MAINSTREAMING INTERIORITY INTO POLICY TO ACHIEVE RADICAL TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE
Activating change: meeting the climate crisis inside-out
In the context of our ActivateChange project, we analyse how trainable cognitive, emotional and relational capacities relate to responsiveness and resilience to the climate crisis. While research into the effect of such capacities on sustainable behaviour and the psychological toll of climate change is still nascent, there is an urgent need to critically systematise this promising work and deploy insights from the wider evidence base to improve policy.
Against this background, the aim of the project is to conduct and compile substantive research and produce guidance upon how mindfulness and compassion can increase responsiveness and resilience in the face of the climate crisis. More specifically, we look into how mindfulness and compassion can:
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Influence the mindsets and paradigms that underpin attitudes to the environment and related solutions;
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Increase our ability to cope amid climate impacts (e.g. loss, ecological grief, anxiety, lifestyle change); and
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Increase our ability to support change for sustainability at social, organisational and political levels (e.g. mitigation of cognitive biases and denial).