How to Convince People to Adopt Sustainable Practices

With every passing year, the inevitability of the climate catastrophe looms closer. There were 25 hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean this year alone, a phenomenon that hasn’t happened in recent history. Think also about the Australian bushfires, or the four million acres of forest that burned in California while it snowed in North Dakota in September. With Covid-19, our favourite restaurants are out of reach and we can’t attend concerts or sporting events. As individuals, it’s important that we realise our part to play in undoing the damage we’ve caused. There’s no planet B. 

Before delving into how you can affect change, let’s take a step back and define what sustainability means. Often, we wrongly conflate sustainability with the environment. In actuality, the environment is a component of sustainability, and sustainability is about more than just being more environmentally aware. It involves changing the lens through which we view the world. It involves shifting your perspective from an individual approach – one in which you’re the centre of the universe – to an ecosystem approach. 

Finding Equilibrium Between Four Key Stakeholders

An ecosystem approach asks that you view your lived experience as a function of four key stakeholders: yourself, people who are dependent on you – this could be family, colleagues, and so on, people whom you depend on, and lastly, the environment in which you live. Sustainability works only when all four stakeholders are in equilibrium.

The biggest challenge in the ecosystem approach is recognising and coming to terms with the fact that we aren’t alone, and that we’re more interconnected than we possibly realise. The entire world is an ecosystem. Today, no government can claim to be entirely self-reliant, and often rely on other nations for various resources. Sustainability involves and impacts everyone. 

Let’s say you live in a beautiful apartment, complete with top-notch amenities, but step out the door and the neighbourhood in which you live is in shambles. What will you feel when you live in such a home? What impression will this leave on guests who visit you? When it comes time to sell the house, will you be able to do so? You can’t simply live in your own bubble. When your neighbourhood succeeds, so do you. 

A successful ecosystem approach is one that supports and respects all the stakeholders involved. It involves zooming out and looking at the daily decisions we make from the perspective of the ecosystem in which we live. When the ecosystem thrives, the individuals in it thrive, and we become sustainable. 

It goes without saying that you’ll have to live by example and make sure your actions align with your point of view. Aim to be an example of how to make decisions with the ecosystem’s best interests at heart. Why not even make ecosystems a part of your daily language? Communicate this idea with people around you to show how deeply reliant we are on each other to survive.

Suppose I walk into your house and deliver a speech about the sustainable practices you ought to be adopting, you’d be put off in a matter of minutes. When convincing people to make changes in their lives, it’s important to deliver your message the right way. Tailoring your message to the people you want to influence is key. You’ll need to situate the often amorphous concept of sustainability into their daily lives, give them reasons to care, and approach these conversations with patience, respect, and humility. 

“What’s In It For Me?”

If I were to tell someone to do something good for the environment, but as a consequence that they’d be miserable, most people would choose not to. By nature, people are guided by self-interest. We’re likely to make changes only if we have a clear understanding of how we’d benefit in the long run. We want to be assured that our needs will be taken care of. You’ll find that if you can articulate the answer to the question “What’s in it for me?”, people will be more open to receiving your message and learning more about it. 

Use this approach to frame how you talk to your colleagues about sustainability. Explain that embracing sustainability as a lifestyle doesn’t involve giving anything up. Rather, it’s about making sure the other stakeholders in the ecosystem don’t suffer. Explore how a small change in lifestyle would benefit both themselves as well as those around them. Also explain how their current behaviour has a negative impact on the very ecosystem they’re striving to protect.

As a business, you could also start respecting all forms of capital – not just financial capital – as being valuable markers of success. While remaining profitable is vital, strive to be responsibly profitable by factoring human capital, intellectual capital, and environmental capital into the decisions you make. After all, if you’re highly profitable but also highly polluting, the authorities will catch up to you eventually. 

Work with key stakeholders to redefine metrics by which you evaluate business success and build protection of these other forms of capital into your processes. Sustainability isn’t just about profits. It’s about growing without leaving the environment and society behind. This isn’t going to be easy by any means. You might even have to explore new ways of running the business. Yet by framing the ways in which the business would benefit from sustainability, you’ll likely be able to take steps in the right direction. 

Find Common Ground

On an individual level, the way to open conversations about sustainability with people is by connecting over common ground. The basic premise is that all people are inherently good. Build your narrative around that point of alignment. This way, you’ll make your message appealing to them without rubbing them the wrong way. 

For instance, if you bond with a colleague over sports, build a narrative around that. Explore the ecosystem approach around your love for sports and build on it. You could explain how climate change, which played a part in the Covid-19 pandemic, has made it impossible for us to watch our favourite games or matches as they were meant to be enjoyed. 

In this way, you can talk to various people by customising different angles, but the basic message remains constant. All you need to do is change the way you package the desired behavioural change in a way that appeals to each individual. That said, tailoring your message is different from diluting your message to make it more palatable to someone else. Avoid underplaying the importance of individual change in contributing to a better world. 

Make Accountability Fun and Relevant

Once you’ve bonded over common interests, you will feel comfortable in exploring gaps in the other person’s behaviour in a respectful way. How you navigate these conversations is key. The best way is to be honest and transparent about your own shortcomings. Talk openly about your mistakes or the challenges you face in making more sustainable decisions. This way, people are more likely to be able to relate with you on a human level and you won’t come across as being preachy. 

Use your own experiences as a starting point for the conversation. Ask the person for their ideas and thoughts. Invite them to give feedback on what you could’ve done differently to be more mindful of the ecosystem. Then, involve them in being a part of the solution. It’s as simple as saying “why don’t you join me in making this change? After all, we’re in this together.” 

For example, if you’re looking to get your colleagues to avoid using single-use plastic bags to bring their lunch back to the office, pose it as a shared challenge. Instead of making it a “rule” to be followed, make it fun. For instance, you could say, “Since we’ve agreed that we should use less plastic, why don’t we challenge ourselves to bring our tote bags with us when we go out for lunch? The person who forgets their bag buys coffee!” It’s a fair trade, a win-win that benefits both parties and the overall ecosystem. 

Never force someone to adopt sustainable practices. Instead, once you’ve explained the negative impact that their choices have on the ecosystem, make closing the gaps in their behaviour a shared challenge. We, instead of you or me. 

Talk about Alternatives

When asking someone to make a behavioural change to be more sustainable, make it a discussion about pros and cons. For every positive outcome, there will be a few sacrifices that people will need to make, and change is often uncomfortable. But frame the negatives with relation to the greater good of the world.

As discussed earlier, the best way to sell sustainability to someone is by talking about the benefits that it will bring to their lives. But in addition to benefits, you should also propose alternative choices they could make that wouldn’t compromise on their quality of life. Most people feel afraid that sustainability involves “stopping” or restricting their access to things they enjoy. By talking about alternatives, you show that they can derive the same enjoyment while also doing good for society and the environment.

For example, plastic is one of the biggest problems in the world today. Only a tenth of plastics can be recycled, and the rest ends up in landfills or in the oceans. Fish ingest the plastic, and we ingest the fish. As a result, we are consuming plastic which remains in our body and releases toxins into our system. So you could ask your colleague who reaches for a plastic bottle of their favourite drink to switch to a canned or bottled version. They’ll still be able to enjoy the same drink, but without contributing to plastic waste. 

Influence Incrementally and Celebrate Small Wins

Patience and persistence are both vital in influencing people around you to adopt sustainable practices. Don’t expect to change everybody overnight. Instead, look to influence one or two people who are closest to you. Once you win them over, they’ll likely spread the message to a few people around them too. While the process may be slow, you’re more likely to succeed with this mindset. 

You could also start by suggesting smaller changes in behaviour that people could make without feeling completely overwhelmed. Instead of using the air conditioning all day long, why not use the fan for six of those hours? Why not suggest a carpool a few times a week? Small actions like this add up to big impact. Again, the key is to frame it as a challenge that you’d all take on together. 

Lastly, be generous with your praise. Acknowledge and celebrate the small victories and the little changes that people make. These are low-hanging fruits and easy wins that help build connections not only between you and the people you’re trying to influence, but also between them and the ecosystem. People respond well when they know that their actions are making a positive change. 

Throughout, keep the big picture in mind. What are all these small actions adding up to? What kind of a world do we want to leave behind? What happens if we continue down the path of unsustainability? Acknowledging that the things we take for granted will end up working against us in the long run is key. Being constantly mindful of the ecosystem in which we live will inform how you build sustainability into your narrative. 

1 We’re Deeply Interconnected With Each Other and the World

Realise that the world doesn’t revolve around you, but rather, you need the world to survive. If the world suffers, inevitably, so do all of us. If you want to survive, prosper, and sustain our lifestyles, we should ensure that we in turn are making an effort to sustain the world we live in. Use this concept to frame your conversations with people you’re hoping to influence. 

2 Live in Harmony With Your Ecosystem 

Eventually your actions will impact everybody, but in the immediate future, it will impact your ecosystem. Think about the four stakeholders in your life, and evaluate how you can minimise negative impact on them by changing your behaviour and influencing others around you. 

3 Let Your Behaviours and Beliefs Align With Your Words 

Never force people to make behavioural changes they aren’t read for. Instead, walk the talk, ensuring that your behaviours and beliefs are aligned with your words. If you don’t believe in what you’re saying, people will tune you out. In order to be convincing, your passion for sustainability should come across in the way you live your life.