Is there a link between mindfulness and sustainability? A new paper explores this…….

Thiermann U, Sheate W (2020), Motivating individuals for social transition: The 2-pathway model and experiential strategies for pro-environmental behaviour and well-being Ecological Economics (in press) (2020)

Is there a link between mindfulness and sustainability?  Well, there is certainly an ever-growing literature in this field trying to explore it. 

Ute Thiermann (a PhD student at Imperial College London) and Bill Sheate (Associate Director, CEP) have just published a theoretical framework for understanding what might be the complex web of relationships between mindfulness and pro-environmental behaviour. In other words, people’s awareness, desires, willingness and ability to act in the present to change the impact they have on the environment.

The literature points to lots of possible links; the challenge is to prove whether being mindful makes people more likely to take pro-environmental action, i.e. to prove causality.  And if so, why?  Is it because of a greater sense of connectedness with nature that comes with mindfulness?  Or does more connectedness with nature enable you to be more mindful? And how might environmental behaviour link with personal well-being and good mental health?

The paper lays the groundwork for testing new experiential strategies in order to understand whether mindfulness programmes might be helpful as potential policy interventions for motivating people to change their behaviour in ways that can reduce impact upon the world’s environment. 

A fruitful area for future research……

You can access the paper here.

For more information, please contact Bill Sheate (Associate Director).