Below are the series of monthly newsletters that were on the LinkedIn Creative Climate Communication Newsletter in 2025. Throughout 2026, the focus of the newsletter is on the ’20-piece Jigsaw to Save the World’ project. Click on the links below to jump to the edition you want to read.
Edition 1 Welcome to the first Creative Climate Communication newsletter
Edition 2 The power of the thrutopian approach
Edition 3 #ClimateCharacters: Fictional characters: the ultimate influencers
Edition 4 Interview with Laura Baggaley on using fiction as climate communication
Edition 5 Advice to clients: a neglected route to sustainable practice
Edition 6 The Transformational Power of Epiphanies
Edition 8 Creative Climate Conversations
Edition 9 Thrutopian Fiction: The Philosopher and the Assassin
Edition 10: A culture of truth and lies
Edition 12: 2025 and new directions for 2026
2026: A Jigsaw to Save the World
2026: A Jigsaw to Save the World
The first edition will be posted on the LinkedIn newsletter on 1st January and then every two weeks. They are in draft until their posting date and may be updated.
Edition 1. Introduction: The picture on the front of the jigsaw puzzle
Edition 3. Economic Growth, Green Growth or Degrowth?
Edition 4. The Sharing Economy
Edition 6. On Demand Buses/Demand-Responsive Transport
Edition 7. Sustainable Consumption
Edition 8. Personal Carbon Allowances/Tradable Energy Quotas. [CORNER PIECE]
Edition 12: Constructive Journalism
The following few editions will focus on our political structures leading up to the second corner piece. The focus then shifts to business purpose, law and finance and builds up to the third corner piece. The fourth corner piece will be a surprise! Once all the edge and corner pieces are in place, the middle sections of the jigsaw focus on renewable energy options, community resilience, culture, values, media, education and specific technological and nature-based proposals that will drawdown carbon.
Edition 1 Welcome to the first Creative Climate Communication newsletter
February 26, 2025
In this monthly mailing, I’ll be sharing ways of communicating key climate issues with new audiences and offering practical tools for action.
The aim is to address two key issues:
1. How do those of us who are aware of climate challenges—and their potential solutions—reach those who are sceptical or unaware?
This newsletter explores innovative ways for us to break out of our eco-echo chambers and reach new audiences – like those who wouldn’t dream of watching a climate documentary.
2. How can we inspire climate action and sustainable practices?
Most communications focus on raising awareness. But I have decades of research showing that raising awareness of the problems isn’t as effective as increasing a sense of agency, showing what we can do instead and how. Indeed, trying to ‘scare people green’ can backfire leading to unintended consequences such as buying up all the toilet rolls or increased support for far-right populist leaders.
So, who am I to talk on such topics?
· I am a Professor of Sustainable Business at the University of Southampton.
· I’m on the Forbes list of Climate Leaders Changing the Film and Television Industry
· I founded and run the Green Stories project that has run 20 free competitions, encouraging writers to embed green solutions in their work. This has resulted in 16 publications and two plays.
· I run Habitat Press which has published winners of such competitions, and other books which both entertain and inspire.
· I am an author myself. In addition to my academic publications, I have written three books and edited two anthologies.
What to expect
These monthly newsletters focus on various projects and relevant research, and will include the links to free resources/books. For example:
· What do we mean by a ‘thrutopian’ approach? I’ll discuss what this looks like and offer examples.
· Insights yielded by the #ClimateCharacters project with Bafta.
· What we achieved and what we learned from the sustainable hairdressing project using hairdressers to share low-resource haircare practices.
· Research into the eco-themed rom-com Habitat Man, showing that 98% of readers changed their attitudes one month after reading the book and 60% had adopted at least one green alternative. What was learned about the most effective ways to engage readers (includes audio clips and extracts).
· What my research into constructive journalism vs traditional news reveals about dos and don’ts of effective climate communication.
· How the play ‘Murder in the Citizens’ Jury’ engaged audiences in choosing their favourite climate solutions, what they chose and why. How it also raised awareness of citizens’ assemblies as an alternative form of participative democracy.
· What led Green Stories to run a clean vs green short story competition, and how our attitudes towards bacteria can influence many other practices that have implications for sustainability.
What’s happening right now?
We’re launching a new novel via the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dabaden/murder-in-the-climate-assembly. It sets out a roadmap to a sustainable future in fiction form. Additional funds will go towards a new Green Stories competition.
The script version won the 2024 Writing Climate Pitchfest and there is also an associated play which we’re keen for theatre groups to stage.
It should be a good read for anyone who likes contemporary fiction, whodunnits, philosophy, climate fiction, or campus novels.
I have a one-minute video for those who are unfamiliar with how crowdfunding works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPKPIV4eFHU – but really it’s just a way to get an early copy of the book (£4, $5 for an eBook etc.), and useful for getting advance reviews before releasing more widely in Autumn. For those who’d like the book but don’t want to sign up to Kickstarter, please get in contact and I can send direct.
[NOTE: The resulting book was published in October 2025 under the amended title: The Philosopher and the Assassin.
Edition 2 THE POWER OF THE ‘THRUTOPIAN’ APPROACH
March 3, 2025
What is ‘thrutopia?’
The first time I came across the term was in a blog for Huffpost by Rupert Read, where he talks about the need to understand how we get from where we are now to where we’d like to be – a flourishing, sustainable society. The idea was so powerful that bestselling author, Manda Scott, set up a Thrutopia masterclass for writers: “writing our way to a future we’d be proud to leave to the coming generations.’ A similar term, coined by Kevin Kelly is protopia, which is about the process of improvement over time.
What I like about such terms is that they are not about empty dreams, they are about action – where do we want to be and how do we get there?
Researching thrutopian approaches
When I talk to educators and activists passionate about climate, there is often the assumption that if we make people realise just how terrible things will be unless we act fast, then they will stop flying, eating beef and will write to their politicians demanding climate action. My research (to be covered in a future newsletter) shows they’re just as likely to buy up all the toilet rolls, vote for extremist politicians, or go into avoidance and denial. You can see it in our cultural offerings: a rise in the appeal of fantasy, a spate of TV shows about luxury lifestyles, denial on a mass scale. When we watch the news, or read books or watch films about the future, we’re mostly getting dystopias.
Speaking to the heart and soul
My academic approach speaks to the head. Manda Scott’s thrutopian group speaks more to the spirit. Rob Hopkins, founder of the transition movement speaks to the heart. I was blown away when I first experienced his imaginary ‘time-travelling’ machine when listening to his ‘from what if to what next’ podcast. Rob asks his guests to imagine they were several years into the future, and we’d done everything right, and to share what they saw around them. I tried it myself and it’s a powerful experience to give yourself time to imagine the world as you’d like it to be. I often use the method in workshops and talks and it’s always a deeply moving experience. In his upcoming book, ‘How to Fall in Love with the Future,’ Rob describes how such envisioning inspires a longing for it to become a reality, a yearning that powers action towards that goal.
A current example of a thrutopian approach
From the imagining the future exercises, there seems to be a remarkable consistency in what we yearn for. Like many, the future I want is a more equal society, greater access to nature, clean air and water. Access to health care, stronger communities and, most of all, to feel hope for my children’s future.
The barriers to that are an economic system and cultural values that incentivise excessive consumption, a democracy hijacked by vested interests and inability to think beyond short electoral cycles, a media landscape that has enabled those with the most money to control the information we are exposed to, and a legal framework for public limited companies that requires them to maximise profits for shareholder value, regardless of the consequences for humanity.
It is for such reasons that I turned to fiction, seeing it as a safe space to explore the pros and cons of policies that could genuinely transform our society. Politicians are too scared to challenge the idea of endless economic growth or business interests or propose policies that can’t be captured in a media-friendly soundbite. Artists and writers don’t have the same constraints. The barriers seem intractable, but I believe there is a plausible route to a flourishing future, and I use a play and a novel to engage audiences in the ideas.
With the support of the British Academy, I wrote a play ‘Murder in the Citizens’ Jury’ which imagines eight people in a citizens’ assembly debating climate solutions. I use the term ‘citizens’ jury’ as we are already familiar with how juries work, so it provides an immediate cue to what to expect. Also, who doesn’t love a locked-room murder! The whodunnit element provides the drama and mystery. The context raises awareness of this emerging form of participative democracy. It also allows climate policies to be explored from the perspective of a variety of people, each of whom relates to them in different ways.
The play was adapted from a short story which appears in the anthology: No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet. It was also written as a novella and a TV script ‘The Assassin‘ which was a winner of the 2024 Writing Climate Pitchfest.
The climate policies discussed are those which reduce consumption – something politicians don’t dare to talk about: repair cafes, sharing economy/libraries of things, on-demand bus services (think Uber but buses). If everyone used such services, they’d be so cheap and convenient, no one would need their own car or their own tools, games, sports gear, etc. But we don’t – why would we when every bit of information we’re exposed to persuades us of the value of buying stuff? Hence the final policy – personal carbon allowances. In emergencies, we ration what is scarce. In this climate emergency, carbon is scarce, so the idea is that we each have our own allotted carbon allowance, and if we go over it, we buy carbon credits on the open market. If we go under, we make money selling our spare credits. It acts as a progressive tax on high-carbon consumption. For example, if you ate beef, and flew everywhere, you’d use up your PCA more quickly than if you insulated your house and made greater use of public/active transport. PCAs also known as personal carbon trading, was proposed back in 2007 by David Miliband, DEFRA and the Sustainable Roundtable, but the global financial crisis pushed it off the agenda.
‘Murder in the Citizens’ Jury’ was performed in 2024 in a sellout run, and later, a school put on an abridged one-hour version. It did exactly what I’d hoped, entertained and engaged the audience in transformative climate solutions. It was interactive and the audience voted for their favourite climate policies. The director told me people were still debating the ideas days later. You can see reviews, details and feedback here. Videos capturing the show are also available on https://www.youtube.com/@greenstoriesuk.
I’m keen for school/college drama groups and theatre companies, amateur or professional, to put it on, so it’s royalty-free for the foreseeable future. Please spread the word. The script is available on request.
It is currently also being developed as story within a story in a novel to be released later this year: The Philosopher and the Assassin. It follows a moral philosophy professor who is approached with a request to solve a dilemma. The Director of Public Prosecutions must decide whether to prosecute a murder which took place in a citizens’ assembly on climate. The stakes are high. The story imagines that for the first time, citizens’ assemblies have been granted actual power. If they get through the trial period, a House of Citizens will replace the House of Lords. The media frenzy resulting from a murder would mean the end of this form of direct democracy, which many believe could be the silver bullet to avert a climate crisis. Young people versed in moral philosophy would be the ideal group to consult, but confidentiality is crucial.
Professor Iris Tate devises a moral philosophy course based on a whodunnit that all assume is hypothetical – a murder in a climate assembly. A variety of characters provide an entertaining source of ethical dilemmas, but what the students don’t know is that the ultimate dilemma is very real, and their conclusions will have far-reaching consequences. The novel is funny, dark and thought provoking and engages the reader in the search for solutions that will actually work.
Summarising the thrutopian approach
First, we have a vision of a flourishing future.
Then we envisage what needs to happen for us to get there. We all have our areas of expertise. Mine is social science, so I focus on how to change the institutional environment so that we are able to (to quote from Trainspotting) ‘choose life.’ Even if a CEO or Prime Minister was dedicated to the green cause, there is little they can realistically do in the current system that would be sufficiently transformative.
We can’t ignore power, so we need to upgrade our democracy. Citizens’ assemblies offer an alternative that holds great promise. In most countries, they can only recommend. There are campaigns to give them actual power, but a barrier is lack of public awareness. Hence, I turned to theatre and genre fiction rather than academic articles read by very few. The hope is to create a bottom up understanding and desire for alternatives that can better allow us to choose long-term sustainable policies.
Citizens’ assemblies encourage a joy in civic engagement. I saw it firsthand from my local climate assembly in Southampton. But their real strength is in their ability to think long term, informed by experts rather than vested interests. My research in sustainable business and my growing disillusionment that much of it is greenwash leads me to believe we can’t get anywhere unless we find ways to have just as much wellbeing, while using fewer resources. It’s actually quite easy, and the policies I include in my novel and play show how. Once the hot tap of unrestrained consumption is turned down, we stand a much better chance of averting the worst of the climate crisis. I believe citizens’ assemblies are more likely to choose such policies.
We live in a world of metrics. Hence, another policy touched upon in the novel is switching from the GDP to a wellbeing index as a key metric of success. Otherwise, we will be most successful when we have consumed our entire planet! Once we measure wellbeing, and we judge progress by that, the conversation will change from what is good for the economy to what is good for us. An essential step on the path to a sustainable future.
Global businesses are arguably more powerful than governments. The excuse of oil companies is that they are just meeting demand. A policy of personal carbon allowances (PCAs) would incentivise businesses to offer low-carbon products and services. For example, we can reduce the carbon footprint of milk by feeding cattle kelp-based additives, but there is little incentive for farmers to do so. If such milk used up less of our PCAs, we’d all be clamouring for it. Any product powered by renewable energy would similarly become more attractive to consumers, leading to oil companies deciding to invest in renewable energy after all. And we can’t ignore psychology. Why should we give up what we want if no one else does? PCAs mean we’re all in it together. We win by going green.
I hope you found this example of a thrutopian approach in action interesting. In future newsletters, I will explore other innovative means of engaging the wider public in sustainable practices and climate policies. I will share what was learned from award-winning research into how hairdressers have been used to promote low-resource haircare to their clients; do a deeper dive into my research on climate communications and what was learned from a variety of Green Stories projects and publications.
Edition 3 #ClimateCharacters: Fictional characters: the ultimate influencers
(5) #ClimateCharacters: Fictional characters: the ultimate influencers | LinkedIn
April 1, 2025
Fictional characters as influencers
Debates about how to avert the climate crisis tend to focus on government policies and technological solutions, but it is our cultural norms that determine what policies are likely to be acceptable to the public, and what behaviours are considered appropriate. Ancient writers of morality tales, autocratic governments using culture as propaganda, marketeers seeking opportunities to product place and advertise their brands – all have used fictional characters for their own ends. How characters behave, what they eat, waste, buy and how they travel, sets the cultural landscape against which we judge our own actions and those of others.
Albert is a Bafta-owned and industry backed organisation whose mission includes creating “content that supports a vision for a sustainable future”. Their report, “Subtitles to Save the World” outlines how climate is addressed in TV shows. A key point was the subtle influence of highlighting certain behaviours as problematic. For example, if a character is shown dropping litter or not wearing a seatbelt, this is almost always presented as undesirable, either indicating something negative about the character, or leading to adverse consequences. Yet, an analysis of 100 random references to “beef” and “flight” found that none of these included any reference to the high carbon footprint of such activities (Albert, 2019). This is problematic because if writers present fast fashion, jet set lifestyles or wasting food without comment, this is implicitly reinforcing the idea that such high-carbon and/or wasteful behaviours are okay, or even aspirational.
The #ClimateCharacter Study
My research involved partnering with Albert in a study which asked respondents to reflect upon whether they believe that fictional characters on screen affect their own behaviour, whether they think this matters, and what, if anything, should be done about it.
The question posed is quite subtle, and the issues may not be on everyone’s radar. Therefore, Green Stories worked with Rubber Republic to design images that illustrate in a fun way, the differences between characters that model high-carbon behaviours and those that model more sustainable behaviours. Through piloting, we found that just showing examples of the fictional carbon footprint of high-consuming characters came across as preachy. The images that were best received were humorous and involved contrasting high and low consuming characters. We made no serious attempt to estimate the actual carbon footprint of such activities as the goal was to illustrate the general principle rather than getting bogged down in calculations. The images were shared via social media using #ClimateCharacters and #HotOrNot. The images were linked to a survey offering a £5 voucher to take part.
Results
Our survey comprised 100 respondents of mixed gender and age sourced from film/media students and others sourced via social media, predominantly from Bafta/albert network, Rubber Republic network and some from the Green Stories network.
A third of respondents said they believed that fictional characters affect their values, beliefs, behaviours, or aspirations. Some provided examples of how it increased their desire to shop for clothes, drive fast cars, or generally emulate their behaviour. Several referenced humour as a trait they enjoyed in characters, supporting studies showing how comedy can enable viewer engagement. Some said that how characters behaved didn’t affect them personally, but they believed it would affect others. Those who said ‘no’ rarely gave further responses other than ‘no’ or ‘not really’.
I illustrate a typical range of responses below:
Not a lot, at least consciously.
Guess it makes international travel aspirational.
Yes, I’m motivated to live that lifestyle.
Yes, I get inspired with different outfits I see in TV shows and then tend to buy clothes I don’t need.
Makes me want to drive a fast car.
The second question asked if they thought that mattered. There was a fairly even split of answers:
TV and film should not glamourise high carbon lifestyles.
No it’s fiction.
People can be easily influenced and excessiveness may become normalised. I do wonder if the over the top consumption I see on Instagram has influenced my daughter detrimentally!
I do believe this matters as on a subconscious level it could be affecting how we behave and live in real life, which has a real impact on the environment.
Finally we asked ‘should scriptwriters continue to write characters with a particularly high carbon-footprint?’ Most thought there is a balance to be drawn between entertainment and social responsibility. Few said that every character should be virtuous, or every plot have a moral message. Nonetheless, many thought that presenting high-consuming characters as aspirational was problematic in a time of climate crisis. Indeed, only a fifth of respondents said it was okay for screenwriters to continue to write characters with a particularly high carbon footprint.
I think if it’s a character with questionable morals than yes, but a character that is aspirational no.
Why not? They are just fiction. I am not inspired by them anyway.
Would be difficult not too as they are a part of life, but less emphasis on consumerism and perhaps having characters repeat outfits and use a reusable coffee cup etc. would be a good step forward.
No, as fictional characters can be just as influential as real people.
What does this mean for Creative Climate Communication?
It’s difficult to hear that how we consume has harmful environmental consequences. Meat is tasty, foreign holidays are fun, and almost every communication we’re exposed to is encouraging us to buy, buy, buy. So, it’s no surprise that people will be unwilling to engage with the ‘inconvenient truth’ underlying our lifestyles.
This study taught us that humour can help to bypass defensive reactions. But it wasn’t always enough. The James Bond post with his single-use sports car and walk in wardrobe of suits was funny, but some still responded defensively. Contrasting him with Jack Reacher who travels by bus and wears second-hand clothes worked better.
The lesson from this is just telling people what they shouldn’t do, doesn’t work as well as showing what they could do instead. I remember learning this as a mother when playing football with my son. Every time he was in goal, and I scored, he’d have a tantrum and no amount of telling him not to cry worked. What did work was giving him an alternative script, so that when I got a goal past him, I taught him to say, “well done, Mummy, what a brilliant goal!”
Perhaps humanity is still at toddler stage, still reeling from the realisation that the world doesn’t revolve around us. It’s a difficult lesson to learn because it feels like it does and like it should. Culture can help or hinder this transition. Humour can sweeten the pill, engage wider audiences and showing positive role models alongside the negative can create a double whammy of influence.
You can see more about this study on https://www.greenstories.org.uk/climatecharacters/. Share the posts (on X, Bluesky, Facebook/Insta) yourself, and feel free to get in touch if you’d like to see the references to the studies relating to impact of characters on behaviour.
Edition 4 Interview with Laura Baggaley on using fiction as climate communication
June 2, 2025
- Fiction as Climate Communication
Last month, Green Stories publisher Habitat Press released its first novel aimed at young adults. Today, I’ll be talking to author, Laura Baggaley, about why she chose to use fiction as a way of talking about green themes and how climate messages can be incorporated into entertaining mainstream novels.
Hi Laura!
First of all, can you tell us why you write climate fiction?
In his brilliant book, From What Is To What If, Rob Hopkins describes how the climate and environmental crises are fundamentally a crisis of imagination. This is a quote from the book that I find really inspiring:
“Bringing about the world we want to live in, the world we want to leave to our children is, substantially, the work of the imagination, or what educational reformer John Dewey describes as ‘the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise’.”
So I wanted to take up the challenge of writing stories that consciously try to visualise different positive futures. Stories stick in the brain more than facts. Telling ourselves stories about how the world could be is an essential part of making change possible.
I’m not a political animal, and I’m too timid to chain myself to railings, so stories are where I pour my activist energies!
How do you bring environmental themes into your work? Do you ever feel there’s a danger of ‘preaching’?
Yes! I’m very conscious of the danger of info-dumping or lecturing my readers, especially as I’m writing for a young audience. There are two strands to how I approach this – the practical and the mythological.
By mythological, I mean the underlying myths that shape our society. Sometimes we forget that the stories by which we live can be changed. Ursula K Le Guin famously pointed out that we used to believe that the divine rights of kings was an inescapable truth – until we changed the story. In the past, the social story has also stated that women were inferior, that enslaving people was acceptable, that homosexuality was a crime. The myths can and must change.
Today, we live in a society where profit is considered the ultimate goal. The story we tell is that infinite growth is necessary for wealth and happiness, and that profit must take precedence over everything. Since we’re living on a finite planet, this story won’t have a happy ending! So we need to rethink. It necessitates a fundamental shift in how we perceive things, and in a novel you can imagine a world where people are already thinking differently.
My book, Dirt, is an eco-romance about two teenagers who live in the near future. Global food supply chains have failed. Everyone lives on rations, and supplements their food by growing as much as they can on government-allotted ‘Squares’ of land. For most people, farming is controlled by a huge agricultural company that dictates what crops they plant and how they manage them.
The two teenagers are Sam and Avril. Sam lives in town, where he and his family follow the rules of the Green Cultivation Corporation. Avril comes from a completely different world – she lives in a beautiful hidden valley where her extended family practices sustainable agriculture. One day, she sneaks out of the valley to explore and encounters Sam. The collision of their different ways of thinking about how to farm and how to live is what drives the story.
So the book is a romance about sustainable agriculture! And in terms of the underlying myths, the foundations of the story, what I’m really talking about is community versus insularity, and sharing rather than hoarding.
You said there were two strands to approaching climate fiction. You’ve talked about myths, what do you mean by the practical strand?
Ah yes! The other strand is exploring tangible practical changes that people can make right now. We need to normalize green solutions. The more we make it commonplace for people to discuss and choose green options in life, the more it will be taken for granted that this is what we should all do.
So in the world of Dirt, many things have changed for the better – there’s a Library of Things in town, upcycling and repairing belongings has become the norm, industrial animal farming has been banned, and people cycle or use cheap electric taxis to get around. Everyone’s house has solar panels and heat pumps as standard. By incorporating positive environmental choices into the world of the book, I’m trying to make them seem like obvious thing to aim for in our own futures.
At the same time, I’m also drawing attention to concrete negatives and practical alternatives. Dirt might be set in an imagined future, but the situation it describes is exactly what’s happening today. Industrial agriculture is controlled by a tiny number of monopoly-wielding mega-businesses, promoting profit-driven farming methods that cause soil degradation and the annihilation of insect populations. Pesticides, monocrops, seed patents, repeated ploughing, fossil fuel-derived fertilizers. When soil becomes dirt, when there are no pollinators, food can’t grow. It isn’t hard to imagine the collapse of present-day food supply chains; this dystopia isn’t far off.
And then I offer practical alternatives. It’s a novel, of course, so Dirt isn’t a manual for how to run an allotment! It’s primarily a story about first love. But the backdrop to their relationship – and what causes tension within it – is the question of how we farm to feed ourselves. The first time Sam and Avril have an electric moment of physical contact, they’re holding a handful of soil and a worm inches across their thumbs! I’ve woven elements into the plot where Sam’s neighbours learn about compost and sustainable farming practices. So the book isn’t just telling us how bad things are, but how easy it would be to make things better.
Why do you write climate fiction for children and teenagers?
Let me be clear: I don’t think it should be the job of younger generations to fix the mess they’re inheriting. That is our work to do, right now, so that we can give them the best chance of a liveable future.
The reason I love telling stories for children because it allows my imagination to roam more freely. There’s a great quote from Jim Dator: “Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous.” I love the fact that writing for young people gives me licence to be ridiculously ambitious in my dreaming.
Young people’s minds are still open. They see things clearly. Kids look at the world and say “that isn’t right”, and they don’t fudge the issue with excuses (like the sale of weapons or oil earning important shareholder profits). Asking difficult questions is vital, and kids need to be encouraged to do this. To look at the ways things are and say, “hang on, is that the best way to do this? – what if we did it differently?” Kids don’t assume the old ways are best, and if we ignite their imaginations and fill their brains with positive visions of possible futures, those stories will come along with them as they grow up.
I also really hope that adults will read these books too! Katherine Rundell wrote a brilliant essay called “Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise”, and it’s full of wonderfully convincing arguments. I love this quote, about returning to children’s books as an adult:
“Those who write for children are trying to arm them for the life ahead with everything we can find that is true. And perhaps, also, secretly, to arm adults against those necessary compromises and necessary heartbreaks that life involves: to remind them that there are and always will be great, sustaining truths to which we can return.”
Is there anything else you want to tell us, before we finish?
If your readers are interested to read more about creative writing as a way of communicating climate themes, I’d like to draw their attention to a Substack Magazine called Bending The Arc. I’m on the editorial team, and we publish stories, poems and features that bend the arc of the possible towards a thriving future on Earth. The complete first edition is available to read here – including an extract from Dirt! – and a new batch of pieces will be released when the second edition is published in October, so do subscribe now!
To find out more about Laura and her writing, you can visit her website here. Dirt is out now, and available to purchase from Habitat Press and other retailers.
Edition 5 Advice to clients: a neglected route to sustainable practice
May 1, 2025
- A key challenge in climate communication is how to engage those who would not seek out information about the environment or climate. In addition, even among those who care or think ‘something should be done’, it’s not always obvious what living sustainably means in terms of everyday practices and habits.
- In this article, I present a project that engaged hairdressers, not just in adopting sustainable practices in their salons, but also in advising their clients of the benefits of less resource-intensive practices at home. The idea was sparked when I heard statistics about people trusting hairdressers more than politicians. I was also inspired by a study into the role of influential individuals in the diffusion of pro-environmental behaviours (Brook Lyndhurst 2009). They concluded by recommending a programme that “would comprise identifying catalytic individuals in specific social networks; persuading them of the benefits of the particular behaviour to members of their social group; providing them with tailored support material; and then allowing them the freedom to do what they do.”
- It is hard to think of an occupation which involves more general conversation with a wide variety of people, and which involves resource-intensive behaviours so relevant to people’s everyday routines (e.g. water, energy and chemical use) than hairdressing. In the context of businesses and organisations transitioning to net zero, most focus on scope 1 and 2 emissions produced by their operations and supply chain, but it is scope 3 emissions (e.g. how products are used) that account for around 80% of total emissions. One shampoo manufacturer (anon) told me they worked out that 93% of the carbon footprint of the shampoo they produced was in the hot water used to rinse it off!
- I obtained funds from the ESRC and worked with the Hair and Beauty Industry Authority (HABIA) and Vocational Training Charitable Trust (VTCT) to set up the ecohair project.
- We began with a Green Salon Makeover event where we invited salon owners and trainers to share with us their thoughts on what sustainable hairdressing looked like. We soon discovered some win-wins we could work with: using less/cooler water, avoiding harsh chemicals, using less product and shampooing less often was better for hair and skin condition, saved time, cut energy and water bills and is better for the environment. The necessity to integrate sustainable practices into training was also a key finding.
- It’s not the purpose of this article to share all the wonderful projects and impacts that developed from this award-winning project over the years (see https://ecohairandbeauty.com/ if you’d like to know more), but to share with you some of the creative ways that worked to engage not just hairstylists but their clients.
- For example, we designed posters which used vignettes to showcase the multiple benefits of low-resource haircare. As you can see, the savings made are not a matter of just a few percent but are in factors of ten and more.
- Our research found that most clients’ hair-care practices at home are influenced by their experiences at the hairdressers, and that over three-quarters would be happy to learn about sustainable haircare from their hairdresser. So we sought a more proactive way to engage stylists and clients in conversations about sustainable haircare. We partnered with the Green Salon Collective to design 12 ‘mirror talkers’ – eco-tips on mirrors. Some were phrased as a question, for example ‘have you ever tried leave-in conditioner’. Some were phrased as statements ‘running hot water is the most expensive and energy-intensive activity we do in our homes.’
- Training resources were supplied, and 25 UK salons trialled them. Surveys and interviews with stylists afterwards revealed that most felt confident in the conversations, and believed they would have impact on client behaviour. Surveys with clients supported this belief with 87% finding such conversations enjoyable and almost three-quarters saying they were very likely or likely to change their haircare routine after the conversation with their hairdresser.
- This study illustrates that clients were happy to receive advice and that it can be effective. It also serves as an example that other sectors could adopt in their own way. For example:
- Garages could advise on energy-efficient driving, how regular servicing and keeping tyre pressures up can reduce energy consumption and prolong the life of vehicles.
- Beauticians could emphasise the ageing effects of too much hot water on skin.
- Restaurants can show the carbon footprint of meal choices.
- Gardeners/garden centres could promote nature-friendly gardening.
- Universities could educate their staff and students on good housekeeping of data to prevent the energy-intensive storage of huge amounts of useless information.
- Fashion companies could advise on low-temperature washing techniques that save energy, money and preserve fabrics etc.
- A key point is that it is behaviour that counts – the atmosphere won’t care what people’s attitudes are or how much they care, it responds to the level of greenhouse gas emissions pumped into it. We have developed habits and practices that are mostly much more resource-intensive than they need to be. A good first step, therefore, is to look at actual behaviours, and where the win-wins are to adopt more environmentally friendly alternatives. The next step is to think about who influences our habits and behaviours in that domain, and finally how to engage them in adopting more sustainable practices themselves and promoting them to their clients or across their networks.
- I’d love to hear your comments on how such approaches could be used in the sector you work in.
Edition 6 The Transformational Power of Epiphanies
July 1, 2025
In my research into climate communication, I have explored how audiences respond to climate-related stories in news, education, television and fiction. My background is psychology and much research emerges from learning theory, for example social learning – which can apply to fictional characters as much as real people (see my previous newsletter on fictional characters as influencers. Cultivation theory similarly explores how exposure to high-consuming characters on screen affects viewers’ aspirations and consumption habits. ‘Mainstreaming’ describes how consistent exposure by diverse groups of people to similar content can create a standardised world view that aligns the aspirations of audiences to those promoted by the television/social media advertisers. There has also been research into ‘narrative transportation’, which describes how readers immersed in a character’s storyline come to adopt their attitudes and beliefs as their own. These can persist long after they have finished reading it – a phenomenon known as the ‘sleeper effect’.
This is one reason why I founded the Green Stories project and began writing fiction. As a counterpoint to stories featuring fast cars and shopping, I wanted to throw a few characters into the mix who walk more lightly on the earth! For example, Habitat Man is an eco-themed rom-com with a hint of cosy mystery. It’s about a man who leaves his city job to become a wildlife gardener. In the process, he falls in love and digs up a body. It worked. A study of 50 readers in the US and UK showed that one month after finishing the book, 98% reported greener attitudes and 60% had adopted at least one green alternative.
All of these effects emerge slowly over time, but in this newsletter, I wanted to talk about those more sudden transformations – epiphanies. An epiphany can feel like lightning in the brain—a sudden, profound realisation that shatters old perceptions and rewires the way we think. These moments, often described as “aha” experiences, may arise unexpectedly or after prolonged reflection.
Neuroscience offers clues into the mechanics of these moments. Brain scans show that during an epiphany, activity in the right temporal lobe spikes, linked with pattern recognition and creative insight. This surge may allow us to piece together seemingly unrelated ideas and see them through a new lens. When coupled with emotional salience—say, the realisation that a life path is unfulfilling—it can result in a sudden behavioural shift.
Throughout history, epiphanies have played central roles in everything from religious conversions to scientific breakthroughs.
Archimedes discovering principle of bouyancy while taking a bath
But they’re not limited to grand discoveries. Ordinary people experience these pivotal moments too—in therapy sessions, in moments of crisis, or during quiet reflection.
At the heart of every epiphany is a shift in perspective. Habitat Man was inspired by my own personal epiphany when a Green Garden Consultant taught me to see my garden not as scenery, but full of characters, from the nosy robin who appeared every time I picked up a spade, hoping for worms, to the chattering sparrows who panicked whenever they heard my neighbour’s strimmer. It was like I’d seen my garden in black and white and then in glorious colour. I tried to do the same for my readers and for many it worked.
Ultimately, the real power of an epiphany lies not just in the thought itself, but in what it inspires us to do next. They break the spell of inertia and offer a fresh vantage point, often leading us to live more intentionally. When someone suddenly sees their life with sharper clarity, they’re more likely to make decisions that align with their values and aspirations.
If, as you’re reading this you can think of your own epiphanies, I’d love you to share them in the comments, or even better, write a story. The upcoming Green Stories writing competition aims to tap into the power of epiphanies and is asking for flash fiction (up to 500 words) about a moment of epiphany which causes one or more characters to change for the greener. The transformative realisation could relate to any attitude or behaviour with environmental implications (e.g. food, travel, consumption, etc.), or the story could focus on the benefits of any greener alternative. We have £1000 ($/€1200) worth of prizes. Deadline 27th August 2025.
If we can secure sponsorship, we’ll follow this with a short film competition where filmmakers/animators can select from an anthology of the best flash fiction entries to create a short film, and credit the original writer.
Edition 8 Creative Climate Conversations
September 2, 2025
This edition explores innovative climate conversations that have had a real impact.
My first choice comes from Southampton, UK where campaigners for Southampton to become a National Park City held a theatrical council meeting dressed up as various plants and animals. Each participant stated what things were like from their point of view, from watery residents of the gorgeous river Itchen, to a nettle who felt misunderstood, and pollinating plants protesting against being cut or sprayed to death.
Click on the image to see a short news segment from BBC South
It spoke to me for several reasons:
- First, Southampton is my hometown and was so proud to see fellow citizens tread the boards for nature.
- Second, I teach sustainable business, and I often cite one of my favourite companies, Faith in Nature, for having Nature on their board of directors. This fun event brought the idea to life.
- Third, I tried to do the same thing with my first novel Habitat Man, which was inspired by a Southampton-based green garden consultant who helped me to see my back garden through the perspective of the plants and animals that lived there.
- Fourth, it really worked to spread the message to mainstream audiences who wouldn’t necessarily count themselves as environmentalists. It even got a mention on Have I Got News For You!
Conversation as catalyzing action
Another set of conversations on a different continent also caught my attention, as it led to real and important change. Below are some details and images reproduced with permission from Dr Iain Biggs Coordinator, PLaCE International.
Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi – formally the Lower Phalen Creek Project, St Pauls, Minnesota – is an example of slow and patient ecological restoration in parallel with the reclamation of a sacred site.
It was catalyzed by conversations between multiple creative and academic participants and key local actors. The Lower Phalen Creek project transformed an abandoned railway marshaling yard built on land sacred to the Dakota nation. It was initiated by the local community, Dakota activists and student volunteers organized by Prof. Christine Baeumler. It was given additional focus and accelerated by a series of cross-disciplinary, multi-national conversations between 2007 and 2010, which resulted in the exhibition shadows traces undercurrents at the Catherine E Nash gallery at the University of Minnesota in 2012, curated by Baeumler, who also organized a parallel symposium. Overseas participants included, among others, the Australian landscape architect, interior designer and pastoralist Prof. Gini Lee and Dr Iain Biggs, co-convenor of PLaCE International and advocate for ‘open’ or ‘wild’ deep mapping. Baeumler recently told Biggs that, without the conversations about deep mapping in 2012, this project would never have been brought to completion.
Artificial conversations
AI is increasingly working its way into conversations providing the source from which we draw our opinions. I’ll have more to say about that in the next edition, but I’d like to give a shout out for Tiiqu who are doing their bit to protect us from misinformation. If you check out their webpage, you’ll see a series of frightening quotes showing how so many of our online conversations are contaminated by misinformation, spread by vested interests
The quality and content of our conversation depends upon the language we use, and I’m a big fan of Arran Stibbe’s work on ecolinguistics. His team at the University of Gloucestershire have established a free online course called the Stories We Live By and the comments show clearly how ecolinguistics enables us to see the world differently. It also inspired some scenes in my upcoming novel The Philosopher and the Assassin, where a Professor of English wakes up to the role of language in framing our values.
The related H4rmony Project is pioneering the integration of artificial intelligence with ecological awareness. Their mission is to transform how Generative AI understands and interacts with the world, embedding sustainability and ecological consciousness at its core through ecolinguistics principles. Given the unparalleled power of AI as a technology, it could represent our last chance to realign our relationship with nature, correcting the course towards a sustainable future. Through extensive research, collaborative efforts, and cutting-edge technology, they aim to reshape AI’s narratives and discourses. Their goal is to overturn the damaging stories that have permeated our existence, leveraging AI as a force for positive ecological change.
I enjoyed listening to an episode of the Lost in Language podcast where Arran gives an example of how AI will typically draw upon commercial sites as their source material when given requests. For example, if you ask AI about patio heaters it will wax lyrical about their benefits but make no mention of the high carbon footprint of running a heater outdoors. The H4rmony Project AI model adds a filter so that the AI prioritises ecological sites for their information. My favourite example was when he compared typical AI versus H4rmony trained AI responses to requests such as “give me a metaphor for photosynthesis.” Traditional AI adopted a factory metaphor: Photosynthesis is like a high-efficiency green factory operating inside every leaf. H4rmony AI came up with this: photosynthesis is the earth breathing life into the future.
Edition 9 Thrutopian Fiction: The Philosopher and the Assassin
October 6, 2025
This month I have been busy with the launch of my latest novel: The Philosopher and the Assassin. Itis literary fiction and uses the popular murder mystery device to engage readers while educating them – hopefully without them even realising it – about the kinds of policies that would be sufficiently transformative.
You can see readings and videos from the book launch here.
This novel was written to address the two challenges which were laid out in the first edition of the Creative Climate Communication newsletter:
1. How do those of us who are aware of climate challenges—and their potential solutions—reach those who are sceptical or unaware?
2. How can we inspire climate action and sustainable practices?
Most communications focus on raising awareness. But I have decades of research showing that raising awareness of the problems isn’t as effective as increasing a sense of agency, showing what we can do instead and how.
The launch has coincided with the new academic term so I hope you will forgive me if instead of writing a full article this month, I direct you to an article I wrote for the Climate Cultures newsletter which is out today. In the article I set out some examples of what I believe to be effective climate fiction: the kind that highlight solutions rather than just the problems we face.
A key challenge that remains is reaching broader audiences. If any of the books mentioned in the article appeal, Habitat Press is happy to offer discount coupons for book clubs. Also please recommend them to your local library, post reviews on review sites and other reader sites on Facebook and others, see https://habitatpress.com/best-reader-led-review-sites/
Next month I will be back with a full article featuring relevant research, discussion and projects that can help us to communicate climate effectively and creatively.
Edition 10: A culture of truth and lies
November 3, 2025
I’ve been reading A Climate of Truth by Mike Berners-Lee where he convincingly makes the case that routine lying, misinformation and disinformation is accelerating us towards climate disaster. It occurred to me therefore that a newsletter on Creative Climate Communication could also legitimately address the issue of truth and lies.
In this edition I’ll talk about my personal reasons for being attracted to the topic of ‘truth’. I’ll discuss some of the key points made in A Climate of Truth, and how with the best of intentions, we may inadvertently be playing into the hands of the vested interests and deceivers. I’ll finish by laying down the gauntlet for writers to respond to what that means for them.
There are three reasons why I particularly care about truth. First, I grew up in an atmosphere of radical honesty. My mother is German. I’m going to allow myself some cultural stereotyping because I’m half German and allowed, but my experience of her and visiting her friends and relations in Germany, is that they were much blunter and more honest than the English side of my family. It can come across as impolite but also reassuring – you always knew where you were with them.
My mother, brother and me many years ago
Secondly, my brother had learning disabilities and remained childlike even in his forties. The only words he could say with any clarity were swear words. If you upset him, you’d get a stream of bad language, but if he liked you, he’d rush across a busy street to envelope you in a hug. People loved him. Everywhere we went, he made friends for us with his unfiltered reactions.
Third, I fell prey to a controlling boyfriend in my youth. I realised then it takes two to make a liar because if I ever said anything he didn’t like, he’d make such a fuss that I’d give up and just tell him what he wanted to hear. He made it seem that it was actually illegal not to feel about him the way he wanted me to feel:
‘Denise, do you love me?’
‘Well, it’s early days. You’re amazingly good looking and I find you interesting and mysterious, but I don’t really know you yet. It could just be infatuation.’ (Remember my background!)
Response – total tantrum.
Later from me. ‘Okay yes I love you.’
‘If you love me then….’
Back then we didn’t have words for coercive control, all I knew is that I felt incredibly compromised and when I finally managed to be rid of him, I vowed never to lie again. My next boyfriend bore the brunt of that vow but found the honesty refreshing once he got used to it. The analogy I used was that telling the unvarnished truth is like ripping off a sticking plaster – it can feel painful at first, but then you toughen up. Your expectations of people become more realistic, and relationships are ultimately strengthened. In fairness, they may also come to an abrupt end, but only if they would have eventually anyway – truth just saves wasting time.
Complete honesty is also easier – you don’t have to remember what you said. And, after a while, people stop expecting anything different. Sometimes they hear things they don’t want to hear but as there’s no malicious intent, I’m usually forgiven, and they learn not to ask questions they don’t want the answer to. They too feel safe in being open about their true feelings.
It takes courage to be honest. My partner wasn’t happy with the dedication I gave him in my first novel, Habitat Man: Last but not least, thanks go to my partner Chris who was brave enough to tell me my first draft was rubbish.’ A friend took the mick out of him at the book launch saying, ‘well done for telling Denise her novel was shit!’ But I meant it as high praise. Honesty is accepted in all cultures as a virtue, as is courage. Saying nice things that aren’t true to avoid conflict or get people to like you isn’t a virtue.
I suspect that played a part in why so many voted for Trump. Unlike typical politicians who are often so careful in what they say, he clearly didn’t care about upsetting people. They mistook that for honesty. On the other side of the Atlantic, Zack Polanski, in his first major speech as the new leader of the UK Green Party was similarly outspoken. His speech was eviscerating. There was nothing careful in his delivery. He was utterly unafraid to tell it like he saw it, and it has energised the Green Party who have since surged in the polls.
I want to return now to Mike Berners-Lee’s book, A Climate of Truth, because lies have implications beyond personal relationships. Motivated dishonesty and misinformation about the causes, the solutions and even the very existence of climate change has catastrophic consequences.
His proposal is that every time we hear a politician lie, we should bring attention to it, express our outrage and show it up for the untruth it is. I hesitate to critique the opinions of someone I respect as much as Mike, but I fear the results could be – are being – counterproductive. One issue is that the more times we hear the lie, the more it becomes familiar. We remember the statement, but not always that it was highlighted as untrue.
It also normalises dishonesty. My background is social psychology. I will spare you a deep dive into social learning theory, normative influences, and cultivation theory, but suffice to say, there is a huge body of evidence that we learn primarily from watching how others behave. We learn what outcomes are aspired to, which behaviours are acceptable, and which are not. Social psychologists warn how attempts to influence behaviour by highlighting how often the undesired behaviour occurs can backfire. Experiments have repeatedly shown that our instincts to do what is ‘normal’ are stronger than any evidence that such behaviour is against society’s, or even our own, best interests. For example, campaigns to stop littering by showing unpleasant images of rubbish everywhere have been unsuccessful. The issue is that subliminally the image is saying everyone litters, but you shouldn’t. In psychological lingo, the descriptive norm undermines the injunctive norm. So in terms of lying politicians, the danger is that highlighting every lie undermines the concept of ‘honesty’ as a norm.
It also gives more attention to the liar him/herself. Attention is the fuel that feeds populist leaders. The media report the most ridiculous and outrageous of pronouncements at the expense of reasoned arguments, because they are clickbait. Even responsible media outlets can fall into this trap. Entire episodes of More or Less (a much-loved BBC podcast) have been devoted to untangling presidential lies for example. My concern is that it’s just feeding the beast!
I would have liked the book to explore other solutions, for example the Welsh government’s current drive to criminalise misinformation. I would also have liked Mike to go deeper on the issue of culture and who and what influences our values. Politics, media and business all come rightly under the spotlight, but I would add writers to this list. This is because, while in the real world we’re exposed to lies, misinformation and disinformation sometimes motivated by ignorance and more often by vested interests, in the background, we’re fed a constant diet of TV drama, comedy, reality shows etc. where characters also routinely lie. My son introduced me to the sitcom Modern Family. It’s good fun bit in almost every episode, characters lie to each other. Not only do they lie, no one seems to mind that much. It’s just accepted as a fact of life that people will lie for their own interests. Does that matter? I would argue it is normalising dishonesty as perfectly acceptable and understandable behaviour. We may even quite like watching other people behave badly because it validates our own self-serving impulses. My son disagreed – he said I was ‘deeping’ it! But I had several examples up my sleeve of how his behaviour had been influenced by what he’d seen on TV.
I’m not saying every character needs to be a paragon of virtue. Scriptwriters draw upon bad behaviour, emotion, conflict etc. for their storylines. But we should be aware of the power of what we write. We develop belief systems and values from identifying with role models that exist both in reality and in fiction. I teach business ethics, and I ask my students who they look up to and aspire to be like? Who do they believe would do the right thing in any situation? It’s notable that there is a fairly equal mix between famous people, people they know – mostly a parent – and fictional characters.
Typical ethical role models chosen
If you’re going to have a lie as a plot point, at least make it matter. Try not to normalise dishonesty. Don’t just show the consequences of lying, show that it’s a big deal in terms of the intention or the reaction to the lie. Even better, we could instead normalise telling the truth.
I try to do that in my own writing. My latest novel, The Philosopher and the Assassin, includes characters experiencing tensions where a desire not to cause distress clashes with unpalatable truths. One example is where the protagonist – a professor of moral philosophy – has issues with what her son’s girlfriend does at work. It’s a difficult scene and we feel for both sides as the conversation plays out. We experience those awkward conversations in our real life too and it’s not always the right thing to take the easy route and brush things under the carpet.
My suggestion is that normalising honesty rather than lies in our lives and the stories we tell is another way to fight back against the ‘post-truth’ society. A popular trope of crime procedurals is a detective or outside consultant who speaks their mind with brutal honesty. They are usually presented as on the spectrum or atypical – in fact that’s the point. But what if everyday characters show us what relationships could be like with complete honesty? I enjoyed watching Jane the Virgin a few years ago, and No One Wants This currently simply because the key characters are refreshingly truthful with each other. It’s like a playbook for how to conduct difficult conversations with maturity – a welcome change from many programmes where adults behave like children.
In summary, truth matters. Mike Berners-Lee is pushing at an open door on that point. The strategic use of lies and misinformation have enabled the unscrupulous to manipulate public opinion, consumer behaviour and government policy. What he missed though was the subliminal, but just as powerful influence of fictional characters and stories on our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. Lies are a quick and easy plot point to develop intrigue and conflict, but my challenge to the writers out there is to ask yourself whether in the drive to entertain, you are part of the problem. We under-estimate our power (I talk more about this in a previous newsletter: #ClimateCharacters: Fictional characters: the ultimate influencers). I lay down the gauntlet – try some radical honesty. I’d love to hear how you get on, either in your own life, or in your writing.
Edition 11 Should I use AI?
24/11/25
As a creative, AI offers lots of opportunities, but what about its carbon footprint and water footprint? And will it be the same?
I feel it’s time to write an edition on AI (not with AI). I’ve been reluctant to do so, but several occurrences have led me to the point where I have to engage with my ambivalence.
1. My partner used AI to get instructions on how to get to a wedding via public transport and got it wrong.
2. My university – and everyone it seems – is pushing AI down our throats, even though we are perilously close to the point where we design assessments using AI, students write them using AI and lecturers mark them using AI. Perilously close!
3. Someone sent me a podcast where they’d fed my paper (Fidel Castro’s Leadership: A Decolonial Perspective) into an AI app and it reproduced an incisive discussion of the paper debating all the key findings. If anyone is interested in a case study of how AI misrepresented our results, reproducing the one-sided US-centric information over what we actually found, read the paper and then listen to the AI-generated podcast. Our paper was based upon interviews with everyday Cubans and we discovered that the reason Fidel Castro was so popular among Cubans living on the island was because he could blame most of what was wrong in Cuba on the US embargo. The AI-generated podcast never mentions this. The podcast also said that we found Cubans were dissatisfied with not being able to express dissent. In fact, our paper mentioned surprise that so few said this, even while they were happy to criticise other aspects, such as burdensome bureaucracy. It turns out that Cubans input directly into policy via popular councils and policy is amended based on public feedback, so a lack of voice was not perceived as the big issue outsiders might believe it is. The take-home message is that AI misrepresented our results a lot, and did so not randomly, but in a way that gave undue priority to US-centric information sources.
4. Last but not least, I got sent an academic article on using AI to teach sustainability. I scanned the paper for any mention of AI’s carbon footprint. Nothing. I wrote a note to the editors who’d sent it to me, mentioning this as an issue. Blithely they asked if I’d like to write a paper on the carbon footprint of AI? As if that would make it OK not to mention the issue at all in the original paper! Pause for a minute to consider the disconnect here.
Then I got offered a very good deal to have my latest novel, The Philosopher and the Assassin,narrated by AI narrators. During the book launch, a friend offered to read some passages and they really did come alive in a different way (for an example check out this short reading). However, the characters are particularly varied: young, old, male, female, several ethnicities. I couldn’t help but suspect that to find a narrator worthy of the job would be expensive, let alone a multi-narrator set up.
I’d not been tempted to use AI to write my books. I’d given it a quick go once when stuck on a passage, but the results were so beige and generic it actually cost me time trying to write them in and then writing them all out again. But bearing in mind the cost of a decent human narrator, this offer was tempting.
I double-checked I was right in my fears, and that nothing miraculous had happened to render AI less power-hungry. I was delighted to find a paper that concluded that using AI for tasks like narration had a lower carbon footprint than a person doing it themselves. Handy! Curiosity drove me to read the whole paper because the results were counterintuitive. It turns out that, as in many things, it’s all about the assumptions.
If you have a male narrator from the country with the highest carbon footprint in the world (US) and assume it will take him 40 hours to narrate a ten-hour book and work out the carbon footprint of those hours then that has a higher carbon cost than feeding the book into AI and waiting an hour or so for it to do the narration.
At first, I became preoccupied with the assumptions – what if it was a vegan, South Asian woman doing the narrating? What about all the human hours spent learning about AI, finding out what programme to use, getting it wrong, swearing a bit, adapting the script to be AI friendly – the calculation didn’t count those hours.
Then I realised I’d overlooked a flaw so blatant it had almost passed me by. As humans we are living and breathing and having a carbon footprint anyway. If we weren’t narrating, we’d be doing something else. The AI wouldn’t use power if we didn’t use it. The massive factories belching out pollution and ingesting huge chunks of energy and emitting so much heat aren’t there anyway, we build them to do the job, and if we give it more jobs, we’ll need more power.
I remembered also how rewarding it had been working with a human narrator for my first audiobook, Habitat Man. I found an interview from 2022 about my first experience of getting a narrator where I talk about the wonder of hearing my story come to life in someone else’s voice. The quiver of emotion, the hint of a sob, the escalation of a fight, the hush of a moment of realisation. Reading through the interview, I remembered again how I almost felt as though the narrator and I were one, his voice, my words, it was intoxicating. Habitat Man is on most audio platforms now, including Spotify premium, and I had a listen. I won’t lie, there was one character’s voice he hadn’t got just as I wanted, but it was so human. Genuine warmth in his voice. You could just tell that as he said the words he was feeling them too. He was a voice actor, feeling the character’s emotions.
The thought of my rich gorgeous characters I’d come to love so much settling for an artificial voice with no soul behind it wasn’t so tempting after all. Percy, the fierce head of English, who I imagine as Sam Eagle from the Muppets. GG, the intense, authentic and deeply mournful music lecturer who can only write miserable music. Marcel, the revolutionary history professor – all providing a colourful backdrop to the more nuanced protagonist, Iris Tate, professor of moral philosophy. Plus my students – the cocky one, the keen one, the manipulative one. They’ve become real to me and deserve a real voice. I’d love to use Matt Coles again who did the audio for The Assassin and Habitat Man, but this time I need a female narrator. Any offers?
In the next edition, I’ll be talking about a project for 2026, a 20-piece jigsaw to save the world!
I’m looking for a good icon for this new direction – what do you think?
Edition 12: 2025 and new directions for 2026
(15) 2025 and new directions for 2026 | LinkedIn
December 1, 2025
In this, the 12th edition of the Creative Climate Communication newsletter, I’ll give a recap of the topics covered this year, my last big project and finish with the exciting new direction this newsletter will be heading in the new year.
The goal of the newsletter when I began it a year ago was to explore effective ways to break out of our sustainability echo chambers and reach new audiences – those who wouldn’t dream of reading a newsletter with the word ‘climate’ in it! The focus has been on behaviour rather than attitude change and presenting positive visions rather than trying to ‘scare people green.’
If any of the examples inspired you in any way, please let me know. It’s been a disheartening year for those who care about the climate, and any encouragement helps.
The first newsletter explored the concept of ‘thrutopia’, which talks about how we can get from where we are now to a flourishing sustainable society. In this edition I used the example of my play Murder in the Citizens’ Jury which imagines eight people in a citizens’ assembly debating climate solutions. The audience could vote on their favourite. This proved to be an entertaining way to engage people in policies they’d not considered before. Drama teachers/amateur theatre groups are free to stage it royalty-free if they come to me direct.
April’s newsletter explored the Green Stories #ClimateCharacters project with Bafta showing how fictional characters influence our aspirations and behaviours. The research asked respondents whether they were affected by fictional characters and if they thought it was still acceptable for screenwriters to present high-carbon lifestyles as aspirational.
This study taught us that humour can help to bypass defensive reactions. We also learned that characters can act both as positive role models and cautionary tales. Just telling people what they shouldn’t do doesn’t work as well as showing what they could do instead.
May’s newsletter presented a project that engaged hairdressers in advising their clients of the benefits of less resource-intensive practices at home. This helped to address a key challenge in climate communication which is how to engage those who would not seek out information about the environment or climate.
Did any of the examples of how other sectors could adopt the principles inspire anybody? If so, please let me know in the comments.
June’s edition discussed a young adult eco-fiction novel, Dirt which uses a Romeo and Juliet style romance to showcase regenerative farming methods. If you work in a school, Habitat Press are willing to donate copies to school libraries, and if it’s not too far from Laura’s homebase in London, she may be free to give a talk and hold discussions.
One edition reviewed impactful climate conversations. This included a council meeting populated by plants and animals which got a mention on Have I Got News For You! Others were between the local community, activists and volunteers which led to ecological restoration and reclamation of a sacred site. I also gave a shout out to projects like the H4rmony Project which aims to integrate artificial intelligence with ecological awareness and Tiiqu who are developing resources to protect us from misinformation.
The topic of misinformation is picked up in edition 10 which discusses Mike Berners-Lee’s new book A Climate of Truth and makes a case for radical honesty. I’d love to hear back if anyone took up my challenge to readers and writers?
The question of AI, good or bad was discussed in the last edition from my perspective as a writer and educator. Where do others stand on this?
What next in 2026
My big projects of 2025 were the Green Stories Epiphany flash fiction competition which was covered in edition 6: the transformational power of epiphanies. The anthology of the best stories will be published in January by Habitat Press. If we can get sponsorship, we plan to follow up with a short film competition where filmmakers can choose their favourite story and adapt as a short film.
The other big project was the publication of my campus novel The Philosopher and the Assassin which I talk about in edition 9 on Thrutopian fiction. It adapts my play Murder in the Citizen’s Jury as a story within a story. The book launch in October was great fun, and you can see extracts and readings here.
It is literary fiction and uses the popular murder mystery device to engage readers while educating them – hopefully without them even realising it – about the kinds of policies that would be sufficiently transformative. Philosophy lecturers, political theorists, or business ethics lecturers looking for ways to apply abstract theories to real life problems might want to ask their university library to stock it as a paperback and eBook, both for causal reading and as background reading for relevant modules.
In the epilogue, I transitioned back from my fictional counterpart to my real self. I wanted to make it clear that although I’d written a novel whose primary purpose is entertainment, the policies discussed in it were for real. It also set me up for the big project of 2026, although I didn’t realise it at the time.
Afterword for ‘The Philosopher and the Assassin’ (extracts)
This was a story within a story, and much of it is true. The real me is a professor of sustainable business… Like many academics, I suffer from imposter syndrome. A good academic is supposed to focus, but I’ve gone wide, not deep. My first degree was in politics with economics, and later I did an Open University Science Foundation course. I worked for a social enterprise, a medium-sized business, a multinational corporation, and then self-employed… I returned to university to do a PhD in psychology. I ended up by accident in the Business School and given the job of teaching business ethics and sustainability because I’d nagged them about recycling bins. So, perhaps I’m a bad academic, but who better to have an aerial view of how all the bits of the jigsaw fit together?
It’s a big question. What do we do when our systems are leading us to extinction? It’s hard to see how to get from where we are now to where we need to be – every bit of the jigsaw needs to be part of a new picture. But we don’t have to know everything. All we need to know is the next step and to take it. And just keep going in a different direction. I’ve suggested some of those steps – the big ones – the ones that are hard for politicians to talk about.
And why the citizens’ jury? Because our political parties are like divorced parents offering sweeties to get their children to like them best. But I don’t want to be the book equivalent of broccoli (substitute your most hated healthy food as appropriate), but rather pizza on a crispy base with lots of toppings…
Next: A 20-Piece Jigsaw to Save the World.
The jigsaw metaphor stayed with me for several reasons. First, I like that its focus is the picture on the front of the box that we aspire to build – in this case a flourishing society. Here, I’m drawing on Rob Hopkins, author of one of my favourite books, How to Fall in Love with the Future. It’s much more energizing to reframe the issue as striving towards a positive goal. Secondly, the climate crisis is an interdisciplinary challenge involving science, law, psychology, politics, business, education, technological and nature-based approaches. In the centre will be jigsaw pieces relating to renewable energy, low carbon food and transport, insulated homes etc. The edge pieces will be the structural components of our society: the economic models, assumptions, laws and systems that provide the framework that sets the priorities of our society. The four corner pieces represent the key institutional and constitutional reforms that will be needed to set us on the road to a sustainable society. These are especially tricky, and I’ll be running events where I will invite relevant practitioners, academics and pundits to puzzle them out together.
I plan two editions a month. The first three will set out the context. What the picture on the front will look like; the concept of systems theory, and how that allows us to pinpoint the key leverage points in a society; and the debates around economic growth, green growth and planned degrowth. After that, each edition will focus on a particular piece of the puzzle and invite feedback from subscribers. Every edition will conclude with what we can do right now relevant to that bit of the jigsaw. I will write up as a go, and hope that 2027 will be the launch of the book and associated jigsaw.
So for this edition, I invite you to choose your favourite image for the new direction this newsletter takes in 2026 – year of the jigsaw!
Finally, please note that previous editions are published on my website: https://www.dabaden.com/creative-climate-communication/ for those who’d like to send a link to an article to anyone not on LinkedIn.
Edition 1. Introduction: The picture on the front of the jigsaw puzzle
This newsletter will attempt to set out a roadmap from where we are now to a flourishing future.
There are plenty of books, podcasts etc. outlining the problems we face: climate, inequality, disinformation and others, but what we need now is a vision of what kind of society we’re aiming for, and how we might get there.
Rob Hopkins, author of How to Fall in Love with the Future and co-founder of the transition movement, believes that when we take time to immerse ourselves fully in imagining what kind of future we’d like to see, this creates a longing for it to happen. This in turn can galvanise action to make that dream come true. In his podcast From What Is to What Next, he asks guests to step into a virtual time machine, and imagine themselves to be several years into the future and that we’ve done everything right and turned our society round. He then asks them to visualize what they see and hear around them. It’s a surprisingly powerful exercise when you do it yourself. We’re adept at complaining about what we don’t like and the news and pundits far and wide are keen to point out the problems we face. But it’s rare we take time to imagine what it might all look like if we did things better. Rob is right, it creates a powerful yearning in the heart, a longing that almost makes you cry. I do a lot of talks and workshops and often use this exercise myself. It’s remarkable that whatever the audience, the society people hunger for is often very similar. First is usually more nature, a close second is a sense of community, after that it’s more varied, but local food is often part of the picture, being outdoors more, less traffic. Public transport that is cheap, convenient and goes where you want, when you want. A more equal society, clean air and water. Access to health care and to feel hope for the future, or our children’s future.
This is the picture on the front of the jigsaw.
The barriers to this are an economic system and cultural values that incentivise excessive consumption and view economic growth as the answer to all ills; a democracy hijacked by vested interests and inability to think beyond short electoral cycles; a media landscape that has enabled those with the most money to control the information we are exposed to; and a legal framework for public limited companies that requires them to maximise profits for shareholder value, regardless of the consequences for humanity.
Is there a way through? I think there is. With your help, I will attempt to set out a roadmap to the future we desire. The picture on the front represents the flourishing, sustainable society we’d like to achieve. The middle pieces will cover public transport, renewable energy, seagrass, forests, local food, repair etc. The four corner pieces represent the institutional /constitutional changes needed to set us on the road to a sustainable, flourishing future. I suspect I may end up with more than twenty pieces, but it seemed like a good place to start.
I also plan to run events with a mix of practitioners and academics in specific fields (e.g. finance, banking, politics, etc.) to work together to address the institutional barriers that have so far hindered progress towards a sustainable future.
Another reason I like the jigsaw metaphor is that we can see what pieces we may be part of in our own lives. It’s not just about building castles in the air for fun. The stakes are too high for that. We must work out how we get to our desired society. No one person or element can do it by themselves. We need every part of society to be working together to create this new picture. Whether we be in education, business, politics, members of our community, artists, journalists, or just as employees or voters with a voice, you can see where you fit in. At the end of every edition, if you like what it’s proposing, you will see where you can make a difference.
When I’ve covered the key pieces of the puzzle, then I will write up as a book, probably with a new title as I expect there will be more than twenty pieces. I will also produce the jigsaw. I’m not sure yet if the focus will be a book, with the jigsaw as a fun extra, or whether to focus on the jigsaw and have a slim edition of the book included in the puzzle. Either way, my hope is that it will engage people in the kinds of systemic changes needed, the climate policies that will be truly transformational, and will provide a fun activity for workshops and classrooms.
The first three editions introduce the concept (this one), talk about how a systems approach can help us understand how all the pieces of our socio-economic systems connect and where the levers for change are (next edition). Edition 3 debates the concepts of economic growth, ‘green growth’ and planned degrowth. After that I will go through the twenty or so pieces of the puzzle that will help us reach the picture on the front.
In the meantime, I welcome your views. For example, what do you think are the essential pieces of the jigsaw? Which are worthy of being edge pieces and which should be the corners? The four corners could be concepts, like the four pillars of societies. In the past that may have been the legislature, executive, church etc. Now it might be politics, the economy, society, culture. Information might now warrant a corner of its own, because that is the issue of the day. Democracy is only as good as the information people are exposed to. Businesses control many of our mental associations and aspirations through adverts, marketing etc. Profit-seeking algorithms affect the social media content we’re exposed to, and this is even without AI. Alternatively, the corners could represent the actual policies that will be crucial in the transformation towards a sustainable, flourishing society.
What can you do?
I’d welcome the opportunity to get constructive feedback on the ideas as I go along. My varied background[1] makes me well suited to systems-level thinking, that is, how the elements that govern how society functions relate to each other, where the levers are for change, and where the blockages are. But we live in a complex society and no one person knows everything.
My call to action for this edition is to contribute your comments and share the link to the LinkedIn newsletter with any who are interested – especially those with relevant expertise.
[1] My first degree was in politics and economics. I followed this with an Open University Science Foundation course. I worked in social enterprises, a medium-sized business, a multi-national corporation, then self-employed before returning to do a PhD in psychology. I’m now a professor of sustainable business in Southampton Business School.
Edition 2: Systems Theory and how looking at the system as a whole allows us to identify key leverage points for change
In the first edition I outlined the picture on the front of the jigsaw: a flourishing, sustainable society. Clean air and water. More community, education and health care. Public transport that is convenient, regular and cheap. Good food, locally grown. Less fear, more joy. A belief that the future will be bright. A sense of belonging. More nature.
Keep focused on that dream, because every piece of the puzzle discussed in the next twenty or so editions is what can get us there. Our current challenges of climate, inequality, polarization etc. seem intractable, but by adopting a systems approach which considers how the various societal structures interconnect, a way through becomes clear.
What is a systems approach?
A system can be seen as an interdependent group of factors that share some common goals and interrelated functions and an identity. Our body, a central heating system, a business or an economy can all be viewed as systems. In any complex system, the whole is more than a sum of its parts, therefore understanding each component is not as helpful as knowing how it operates within the system. Mapping the inputs, outputs, feedback control mechanisms etc. is crucial in understanding ecosystems, our bodies, weather, organisations, societies, and so on. Applying a systems approach can be useful to locate the leverage points for change. Knowing these means that you don’t waste time and resources on a strategy that is unlikely to work.
For example, imagine a university is anxious because it has fewer students on its MBA programme than expected. What should it do? A typical response might be to employ a consultancy group to establish what potential applicants are looking for and then change either the programme on offer or the marketing strategy to suit. But this would be pointless if the reason there were fewer students was because they had cut the admin staff, a key member went sick, and students keen to join the programme went elsewhere because they didn’t find out they were accepted until too late.
A systems approach is especially useful when it comes to climate change as it is an interdisciplinary challenge involving science, psychology, technology, business, ecology, politics, law, culture and more. Many, many people care. A recent global survey of 130,000 respondents from 125 nations reported that 80-89% of people wanted governments to do more about climate change[1], but what exactly? Knowing where the leverage points are in our political economy is not obvious.
Donella Meadows, in her much-cited article, ‘Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System,’[2] adopts the metaphor of the bathtub to illustrate a simple system, with its inflows (taps/faucets) the outflows (the drain), delays in the system (kinks in valves etc.) and desired temperature.
She makes the point that having different people turning the taps, for example different politicians adjusting tax and expenditure, is seen by many as the key lever for change, but: “putting different hands on the faucets may change the rate at which the faucets turn, but if they’re the same old faucets, plumbed into the same old system, turned according to the same old information and goals and rules, the system isn’t going to change much.”
The truth of this came home to me recently. I’m supervising research into how business leaders’ values have transformed after an executive awayday in nature. Given the time to reflect upon what the business stands for and what sustainability means for them as human beings, it’s not unusual for business leaders to have an epiphany that the world is in trouble and try to instigate change. But in a public limited company, if what they do doesn’t maximise profit for the shareholders, they risk a hostile takeover. Despite their sincerest wish to be part of the solution to our sustainability challenges, they quickly get sucked back into servicing the system. After all, we live in a society where a fossil fuel corporation’s share price increased after they reneged on their climate pledges [one piece of the jigsaw puzzle will be the legal structure of business].
Meadows provides a list of points to intervene in order of effectiveness. For example, the delays in a bathtub filling or draining are due to the physical pipes and valves. In most complex systems, changing the physical infrastructure takes a lot of time and effort, so it’s not as effective as proper design in the first place. This in turn depends upon the mindset and values of the culture that designs the infrastructure, and the carrots and sticks that incentivise or disincentivise long-term thinking.
Another key factor in the resilience of systems are feedback loops. Most common are negative feedback loops that regulate a system and keep it within operational limits. A thermostat that switches on when the temperature falls below a desired level, and back off when it reaches the desired temperature is a classic example. In the human body, we sweat to cool down or shiver to warm up.
Systems theory also predicts that systems with unchecked positive feedback loops will collapse. This is related to the concept of tipping points. Imagine a giant boulder approaching a cliff edge. It would be relatively easy to push the boulder back while the ground is flat. But once it tips over the cliff edge, it would take an inordinate amount of energy to get it back up again.
An alarming current example concerns the two glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic which have kept the planet’s temperature stable for thousands of years. It is this period of relative stability that has allowed life to flourish.
When temperature increases to a certain point, glaciers begin to melt. And once they begin to melt, their rate of melting will speed up, because white surfaces reflect heat back into the atmosphere. This is known as the albedo effect. As white snow gives way to black rock, less heat is reflected and more heat is absorbed, resulting in the temperature rising even more, melting the snow faster, leaving more black rock, more heat absorption and so on. This is a positive feedback loop and a tipping point. The reason why we’re anxious is that getting there slowly in our own good time won’t cut it. It’s a matter of chemistry. We must change our ways, fast.
To return to the metaphor of the bathtub, we need to remove excess carbon dioxide from the air. Nature has been doing that beautifully for centuries. Trees, seagrass, kelp, peat bogs, mangroves, the ocean – all have acted as carbon sinks. This is why biodiversity and nature are so closely linked to the issue of climate. Plastic and microplastics in the oceans don’t just affect the sea life and ruin our beaches, they also disrupt natural carbon cycles, and worse still contribute to ocean acidification which further reduces the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon. Deforestation, mining, and agriculture have all diminished these natural carbon sinks. Peat in our home compost has turned peat bogs from carbon sinks into carbon emitters. The waste products from our consumer lifestyle have lessened the ocean’s ability to act as a natural buffer.
There are numerous remedies, all with different pros and cons and trade-offs. Trees are great but they take ages to grow, and we need carbon dioxide reduction right now. They also burn, and climate change makes fires both fiercer and more likely. Seagrass and kelp forests won’t catch on fire and there are projects around the world to boost the stock. Unfortunately, there are also continued practices of ocean bottom trawling undermining that good work.
Technologies are coming on board such as carbon capture and storage. These work best when sited right next to the sites of greatest carbon emissions, but they are too expensive to have in every neighbourhood. With innovation, prices will come down, but the costs aren’t just financial. They use a lot of energy to make in the first place. Again, time is the issue. If we’re in a race against melting glaciers (and we are), it’s not okay to emit tonnes of carbon dioxide to build structures that will eventually suck it back up. Even when the process is driven by renewable energy, first we need the minerals and materials to build the photo voltaic panels, hydrogen plants or wind turbines. We’re doing that, but don’t think it comes for free.
The point I’m building up to is that, yes, we must drawdown carbon as fast as we can, whatever the cost. That drains away the heat from the bathtub – our atmosphere. But there is little point in doing that, if the hot tap is still on full blast. The hot tap is production and its mirror, consumption. The easiest and fastest way to address the climate crisis is to consume less.
This is the same conclusion come to by Jay Forrester, one of the most eminent experts in systems dynamics. He was asked by the ‘Club of Rome’ – an organisation set up to solve the ‘predicament of mankind’ – how best to address the key global social and environmental issues. His model took into account over a hundred factors, in particular, population, industrial production, pollution, resources, and food. He identified growth as the key leverage point – both population growth and economic growth. Indeed, there was no policy that could prevent collapse without some constraint on population and capital growth. Donella Meadows agrees, saying, “the world’s leaders are correctly fixated on economic growth as the answer to virtually all problems, but they’re pushing with all their might in the wrong direction!”
Let’s remind ourselves of our dream: we want a flourishing society. We want health, meaningful work, a strong community, access to nature, and the expectation that our children’s lives will be even better. We have everything we need to achieve the dream. We have knowledge, technology, a beautiful planet, an ecosystem that takes energy from the sun, converts it into plants that provide oxygen and food for pollinators and animals and us. An astoundingly dazzling ocean that absorbs carbon dioxide and provides a home to a glorious array of life.
In the next edition I will discuss economic growth, explore the idea of ‘green growth’ and ‘planned degrowth’ and provide some concrete examples. These first three editions cover some general concepts: edition 1: the picture on the front of the jigsaw, edition 2, systems theory and edition 3 ‘green growth’ and after that I will get down to more specific pieces of the puzzle.
What can you do?
Please share the link to this newsletter with any who are interested – especially those with relevant expertise and encourage them to contribute their views (in the comments or privately).
[1] https://89percent.org/
[2] https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
Edition 3. Economic Growth, Green Growth or Degrowth?
In edition 2, I discussed how the giants of systems theory identified growth as the key leverage point – both population growth and economic growth, claiming there was no policy to that could prevent collapse without some constraint on population and capital growth. So I was interested to attend an event about ‘green growth’. Much of the event was taken up by the local MP who was waxing lyrical about economic growth. The floor opened to questions, and someone asked whether she thought growth conflicted with sustainability.
This is what I’d come for because many politicians and pundits talk about economic growth measured via the Gross Domestic Product (I’ll talk more about the GDP and alternatives in a later edition) as if it were the answer to all ills – a provider of tax income, innovation, jobs etc. However, many academics and environmentalists point out the absurdity of a concept that considers growth in production and consumption disconnected from wellbeing[1]. For example, wars, disasters etc. also lead to increases in the GDP. There is also the issue of pursuing endless growth on a finite planet, and the inconvenient truth that excessive consumption is accelerating us towards environmental breakdown.
I sat up, waiting for a considered answer that considered the genuine issues and trade-offs. I was disappointed. She bounced around smiling, repeating the mantra of ‘green growth’, ‘all growth is green’, etc., as if saying the phrase was enough to make it a reality. I’d love to be convinced, but the weight of empirical evidence is against it, and the consequences of chasing a false dream are the end of civilisation as we know it.
The key problem with the notion of green growth is described in Jevon’s paradox. This is the observation that increases in efficiency of a resource result in greater overall consumption rather than the decrease one would expect.
This is due to ‘the rebound effect’, which describes the finding that when we invent or adopt an alternative that is more efficient – by which I mean greater output/performance for less or the same energy – then it doesn’t result in a net reduction in energy use. For example, studies have shown that when people switch to low-energy light bulbs, they leave them on for longer. Similarly, as transport becomes more efficient, people travel more and commuting distances are greater. Another example, which will resonate with those who grew up in the twentieth century, is photography. Before phones had cameras, we had to take photos, then take the roll of film to be processed, wait several days, then pick them up. It was expensive and time consuming. Most of us would take less than twenty a month, some twenty a year. Many of us take that per day now – per hour even – per minute! Before emails we wrote letters, one or two a week if that. Now we send hundreds. I used to attend conferences or travel to events once or twice a year as an academic. Since video conferencing took off during the pandemic, I attend or present at ten times as many at least. In doing so I make international contacts, which have given rise to more physical travelling too. Data storage is another example. As information storage becomes more efficient, we store exponentially more. Most films and TV shows were shot on film, but as digital filmmaking became a possibility, more was filmed overall, and resolutions became higher with 4 k and even 8 k. There are marginal increases in clarity and huge increases in carbon footprint.
The green-growthers might point to new technologies, for example companies have developed that are able to harness this energy and put it to good use. One claims that the heat generated from rendering a 90-minute film could be used to provide hot water for 20,000 homes for a day. One would hope this solves the problem – just capture all that heat and use it to power offices and homes. However, history tells us that, without an absolute cap on consumption, the overwhelming likelihood is that just a fraction of the energy generated from filmmaking will be used productively, and energy consumption will rise. The unstoppable forward motion of technological innovation strives for endlessly higher resolution. In turn this requires us to update our screens. Innovations continue, resolution increases again, and carbon emissions continue to rise at an ever-increasing rate. The existence of a technology that can capture a small part of that energy will be used to squash any naysayers and no one will even think to ask the question of whether their enjoyment of a film previously was ever affected that much by a lower resolution film?
Green growth is a dangerous dream. Increases in efficiency have never been associated in any instance by an absolute decrease in consumption. If you find an example to disprove this, I’d be very glad to hear of it. We can learn from it and build upon it, but one or two examples will not counter the weight of the rest, and until they do, the concept of ‘green growth’ is a problem more than it is a solution. It acts as a placebo that distracts us from the need to adopt measures that reduce consumption.
Degrowthers make the point that it is the global North that has used up more than their fair share of planetary resources and is responsible for the greenhouse gases that are warming our planet. Degrowthers therefore advocate for degrowth in the industrial countries rather than those which are still developing. This is an obviously fair caveat, but the point I’m making is that for many parts of our lives, there is no tension at all between growth and quality of life. Often quite the opposite. In each case, I’ve cited, I would argue that the lower consumption options result in greater wellbeing than the high-consumption options.
Before digital cameras, we used to get excited when waiting for a roll of film to be processed. Each photo cost money, so we were selective. Then we’d have them developed and choose the best to put in photo albums and the rest would languish in a folder in a drawer somewhere. Getting photos developed and receiving them back was an event. Now sorting my photos out is a chore. Going through and deciding which to delete, which to store. Where to put the maybes. I barely bother looking at them anymore even while I take hundreds.
My email inbox is a relentlessly growing burden, but I remember the days when a letter on the mat that wasn’t in a brown envelope was a joy.
I liked the excitement of an international conference. I’d tie it into a little trip with my partner or kids if I could. I’d meet just a few people, right in my area of interest. Now I meet so many people I can’t form the same bonds; there are too many.
Films are so expensive now due to the huge data they consume, but the plots aren’t any better. There were good and bad films then and there are now. I enjoy them the same amount. Even if for those who love the tech, and marvel at the resolution, one must ask the question: is their enjoyment of the latest high-tech digital films sufficiently greater to justify the exponentially higher carbon cost? I don’t think a marginal increase in enjoyment by a particular audience segment is enough to justify the carbon footprint.
Let me finish by contrasting a ‘green growth’ perspective with a ‘use less’ perspective. My observations from two decades working in the area of ‘sustainable’ business is that the typical corporate approach to sustainability is to replace one product with another ‘greener’ product, and charge through the roof for it. The sustainable alternative is typically presented in a brown cardboard packing rather than shiny packaging, uses much the same ingredients – often cheaper – and costs twice as much for half the quantity.
I was first alerted to this when I attended An All-Party Parliamentary Group on hair and beauty. I was sitting around an oak oval table in the ancient palace of Westminster debating sustainable beauty with MPs, representatives from the Soil Association, and various hair and beauty companies. The L’Oreal lady proudly boasted that their research showed that over seventy percent of customers said they would pay more for a ‘sustainable product.’ I was younger then, over-awed at being in such a hallowed place, and L’Oreal at that time were dangling offers of huge consultancy fees for me to advise on sustainable haircare so I’m ashamed to say it was the lady from the Soil Association rather than me who challenged this assertion.[2] Of course there are many issues with it. One is the assumption that it’s fine to charge more, when the greener alternative is often the same price or cheaper to produce. Another is whether the alternative is actually any better for the environment at all.
Palm oil is good illustration of this. Most hair and beauty products use palm oil, as do many foods. In fact, it’s estimated about half of the products on supermarket shelves contain palm oil, and demand for palm oil leads directly to deforestation. Ninety percent of palm oil is grown in Malysia and Indonesia and below you can see the effects.
Research Gate
We know that trees absorb carbon dioxide, so deforestation hastens the climate crisis. Clearing forests using the slash-and-burn technique releases yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The fires used for clearing cause air pollution leading to respiratory, eye and cardiovascular diseases estimated to results in thousands of premature deaths. It also results in huge biodiversity losses and leaves the forest’s inhabitants homeless.
Faced with criticism, palm oil producers, manufacturers and environmental groups got together in 2004 to establish the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The idea was certify plantations that had higher standards of governance and fewer social and environmental impacts. Manufacturers could then use RSPO-certified palm oil in their products and consumers could purchase such products with a clear conscience. It was a camera man who was filming a short video about my sustainable hair project who put me straight. He’d been filming palm oil plantations in Indonesia and told me that the ones certified as ‘sustainable’ were no such thing. I did some research and was shocked to find out he was correct. Certified plantations differ little from uncertified plantations in terms of forest degradation.[3] Studies found no difference in decline of orangutan populations or number of fire hotspots between RSPO certified and non-certified plantations,[4] and satellite images revealed that slash-and-burn-techniques were still being used to clear RSPO certified land.[5]
I felt a fraud. It was hard to accept that my work promoting sustainability in the hairdressing sector was just more greenwash. My epiphany moment came when a shampoo manufacturer told me that when they did a life-cycle analysis of the carbon footprint of their shampoo, about ninety percent of the emissions were in the hot water used to rinse it off.[6]
I changed my approach completely and soon discovered many win-wins to the ‘use less’ approach. Using less/cooler water, avoiding harsh chemicals, using less product and shampooing less often – all of these practices turn out to be better for hair and skin condition. They also save time, cut energy and water bills and are better for the environment. Here’s an example:
As you can see, there are multiple benefits to low-resource haircare and the energy and carbon savings aren’t just a few percent, they are several orders of magnitude less. For example, Jo’s annual carbon footprint from haircare is 25 kg, compared to Sam’s 579 kg. There are also other numerous benefits in terms of time, money, and hair and skin health from lower resource practices. But there are no trillion-dollar marketing budgets telling us of the benefits of using less, so many of us are unaware how much better a low-resource lifestyle could be.
We need to transform our society into one where there is just as much wellbeing, while using far fewer resources. This requires more than just tinkering around the edges, as most of our economic theories and business models emerged during a time where the only constraint on resource use was money. The planet itself is assumed in traditional models to be ever-giving, and until new concepts such as cradle-to-grave, life-cycle analysis and circular economy came into being, what to do with the waste products of consumption didn’t figure.
In the next section I look at another concept that is both emerging fast and yet as old as the hills – the sharing economy.
What can you do?
Think of examples where using less increases wellbeing and share in the comments.
Streaming programmes in SD rather than HD has a lower carbon footprint. Try it and share whether it affects your enjoyment.
Talk to your hairdresser and let them know they can certify as a sustainable salon using the free resources on https://ecohairandbeauty.com/.
Walk lightly upon the earth.
If your shampoo is responsible for deforestation and loss of habitat – then at least use it all before throwing away. With shampoos, conditioners, shower gels etc. you can often get several more washes from the rinsing out the bottle with water as a concentrated amount of product tends to accumulate at the bottom. It also means you’ll be recycling a clean bottle not one with product left in.
Try washing your hair less often and with cooler water.
Same with laundry. Your fabrics will last longer, and your bills will go down and I bet you won’t notice any difference in the result.
Develop good habits to minimise your carbon footprint in the cloud. Unsubscribe from email newsletters you don’t read. Delete old emails, photos and videos that you don’t want – especially those over 1MB.
[1] Jackson, T. (2013). Prosperity without growth. In Globalisation, economic transition and the environment (pp. 105-128). Edward Elgar Publishing.
[2] This is how academics get co-opted by industry – flattery and money. This episode opened my eyes into how easily it happens. I have since learned my lesson, and do not accept corporate money from business.
[3] Gatti, R. C., Liang, J., Velichevskaya, A., & Zhou, M. (2019). Sustainable palm oil may not be so sustainable. Science of the Total Environment, 652, 48-51.
[4] Gatti, R. C., & Velichevskaya, A. (2020). Certified “sustainable” palm oil took the place of endangered Bornean and Sumatran large mammals habitat and tropical forests in the last 30 years. Science of The Total Environment, 742, 140712.
[5] https://www.nzz.ch/english/palm-oil-boom-threatens-protected-rainforest-in-indonesia-ld.1625490
[6] I don’t have a citation because this was in-house proprietary research.
Edition 4. The Sharing Economy
Imagine if you could clear out everything in your attic, sheds and cupboards that you only use now and then, but get access to it anytime you wanted?
You could have what you needed, when you needed it without the burden of ownership. Without having to find space to store it, clean it, maintain it, insure it, then remember where you put it! There are times when I’ve bought something new because I’d either forgotten I already had one (electric fan during the last heatwave) or just didn’t have the time to go into the loft and search for it and remember where all the bits were (tent).
The other day I needed a drill. It was just for a quick job. I rummaged in the cupboard under the stairs. I couldn’t find it so in the end pulled everything out so I could get to the back. Out came the vacuum cleaner, tennis racquets, wellington boots, football, toolbox – but not the one with the drill in, dumbbells, bike helmet, bike panniers, and rucksack. None of these had been used in months. Then I found it under the cool box. Now for the drill bits. I could not find them.
Eventually I discovered them in the hidden compartment in the toolbox, but first I had to take everything out of the toolbox. Tools I’d used maybe once in the last decade but kept just in case. I was now late for my friend’s birthday meal and so had to rush out. I returned to find my entire cupboard and tools spread out over the floor. Determined to finish the chore I’d earmarked for the day, I decided to use the drill and drill bit while I had it out to drill the tiny hole. The drill had seized up so I couldn’t tighten the nozzle enough to hold the thinnest drill bit I needed in place. I put everything away and went to bed an hour later defeated.
The next day, I checked the hire shops, but it didn’t seem worth paying such a high price to hire a drill for one job. I was tempted to buy another, but it wasn’t worth it for a product I barely used.
A study found that drills are typically used for an average of 18 minutes a year[1], with emissions from its use comprising a tiny fraction, as most emissions come from mining the metal to make the drill, its manufacture and transportation etc. A study based on an enterprise that facilitate sharing, found that drills were typically shared 30 times, resulting in emissions savings of 700kg CO2e. It’s a vastly inefficient use of resources for every household to have a tool set that they use just a few times a year. In fact, I’d bet that about 80% of what you own you don’t even use on a weekly basis. Yet space must be found for it all. It all needs dusting, maintaining, insuring, storing and then finding.
My local neighbourhood boasts 4 cafes/bistros, a bar, 6 takeaways, 3 convenience shops, a bakery, 4 hairdressers/barbers, a betting shop, 2 tattoo parlours, 3 beauty/nail salons and always a couple of empty premises. Wouldn’t it be lovely if one of these included a Library of Things within walking distance. A place where I could nip in and borrow what I needed just for the job. My house would be blissfully clear of clutter. Life would be simpler and cheaper, and I could finally clear out the back room so friends could stay.
Many libraries lend music, maps, toys etc. as well as books, and in countries which have a flourishing public library system (e.g. Finland and Denmark), some also lend items such as tools, sewing machines and even 3D printers. But these are few and far between. Could access over ownership be scaled up to become a new business model?[2]
Borrow and return – an alternative business model
Businesses have become so wedded to the idea that profits come from selling stuff that they have aligned their processes around this simple rule – sell more. Bonuses depend on sales. Transport logistics optimise sales – the route from manufacture to a customer’s home is as smooth and efficient as it can possibly be. But increasingly as online sales outnumber in-store sales, and the rate of product returns rises, it is no longer obvious that more sales equate to more profits. The issue is that the returns process is not smooth and efficient – quite the reverse. There are numerous ways returns are managed. Some go to the store, some to an intermediary, some posted to a distribution centre where shadowy people known as ‘jobbers’ do something with returns. This is a bit of a black hole as it is virtually impossible to find out what. Some may be returned into the sales process, some may go to charity, some may just be dumped. We don’t actually know. Returns are costly to companies. There is also evidence that not all returns are legitimate. People may buy a fancy outfit for an occasion then return it the next day or purchase a flat screen TV for the World Cup, then send it back within the 30 days. Often people routinely buy several versions and sizes online to try out knowing that all but one will be returned. It’s a huge problem and getting worse. Businesses are caught in a bind. Sales depend in part upon the leniency of returns policies – if you make it harder to return, then sales go down.
Perhaps to solve this we need to think outside the box. Rather than consider these customers as ‘fraudsters’, we could instead see this behaviour as reflecting a desire to borrow rather than buy. After all we don’t need our wardrobe cluttered with smart outfits when we go to one smart function every few years. Perhaps what customers want is an Amazon or Walmart of Borrowing. What if businesses turn a problem into an opportunity and optimise their processes around returns rather than sales?
An obvious place to start would be baby and maternity clothes which are by their nature only needed for a short period of time. We buy them when needed, then they take up valuable space in drawers and wardrobe until another child comes along. A borrowing model makes much more sense. In the UK, Mothercare was a staple of our shopping centres for decades then it folded. Perhaps if it had been MotherShare it may have succeeded.
Swapping, borrowing, hiring – all these activities are on the rise. In fashion for example, there are a growing number of opportunities to borrow rather than buy. Tools, cars, bikes, etc. all lend themselves well to sharing type apps. Libraries of Things have popped up all over the world, with a number of different models. Some you pay per item, some are subscription, some a mixture of both. Research shows that they have reduced the amount of embedded carbon via promoting of borrowing over buying and are equitable, providing low-cost access to goods that some couldn’t afford to buy.
Often people assume that getting access to products to lend or repairing products that borrowers have damaged would be the biggest challenge. My research into Libraries of Things in the UK found that this wasn’t the issue one may expect. Our society abounds with stuff. When people get married and pool their stuff or get older and move into a care home there are often whole households of perfectly serviceable goods that just get dumped or shoved in the back of a cupboard somewhere. Often goods are barely used before they’re discarded. Many Libraries of Things have associated repair cafe’s as it works well to have people with skills nearby who can refurbish or repair products as needed.
Libraries of Things are a piece of the puzzle but they’re not a corner piece because we already have them, but the conditions aren’t right for them to flourish. They just about survive, often with help from volunteers, or free premises or support from local councils or grants. It’s fair to say they are an exception, not the rule. Most people haven’t even heard of them, don’t live near one, or possibly do and don’t even realise it. My research[3] revealed that the key barrier they face is making people aware of their existence.
They’re caught in a catch 22. If everyone used them then they’d have economies of scale. Word of mouth marketing would rapidly increase their customer base, further increasing efficiencies and lowering costs. This would enable them to provide better service and more goods at a more attractive cost. They could jazz up their offering. Different levels – bronze, silver and gold that allow progressively more attractive options, like being able to reserve or a Gold Card for those who have acquired trust points who can now access luxury goods such as expensive jewellery or art!
Pause dear reader and dream for a little while. Wander around your home, look in cupboards and attics, garages and sheds and under the bed and imagine that everything you only use a few times a year was gone. Maybe you could save yourself some money and move somewhere smaller or just revel in the space. Your insurance premiums would go down. Less to dust. If it’s a nice day, walk to your nearest convenience store. Where would a Library of Things go? How might you work the gold card option and what would you like to borrow? Dare to dream a little. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a ‘staycation’ and just play around. Are your children musical perhaps? Borrow some instruments and see what takes their fancy. Or are you nostalgic for the video games of your youth? Borrow an old console and the games of the period and have a fun weekend of retro gaming. Or now you’ve decluttered your space and can finally see the floor, borrow a carpet cleaner for a few hours and give the place a good clean. Borrow a bread maker, foot massager, rowing machine etc. and use it for a week or two until you’re bored of it then give it back, glad it’s not gathering dust in some cupboard due to an impulse buy you now regret.
You may cry, but what to give to people for Christmas? Forget about golf clubs for your uncle or a scarf for your friend that she won’t like or a game for your nephew that he already has. Buy an annual subscription to the sports, fashion or games department.
Do you like the picture you have created? Are you thinking musty, second-hand spaces with worn out tools or gleaming rows of everything you need when you need it, alongside instructions and ability to reserve? What’s possible depends on the institutional environment, and for that we need a corner piece. If you’re in a hurry you take a quick peek, but I recommend you read your way up to it.
What can you do?
Make use of the sharing options already present. Check if there is a library of things nearby or sharing apps. Most areas have several, some are on Facebook, some a website. For example my neighbourhood has sites such as ‘Next Door’ and freecycle which operate across the UK. Others are very local e.g. Southampton has Facebook sites e.g. I need a Whisk. Search for tool libraries in your area. Men’s Shed (also open to women) is worth checking out – see locations here. If there aren’t consider setting something up.
There’s lots of ways to share your car and get paid, or borrow one (see https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/list-your-car or https://www.drivy.co.uk/rent-your-car) or sign up with https://liftshare.com/.
Fat Llama allows people to rent anything from campervans and tents for a weekend’s camping, to marquees, DJ decks and even AV equipment for weddings. The platform connects people who are in need of specific, hi-spec items with owners who hope to make a bit of extra cash.
Fashion is now easy to lend or borrow. A 2025 resale report by ThredUP, the world’s largest online thrift store, indicates that the trend towards preloved fashion continues to accelerate[4]. Here are some examples:
- Depop peer to peer online shopping marketplace has 21m+ users
- https://www.byrotation.com/ fashion rental app
- https://onloan.co/
- https://www.hurrcollective.com/
- Urban Outfitters rent out clothing in US
- Rent the Runway, a New York company which began in 2009, where women can borrow designer clothes for a monthly payment.
- Hire Street lets you borrow dresses and jumpsuits for up to 16 days at budget-friendly rates.
- My Wardrobe HQ loans high-end gowns.
- https://www.thedevout.com/ Choose 5 items to rent every month worth £500, from top brands and vintage pieces. Free delivery, laundry and free accidental damage cover included.
- thredUp – world’s largest fashion resale platform has grown while broader retail sector has shrunk
- Vinted also growing.
- https://orcollective.co.uk/ rent children’s clothes
- https://mudjeans.eu/lease-a-jeans/
- [1] Skjelvik, J.M., A.M. Erlandsen, and O. Haavardsholm, Environmental impacts and potential of the sharing economy. Vol. 2017554. 2017: Nordic Council of Ministers.
[2] Baden, D., & Frei, R. (2021). Product returns: an opportunity to shift towards an access-based economy? Sustainability, 14(1), 410.
[3] Baden, D., Peattie, K., & Oke, A. (2020). Access over ownership: case studies of Libraries of Things. Sustainability, 12(17), [7180]. DOI: 10.3390/su12177180
[4] 2025 Resale Market and Consumer Trend Report | ThredUp
Edition 5. Repair
Things used to be built to last as a matter of course. Resources were finite, it took much effort and energy and often destruction of the environment to get materials out of the ground, transported all to one place, and assembled, so obviously you’d want them to last. Then in the 1920s it occurred to some bright spark to ask – what if we didn’t? What if we made things not to last? To fail. This was in the light bulb industry, and I can imagine the men (there wouldn’t have been women on the board back then) stroking their chins doubtfully. All their instincts would have gone against it, because the aim of business obviously was to deliver value to customers. “Surely that would be wrong,” someone would have said. And back then, possibly it wasn’t considered so naïve to consider the interests of society and nature when reaching a decision. But our bright spark (pun unintended) would point to a few graphs and suggest that it would nonetheless be much more profitable. The idea took off, and henceforth, lightbulbs were designed to fail after a certain number of hours.
We should have listened to our instincts because this practice grew and grew until it had its own label, ‘planned obsolescence’. From nylon stockings and tights which are made to run (and there was me thinking it was my clumsiness) to appliances with components designed to fail after a certain amount of usage. Fast fashion of course is intended to go out of date.
Apple for example have faced class action lawsuits, accused of deliberately sending updates that would slow down older iPhones in order to encourage customers to buy the latest, more expensive model. This is the exact opposite of a sustainable business model because encouraging customers to hold onto their phones for longer could halve their environmental impacts, especially as 80% of the carbon footprint of phones is estimated to be in the production phase rather than use phase[1]. Furthermore, mobile phones are fabricated with heavy metals which cause severe environmental hazards due to their toxicity[2]. Replacing the handsets every year, as new models become available, creates an unnecessary carbon footprint and hazardous waste. Improper disposal of mobile phones causes significant health effects and environmental degradation, contaminating soil, water, fish, and wildlife. For example, the leakage of cadmium in the battery from a single phone can poison 600,000 liters of water. The resulting contamination causes far-reaching consequences to be faced by the environment and all the living forms of the earth affecting all the elements of the environment, i.e. fertility of the land, human health, wildlife, sea and plant life.
For years, Apple lobbied against laws that would require them to make spare parts available so customers could repair their phones rather than get a new one. Laws on public disclosure reveal they weren’t the only ones. Car companies, printing, heavy machinery and medical device companies have spent huge amounts lobbying against right to repair legislation.[3]
But public pressure is prevailing and in 2023 Apple reversed course and finally endorsed right to repair legislation which would allow consumers and independent repair shops to fix their products. That isn’t to say that pressure to upgrade is off the table. Consider this advert that played on my local radio, and just so I’m not picking an Apple, this one was by Samsung. It begins with a trustworthy female voice asking: Your mobile phone is good, but does it wow you? Then it’s not good enough. The customer is then enticed to get the latest model. Does it matter if a perfectly good phone lies unused in a drawer or is thrown away (a report estimated only 17% of e waste is properly recycled[4]). Yes, it does matter. These resources are costly in terms of human health, biodiversity loss and environmental impacts to access, and confer further costs when dumped. They are also finite resources. You would think it would be criminal to use and abuse them so casually.
Let’s return to the picture on the front of the jigsaw.
Take a breath and pause to picture a flourishing future. Remind yourself of how it feels to imagine it. Hold it in your mind and dream of this flourishing future becoming a flourishing present. Shut your eyes and take three deep breaths. If you are in a position to do so, step outside and raise your arms above your head in a stretch and breathe in that feeling of peace and joy and breathe out present negativity. Breathe out all those toxins and breathe in the dream.
The Joy of Fixing Stuff
Imagine your mental health being better than it is now. You stroll around your domain with a greater sense of mastery and achievement. You are less stressed and have more confidence. You have an activity at your fingertips that any time you feel negative thoughts intruding, you can turn to. It will induce a sense of flow and mindfulness, reduce stress, enable a primal sense of satisfaction and lead to a tangible outcome that makes you feel good each time you look at it. It’s not without its challenges – you may fail before you succeed, but the harder the journey the more satisfying the feeling when you crack it. You will develop a sense of competence and resilience and learn new skills. Your brain chemistry will be transformed. The stress hormone cortisol is lowered as you are grounded in the present moment, fixed upon your task, then the ultimate dopamine buzz when sweet success finally comes.
I’m talking about repair. I expect you have stuff lying around that at some point you plan to throw away or get fixed. Maybe it’s a puncture in your bike or a broken screen on your phone? Trousers that need taking up or holes in your socks? You probably haven’t done anything about it because you don’t have time or don’t know how, or maybe you think of it as another chore. Try reframing it as an opportunity to feel all those wonderful things I’ve outlined above. Imagine very time you look at your bike or put on your socks, you feel a quiet sense of competence and satisfaction. And there’s nothing wrong with a patch or fix. The Japanese call it golden repair – Kintsugi – which highlights cracks and repairs as something to celebrate rather than disguise.
We evolved to be tool users. Numerous studies have shown that working with our hands – sewing, crafts, fixing or making things, gardening etc. reduces stress. There’s something primal about it – it’s what our bodies were meant to do. Concentrating on a task that requires hand-eye coordination releases your mind from ruminative thoughts, often inducing a Zen-like focus and calm. Then at the end of it you have something – whether it be a fixed toy, a mended jumper, home-grown potatoes or a woolly hat. In fact psychologists have attributed the growth in depression and mental health disorders in part to the lack of hands-on activities in modern life. Neuroscientist Kelly Lambert, for example talks about the reward circuits in our brain being stimulated by hands-activities directed towards a tangible outcome which provide resilience against negative thinking.
“Such actions and their associated thoughts, plans and ultimate results change the physiology and chemical makeup of the effort-driven rewards circuit, activating it in an energized way. I call the emotional sense of well-being that results effort-driven rewards.”[5]
Clearly in any sane world, the goal would be to achieve the maximum of wellbeing with a minimum use of resources. This requires repair. And for most of our history, knowing how to make, maintain and repair things for ourselves was the norm. In the 18th century, for example, the three Rs stood for reading, reckoning (arithmetic) and wroughting – which meant making. In schools today, crafts are falling off the curriculum. Things like woodwork, needlework, metalwork, design and technology were taught in schools but faced a decline with many schools no longer offering them. But they are making a comeback. Many communities run repair cafes where you can take stuff to be fixed. Campaigns by right-to-repair activists are making it easier to access spare parts and instructions. Culturally too, crafts and repair are on the rise with programmes on sewing and repairing on mainstream channels. YouTube is also the repairer’s dream, with videos on how to fix almost everything. France leads the way with their repair bill requiring companies to provide spare parts and instructions on how to repair.
Repair is an important piece of the jigsaw. We should strengthen our laws and include more practical skills in the school curriculum. However, it’s not a corner piece because it still requires us to actually take time to fix stuff rather than throw it away, and in a world that is product rich and time-poor, or just bandwidth poor, is it likely repairing will become the norm? No. For that we need the first corner piece.
What can you do?
Join relevant campaign groups such as Right to Repair Europe coalition or https://therestartproject.org/right-to-repair-uk/ (UK), https://www.repair.org/stand-up (USA) or The Australian Repair Network. Find out where and when your local repair café meets. Or if there isn’t one in your area, start one. See https://www.repaircafe.org/ or check out https://www.ifixit.com/Guide
If you work in education or have children in school, campaign for more opportunities for children to learn repair skills, for ideas, check out https://lifestyle.sustainability-directory.com/question/why-should-mending-be-taught-in-school-settings/
Last but not least, fix something and come back to this post and tell us how it felt. Or just do a bit of maintenance. Have you ever read the maintenance instructions for your appliances? You may find that cleaning your fridge coils, washing machine, dishwasher etc. is a mindful, calming experience and will also increase their effectiveness and prolong their life.[6]
[1] https://www.carbontrust.com/news-and-insights/insights/smart-phones-smart-choices-harnessing-purchasing-power-to-reduce-the-carbon-impact-of-our-phones
[2] Baig, A. (2024). The Negative Implications of Using Cell Phones on Human Health and Environment. Journal of Energy and Environmental Science, 2(2), 1-4.
[3] Apple Is Lobbying Against Your Right to Repair iPhones, New York State Records Confirm
[4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63245150
[5] Lambert, K. (2010). Lifting depression: a neuroscientist’s hands-on approach to activating your brain’s healing power. Basic Books.
[6] https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/house-and-home/household-advice/a65955828/appliance-maintenance-care-tips/
Edition 6. On Demand Buses/Demand-Responsive Transport
The idea of the’ jigsaw puzzle to save the world’ is that the picture on the front of the box is the flourishing, sustainable future we want to achieve. Each edition I cover a different piece of the puzzle. When I ask people to dream of the world as they’d love it to be, less traffic always comes up. But we also want to be able to get to where we want to go easily with no hassle. So for this edition I look at public transport – specifically on-demand electric buses.
Take a break. If you have a quiet space outside (pollution free) breathe in fresh air and stretch out your arms and daydream.
Imagine no traffic jams, no road rage, no arguments over who drives or who has to stay sober. No evenings spent driving teenagers from place to place when you just want to put your feet up and watch telly. No squeezing through roads narrowed by parked cars praying another car doesn’t come in the opposite direction. Imagine the noise and the smell of too much traffic is no longer present. No pause – and really imagine. What do you see, hear and smell? I find myself thinking back to the pandemic when traffic noise disappeared, birds seemed to sing louder, the world was more peaceful, and my friend’s asthma had cleared up.
But we don’t need another lockdown to reduce traffic. The UK has set up a demand responsive transport (DRT) toolkit for local authorities[2] On-demand bus services exist now in certain areas. For example, the ‘flexibus’ service is being trialed in Norfolk and has transformed rural areas which previously had few public transport options.
Many local authorities have their own service. Some are free but restricted to certain populations such as Dial-a-ride in Southampton – a free service for those with mobility issues. Some are low cost and available to everyone in that area, for example Surrey Connect operates within a 12-mile radius and costs between £1 and £12 depends on age and length of journey – think Uber but with buses.
A report on DRT in Europe[3] finds a variety of approaches, ranging from fixed stops to virtual stops and door-to-door options. Pricing models also vary—some services are incorporated into standard public transport fares, while others apply separate fixed or distance-based charges. Some such as TàD in the Paris region and Sprinti in Hanover operate on a large scale, covering wide areas with large fleets, and high passenger demand. Many regions in Australia have also embraced on-demand transport[4]. Asian countries too are experimenting with DRT. China, Bangkok, Thailand, the Republic of Korea etc. have all seen a wave of DRT schemes, some private and some publicly funded. [5] Such buses are also available at some US airports. They operate using an app so you don’t have to be standing at a bus stop, and your destination can be anywhere within a certain locality.
Local councils are investing more in cycle lanes and scooter schemes. There are apps such as Liftshare and Gocarshare that allow us to find a lift or someone to share the cost of a journey. You can hire your car out when you’re not using it by joining peer to peer schemes like Getaround (Europe), Turo (global) or Hiya Car (UK). A UK[6] 2025 report showed the variety of schemes available from bike and car sharing and suggested that megatonnes of CO2e could be reduced if more made use of such options.
If car-free roads and less traffic is such a common wish, and all these alternatives are available, why aren’t more people using them?
I got in touch with the head of one of the most prominent DRT organisations in the UK to ask. He waxed lyrical about the opportunities for accessibility, especially for teenagers, the elderly, those with disabilities and those who live in rural areas. He also mentioned the social value created and high levels of passenger satisfaction. However, he admitted that financial sustainability of such schemes was still a pipe dream. This means that while they are dependent upon funds from local government, they will be vulnerable to being cut when finances are tight. Giving up one’s car requires trust that alternatives will be available that will meet your needs. While this may be true in capitals and large cities, it’s not true for most areas. So we have an issue. The more people use such services – whether they be lift-share schemes or demand responsive transport, the cheaper and more convenient and reliable they will become. A 2023 survey for example reported that 79% of UK drivers would use public transport more if it was better.[7] This is why, even though private transport is a huge emitter of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, demand responsive public transport is not a corner piece.
Like the other pieces of the jigsaw so far – the sharing economy and repair and reuse, demand responsive transport already exists, but cannot reach its true potential until the external environment changes. For that we need a corner piece that provides the structural incentives for investment in such schemes and a reason for us to make use of them. In the next two editions I will discuss what I believe to be a key piece of the puzzle: personal carbon allowances, also known as personal carbon trading or tradable energy quotas.
What can you do?
Do you have a car you’re not using much of the time? You may be able to make money lending it out – take a look at the platforms mentioned above.
If you don’t already, check out the joys of public transport. My partner and I have experienced many frustrating hours stuck in traffic jams on the M6 on our trips to the Lake District. Last time we took the train. I managed to clear my emails on the journey, he read a book, then we just enjoyed watching the scenery go by. I wasn’t hustled out in a rush first thing in the morning so we could get to our spot before the car parks filled up. Instead, we decided our walks by the bus timetable. I don’t know if it was by design, but bus stops often seemed to be by the pub where you could see it coming out of the window! A much more relaxing trip!
If you’re going on a long journey, especially if to an event where others will be going such as a festival, first check out the liftshare apps. There’s a good chance you can get a lift or offer one. The more people use such apps, the more useful they become.
If you commute to work by car, take another look at your options. An electric bike transformed my journey to work – it’s quicker than the car as I don’t have to wait in traffic jams, and I have my waterproof gear for when it’s raining. I glide up hills as easily as if I were on the flat. And I can always predict almost exactly how long my journey will take.
[1] Air pollution down in 2024 in Île-de-France, with still significant impacts on our health | Airparif
[3] https://www.k2centrum.se/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/387189-DRT-International-Review-K2-WP-2025_9.pdf
[4] https://www.transport.wa.gov.au/on-demand-transport
[5] https://www.asiapacificgender.org/blogs/demand-responsive-transport-what-if-you-could-call-bus-taxi
[6] https://www.como.org.uk/shared-cars/overview-and-benefits
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/241756/proportion-of-energy-in-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
[2] https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/just-how-dirty-is-your-ev
[3] Air pollution down in 2024 in Île-de-France, with still significant impacts on our health | Airparif
[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/demand-responsive-transport-local-authority-toolkit/demand-responsive-transport-local-authority-toolkit
[5] https://www.k2centrum.se/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/387189-DRT-International-Review-K2-WP-2025_9.pdf
[6] https://www.transport.wa.gov.au/on-demand-transport
[7] https://www.asiapacificgender.org/blogs/demand-responsive-transport-what-if-you-could-call-bus-taxi
[8] https://www.como.org.uk/shared-cars/overview-and-benefits
[9] https://bettertransport.org.uk/media/survey-finds-79-per-cent-of-drivers-would-use-public-transport-more-if-it-was-better/
Edition 7. Sustainable Consumption
You’re probably expecting a chapter with a list of things you can do to consume more sustainably. You may be wondering what I’ll do with the issue of flying. I could take the carbon offset route and advise you to pay a premium to plant a few trees somewhere to salve your conscience, or I could advise taking the train. You’ll expect me to be promoting vegetarian, maybe even vegan food, over meat – and especially beef. Or maybe I’ll use the much vaguer term of plant-based diet which suggests no meat, even while kind of allowing it. Or will I go granular and do a deep dive into Fairtrade certifications and whether the Red Tractor, MSC, or FSC labels are still worth anything?
I’m not going to go down this road. Instead, I will take a detour and share a few stories.
In edition 4, I waxed lyrical about the sharing economy and how switching to an access over ownership model would transform our lives. I asked you to imagine a Library of Things in every neighbourhood – to picture how wonderfully spacious your home would be if all the stuff that you used less than once a week was gone from your place, but still accessible whenever you needed it. I also talked about the growing number of apps that allow you to share, lend or borrow cars clothes, tools etc. I suggested that the store MotherCare might have had more success if it had branded itself Mother Share.
Some sharing platforms have taken off, especially in fashion, but many aren’t reaching their potential. Businesses may want to give it a try – it makes sense after all, but it’s risky. For example, drills are used on average less than 18 minutes a year, so it’s reasonable to ask whether we actually want or need to buy a full set of tools. Perhaps all we really want is the ability to put up a shelf when we need to. You would assume that an offer to borrow the tools and extra bits that you need for a job all at one time and in one place at a reasonable cost would be attractive to customers. Then you run a focus group and discover that what your target audience of men in their thirties and forties actually want is to make a huge meal out of a job. To say to their missus, ‘Can you look after the kids, Love. I’ve gotta pop out to get some bits for the shelf. I’ll be back in time for dinner.’ They can probably get several afternoons off with similar ploys and still look good (true story!).
Humans are contrary creatures. I never thought about beef before I realised its carbon footprint. Suddenly it went from something I never ate to something I shouldn’t eat, and never had it looked so desirable. I know it reflects badly on me, but there we go.
I got solar panels fitted. The solar engineer advised me that because my roof faces north, the payback time would be nine years. I got them anyway because if I know I want them, then the sooner I get them, the sooner the savings begin. Now my fuel bills are miniscule. And the payback time has reduced by several years as the price of oil shot up. Often my energy company (Octopus) will email all their customers who have solar panels and tell them that energy is free for a few hours that day, and we all do our laundry, charge the car and make the most of it. I felt especially smug when we had a power cut. I had a couple of sockets that were fed from the battery so I got out my extension cable and plugged in the freezer and could wait it out with no fear of my food defrosting or running out of charge. You can get a set up where the whole house will automatically switch to battery power so you don’t even know there’s been a power cut.
Another less anticipated joy of going solar was the feeling of connection I developed with the planet. I knew intellectually that energy came from the sun, but now I feel it more intimately. I like the idea that every energy company in the world could go bust, the grid could go down but the sun’s rays will power my house regardless. It’s a mystery why every single roof isn’t covered with solar panels. In particular, I wonder why my friends haven’t followed my lead. It can’t be lack of awareness of the benefits, as I’ve told them about my experience. It’s not cost, as those who would struggle with the upfront fee can get solar panel grant funding. One said they would, then never got around to it. Another muttered something about how they might move in five years once their kids left home. That made little sense. With their south-facing roof, solar panels would pay back by then. And even if they didn’t, it would raise the value of their house. It annoys me the way it’s assumed that the decision is always going to be financial – pay back in 4 years – yes, 8 years – no. It’s not a solid calculation anyway. The solar engineer told me that payback estimations are based on current fuel prices. External events, such as the invasion of Ukraine that raise energy prices, can lower the payback time by several years.
These stories illustrate that, in each case, the reasons not to choose the most sustainable option are paper thin. On the balance sheet of pros and cons, they just don’t add up, but they do once you add in habit and inertia. This is nicely illustrated by a large-scale study in Switzerland of thousands of households and small businesses which found that presenting renewable energy to existing customers as the default led to 80% accepting this, despite a small increase in cost. Few opted out to get a better price.[1]
What’s my point you ask? My point is these stories illustrate why sustainable consumption is and isn’t a key part of the puzzle. But it does lead us nicely onto edition 8 coming after Easter – our very first corner piece.
What can we do?
If you are a business, see if you can make the low-carbon choice the default for your customers, as per the study cited.
There are numerous articles online to help you eat, travel and consume with a lower carbon footprint. My simple rule of thumb is try to walk more lightly upon our beautiful earth.
Novels and plays that promote sustainable consumption
If you’re in a school, amateur or professional theatre group, stage the whodunnit, Murder in the Citizens’ Jury. The play is adapted from a script that won the Writing Climate Pitchfest and had a sellout run in 2024. Murder in the Citizens’ Jury imagines eight people in a citizens’ assembly on climate discussing the most important challenge in the history of humanity – how to save ourselves from the looming climate crisis. Exciting new solutions are proposed which focus on individual and systemic ways to promote sustainable consumption. Each policy has its own champions and detractors, and then there’s a murder! The play is available via LazyBee, but if you come to me direct, I’m offering it royalty -free to student and amateur theatre groups to stage.
Buy one or more of these books as a birthday/Christmas present for any friends who are readers, or suggest to your local library or book club. They all aim to inspire sustainable consumption in various way:
· The Assassin: a novella adapted from the play available as an audio book on Kindle Unlimited, available to buy via all main platforms or to purchase direct from the publisher.
· The Philosopher and the Assassin: contemporary literary fiction that weaves together campus novel, moral philosophy, climate and murder mystery.
· No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save our Planet: an anthology of 24 short stories from various authors, several of which explore sustainable consumption in various forms.
These are all wonderful reads with great reviews and available to buy via all main platforms or direct from the publisher.
Read them yourself, and if you enjoy them, leave a review to help boost their readership. You can see the best review sites here.
Finally, keep reading the fortnightly newsletter and find out what the first corner piece will be and please share with any who may be interested to see how this jigsaw to save the world comes together.
[1] Liebe, U., Gewinner, J., & Diekmann, A. (2021). Large and persistent effects of green energy defaults in the household and business sectors. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(5), 576-585.All we need is a little more to tip us over into sustainable consumption as the default choice
Edition 8. Personal Carbon Allowances/Tradable Energy Quotas. [CORNER PIECE]
I’ll begin this edition with a quiz. Please tick all that apply:
Q1. Do you know what a carbon footprint is?
Q2. If so, do you consider it in your decisions, for example, whether to fly, eat beef, drive etc.?
Q3. Are carbon footprints even on your radar?
If you ticked no to any of these then you are person A.. If you ticked yes, please continue:
Q4. Do you find yourself feeling judgmental of people who fly a lot, have a sports car/SUV, or who eat lots of meat and dairy?
Q5. Do you try to be sustainable and constantly fail and feel guilty about it?
Q6. Are you worried about the amount of plastic we use or waste we produce but just don’t have the time or energy to do much about it?
Q7. Are you resentful of those who fly and drive around excessively without a thought?
If you could relate to any of these, then you are person B. If none of these apply to you, please read on:
Q8. You walk lightly upon the planet, and it is no hardship to do so because you don’t like flying, shopping or meat anyway. Or possibly you do but are just so naturally infused with moral power that it doesn’t exert much temptation.
If this is you, you are person C. Thank you for the example you set. Please share your secrets widely 🙏.
*
Person A is part of the problem, but being person B doesn’t sound like much fun, caught somewhere on an unpleasant continuum between guilt and resentment. I wouldn’t want to wish it on the As. But we can construct other options. Let me introduce you to person D.
Person D knows lots about carbon footprints, because they have to. They live in a society where everyone has their own personal carbon allowance (PCA).
These operate as a kind of carbon ration they must live within. It’s like a budget – goods and services come with a carbon cost, much like a price. It’s not all bad. Everyone uses public transport, so the service is amazing. Electric buses zipping quietly along the roads. They are demand-led – think Uber but buses. Almost everyone has a subscription and can go wherever they want whenever they want quickly and cheaply. No arguments over who stays sober. Rural economies especially are transformed and all those who struggled to find work because of lack of transport options can now enter the workplace. No traffic noise; clean air; lots of room now for bikes. Fewer people suffer from asthma.
Solar panels are a no brainer – indeed most communities are part of a local community energy scheme: solar, wind or tide based depending on the area. These deliver low-cost energy, feed wealth back into their community and provide resilience against global events which no longer have the power to push up energy costs. Buildings are well-insulated from both heat and the cold. Properties with an energy rating below B are rare as they’re a hard sell in this society.
It’s not a perfect world. With flights using up so much of the PCA, investment has flooded into Sustainable Aviation Fuel, but that has caused problems further down the line as land is given over for growing biofuels rather than to food and there’s less for rewilding and housing. We’re realising that flight is a luxury now, but the fact that the burden is shared by all equally takes the sting out of it somewhat, especially as high-speed rail transport is now so much cheaper and better run than it was.
Person E lives in a society that has adopted Tradable Energy Quotas, known as TEQs. These cover all sectors of the economy, not just households. They are ration-based at the government and industry level as there is a set cap on the number of TEQs issued, but each adult is provided with their own free entitlement of TEQs every week which are needed for purchases of fuel and energy. Like PCAs, individuals can buy/sell TEQs on the open market, and the absolute cap on total TEQs issued limits the quantity available and determines the price. The cap is determined by a government committee based on climate science.
TEQs are powerful, affecting how much things cost us, steering us towards lower-carbon options and driving investment into low-carbon products and services. Solar panels and home insulation pay off much faster. Farmers routinely add kelp to their cow feed to reduce their methane-heavy burps- a powerful greenhouse gas. We don’t notice, but our milk now has a lower carbon footprint. Even cheaper are plant-based alternatives to milk. Again, the incentives to use public transport are much higher, resulting in cheaper and more comprehensive bus and rail services.
People like them – they’re easy to use as the TEQ app is integrated into mobile phones/credit cards, and there’s a sense that it’s fair and that we’re all in it together. Most of all we no longer have that buried dread that we’re accelerating towards catastrophe. Challenges remain, but at last we feel our actions are aligned with what is necessary for our long-term flourishing.
*
This brings us on to our first corner piece of the jigsaw: Tradeable Energy Quotas/Personal Carbon Allowances. I reserve corners for those aspects of our system that have transformative power. TEQs/PCAs would transform the decisions that are made by consumers and by businesses by incentivising us to choose low-carbon alternatives.
The exact nature of the change in our society will depend on which kind of scheme we use. Liberal democracies would be likely to favour versions that allows carbon trading, so if you go above your PCA, you can buy spare carbon credits from those who go below their carbon allowance. Greater personal liberty at the cost of more inequality and weaker incentives towards carbon reduction. Other nations may choose the ration-based version.
Currently there are several proposed versions with various names: Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs), Tradeable Energy Quotas(TEQ) or Carbon Fee and Dividend.
Depending on its reach, all the wonderful visions we developed in editions 4, 5 and 6 of a society with clean air, lots of space, access to what we want when we want it could become a reality. And many of the pieces of the puzzle yet to come in future editions of this newsletter would get the fuel they need to take off.
Find out more
You probably have lots of questions – what about global trade? The EU carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) provides a model we could follow. What about visitors from abroad etc. Please check out the main proposals below to find out more:
Reconciling scientific reality with realpolitik: moving beyond carbon pricing to TEQs
Personal Carbon Allowances/Personal Carbon Trading
The Carbon Trust Report on PCAS
What you can do
This is one piece of the puzzle where the best thing you can do is campaign. Politicians think TEQs won’t go down well with the public. Let them know they’re wrong. Research shows that 71% of low-income houses would benefit from such schemes, but the loudest voices will be those with vested interests who won’t like it, and in our current media landscape, such voices tend to be amplified. So make your view heard. Find your government representative or Member of Parliament and email them, whether you are in Australia; Canada; UK; USA or elsewhere.
Raise awareness via the networks open to you. Check out the links and share the idea with others and via social media.
If you’re in a school, amateur or professional theatre group, stage the whodunnit, Murder in the Citizens’ Jury. The play is adapted from a script that won the Writing Climate Pitchfest and had a sellout run in 2024. Murder in the Citizens’ Jury imagines eight people in a citizens’ assembly on climate discussing the most important challenge in the history of humanity – how to save ourselves from the looming climate crisis. Exciting new solutions are proposed (including those covered in editions 4, 5 and 6), each with their own champions and detractors. They decide upon the best policy of all – personal carbon allowances, and then there’s a murder! The play is available via LazyBee, but if you come to me direct, I’m offering it royalty -free to student and amateur theatre groups to stage.
Buy one or more of these books as a birthday/Christmas present for any friends who are readers, or suggest to your local library or book club:
- The Assassin: a novella adapted from the play available as an audio book on Kindle Unlimited, available to buy via all main platforms or to purchase direct from the publisher.
- The Philosopher and the Assassin: contemporary literary fiction that weaves together campus novel, moral philosophy, climate and murder mystery.
- No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save our Planet: an anthology of 24 short stories from various authors, several of which explore the idea of personal carbon trading.
- These are all wonderful reads with great reviews and available to buy via all main platforms or direct from the publisher.
Read them yourself, and if you enjoy them, leave a review to help boost their readership. You can see the best review sites here.
Edition 9: Taking Stock. How the Jigsaw Is Coming Together
In edition 8 we reached the first corner piece of the Jigsaw to Save the World. This feels like an important moment to take stock, and reflect on how the pieces are beginning to fit together and what still lies ahead.
In the first edition, I set out the concept of the jigsaw and how the picture on the front of the box is the flourishing sustainable future we long for. Clean air and water. Thriving communities. Hope for future generations. Each edition focuses on a different piece of that puzzle. The most crucial of all are the corner pieces, because they shape the entire frame. These include political, legal, and financial institutions—systems that quietly but powerfully dictate what is possible everywhere else.
Seeing the System Clearly
In the second edition I talk about the necessity to take a holistic systems approach so we can see where the barriers and opportunities are to reach our desired society. This is useful so we know where the real levers for change are. Consider democratic politics in most liberal democracies. Many are disenchanted, not bothering to vote. Others invest tremendous emotional energy into elections that happen once every few years. We root for parties as though they were sports teams, convinced that the right outcome will change everything. Yet, when in power, governments of different political colours find themselves constrained by the same structures, incentives, markets, and media pressures.
Growth and the Limits of the Planet
Edition 3 focused on one of the most powerful—and rarely questioned—drivers of policy: economic growth. Growth dominates political speeches, media narratives, and public debate, yet it is increasingly at odds with a safe and liveable planet. The picture on the front of the box includes clean air and water, and hope for the future. We have finite resources; extracting them causes untold environmental damage and biodiversity loss, disposing of them pollutes our seas and sky and the more we produce and consume, the more we destablisise the climate putting our futures at risk. Thus I also cover the idea of ‘green growth’ and degrowth.
More Wellbeing With Less Stuff
Editions 4, 5 and 6 explore ways we can increase our wellbeing while putting less pressure on our environment. In edition 4, I painted a picture of a sharing economy with apps to borrow and return and Libraries of Things on every corner. Imagine everything you use less than once a month is now available for you to borrow when needed. Tools, party gear, sports equipment, games, clothes, carpet cleaners, lawnmowers etc. You don’t have to store, clean, maintain or insure any of this stuff. You can reserve items, and the more you borrow and return, the more trust points you gain until you can get the Gold Card option and borrow luxury items – jewellery, art, maybe even a boat! Your home would be blissfully free of clutter. You could downsize if you want to, saving money on rent and bills.
Edition 5 talks about repair and re-use. The environmental stakes here are enormous. Rapid turnover of electronics relies on toxic materials and destructive extraction processes, while discarded products leak poisons into soil, waterways, and the food chain. Healthy food and clean safe water and our good health are definitely on the picture on the front of the box and are at odds with a throwaway society. Repair also makes economic sense: fixing or upgrading one component is often cheaper than replacing an entire product. I also reference the numerous studies showing that repair, crafts, doing things with our hands and feelings of competence derived after repairing are great for our mental health.
Getting around
When I ask people to imagine a future ten years from now in which leaders have done everything right, one answer appears without fail: less traffic. In edition 6 I cover demand-led electric buses, also known as demand responsive transport – think Uber, but with buses. If they took off, they’d be so cheap and convenient that everyone would use them and you could go anywhere, from anywhere, whenever you want with no worries about parking or alcohol limits. Imagine the roads are quiet, the worries about car expenses are gone, rural economies are transformed and you no longer have to stay up till past midnight to collect your teenager from a party. The air is clean and the birds sing even louder than they did during the lockdown when traffic more than halved.
Why Change Is So Hard
Edition 7 grounded these ideas in reality. Libraries of Things, repair initiatives, car-sharing services and on-demand buses already exist—but few know about them. They struggle to attract investment and users because they cannot compete with the marketing budgets of large corporations. Car companies may have the funds to advertise images of gleaming cars cruising through empty winding mountain roads, but buses don’t have the funds to inspire us with their vision. Add habit and inertia and we’re stuck.
This brings us on to the first corner piece.
The First Corner Piece: Carbon Limits
Edition 8 introduced a transformative idea of personal carbon allowances/ tradeable energy quotas (TEQs). The proposal is that we all have a set carbon emissions budget which covers aspects such as fuel and household energy use. If we stay below this, for example by using renewable energy, insulating our home and cycling or taking public transport, we can sell our spare carbon credits to those who go over.
This approach is a fair means to guarantee that emissions remain within safe limits while rewarding low-carbon choices and driving investment into sustainable options. I explored the various alternatives proposed and how society could be transformed. In particular, they would give a great boost to on-demand buses, and our dream of less traffic and the ability to go where we want when we want cheaply will be realised.
What next?
Changing the world for the better is like a three-legged race – if one thing changes but the other pillars of our system stay still, we’ll fall over. It’s structured as a jigsaw because it all connects. Personal Carbon Allowances and TEQs act like a progressive tax on high-carbon consumption, but they sit within a wider system marked by inequality, corporate power, and outdated measures of success.
The wealthy and powerful have greater capacity to shape political and media narratives. Government is subject to corporate lobbying, and many parties rely on donations from wealthy benefactors and fossil fuel companies. Election cycles reward short-term gains over long-term wellbeing. Meanwhile, GDP—the dominant measure of success—tells us nothing about health, happiness, resilience, or ecological stability.
So one piece of the puzzle will be a wellbeing index to replace the GDP as a metric of success. Future editions will explore ways to address the shortcomings in our political structures so they are better able to make decisions that lead us to the flourishing sustainable future we desire. The media too is a key piece of the puzzle. Power and wealth is entwined to a point that threatens our collective wellbeing, so one piece of the puzzle will be inequality.
For many pieces of the puzzle, whether they will contribute to or detract from a flourishing society depends upon how they are used. AI and social media, for example, can either undermine or enhance wellbeing depending on whether they are driven solely by profit‑maximising algorithms or designed with care and appropriate constraints. This leads to another vital corner piece: business purpose. The current legal structure of corporations obliges them to prioritise shareholder interests over those of employees, customers, communities, and the planet. In a globalised world, some corporations wield more power than nation states. This matters profoundly when profit maximisation comes into conflict with what is best for society.
Puzzling It Out Together
These issues are tricky so I will be holding events that bring together business leaders, academics and professionals in areas such as finance, business, politics and economics to puzzle them out. We will explore “what if” questions such as: what financial instruments become redundant—or harmful—if wellbeing is the primary goal? What would markets look like if businesses aimed for profit sufficiency rather than maximisation? How would that affect pensions, investment, and innovation? It’s easy to imagine a sustainable society, but it’s more difficult to puzzle out how to get there. However, puzzle it out we must as we’re increasingly having to acknowledge that it’s the system itself keeping us stuck, and tinkering round the edges is not securing us a safe and flourishing world.
If you’d like to attend such an event, please let me know. Upcoming events include a London session on 30 June 2026 for business leaders and professionals, a student-focused event in Southampton on 6 May, and an event targeted at academics in business, finance, and economics at Royal Holloway University of London in September 2026.
Finally, as part of this stocktake, I’m reconsidering the title. A Jigsaw to Save the World captures the ambition—but is it too grandiose? I’m also keen to hear more voices shaping what appears on the front of the box. What does a flourishing society look like to you?
After all, this future belongs to all of us—and we will only build it together.
What can you do?
If you would like to attend or host an event to puzzle out the corner pieces, please get in touch. Links to the events mentioned on 6th May (students, Southampton), 30th June (business leaders, London) or September (academics, Surrey), will be shared in future editions or contact me now and I’ll let you know personally. Also please pass on details to others who may be interested to attend. They are mostly free with some exceptions. You can find out more about the project here: https://www.dabaden.com/a-jigsaw-to-save-the-world/. Scroll to the bottom for more details on structure of events.
Please feedback on the title and offer your suggestions.
If you are a teacher or lecturer, check out resources to use in running sessions building on the concept here: https://habitatpress.com/a-jigsaw-puzzle-for-sustainability/
Share this newsletter with others who might be interested.
Edition 10: A Wellbeing Index
A couple of years back I was at a sustainable finance conference, and the keynote speaker was talking about how unlikely it was that we would manage to limit global warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as per the Paris agreement. He said it was also unlikely we’d keep to under two degrees, or even three or four. At these levels, crops fail, sea levels rise substantially, most regions become uninhabitable, and we’d expect irreversible ecological collapse. ‘But don’t worry,’ he said. ‘GDP is unlikely to fall – it will probably even go up!’
Note. For those who don’t know, GDP means Gross Domestic Product and it is the total monetary value of all final goods and services produced within a country’s borders per year. It’s the metric most widely reported.
I waited for some sign that he was being ironic. He wasn’t. I looked around – most people were following his words with rapt attention. But another woman looked uncomfortable and put her hand up.
‘Er… what about the islands, they’ll sink due to sea level rise.’
‘They’re already a sunk cost.’
I’m not sure if he meant it as a joke.
Another woman (there was a definite gender gap on this issue) raised her hand.
‘Did the studies underlying these estimates take into account climate tipping points?’
‘Some did some didn’t,’ he said airily.
I was too shocked to speak. I’d attended a conference on sustainable finance, and the keynote speaker seemed to be implying that tipping points don’t matter, islanders losing their home to sea level rise was worth less than a shrug and humanity itself is unimportant as long as the GDP is holding up.
Readers, this story is true and I relate it because if we follow all the policies suggested in previous editions, policies that get us closer to a flourishing sustainable future, then it’s almost certain the GDP would go down. That is because all of these policies improve wellbeing while reducing consumption.
The media will be screaming headlines about recession and economies crashing and we’ll all be puzzled because life feels so much better.
Note. A recession literally means a drop in GDP over two quarters or more (6 months).
If everyone was in great health and paid for fewer drugs, we’d have a drop in GDP.
If the sharing economy and on-demand buses meant we wouldn’t need to buy lots of stuff or run our own car because we have access to everything we need and can travel where we want easily and cheaply, GDP would fall.
If lower bills due to renewable energy and buying less stuff meant we could get by easily on 4 days a week at work rather than 5, GDP falls.
‘Recession’ is just a word. The media may be hyping it up as the worst thing ever, but that’s what the media does. It sees the worst in every situation and rarely the best. I remember the last time it snowed, the news reported trains not running and the millions of pounds lost to the economy like it was a disaster. I looked out of my window and saw mums and dads laughing and playing snowball fights with their kids.
The media are a key piece of the jigsaw puzzle, and I’ll be covering why they focus on the negative and why that matters in a future edition, but for now, I want to propose that another piece of the puzzle is a wellbeing index.
The GDP is not good or bad in itself. It measures what it measures and has its uses. The issue is that it has become a symbol for whether we are doing well or not. If we take wellness to mean we are living happy, satisfying lives, in a manner that we can sustain into the future, then the GDP is a very poor measure indeed. There is some overlap with wellbeing in that it represents the amount of taxable income the government has to play with, but that’s about it. A few years ago, I might have added employment as a decline in GDP is often associated with unemployment. However now AI has entered the picture, it’s perfectly possible for the GDP to flourish alongside mass unemployment, meaning GDP has even less value as a metric of success.
Alternatives to GDP.
Bhutan a small country nestled between China and India is famous principally for being the first country in the 1970s to measure success by gross national happiness (GNH). GNH is described in Bhutanese as “Gakid Palzon”. Ga-happy, Kid-peaceful, Pel-prosperity, Zon-convergent, so literally meaning “happy-peaceful-prosperity-convergence for all.” There are 33 indicators measuring aspects such as psychological well-being, social equality, health, education, and ecological resilience, and it is GNH rather than GDP that informs policy making. Here economic growth is in service to goals such as well-being, environmental conservation, and good governance rather than an end in itself. If you’d like to know what this looks like, check out a gorgeous piece by Jules Petty who describes a mountainous land with abundant nature, no litter, regenerative agriculture, local organic food, full phone coverage, electricity from hydropower, a democracy with a negative carbon footprint.
Wales passed a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act in 2015 which has seven legally binding wellbeing goals including social cohesion, resilience and health, and relevant ministers must set targets for each and report on progress.
New Zealand followed this in 2019 by instituting a wellbeing index.
I interviewed the deputy chief economist at the Office for National Statistics to ask what we had in place in the UK. He agreed that the GDP was inadequate because it excluded unpaid work such as housework and voluntary carers and failed to include the debt we owe to nature, which he termed ‘ecosystem services’. He cited a newly developed ‘inclusive income’ data set which accounts for these additional factors.
As we chatted, I learned that there are numerous ways to measure wellbeing, and most countries have their own version. Some favour self-reported life satisfaction, The UN Development Index uses objective indices including statistics on education level, life expectancy, and living standards. The Happy Planet Index includes these and adds ecological footprint. Several countries use Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) which adjusts GDP by subtracting environmental damage and social ills (e.g., crime, inequality) and adding positive factors like unpaid work.
So the issue isn’t so much that we don’t have ways to measure wellbeing – it’s that we don’t report them. When I asked why, he responded that it’s partly because there’s no standard global measure. But mostly he thought it was because we just got into the habit of reporting GDP. It began after the second world war when the key necessity was to fund a rebuilding programme after the devastation. Journalist and politicians got used to it, and the rest is habit and inertia.
So we do have ways to measure wellbeing – we just need to use them. This matters because these metrics and the way they are reported tell us what is assumed to be important, and they tell the government what to prioritise. Any gains in our actual wellbeing from meeting and needs and wants while reducing production are likely to be short-lived if we’re constantly told that we’re doing terribly!
This brings us back to the news media again, and in the next edition I talk about what kind of journalism can best help us achieve the picture on the front of the jigsaw puzzle – a flourishing sustainable society.
What can you do
Check out campaigning groups like https://thrivabilitymatters.org/thrive-tribe/
For those in the UK contact journalists directly or a good place to start is the BBC to request journalists use other metrics such as the inclusive income index or wellbeing index or to at the minimum stop reporting GDP as if it is a measure of our countries success. You can email at: yourvoice@bbc.co.uk or get in touch via WhatsApp +44 7756 165803.
Buy one or more of these books as a birthday/Christmas present for any friends who are readers, or suggest to your local library or book club and encourage them to review. The anthology in particular has several stories relevant to a wellbeing index:
- The Philosopher and the Assassin: contemporary literary fiction that weaves together campus novel, moral philosophy, climate and murder mystery.
- No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save our Planet: an anthology of 24 short stories from various authors, several of which explore the idea of personal carbon trading.
Edition 11: Equality
When you imagine a flourishing world you’d like to live in, how equal is it? Is it a world where the rich live in huge mansions with their own fleet of cars, staff and private jets, while others struggle to pay their bills, and the homeless occupy empty shop fronts? I bet it isn’t. It probably isn’t absolute equality either – the human spirit likes to aspire, to dream of something better.
Studies on attitudes to inequality show that most of us would like a society much more equal than it is currently.[1] Also that we vastly under-estimate how unequal wealth distribution is. Poverty is often visible, while extreme wealth hides behind gates, private estates, and exclusive schools. The ultra-rich move in their own circles, rarely rubbing shoulders with everyday people.
The gap between rich and poor has been growing over the last few decades. You see it everywhere. Access to good quality health care, dental treatment and even tickets to the World Cup is increasingly the preserve of the wealthy. Globally the top 0.001% now owns three times as much wealth as the bottom fifty percent,[2] with the US being a prime culprit in terms of inequality. Other OECD countries demonstrate the same trend towards massive increases in income and wealth for billionaires.[3]
The sad thing is that it doesn’t even make them happy. While reported life satisfaction rises with income, after a certain point the effect plateaus, and can even reverse. The term ‘affluenza’ was coined to describe the isolation, lack of purpose and addiction often experienced by the ultra-rich and their children.
Equality is not about punishing success but ensuring that prosperity is shared fairly.
The statistics are shocking – between 2020 and 2022 the top one percent gained twice as much in income and wealth as the remaining 99% combined[4]. Since 1975, $80 trillion has shifted from the bottom ninety percent to the top one percent.It’s been claimed thatwould be enough to give every full-time worker in the ninety percent an extra $32,000 every year.[5]In other words, we do the work, and the ultra-rich capture the value from that. I’m wary of statistics, so I turned to the BBC podcast, More or Less where independent statisticians examined the claim to see if it stood up to scrutiny. It did.
How have they managed to do that? And why is it getting worse over time?
How Wealth Turns into Power
The wealthy have used their power to ensure they pay fewer taxes; they fund political parties and think tanks that influence government policy and ensure the passing of financial laws that benefit them[6]. Many of the ultra-rich have lower effective tax rates than average earners—around 23% for the top 400 US families, and roughly 21% for the UK’s top 0.01%.[7] This is largely because their income is derived from wealth-related sources (capital gains/dividends) taxed lower than employment income.
Media ownership allows them to frame narratives and shift public attention away from structural problems. Some have effectively bribed people to vote for the parties that favour their interests[8]. Even an activity one might think of as benign, such as philanthropy is often used as a tax-exempt form of political lobbying to buy a seat at the table of influential events or as a distraction against some of the less ethical activities that made them rich in the first place.[9][10]
If extreme wealth truly reflected virtue, wisdom, or superior intelligence, perhaps this concentration of power wouldn’t matter. But the reality is very different. Much of today’s wealth is inherited, originating from colonialism, land seizures, and/or slavery. Some of the self-made ultra-rich run large corporations who have made their wealth through exploitation of the planet and its people. A significant share of global wealth has been built through corruption. Those who gained riches purely through talent and socially beneficial innovation represent a minority.
Meanwhile, the majority work hard and pay taxes—often at higher effective rates than the ultra-rich, who are protected by a vast “wealth defence industry” of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists.
Some of us can afford holidays but worry a little about the carbon footprint of our flight. We should be concerned; There is a finite carbon budget left before we risk triggering irreversible climate tipping points. The typical Indian citizen uses 2 tonnes CO2 per year, the average for the UK is 20 tonnes. The ultra-rich use over 100 tonnes CO2 p.a..[11] So not only are they capturing the wealth, they are also recklessly squandering a precious resource.
The rich fly their private jets, amass their fleets of cars, and heat water for their swimming pools in their numerous properties, while the world warms, and floods and fires alternate for news coverage. Ninety-one climate denial organizations received annual donations of $900 million funded mostly by billionaires and corporations such as Exxon Mobil. [12]
Inequality Is Not “Human Nature”
For most of human history, societies were relatively egalitarian. Fossil records show little wealth stratification until agriculture emerged. Then inequality rose sharply with land ownership, slavery, colonialism, and laws designed by elites to protect their wealth—often enforced through violence and cultural norms that portrayed inequality as natural or deserved.
But inequality has risen and fallen many times. Revolutions, moral protests, strong unions, and social movements reversed it. After both World Wars, massive wealth redistribution occurred. In the UK, progressive taxation funded the welfare state and National Health Service, guaranteeing education and healthcare for all.
From the 1980s onwards, inequality rose again due to financial deregulation, lower taxes on wealth, weakened unions, and globalisation. It wasn’t that the poor became poorer; rather, the enormous gains from technology and trade were captured almost entirely by those at the top.
There is nothing inevitable about this trajectory. If human history were compressed into a 24-hour day, extreme inequality appears only in the final seconds—rising, falling, and now rising again. What happens next is up to us.
Practical Ways to Reduce Inequality
The personal carbon allowances/tradeable energy quotas proposed in edition 8 would have a levelling effect. Flying, the highest-carbon activity, illustrates the disparity: business-class flying emits roughly three times more CO₂ than economy; first class up to nine times more; private jets up to fourteen times more. Under such schemes, this would cost them substantially more, money which would go to those who have stayed below their carbon allowance.
In the US alone, unpaid taxes are estimated at $470 billion annually. The IRS calculates that enforcement would return at least three times its cost—more once deterrence is considered. $470 billion would be enough for the US government to open a savings account for every person under 18 in the US and deposit $6350 in it each year! [13]
Furthermore, even if tax fraudsters are caught, the penalties are minor – often just a warning. I’m not talking about your plumber taking cash for a quick job – the average loss from an individual tax fraud in the US is $309k compared to $2k for a robbery, yet the penalties for theft are much greater – both in terms of likelihood of imprisonment and time spent behind bars.
This discrepancy persists largely because the ultra-rich exert immense political influence. Media narratives focus outrage on welfare fraud, which is a tiny fraction of total losses, while corporate profit shifting moves hundreds of billions into low-tax jurisdictions. Many executives of these companies feature prominently on billionaire lists and employ lawyers and lobbyists—yet public anger is directed instead at single parents or disability claimants.
With money recovered from tax evasion and fiscal policies that target wealth, we could give ourselves a universal basic income, fund free health care and dentistry, high-quality education for all, update our infrastructure, invest in solar energy, making us independent of oil and gas prices, and give ourselves homes powered by solar energy and insulated against the heat and cold. Such investment prevents greater expense later resulting in an upward spiral so we get richer and richer in the broadest sense of the word. Every pothole left unfilled due to lack of money injures cars, bikes and people leading to greater hospital bills and compensation. Every £1 spent on preventative medicine results in an estimated £8 savings[14] as does investment in renewable energy. Good quality education and healthcare increase social mobility so we have the best people not the most privileged running things.
The ultra rich may have a few less properties, private jets, fast cars and less influence over politics. Most people—including many wealthy individuals—would be fine with that. Indeed, some wealthy people already advocate this. Chuck Collins gave away his inherited wealth and now campaigns against inequality. Marlene Engelhorn pledged 90% of her inheritance and founded Tax Me Now. Organisations like Patriotic Millionaires, Millionaires for Humanity, and Resource Generation openly campaign for higher taxes and fairer systems.
The Myth of Capital Flight
Opposition to wealth taxes often rests on the claim that the rich would simply leave. Evidence suggests otherwise.[15]. Studies indicate that fewer than 1% of UK millionaires would relocate in response to higher taxes. Wealth is embedded: property, social ties, and legal obligations all limit mobility.[16][17] Would it even matter that much if they leave? A more rigorous land/property tax would make it uneconomical to hold onto their mansions and associated land and the price of these huge tracts of property would drop. We’d be fine. We have a housing crisis in the UK – surely releasing property with hundreds of rooms that were lived in by just a few to the market would be a good thing? If it does turn out that capital flight is an issue, then it’s perfectly possible to do something about it. Many countries have some kind of limit on capital outflows.
Greater equality is thus an important piece of the puzzle. It increases overall wellbeing, reduces crime, improves social mobility, increases trust in institutions and results in better health outcomes and higher life expectancy[18]. Furthermore, because of the link between power and wealth, greater equality is also more democratic, allowing us to make better decisions that ensure the wellbeing of all of society not just a privileged few.
What you can do
If you are an organisation, check your policies enable equality of opportunity. Unpaid internships for example are effectively only doable by young people who have parental money behind them Relying on informal networks for recruitment can reproduce existing inequalities.
Below is a list of campaign groups
UK‑based organisations
- Equality Trust – Campaigns to reduce economic inequality and its social impacts.
- Joseph Rowntree Foundation – Focuses on poverty, social mobility, and economic inequality.
- Runnymede Trust – Leading UK think tank on racial equality and social justice.
- New Economics Foundation (NEF) – Promotes economic systems that support equity and wellbeing.
International organisations
- Oxfam – Campaigns globally against inequality, poverty, and injustice.
- Amnesty International – Focuses on human rights and equality under the law.
- Human Rights Watch – Research and advocacy on rights and equal treatment worldwide.
- UN Women – United Nations body promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.
- Equality Now – Campaigns for legal and systemic gender equality worldwide.
Workplace and education‑focused equality organisations
- Business in the Community (BITC) – Works with employers on race, gender, and social mobility.
- Social Mobility Foundation – Helps young people from less advantaged backgrounds access professional careers.
- The Sutton Trust – Research and advocacy on education and social mobility.
- Advance HE – Promotes equality, diversity, and inclusion in higher education.
Grassroots and movement‑based campaigns
- Living Wage Foundation – Advocates for fair pay as a foundation of equality.
- Trade unions (e.g. TUC affiliates) – Campaign for equality in pay, conditions, and opportunity.
[1][1] Engelhardt, C., & Wagener, A. (2018). What do Germans think and know about income inequality? A survey experiment. Socio-Economic Review, 16(4), 743-767.
Norton, M. I., & Ariely, D. (2011). Building a better America—One wealth quintile at a time. Perspectives on psychological science, 6(1), 9-12.
[2] https://inequality.org/facts/global-inequality/#global-wealth-inequality
[3] https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/
[4] https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/survival-richest
[5] https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-2.html
[6] https://www.transparency.org.uk/news/big-moneys-tightening-grip-british-politics
[7] Tax the Rich!: How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer by Morris Pearl and Erica Payne- chair and founder respectively of the organization: Patriotic Millionaires.
[8] https://www.aol.com/news/elon-musk-bribed-voters-must-100251308.html
[9] https://ssir.org/articles/entry/how_corporate_philanthropy_buys_influence
[10] Fooks GJ, Gilmore AB. Corporate philanthropy, political influence, and health policy. PLoS One. 2013 Nov 27;8(11
[11] Chancel, L. (2022). Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019. Nature Sustainability, 5(11), 931-938.
[12] Brulle, R. J. (2014). Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of US climate change counter-movement organizations. Climatic change, 122(4), 681-694.
[13] Limitarians by Ingrid Robeyns
[14] https://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/uk-health-focus-prevention-can-deliver-ps8-each-ps1-invested#:~:text=The%20UK%20has%20the%20potential,new%20health%20report%20by%20Deloitte.
[15] https://taxjustice.net/reports/the-millionaire-exodus-myth/
[16] https://theconversation.com/millionaires-may-not-be-fleeing-the-uk-in-droves-but-there-are-reasons-these-stories-persist-259591
[17] https://taxjustice.net/reports/the-millionaire-exodus-myth/
[18] https://www.jrf.org.uk/savings-debt-and-assets/does-income-inequality-cause-health-and-social-problems
Edition 12: Constructive Journalism
Constructive Journalism: Another Piece of the Jigsaw
As I’m working on the policies, proposals and aspects of our society that are key pieces of the jigsaw to save our world, I keep finding that they bump up against the media in one form or another.
Equality is a piece of the puzzle, but much of the media is directly in the hands of the ultra-rich, from American TV news to the British Gutter press and global social media platforms. This gives billionaires enormous power to amplify their voice to serve their interests.
Politics also is dependent upon the media. The effectiveness of a democracy depends upon the quality of information voters are exposed to. Misinformation spread by vested interests, fake posts and algorithms that amplify polarised content undermine our ability to vote in line with our values and long‑term interests.
This in turn links to business purpose. The business model matters here: the more clicks a story generates, the more advertising revenue it earns. Outrage and fear consistently outperform evidence‑informed analysis. Media corporations would be better positioned to act as a force for good if they were organised as social enterprises or benefit corporations, where the goal is sufficient profit rather than profit maximisation.
With all these connections I ended up going round in circles. So for this edition I’m going to zone in on news journalism.
Why so many of us have switched off
Many people now actively avoid the news. Those who don’t often feel more anxious, fearful and pessimistic about the future. A steady diet of catastrophe leads us to believe that everything everywhere is getting worse; that people are mostly bad; and that institutions can’t be trusted. We feel guilty because what right have we to moan about trivial things while others are dying in war or starving to death?
None of these things are true. People are mostly nice. Lots of wonderful things are happening all over the place, but it’s just not reported. People have set up community-owned energy projects which are feeding wealth back into the neighbourhood[1] and starting local food projects that increase their sense of community and resilience. Literacy, life expectancy, gender equality, access to clean water and adoption of renewable energy are all rising. Humpback whales are recovering, reforestation is up.[2] Child mortality, infectious diseases, extreme poverty and violent crime are at record lows. Global treaties to protect our oceans have been signed.
What the research shows
Editors often justify overwhelmingly negative coverage with the claim that “bad news sells”. Within journalism there is also an assumption that good news is frivolous—a distraction from serious issues like war and famine.
Three arguments are usually offered:
- Consumers are free to choose what they read.
- Journalism’s role is to hold power to account, hence the focus on wrongdoing.
- Bad news is supposedly good for us, raising awareness and prompting action.
I carried out research to test these assumptions and began by exploring the effects of different types of news consumption. Participants were exposed either to traditional problem‑focused news or to more positive, solution‑focused reporting on the same issues.
The psychological cost of negative news
Exposure to a typical negative news story caused a substantial drop in mood for most people—on average 38% among women and 20% among men.
Even more troubling, negative framing reduced people’s willingness to act. Those who read stories centred on war or ecological collapse were significantly less likely to take positive action than those exposed to stories about peace processes or environmental recovery.
The more anxious, sad or worried people felt, the less likely they were to donate to charity, behave in environmentally responsible ways, or make their views known. In other words, doom doesn’t motivate—it paralyses.
Knowing our natural reefs are collapsing and civilians are suffering war make me depressed. I feel angry and powerless.
Certainly not good, but being continually bombarded with bad news, I essentially feel nothing.
Conversely the more positive solution-focused stories resulted in greater optimism, happiness and feelings of calm. The more positive the emotional response to the story, the more motivated respondents felt to act. Comments indicated that the positive news stories left many feeling inspired and empowered.
They make me feel hopeful about people in general and the future or people on this planet. It makes me want to be a better person and live every day to the fullest.
I love optimistic stories. They make one feel happy and hopeful. It makes you feel like anyone can make a difference.
Attention is not the same as preference
Our research[3] found a strong preference for more positive, solution‑focused journalism (47%) or a more balanced mix (47%). Almost no one wanted news to be more negative. However, it was admitted that a fear-inducing headline is more likely to grab their attention. This reflects a well‑known gap between what people notice and what they actually want.
I like to read happy news.
Positive news motivates us but negative news always catches our attention more frequently.
Bad news or tragedies just give me an uncontrollable impulse to find out more.
Part of this is evolutionary. We are hard‑wired to attend to threat. Alarm captures attention before judgement has time to intervene. The news industry exploits this instinct by foregrounding the most shocking material—but that doesn’t make it ethically neutral.
In further research interviewing news editors and journalists, I realised that they have been trained that ‘if it bleeds it leads,’ and that the more they highlight the awfulness of the story, the better they are doing their job. Yet I would argue it is profit, not concern for their audience, that is driving the preference towards negative news—even if they don’t realise it.
Food for thought
An analogy with the food industry is helpful. High levels of sugar and fat contribute to obesity and diabetes, partly because our evolutionary drive to consume them is no longer adaptive in a world where they are constantly available. Yet few food manufacturers would claim to be acting ethically by increasing sugar just because consumers buy more of it.
Our brains are not adapted to process the whole of the world’s horrors, selected and framed to present the most shocking and horrifying picture of the world many times a day. Evidence links negative news exposure with anxiety, depression and disengagement, but we have evolved to pay attention to alarming information, whether we want to or not. Yet the news industry often frames its amplification of negativity as moral responsibility. Indeed, awards are given to the journalists who capture the worst possible horrors in the most emotion-inducing way.
Journalists aren’t trying to harm us. They are trained this way. Editors reject stories that don’t hook our attention. Positive stories are dismissed as fluff or propaganda. This connects to another piece of the jigsaw: training. In a later edition, I’ll talk about how the constructive journalism project worked with trainee journalists to teach them the benefits of a more solution-focussed and balanced approach to journalism.
Contagion effect
My research is consistent with other studies which show that reducing positive emotional content in social media posts leads to more negative posts overall. The more fearful, anxious or angry we are, the more negative our interactions with others leading to a domino effect. Negative news has been shown to reduce helping behaviour, decrease tolerance, make us cynical about strangers and increase feelings of helplessness.
Such feelings have political implications too, affecting voter psychology, driving polarisation, resulting in less critical thinking and greater support for authoritarian leaders. There is also evidence that relentless adversarial journalism can be counter‑productive. Fixating on the small proportion of failing schools or hospitals while ignoring the many that function well can distort public perception and create pressure for change based on the view that more is wrong than actually is.
Constructive journalism is an important piece of the puzzle
There’s not much point making changes that vastly improve our quality of life if the news constantly tells us that everything is terrible and we’re all going to hell in a handcart.
Now imagine a different media landscape.
News that reports what is going right as rigorously as it reports what is going wrong. Journalism that devotes as much space to peace‑making as to war; that celebrates communities, projects and countries that are thriving; that tracks progress on wellbeing indicators with the same energy currently lavished on GDP. News that makes us happier, kinder, more inspired to take positive action to improve our lives and communities.
You don’t need to imagine, because they already exist! Check out the links below, unfurrow your brow and enjoy!
What you can do
Subscribe/support alternative news platforms:
- Positive News: this is one of my favourites and brings stories from across the world that show all the amazing projects and progress being made. It has a weekly e-newsletter and quarterly hard copy.
- There are some great podcasts. One of my favourites this year has been ‘Screw This: Let’s try Something Else’ which describes itself as “A podcast of hope filled stories that could genuinely change the world”. It has an associated webpage: https://www.antidotelive.studio/
- The Progress Network is a free weekly newsletter combines intelligent analysis with underreported stories of progress from around the world. There is also an associated podcast ‘What Could Go Right?’
- The Good News Network proves that good news ‘is not in short supply; the broadcasting of it is.’ Their resources include a 5-star app, a book (And Now, The Good News: 20 Years of Inspiring News Stories), a weekly Good News Gurus podcast, and Morning Jolt email newsletter.
- One based in Australia is The Thrivability Matters Newsletter.
Campaign
Contact journalists directly or write to your favourite news platform asking them for a more balanced mix and to include positive stories too.
For those in the UK or a good place to start is the BBC. You can email at: yourvoice@bbc.co.uk or get in touch via WhatsApp +44 7756 165803.
Some relevant publications:
- ‘You Are What you Read: Why Changing Your Media Diet Can Change the World’ by Jodie Jackson (2025)
- ‘Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions’ by David McCandless (2021) – Visualizes positive data trends, such as environmental improvements and human progress.
- ‘Good News: Why the World is Not as Bad as You Think’ by Rashmi Sirdeshpande (2021) – Explores uplifting stories on health, environment, and community for readers aged 9+.
- ‘A Year of Good News’ by Martin Smatana (2022) – Contains 52 good news stories illustrated with models made from recycled fabrics.
- ‘The Power of Good News: Feeding Your Mind With What’s Good For Your Heart’ by Hal Urban (2022) – Focuses on the mental health benefits of consuming uplifting news.
[1] https://www.cpre.org.uk/discover/why-we-love-community-energy/
[2] Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions by David McCandless
[3] Baden, D., McIntyre, K., & Homberg, F. (2019). The impact of constructive news on affective and behavioural responses. Journalism studies, 20(13), 1940-1959.
