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Hearts, Minds and Habits

New Ground 61
Summer 2001

At the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, President George Bush declared that Americans' lifestyles were 'not up for negotiation' as the world struggled to agree on action for sustainable development. His son has wasted little time in making it plain that American consumers' fossil fuel use will not be be challenged while he is president. In a statement combining arrogant dim-wittedness with unintentional hilarity, George W Bush announced that he would not ratify the Kyoto accord on greenhouse emission cuts because he would never condemn US citizens to 'walk to work'.

Environmentalists point out this policy is likely to hold back the USA's progress in renewable energy technologies and other innovations that can maintain living standards while reducing damaging emissions. And this is of course true. A vast literature demonstrates how smarter technology, production methods, new materials, energy-efficient buildings and equipment, and renewable energy can all help us reduce our impact on the environment while increasing productivity and wealth creation.

But this argument is risky. There is a danger of over-emphasising 'win-win' approaches to environmental protection and resource use, implying that with the right technology and policy incentives we can have our sustainable cake and eat it. This is a message politicians like to hear, but the reality is more complex and challenging. The truth is that while huge advances can be made through new technologies, they will not be sufficient for sustainable development. Nor will changes in technology and production systems be all about 'win-win' outcomes for the economy and the environment, at least not in the short term

This means that changes in lifestyles and the attitudes, values, habits and aspirations that underpin them will be needed. This is extremely unwelcome news to politicians in rich democracies, and voters are ill-prepared for the message. Cultural changes are needed for the UK and other rich democracies to move towards genuinely sustainable development.

Technological change is necessary but insufficient for sustainability

It is worth considering why new technology will not be the sole solution to our problem of unsustainable development. The main reason is that efficiency gains in energy and material use in products tend to be overwhelmed by the absolute increases in consumption from economic growth. Take cars for example: there have been major advances in engine design, leading to less pollution and greater energy efficiency, but the sheer volume of car ownership and use swamps the marginal gains in efficiency per vehicle. The same story can be told across the economy.

What about truly transformative technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cells, offering the prospect of pollution-free cars? True, this would be a big advance towards cleaner transport. But it will take decades to develop the technology and apply it, and we need to curb emissions drastically in the next 10 to 20 years. Moreover, powerful vested interests have a stake in the existing vehicle technologies - everyone from car makers to company car drivers.

Even if these barriers did not exist, what kind of 'solution' is actually offered by advanced technologies such as fuel cells. Of course, new power sources are essential to reduce the effects of climate disruption from global warming. But on their own they do nothing to reduce human impact on the environment in other ways. Imagine that the totally pollution-free car is invented tomorrow, and that car makers rush to abandon existing technologies, and that the new vehicles are very affordable. This improbable scenario would be hailed as a 'solution to pollution'. But, of course, it would not be a solution to congestion, or to the problem of deciding whether to build new roads. In fact, it could make these problems even harder to solve. No technical advance is going to help us decide how much of the natural world we want to keep, which species we are willing to see become extinct, which kinds of landscape we don't want to concrete over.

These problems are about the limits to certain forms of consumption - an issue that technological advances cannot help us deal with. We need social and cultural innovation, not new technology. Look at the social dimensions of sustainable development - and why governments fail to face up to them

The fuel protests of September 2000 showed the complex and politically scary social dimensions of limiting present forms of consumption. The government, faced with a storm of protest against fuel taxes, completely failed to make the case that we are approaching the limits of the 'great car economy' and that cheap petrol is incompatible with long-term sustainability. It is easy to attack New Labour for being spineless, but the problems facing governments in the rich democracies as they grapple with the politics of unsustainable consumption are huge.

Modern governments compete to offer electors programmes to increase their private spending power and contain the 'tax burden'. For sustainable development, politicians need to emphasise the ways in which public goods make us all better off and in which unbridled private consumption can make us worse off. This more complex message is one only very courageous politicians will deliver - and such people are not to be found at the top in the main parties.

Changing consumption and public attitudes in radical ways for the common good and long-term future is something democratic politicians are used to doing only during war. In peacetime, even modest measures to change behaviour and values - such as discouraging smoking - take decades to work through, and major shifts in values (such as the rise of feminism and environmentalism) are not often driven by politicians. Margaret Thatcher's determination to convert the nation to an enterprise culture was an exception that shows what can be achieved by a bold politician willing to take risks. But in these times of peace and plenty, dominated by consumerist values and powerful mass media, politicians fight shy of talk of changing hearts and minds for fear of ridicule. Remember John Major and 'back to basics'.

Increasing the real cost of damaging forms of consumption such as car use opens politicians up to accusations of hurting the poor and those dependent on cars. The answers are to find ways of fairly rationing access to unsustainable goods, spending a lot more on public services to attract people from private consumption and help the worst-off, or devising complex eco-taxation packages that redistribute revenues. All are hard to sell to politicians, mass media and Middle England.

Governments are loathe to tell affluent voters how to live, and to challenge consumption habits, for fear of being branded 'nanny states' or worse. Yet without sustained efforts at public information, education and debate about long-term threats and choices for a healthier future, they will have to rely on technical advances to save us from unsustainability.

Public opinion studies, such as the British Social Attitudes Survey, consistently show that citizens are concerned about environmental risks, but resist measures to deal with them if they perceive these as making their lives less convenient or more expensive. Politicians need the courage to lead opinion, but such results encourage them to follow it instead.

Despite these barriers, there is no way of avoiding the issues. We have to make major changes because technology will not be enough, and because we have to set an example for the rest of the world. We cannot exhort developing countries to industrialise in sustainable ways if the rich countries do not take a lead.

If we need to change hearts and minds and habits, can Labour deliver?

New Labour has the potential to be in office for another decade - a rare chance to change the terms of political debate and the wider culture of expectations and ambitions among the public, as the Tories did in the 1980s. But, although many welcome moves have been made in environmental policy and the ideal of sustainable development has been enshrined in many strategies and speeches, a huge amount needs to be done. As Roger Levett says, the deckchairs have been rearranged in nicer patterns and more passengers have been allowed on deck to enjoy the ship's facilities, but the Titanic we are all on is still heading for the iceberg. How can New Labour help us change course in fundamental ways?

Part of the answer is about supporting new technologies through tax and other incentives, and about abandoning unsustainable subsidies (e.g. for intensive farming). But, as Diane Warburton and I emphasise in the new Real World Coalition book, we need deeper changes that require innovation in governance, the ways we debate and the ways we make use of public goods. For example:

Making advances in sustainable well-being the key goal of economic policy, and enshrining an annual Quality of Life and Environmental Sustainability report from the prime minister and chancellor as the key statement of the year, rather than the budget, which should be secondary to it. This should be accompanied by far more determined efforts to bring sustainability appraisal of policies into the heart of government at all levels - local, regional and national.

Policy makers and business leaders need to make personal as well as institutional commitments to sustainable development. Personal example matters: politicians and business leaders cannot preach sustainability and remain addicted to cars, planes and (in some cases) grotesquely large pay packets.

We also have to challenge the idea that 'hyper-mobiliity' is desirable and inevitable. Chaos in transport policy is doing its bit to make people question whether their journey is necessary, but more positive approaches to travel are needed. Policies are essential to give incentives to cut down on business travel, and to make cycling and walking attractive and easy options. This calls for an 'urban renaissance', based not on property development but on truly joined-up thinking about what makes liveable, reassuring and environmentally sound neighbourhoods and towns.

A complete rethink of rural policy and farming is vital, breaking away from our addiction to unsustainably cheap food and providing farmers with incentives to produce food for local and regional markets in ways that protect and enhance the landscape.

We need radical innovations on the neglected side of constitutional reform - the participatory constitution of local partnerships, planning forums, citizens' juries, citizenship education, consensus conferences and other new approaches to revitalising democracy. Apathy and cynicism are bred in part by the failure of conventional politics to take seriously the long-term challenges we face. As well as reforming the formal systems of our democracy, more needs to be done to use participatory systems and civic education to help people face up to the choices and trade-offs ahead.

We should take seriously the role of social innovations in making for a more sustainable and pleasant way of life - for example, car-pooling, new ways to get children to school on foot rather than in cars, locating more services within walking and cycling distance of residential areas, and innovative ways to encourage household waste recycling and efficient use of water. Energy efficiency can be promoted by sharing resources as well as by technical advances.

More imagination and action are needed from business to make sustainable consumption choices easier for citizens - and part of the answer will be for campaigning NGOs to be far more active in mobilising their supporters to adopt more sustainable lifestyles, by moving into more alliances with retailers and producers of goods and services.

Many more ideas are waiting to be tried out. Policies for sustainable living will call for imagination, vision and willingness to change - on the part of citizens as well as politicians. These are the resources we should be aiming to cultivate in the second term: using our technical and natural resources more efficiently is not going to be enough. Can New Labour's leaders summon the courage needed? If they cannot, with a secure majority and an opposition in disarray, who will?

Ian Christie is an associate director of Local Futures