4 Steps to Beat Climate Change Complacency
By: João Gonçalves
Tags: Change Management, Climate Action, Science, Kotter, Climate Change

So far, the change to a greener economy has been focused on innovative projects and initiatives to build up skills. In my earliest projects, as a junior project manager, we had the task to support the design and implementation of “Local Agenda 21" projects. Heavily based on community dialogue, for 3 months I travelled through 14 municipalities to work out a way to reduce local carbon emissions. Unfortunately, in too many situations change did not take place or improvements were disappointing, with wasted resources and frustrated participants. Scepticism in further similar initiatives became pervasive. I believe most green project managers today face similar struggles of their own.

In truth, while in the news climate change is readily admitted as a problem, in everyday private conversations come the “buts”: “it is not such a big problem”, “the scientists are being alarmist”, “it’s a matter for the tree-huggers”, “technology will solve it”. Visit any meeting outside the green or environmental bubble and you begin to wonder if climate change even exists.

In such a complacency-driven environment, change initiatives like the one I was involved in face an uphill battle on arrival.

All in all, there is a clear gap between talk and action.

According to a 2018 European Social Survey of 44,387 respondents in 23 European countries, a majority of European citizens agree that climate change is happening and is a problem. However, only a minority are actually very or extremely worried about its consequences (see image below).

Concern about climate change. Source: Author, based on data from the European Social Survey (2018).

Across those 23 countries, only Portugal (52%), Spain (50%), and Germany (43%) report at least half of the respondents being very or extremely worried about climate change. The generally low level of concern is startling, given that two-thirds think the impact of climate change will be bad for people across the world.

The outlook within the business community is not much better. Even though they are set to play a critical role in the EU Green Deal, their perception worryingly mirrors the general public’s opinion on the subject. According to the 2019 United Nations Global Compact — Accenture Strategy CEO Study on Sustainability, 99% of large company CEOs agree that “sustainability issues are important to the future success of their businesses” and that they are already feeling the pressure to build more sustainable enterprises from key stakeholders, in particular, Millennials and Gen Z. However, they are not doing enough on climate change: only 44% see a net-zero future for their company in the next decade. Just 41% are decarbonizing their supply chains. Other surveys present similar results (for example here, here, or here).

What’s behind this apparent contradiction? Sterman and Sweeney may provide some clues. In their research, they have found that people underestimate the impacts of severe climate change. They justify this fact by the complexities of the problem:

“Adoption and diffusion are facilitated when innovations and new policies are simple, easy to test, have clear advantage over alternatives, and where costs and benefits are quickly observed. Climate change ranks poorly on all the dimensions: its complex, policies are difficult to test, and the benefits of emissions reductions are delayed and ambiguous. “And if people cannot readily assess costs and benefits for themselves, imitation of elite reference groups, word-of-mouth, media and marketing play stronger roles in opinion and behaviour change”.

Andrew Winston suggests the findings also highlight a lingering notion on climate change among business leaders — the implicit assumption that it’s a distraction from “real” business rather than a path to profit and building thriving businesses, as Nicholas Stern or Michael Porter have argued.

This situation will not change until governments clearly signal deep change. As implied by Gabrielle Gine, head of environmental sustainability at BT, business leaders are waiting to see and believe a net-zero target by 2050 will actually happen to change modus operandi and set out new strategies to reduce carbon-intensive operations.

There is indeed little point in setting ambitious targets and allocating considerable amounts of public funding for combatting climate change if citizens still feel climate change is not a pressing matter — that will actually influence their livelihood in the present and near future.

To some degree resistance to change is inevitable. However, the considerable amount of waste, delayed action, and missed opportunities we are witnessing since 1992 perhaps could have been avoidable.

We actually know this for sure because change has been a central concern for businesses since the 1980s, when globalization started to present problems to conventional business management practices. Since then, many companies, of every type and size, have been testing and following modest or ambitious change processes.

Indeed, one gets a sense of déjà vu every time one reads Leading Change by John P. Kotter — the landmark book by the widely regarded and foremost speaker on the topic of Change. Unsurprisingly, the same sort of problems that have been afflicting corporate change in the last decades seems to afflict climate change mitigation policies.

According to Kotter, for the last three decades, companies have been forced to undertake restrategizing and cultural renewal projects to survive. Some have succeeded and reduced costs, improved the quality of products and services, located new opportunities for growth, and increased productivity.

In the 21st century, change is part of a modern company’s DNA.

However, even in such a studied domain, missteps are rife: even though private or public organisations can be significantly changed and improved under a reasonable budget, most of the time that doesn’t happen because they incur a number of errors. And you guessed it, the no.1 one mistake is complacency.

So, what do Kotter and other change management experts tell us about beating complacency? That first and foremost, we should create a sense of urgency.

Step 1. Create a sense of urgency

Making people understand the urgency of a problem is crucial to gaining needed cooperation. Without it, transformations go nowhere because people just won’t take that extra step. Sometimes we underestimate how hard it can be to drive people out of their comfort zones:

Will we lower our thermostat if we are not convinced of the veracity and urgency of reducing carbon emissions?

People often find justifications to withhold cooperation from a process that they believe is unreasonable or unwarranted. This is well-understood. Just look at Tyler and Huo (2002): back in 2002, they showed that citizens were likely to comply only when actions taken upon them were perceived to be legitimate.

Is there any doubt that, as soon as complications arise, the European Commission won’t have a difficult time to continue to push for green reforms? No matter how much money poured into the current system, if many don’t feel a sense of urgency, the momentum for change will probably die far short of the finish line.

Any change should start by taking an honest look at the current and near future situation and, as importantly communicate it in simple terms. Being able to communicate that information broadly means to present hard evidence.

Telling the truth is essential for building trust and especially to have people commit to making the necessary sacrifices.

Furthermore, a number of authors argue that the soft approach we have been following has been unsuccessful so far and a more dramatic albeit evidence-based approach could finally make people realise what is at stake. In the book “Uninhabitable Earth — a story of our future” its author, David Wallace-Wells delivers a picture of a bleak Earth in 2100: ice sheets collapsed, global GDP plummeting 13%, equatorial cities too hot to be liveable, two-thirds of the world’s cities underwater, and devastating droughts. This may seem like a science-fiction dystopia, but he is merely describing the higher end of the prediction interval for 2100: at 8°C. It is within the realm of pondered possibilities.

A certain level of alarmism has certainly been viewed more favourably in the last years as time to change is getting shorter and we feel enough is not being done. In their major recent report, for example, the IPCC — known for moderation — urged ‘rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,’ to avoid total catastrophe by 2030.

We can argue if the message needs to be more dramatic, but we do need a change of direction. Firstly, we need to help citizens internalize the problem. This shouldn’t be a task of scientists — they need to be focused on delivering quality data and assessments. But we do need good intermediaries — between the scientific community and the public — someone who knows how to convey complex issues in a simple way. (science) Journalists seem particularly apt for this task.

Secondly, we should use the full toolbox to create a justifiable sense of urgency — this means crafting a smart marketing campaign, at least at the level of other commercial campaigns that have successfully entered our consciousness. Its purpose must be to convey that business-as-usual is more dangerous than minimizing our carbon footprint. So why not hire top-notch marketing consultants to come up with convincing, strong, and evidence-based messages?

But other ideas may offer new ways to help raise the urgency level in people’s minds. The following table presents some ideas fit for climate change.