The Tripod of Environmental Progress
By: Jordan Flagel
Tags: Sustainable Development, Sustainability, Environment, Policy, Climate Change

Behavioral change is important, but it’s not enough. We also need innovation and policy changes to get us where we need to be.

The three legs of the Tripod of Environmental Progress

A tripod is a valuable piece of equipment and fits nicely as a metaphor. With three equal legs, no one leg is more important than the other — if one fails, the entire unit falls to the ground. I didn’t intend on using a tripod as the most fitting metaphor for how we need to think about environmental progress. It came to me as I realized that one approach is not more important than the others. All three need to be present in order to make timely and meaningful progress.

I’ve always talked about the importance of innovation and, to a lesser extent, policy. However, unlike most of my peers, I haven’t always thought of behavioural change as being crucial for progress. Take an exchange I had in Belize as a prime example.

It was 2015, and I was working at an NGO that specialized in environmental education, particularly tropical ecology. I worked with several intelligent and educated people from different countries, all of whom were passionate about nature, wildlife, and the environment. Around this time was the beginning of the “straw awakening,” where everybody began to realize single-use straws were more problematic than they were convenient. My one colleague decided to take this to the next level, claiming we should also stop using Styrofoam and plastic take-out containers. I agreed, but said that it wouldn’t work — we would need to replace the nonbiodegradable containers with compostable ones in order for this to happen. She disagreed, saying behaviour change was enough. I found it hard to believe that an entire population would carry around metal bowls just in case they might want take-out at some point. We never reconciled our views.

A few years later, Styrofoam and single-use plastic containers were banned in Belize, replaced by compostable options. The petty side of me felt pretty smug. I was right. It took material innovation to provide a viable alternative — that was also cost competitive — and then it took a policy directive to ensure it was followed. Fortunately, I’m not one to gloat. Which is a good thing, because I was actually wrong.

I couldn’t see it at the time, but the whole process was sparked by behavioural change. Without people forgoing straws and Styrofoam, being vocal about it, and pushing for change, the demand for innovation would not have grown. And without that innovation, the policy would not have been able to come to fruition. Policies need to be rooted in what’s attainable. Without the innovation that led to affordable, biodegradable containers, the policy simply would not work. And without the behavioural change to spark the innovation, it would not have occurred at all.

After realizing the importance of this interconnectedness, I began to incorporate this more holistic view into my thinking for solutions. I was giving a talk on sustainability at Nest Coworking in Playa del Carmen, Mexico when I started speaking about these three different aspects as a triangle — three connected pillars necessary for environmental progress. I’m the kind of person that thinks through problems out loud and prefers to give talks based on an understanding of a concept rather than a written speech. This allowed me to explore the idea of a triangle and look at each represented angle. It wasn’t until a few days later that I realized it’s not a triangle. It’s a tripod.

A tripod of environmental progress, where each leg is no more important than the others and relies on the strength of all three to function.

And I think we need to approach all environmental problems with this model in mind if we want to accomplish real change.

The First Leg — Behavioral Change

“The Catalyst”

The first leg is the catalyst because it all starts with behavioral change. Without it, there would be no incentive for change. There will always be innovation and changes in policy, regardless of behaviors, but it is essential for sparking and eventually enacting positive environmental change.

The reason it is essential is twofold. First, as an example, current energy and plastic usage is cheap and easy, providing little incentive to improve upon either solely for economic gain — which means it is left mostly up to consumer choice to provide incentive, at least in this instance. And second, simply put, we are running out of time before irreversible changes take place. This means we need to make fundamental changes to an otherwise profitable system, that is integral to everyday life, in a very short time period.

Behavioural change is crucial to kickstart the process.

The Second Leg — Innovation

“The Workhorse”

The second leg is the workhorse because the real bulk of the solution will be created by innovation. We need carbon-free energy sources and plastic substitutes that naturally degrade. What we don’t need is to ground all planes and never use takeout containers ever again. Nowhere is it written that these things are inherently bad, or that they inherently contain harmful pollutants. That’s just the way it currently is because fossil fuels (particularly oil, which is a fuel and the petrochemical base for single-use plastics) have always been relatively cheap and abundant, with little incentive to look elsewhere. When plastic was invented, it was touted as a miracle product, and it is still invaluable in many respects. The problem is that it doesn’t biologically degrade. It breaks down into microplastics, getting into the food chain at the lowest levels where it bioaccumulates all the way to the top.

In order to be progressive we need to make progress, which means moving forward instead of moving backwards. Grounding planes is the wrong kind of conservation. It is moving back to a time before progress and innovation opened up the world for a large proportion of the population. Innovation will allow to continue to fly, without the harmful by-products.

The Third Leg — Policy Directives

“The Enforcer”

The third leg is the enforcer because policy enforces both behavioral changes and innovative technologies to be utilized, regardless of which prompts the other. The only way to get to a zero-usage rate for fossil fuels or disposable plastics is to enforce a ban through policy. Behavioral change will never fully get there. Neither will innovation on its own. In a clean, linear world, behavioral change would come first, inciting innovation to create an alternative — but it is the policy to ban the substance that ensures everyone must change what they use and enforces the innovative practices.

Tripod Failures

When all three legs are not utilized together, there are always shortcomings. Behavioral change is not enough on its own, as the entire population will never buy into full-scale change. Even an extreme case, where 80% of people adopted a change in habits (which is absurdly unlikely), that still leaves 20% that refused. Without innovation or policy to force the remaining 20% to change, it will never reach that point. And in the case of something like carbon emissions an 80% reduction is better than nothing, but we need to get to zero.

There are countless examples of progress failing because one leg of the tripod was not supported by the others. Pipeline protests may block a certain source. But without a change in demand and the accompanying innovation, the same amount of oil will still be used from elsewhere.

Tesla has provided great innovation. Sleek, high-performance cars that everybody wants; yet they will not make a difference in GHG emissions until they (or competitors) are affordable for all and electric vehicles are legislated as mandatory.

The Paris Accord was ambitious, and many thought it had potential to succeed. And then it fell the way of all the previous accords. This is because there is no realistic way to reach the targets they set while continuing to enjoy a comparable standard of living. Not until innovation makes it possible and allows for meaningful behavioral change to take place on a global scale.

Without all three legs, it crumbles. Good ideas and good intentions will not reach their full potential if they can’t be supported on all three fronts.

The Success Story

There are a few shining examples of each leg of the tripod spurring real change, such as a single-use plastic ban in Rwanda that forced behavioral change through fines. But there is one example that outshines them all — and is very relevant to the current CO2 emissions situation.

IN 1987, a meeting was held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This may seem similar to any number of the countless international meetings about the atmosphere — Rio 1992, Kyoto 1997, Paris 2015 — except that it was fundamentally different. By the 1980’s there was a noticeable depletion of ozone among certain areas of the atmosphere, and it was clear that chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, were the driving force. This is where the Montreal Protocol diverges sharply from any of the aforementioned climate change summits. The delegates in attendance accepted the evidence that CFCs were depleting the ozone layer. They then agreed to phase out the use of these compounds, most of which were found in aerosols and refrigerants, and stuck to their word. (Granted, it’s much simpler to phase out a product that is used a small fraction of the amount of oil or coal, however, it is still impressive that decisive action was taken.) The result was long and slow, because changes in earth systems operate on a longer timescale. But thirty years after banning — and upholding — the use of CFCs, there was an increase in ozone over an area that had been badly depleted. It is one of the greatest international success stories in the history of the world.

The Montreal Protocol is a perfect example of the tripod of environmental progress. It illustrates how all three legs do not have to follow a linear path of behavioral change-innovation-policy to move forward. The CFC ban was spearheaded by policy. There were some alternatives available to use in aerosols and coolants, but there was not enough demand to push them until the policy came into effect. And then they filled the gap swiftly and easily. This, in turn, made it extremely easy for behavioral change to follow: nobody had to make a conscious choice to change as all products after 1987 no longer contained CFCs. It was all innovative alternatives, implemented via strict policies. This was also a great example of not waiting on behavioral change to spark the movement — and not placing the onus of change squarely on the consumer’s shoulders. It’s a great, albeit simplified, example for climate change summits to follow.

Ban the product, force innovation, and change behavior by default.

Unfortunately, our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels is much deeper and complicated than our CFC usage. It would be impossible to ban oil at present and maintain even a decent standard of living. Besides all the livelihoods that depend on it, both directly and indirectly, there are countless industries that currently rely on oil to make everything from life-saving medicine to clothes that most of the population wear daily. All of it is impacted by fossil fuels, whether we like it or not. This is not to say that we shouldn’t move away from CO2 emissions and towards carbon-free alternatives. It’s to say that in this complicated and overdependent state, where fossil fuels are tied in to absolutely everything we do, it’s going to take a lot of work from all three legs of the tripod to move towards a solution. We need to keep pushing demand for carbon-free alternatives as consumers, we need to keep pushing the limits of where innovation can take us, and we need to implement policies that are strict and effective.

It’s not about simply feeling good. It’s not about blocking a pipeline and feeling like you’ve done your part, only to drive home in your car powered by oil that was shipped in from overseas. It’s about real, measurable progress. We are past the point where we can just be “eco-friendly” and reduce our carbon footprint. We need to halt our emissions. Completely. Using the tripod model is the only way to do this. If we rely solely on behavioral change, or hope for innovation without providing the demand, or expect a policy to take effect without the other two legs to support it, we will never reach the goal.

If one leg fails, the entire model fails.

That’s the tripod of environmental progress.