Cultural change:
Imagining Fair Earth Living futures
There is great power in visualizing what Fair Earth Living is and can be.
Transforming our culture means elevating the role of imagination and the arts, particularly in these future-defining discussions. Ultimately, we are reimagining “the good life” and inviting the mainstream to transition from consumer cultures to healthier, more connected, equal and better living in support of nature.
Artists and other creatives are key to this process of “firing the imagination”:
“One of the greatest barriers to change is not believing that change is possible. Supporting organisations to engage citizens in building alternative visions, pathways and concrete projects with short-term visible benefits to set them in motion is empowering and overcomes inertia.”
Cambridge Sustainability Commission, Scaling Behaviour Change
“The capacity of art is to engage the world in terms of the aesthetic. If we are clear on the value this represents (‘world-making’ capacity), and the means by which it arises (powers of attention and expression), then we might resist the tendency to abandon our strengths as the world turns to us in need.”
David Maggs, Art and the World After This, 2021, p. 47.
Mainstreaming social norms through peer influence
Through our peer networks, we influence each other even as we take action. As the Innovation Framework reinforces, “we know that peers are our best teachers”.
Tapping into the storytelling capacity and influence of peers across social media and within social groups is key for mainstreaming and normalizing sustainable everyday living.
“[C]hanging the way we live not only reduces our carbon footprint but helps to shift social norms. The more we can see change happening around us – people like us taking steps towards low-carbon lifestyles – the quicker change will happen.”
Advertising and marketing
Addressing advertising and marketing is critical to speed the transition to Fair Earth Living. Global ad spending reached US$710 billion in 2021, up 22% from 2020, spreading across every media (online, TV, radio, print ads, billboards) and encouraging people to rebound to old consumption habits post-pandemic.
Advertising bans have shaped behaviours and cultures in the past, including movements restricting tobacco and protecting children. Examples include Adbusters in Canada and the Badvertising campaign in Europe to stop ads fuelling the climate crisis. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood aims to reduce the influence of ads on children, and a global leader is Québec’s policy banning advertising to children under the age of 13.
“Accelerating public communications is critical to mobilizing more (and a broader range) of Canadians in support of climate action…. More public communications professionals (social marketing and media companies) should be brought in to support this work.”
Environment Funders Canada, Building Canada’s Low Carbon Future, 2020
POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES AND PROGRAMS
- Increase funding towards human insight: social sciences, humanities and behaviour change communications.
- Fund initiatives aimed at developing and mainstreaming narratives that reinforce Fair Earth Living, and counter opposing narratives.
- Support programs, organizations and campaigns that target advertising and marketing with counter campaigns.
- Support initiatives that build on peer influence in mainstreaming supportive social norms.
- Fire the imagination on visions of Fair Earth Living by funding organizations and initiatives aimed at building alternative visions, future pathways and vibrant demonstrations of current sustainable ways of living.
- Engage the arts in this imaginative and aesthetic process of ‘world-making’, enable dialogue about uncomfortable areas of dissent, open new perceptions and direct our power of attention.