Cultural approaches to environmentalism
There are three main approaches to environmentalism in the Western world: the technological, the cognitive, and the behavioural. A lot of effort (and money) has been put into all three over the last 50 years. We can always wish for more, but there has been a lot of climate and nature ‘action’ too; the sector is large and growing.
Has it worked? To an extent, yes. There is no doubt that today’s situation could be a lot lot worse than it already is. If it wasn’t for the work that has been done, it almost certainly would be.
The trouble is, when we add all those decades of environmentalism up, it is clear that it has not been sufficiently effective; not by a long shot. Some of it has also, perhaps, been counterproductive (more on that later).
I don’t say this to undermine the ingenuity, the commitment, and the blood, sweat, and tears of my friends and colleagues in the sector, or myself for that matter (I’ve been environmentalling for 25+ years). We have done a combination of what we thought it was best to do, what we have been employed to do, and what funders have funded us to do.
The effort put in has been mighty and significant and, for all its imperfections, I’m proud to have been part of it. Things are not, however, where we hoped they would be by the year 2026; but they’re also not as bad as some feared they might be.
The reality is that even though we have had some successes at a local level and even some wins at the global level, the overall story is still one of losses: habitats destroyed, species driven to extinction, landscapes irreversibly lost or damaged, land, sea, air, and bodies polluted with toxic gases, plastics, and metals, the list goes on.
The biggest loss, of course, has been on climate change - the ultimate threat multiplier; we’re not winning, the situation is grave. Climate change continues to accelerate, its impacts are directly killing people, it is derailing progress made in other fields, and looks set to cause catastrophic environmental and ecological change in the near to medium term.
We are sailing past the 1.5°C threshold, look set to blast past the 2°C threshold too, and could end up with global average temperatures that are 3°C or more warmer than pre-industrial times by the end of this century. With several irreversible tipping points having already been passed and others rapidly approaching, climate and ecological collapse is now being talked about in national security risk terms by (some) governments.
So it is clear, the three main Western approaches - the technological, the behavioural, and the cognitive - are not doing enough. They’re not stopping climate change; they’re not enabling enough adaptation; and they’re struggling to contain the forces that are destroying nature.
In asking where we might go from here, one response is to double down, to make the case for more of the same, but much more. This manifests as an insistence that the only problem is the volume of action, not the type of action. The argument is that by doing more of one, two, or all three of the mainstream approaches, we’ll turn the tide.
I used to believe this argument, but am not sure I do anymore. It might be that these approaches have - and will always have - limited effect, no matter how much effort is thrown at them. I don’t think I’m the only one whose belief in environmentalism, as we in Western world know it, (and mostly do it), is ebbing.
This does not mean that we need to wholesale abandon the three main approaches (though there are elements of it that I think we should drop). What it means is that we might need to do environmentalism a bit (a lot?) differently in the coming years. Cultural approaches may offer a way forward.
What is culture?
Culture means different things to different people, here are some thoughts on it that resonate with me:
“Culture is the name for what people are interested in, their thoughts, their models, the books they read and the speeches they hear.”
Walter Lippmann“One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself”
Shannon L. Alder
“The crucial differences which distinguish human societies and human beings are not biological. They are cultural.”
Ruth Benedict“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.”
Alan W. Watts
“A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Culture is something that is made and continuously remade. For example, we talk about creating ‘a good work culture’ in our offices. In this context, workplace culture is the shared set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours that shape how people interact and get work done when they are at work. It is a kind of unwritten social order that makes a workplace what it is.
Inns have a culture, so do cafes, shops, high streets, clubs, schools and charities, as do entire cities, regions, countries, continents. This is why we speak of ‘cultural differences’ and ‘culture shock.’
In the UK and many other global north and south countries a highly problematic culture of hyper-individualism, has developed. If someone was to time travel from Wales in 1976, to the same place in Wales in 2026, the culture shock they would experience would be significant. Once they’d got their heads round all the technological advancements, they would wonder why individualism - and the independent self - had become so prominent.
A cultural approach to environmentalism
I am indebted to the multiple works and thinking of Iveta Silova, Jeremy Rappleye and Hikaru Komatsu on this topic (I recommend reading this November 2025 article by way of introduction). I drew on their work in my TEDx talk and agree strongly with them that the roots of the climate and nature crisis are cultural and therefore require a cultural response. I agree with their conclusion that a specific cultural approach to environmentalism is needed, here in the West, to back up the technological, behavioural, and cognitive approaches that still dominate.
To view environmentalism through a cultural lens is to accept that every programme or campaign (on any issue, not just ‘environmental’ issues) has an effect - even if very small - on the direction in which culture is going: our work, therefore, is culture shifting whether we plan it that way or not.
The question is, in which direction are we shifting it? If hyper-individualism is as problematic as it appears to be, this question is one we should all be paying close attention to - it is all too easy to inadvertently reinforce the values, beliefs and attitudes that create the hyper-individualistic culture we live in.
Educators need to be especially careful in this regard because they engage people at the very stage of life when their values, beliefs, and worldviews are being formed - childhood and adolescence. But communications teams, campaigners, spokespeople, fundraisers, and even HR teams, all need to take care too. Whether we intend to or not, we are always shifting and, therefore, contribution to the ongoing creation of the culture(s) we swim in.
Many environmental programmes and campaigns are culturally aware (they understand the cultural norms they are engaging with), but some are seemingly ambivalent about the wider impact they might be having on culture. We can classify this form of environmentalism as culturally aware, but agnostic.
Culturally agnostic approaches to environmentalism give very little care and attention to the wider consequences, and long term cultural impact, of the tactics and strategies they use. Whether or not the long term effect on culture is good or bad comes down to luck, it has not been factored in. Short, sharp, campaigns often fall into this ‘agnostic’ category, but longer term programmes can sometimes operate in this way too. The approach is to tap into cultural norms, not to change them. The result, most often, is a reinforcement of those cultural norms.
A second, more responsible, category covers approaches that do take the wider cultural impact of their approach into consideration at both design and implementation stage. Depending on how seriously they take this consideration, they may decide it is better, for example, to sacrifice some short term narrow wins for the sake of the wider culture shifting work their programme or campaign might be contribute to.
These are sometimes not easy decisions to take, and funders can question them, but they are done in ‘common cause’ with other environmentalists. Campaigns in this second category are often primarily concerned with a specific issue, e.g. air pollution, but are designed to also have some positive (or at least no negative) collateral impact on the cultural norms, values, beliefs and worldviews of the people and communities they are engaging. They could perhaps be classified as culturally considerate approaches.
Culturally considerate approaches are a step up from the more careless culturally agonistic approaches, but are not as heavily focused on culture shift as the emergent third category. It is this third category that Silova, Rappleye and Komatsu (and The Miracle Inn) are advocating for.
Culture shifting with intent
Culture shifting approaches to environmentalism have always existed in the cracks, they have allies in other fields and are becoming more prominent in Western environmentalism. Those who design and deploy these approaches are highly culturally aware. They understand the norms, values, and worldviews - the culture - that dominates (for better or worse) in the context in which they are operating. If they identify that culture, or elements of it, as problematic - i.e. as a driver of environmentaly harmful behaviour, or as a barrier to action on the environmental crisis - they come to recognise the need to focus on the underlying culture, not the surface behaviours that result from it.
Increasing numbers of environmentalists have concluded that the root causes of the climate and nature crisis (and the wider poly- and meta-crisis) are cultural, rather than primarily technological, behavioural, or cognitive. They are concluding that, no matter how many techno fixes and behavioural nudges are thrown at us, an individualistic and consumerist culture is never going to be compatible with a stable climate.
They are therefore starting think very differently about their practice. Some, pragmatically, are adapting what they are currently doing so that they both make progress on the specific environmental issue they are focused on, while also making a contributing to (and even leading) the wider culture shifting project. Others are, however, going even further; they are changing tack entirely. They are doing things that wouldn’t necessarily be thought of environmentalism. Their work has come to focus on projects that weaken the forces that reinforce individualistic, consumerist, supremacist, and isolating cultures.
How is this done?
Rappleye et. al. identify individualism - hyper-individualism being especially the case - as a key driver of unsustainability ‘(as measured by various sustainability indices, including income inequality, drug use, mental illness, underage births, crime, and ecological footprint)’.
The higher a country scores for individualism (the more hyper individual it becomes), the less sustainable it is likely to be. They argue, therefore, for the deployment of approaches to environmentalism that specifically aim to shift culture away from hyper-individualism. This is what The Miracle Inn is advocating for too, but it leaves us with the question of what these culture shifting approaches to environmentalism look like?
Rappleye et. al. point to the Japanese education system which they highlight ‘is not predicated on producing independent individuals, but instead producing interdependent forms of subjectivity, with the aim of preventing the rise of ontological individualism.’
In other words, in Japanese schools, students are taught and cared for in ways that lead them to think of themselves less as independent selves who are detached from other people and the world around them, and more as interdependent selves who are fully conscious of their connections to others and the world.
Anji play is another good example of a culture shifting approach, and plenty more abound; they are in full swing amongst The Movement for Interdependence in the UK and beyond.
You can expect this blog to be flooded with more inspiring examples over the coming months and years - do please send me yours and any others you have been inspired by. They will undoubtedly be a topic of conversation when members of The Miracle Inn meet up.
Footnote
It is not that the cultural drivers of climate change and nature degradation are not acknowledged by the environmental movement, they are; a degree of cultural awareness certainly exists. The issue is that instead of trying to bring about the sort of cultural shift that is needed, the environmental movement has - too often - sought only to work with culture as it is, to achieve a ‘change’ within that culture.
In taking this approach, environmentalists tend to tap into the self-interest values, beliefs, worldviews, and patterns of behaviour that are perceived norms in the Western world. By activating these norms, they reinforce, and sometimes even strengthen them, even though self-interest values (like power, status, fame, image, financial wealth, individualism) run counter to the goals of sustainability / resilience / environmentalism / justice '/ regeneration / ecologism. It is an exercise in shooting oneself in one’s foot.
To be clear, this has often not been a deliberate or conscious practice. Many environmentalists have sparked these unintended - often counterproductive - consequences unwittingly and unknowingly. It is also important to note that, thanks to the work of organisations like Common Cause Foundation, there are numerous environmental and social justice advocates who have become aware of the dangers inherent in activating people’s self-interest values, and try very hard not to.
However, there is no denying that while some environmentalists are accidentally activating and reinforcing self-interest values, others are running campaigns and programmes that deliberately lean on, legitimise, and thereby strengthen, the self-interest values, and consumerist norms, that turbo charge unsustainability. They deploy approaches that might achieve narrowly defined ‘wins’ in the short term, but - over the longer term - can end up doing more harm than good.
I say ‘they’ here as if to suggest that I don’t, or haven’t done this, the truth is I have done this, more than once; it can be incredibly hard not to fall into this trap - I am a product of the culture I swim in, we all are.
