In the third installment of our ongoing series “Three Decades & Counting: Insights from successes and failures in 30+ years of communicating about sustainability,” Mathis Wackernagel  discusses the importance of  making human wellbeing and resource security central components of the climate conversation.

Moving out of carbon means transforming into a regenerative economy. It means living off of what nature can renew. Since living off depletion is not a viable long-term strategy, the transition will happen, whether we like it or not. It’s up to us to decide how: by design or by disaster?

Prosperity requires material inputs which all come from nature. If humanity transitions rapidly to living again within nature’s budget, we increase our chances of future prosperity. In this case, our assets will be more valuable: we will have the right infrastructure and better management strategies in place. Further, fast action will temper climate damage and help us maintain more biological resource regeneration.

In contrast, if humanity moves slowly, we all will be faced with less ecosystem regeneration in the future.

Human wellbeing as the focus

The fundamental concern to most societies is securing human wellbeing. Therefore, it may be counterproductive to position climate action as a goal – rather, it is a necessity for securing human wellbeing. By making climate action the goal, we make it a competitor to human wellbeing, when in reality it is an enabler. Therefore, commitments need to focus on human wellbeing – and the recognition that wellbeing will not last without climate action.

The deep challenge is how we can enable a thriving future for all, given:

• increased climate change and resource scarcity,
• the need to operate without fossil fuel within a couple of decades (or earlier),
• the narrowing of energy options as fossil fuel cannot just be replaced with resources that merely shift the demand on other portions of the biosphere, such as using more wood for fuel, and
• a still growing human population with many unmet material needs.

Traditional approaches to carbon reduction treat carbon as an “externality” or a separate silo that can be managed as a single issue. They propose to run detailed carbon inventories, tracking scope 1, 2, and 3 of cities’ carbon footprints, and provide plenty of forms and calculators. But such approaches turn decarbonization into a conditionality; they become additional requirements that make already difficult conventional city management even more demanding. Such efforts will be seen as an extra cost, a noble effort that competes with all other important and urgent needs that are also underfunded: health care, education, public safety, potholes, workable transportation systems, food security, etc.

In contrast, successful carbon strategies produce results if addressed as an integral necessity for human wellbeing. Carbon strategies cannot win if they are competing with other needs. They must be enablers for human wellbeing. Because lasting wellbeing can only succeed with strategies informed by the real climate and resource constraints every city and country faces.

Prioritizing resource security

Climate stability and resource security are neither luxuries nor nice-to-haves. Addressing these fundamentals goes far beyond an additional noble task. It is essential for securing a functioning economy. Resource security is most immediately critical for lower-income populations. These populations do not have the extra savings to buy themselves out of a squeeze.

Currently, most economic development theory or practice build on a depletion model. We destroy assets, particularly nature, as we produce income; the destruction is not the purpose, but a seemingly inconsequential side-effect. The real trick is to shift development to a model based on regenerative value creation, where we truly build our city’s or country’s wealth, so income can be maintained now and in the future.

The strategic questions for any city, company or country become:

• How much nature do we use in our country and our city?
• How much nature do we have in our region, our country, and in the world?
• Which domains (food, shelter, mobility, etc.) contribute to what percentage of the total demand? And what are the trends?
• Where do we want to be? More specifically, which demand to regeneration ratio do we want to achieve to thrive now and in the future, given the physical realities within which we live? (These realities are shaped by ecological constraints and the need to move out of fossil fuel)
• How does this desire translate into priorities, for budgets and policies?
• How can we invest our public and private budgets most effectively to maximize wealth generation?
• How can we determine the relative benefits of options? And,
• Are the imagined options good enough to serve our need to secure our wellbeing now and in the future?

Widening our lens

To understand the entirety of resource dependence forces us to go beyond carbon. It is more helpful to consider all resource demands that compete for the planet’s limited regeneration. Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting (https://data.footprintnetwork.org) take such a comprehensive approach. These accounts include all human demands that compete for nature, including the need for sequestration of anthropogenic carbon. They also show us how much regeneration is available, locally or globally.

What does this all mean? To succeed, we do not need stand-alone climate commitments. Rather we need to focus on how to manage for lasting wellbeing, realizing that this is not possible without being resource secure. Investing in our company’s, city’s or country’s success therefore necessitates actions that are also profoundly beneficial for the climate. These actions enable our success.

Municipal, corporate, and national leaders who want to become equipped to deal with the climate crisis would be best served by strengthening their abilities to answer the above questions, so they can find the most effective ways to enhance wellbeing, given the climate and resource realities in which we increasingly operate. It is not about extra budgets for the climate; rather it is about how to use existing budgets in a way that strengthens true, regenerative wealth creation, enhancing our ability to thrive now and in the future.

Let’s take our wellbeing seriously, because this will help us recognize how fundamental, if not existential, bold climate action is.

Please share your ideas and perspectives with us by completing the form below! We’d like to incorporate your thoughts into future blog posts, and we always love to hear your reactions and reflections.

Creation of this content generously funded by the MAVA Foundation for Nature

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In the second installment of our ongoing series “Three Decades & Counting: Insights from successes and failures in 30+ years of communicating about sustainability,” Mathis Wackernagel explores the perceptions and misperceptions of climate action and how we talk about it. Join the conversation below!

What’s holding back the sustainability transition most is not the fact that decision-makers do not know that we are systematically depleting the planet. The problem is that they think it is too costly for them to act. This may be one of the most damaging misconceptions we face.

Therefore, this is the shift Global Footprint Network is looking for: moving public perception from perceiving being caught in a “free-riding problem” to realizing that each one of us has “skin in the game.” “Free-riding” (or “tragedy of the commons” as some call it) implies action benefits humanity, but costs me. “Skin in the game” recognizes that my own fate is tied to taking action; my action is an investment into my own ability to thrive (and is also beneficial for humanity).

If I see “free-riding” as the dominant force defining sustainability, I conclude that it  takes heroic, noble action to address the challenge. If I feel “skin in the game,” then me acting for sustainability becomes an obvious necessity for myself. What is your take?

The table below highlights key differences between the conventional “noble” narrative and the “necessary” narrative, and why at Global Footprint Network we are convinced that the “necessary” narrative would be far more effective in unleashing the sustainability transformation.

Just to be clear: we are not denying that “free-riding” is a real force to contend with. Rather, we believe that our “skin in the game” is significant enough to make most sustainability actions also directly beneficial to the actor.

The noble vs. necessary view of sustainability action

In summary: Are we facing aligned or misaligned incentives?

Most climate and sustainability commentators today see primarily misaligned incentives, where what would be good for humanity comes at a cost to themselves. But given that the calamities of ecological overuse ultimately affect our cities, companies and countries, the direct incentives to prepare our cities, companies and countries for the future we anticipate also seems quite obvious. Therefore careful investments in the sustainability transformation would seem to have sufficient benefits for the actor/investor. Unless you believe that this is not going to hit you, i.e., that you can get away with it. But this may be a poor assumption. So, are the aligned incentives in the sustainability domain sufficient for cities, companies and countries to act in the face of potential “free-riding” forces?

The effect of misaligned incentives, meaning what is good for me is not good for humanity, and vice versa, bears many names, including “free-rider problem” or  “tragedy of the commons.” They require “noble responses.” Noble actors only expect costs and no personal benefits. Being trapped in planetary “tragedies of the commons” is still the dominant narrative. Since such tragedies require noble responses, there is much noble talk, but sustainability action is typically relegated to Sunday afternoons, if ever.

Aligned incentives mean that my interest and humanity’s go together. Some call this effect “people have skin in the game.”   For those people, action is NECESSARY if not ESSENTIAL for themselves. Granted, some people still do not act, even if it’s necessary for themselves (e.g., quitting smoking, maintaining a healthy diet, getting enough sleep). But having skin in the game makes meaningful action far more likely.

In our view, the sustainability challenge may be characterized far more by aligned than misaligned incentives, in contrast to society’s general rhetoric. That’s why we need to shift the narrative.

Organizations’ power, and particularly that of not-for-profit organizations, comes from helping people see aligned incentives, where they now misperceive misaligned incentives. This is what I am obsessed about these days.

P.S.: Free-riding and the “tragedy of the commons”. I use the terms “free-riding” and “tragedy of the commons” interchangeably here. Related concepts include the “prisoner’s dilemma” and “open access to rival public goods.”
Free-riding occurs when individuals take disproportionate advantage of shared resources, enjoying the benefits for themselves while passing the costs to society. Conversely, it can also mean failing to contribute a fair share to collective well-being. This behavior undermines social trust and cooperation. For example:

• I benefit from driving a fossil-fuel-powered car, while the noise and pollution affect everyone.
• If I pick up litter at the beach, the benefit is shared by all.

Ecologist Garrett Hardin explored this dilemma in his famous article, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” The phrase has since become a popular term for free-riding, though economists more commonly use the latter.
Unfortunately, Hardin’s title was misleading. He should have called his paper “The Tragedy of Free-Riding,” because well-managed commons can actually solve free-riding, a point Hardin himself acknowledged. He argued that overcoming the tragedy requires “mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon,” which is perhaps the most concise definition of a commons.
Hardin’s poorly worded title caused significant confusion, but on the positive side, it also inspired Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize-winning work, which helped clarify the issue.

For more reflections on narrative and communication approaches, check out this page.

Please share your ideas and perspectives with us by completing the form below! We’d like to incorporate your thoughts into future blog posts, and we always love to hear your reactions and reflections.

Creation of this content generously funded by the MAVA Foundation for Nature

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by Mathis Wackernagel, Co-Founder and President

There is ever more indication that the current narratives around sustainability, climate, and resource use have not succeeded in winning people’s hearts and minds. At least not to the extent necessary to make the needed transformation a priority, and not amongst the broader public nor the policy elite.

The common narratives have not brought audiences closer to the topic. They have not built the emotional attraction. Nor have they strengthened the audiences’ ownership over the necessary sustainability transformation. As a result, the current narrative is stuck in “a noble cause” conversation, which many people associate with burden, suffering, and sacrifice. It is a narrative that is self-defeating.

The reason the sustainability transformation is seen as noble is amplified by a widespread but misguided belief: that those who act for sustainability bear the cost while the benefits are spread to a distant humanity. This misaligned incentive is termed “tragedy of the commons”, a dynamic that leads to a destructive tension between individual and collective interests.

From this “tragedy of the commons” perspective, climate or sustainability action is noble and may be existential for humanity, but not necessary for oneself. The belief that climate action is merely a noble gift to humanity instills little confidence that this will be enough to turn the trends. People feel powerless. They see a big humanity on a big planet that needs to be rescued, but their individual contribution seems as insignificant as a single drop in the ocean.

The benefits of action

However, at Global Footprint Network, we believe the overemphasized “tragedy of the commons” narrative is unhelpful. Those who act to advance sustainability often reap unrealized and accruing benefits that make it worthwhile for them to continue their sustainability efforts. For example, once we realize that the future will have to become far more resource efficient and inevitably fossil fuel free, it becomes a clear value proposition to invest in our own cities by:

• Investing in efficient heating and cooling systems for residents,
• Implementing fossil-fuel free transportation systems (with extra emphasis on people-powered options like walking and biking), and
• Creating livable neighborhoods that make local living practical and pleasant, etc.

These investments all increase the resilience of the city, preserve the city’s wealth, and, as a by-product, also reduce pressure on the biosphere.

The most dangerous approach for any sustainability actor is inaction and delay because it puts themselves directly at risk. The reason is simple: if you are not preparing for the predictable future, you and your assets will not be ready for that condition. To not prepare and adjust is economic self-sabotage.

Exploring our communications

In order to encourage a shift in the narrative where sustainability and climate action is seen as necessary for oneself, I have found it invaluable to approach communications with three key tenets in mind:

• Help our clients, partners, and audiences see that they are not powerlessly trapped by the “tragedy of the commons.”
• Always use a narrative where the sustainability actors demonstrate they are “in the game” and will benefit from their actions.
• Choose a narrative that makes the topic desirable.

We want people to fall in love with becoming one-planet compatible. We want people to recognize that acting for climate and sustainability is a ticket to their own success. It should be so inviting that many people take the transformation on as their passion. This approach aligns with Global Footprint Network’s perspective.

Therefore, we experiment with:

• How do we help anyone recognize their direct “skin in the game”?
• How do we make obvious that people’s own success stems from, and in fact depends on, contributing to sustainability?
• Is our “skin in the game” narrative based in reality, or merely wishful thinking? If it’s not solid enough, how can it be developed and expanded? If it is, how can it be deployed?
• We have tried many paths in the past. Which of our efforts failed and which helped us pivot?
• What can we learn from others about engaging effectively with partners and audiences?

These are questions we will pursue in our upcoming monthly blog series Three Decades & Counting: Insights from successes and failures in 30+ years of communicating about sustainability. Please share your ideas and perspectives with us by completing the form below! We’d like to incorporate your thoughts into future blog posts, and we always love to hear your reactions and reflections.

Creation of this content generously funded by the MAVA Foundation for Nature

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