of the transient subjective states and enduring psychological traits – such as cognitive biases and threat responses – that drive behaviour and influence ‘meaning-making’ at individual and collective levels, and the transformative capacities of heart and mind that can be cultivated to support resilience and collective action, and shift foundational attitudes over time. Our capacity for attention regulation, for example, is foundational to how our mind renders the world and pulls together all our other cognitive and emotional faculties, but it is being undermined by digital technology and the ‘attention economy’ just when we most need to focus on collective challenges.
In many ways, foundational to failing societal systems is a particular system of thought, with its origins in the European Enlightenment. This dominant mindset, rooted in the embrace of empiricism, reductionism and rationalism, has driven modern scientific advancement, bringing extraordinary material comfort to large parts of the world. At the same time, it has shaped over centuries a mass culture of alienation and exploitation on a planetary scale, setting human civilisation on a trajectory for collapse through its failure to comprehend the needs of complex living systems.
This same reductive materialism underpins widespread deprioritisation of inner life, while rationalism has popularised a drastically over-simplified model of human experience and motivation. As such, our understanding of human drives, impulses, resistance and potential is often remarkably poor, with catastrophic consequences for systems that rely on a functioning account of human behaviour. For example, our global trust in markets to deliver good outcomes is predicated upon a rationalist model of humans as ‘homo economicus’ – predictable beings, making decisions based on facts and reason. In fact, as psychology, neuroscience and behavioural economics show, our decision- and meaning-making processes are influenced by complex non-rational factors: emotions, biases, adaptive impulses, beliefs, identities and values. This defunct economic rationale leaves human and planetary life at the mercy of increasingly dysfunctional markets; meanwhile, the inner mechanisms constituting the problem are treated as unreal or unimportant.
To choose, design and enact effective, collective solutions at the scale and complexity called for by the current moment requires not only interrogation of the mindsets that shaped our predicament but also understanding of our innate, often latent capacity to transform them. Just as common traps in human psychology produce and maintain particular sustainability issues, common capacities are within reach to mitigate them, and lay inner foundations for more regenerative behaviours, societies and systems. Through evidence-based practices, individuals and groups can be empowered to transform ways of being, thinking and behaving, and cultivate modes of cognition and imagination fit for the complexities of our changing world.
Reimagining systemic change strategies
With these factors in mind, what we need is not a shift away from emphasis on material solutions, but rather a holistic reimagining of systemic change strategies: a dual approach to shifting the visible, external structures of society and the invisible, internal landscapes of the human mind and heart. Prominent theories and practices are already evolving to integrate these inner dimensions with external systemic transformation. Emerging models aim to develop capacities in leaders, support mindset shifts in teams and organisations, and foster comprehensive initiatives for individual, societal and planetary flourishing.
Earth for All proposes five ‘extraordinary turnarounds’ in global policy to secure a liveable future. In addition, we urge a sixth essential shift: a broad recognition and integration of the inner dimension into all facets of system thinking, policymaking, resource allocation and change strategies. Without this shift, it is likely we will continue to overlook systems solutions of sufficient depth. Achieving it, however, could not only unlock adequate responses to the crises we face but also begin to lay a foundation for a wiser world – and for human flourishing beyond our current ability to imagine.
The views in this commentary are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Grantham Research Institute.
Jamie Bristow is Public Narrative and Policy Development Lead for the Inner Development Goals. Rosie Bell is Senior Creative Associate at the Life Itself Institute and the Climate Majority Project. They are two of the co-authors of ‘The system within: Addressing the inner dimensions of sustainability and systems transformation’, published by the Club of Rome.