Despite substantial focus on sustainability issues in both science and politics, humanity remains on largely unsustainable development trajectories. Partly, this is due to the failure of sustainability science to engage with the root causes of unsustainability. Drawing on ideas by Donella Meadows, we argue that many sustainability interventions target highly tangible, but essentially weak, leverage points (i.e. using interventions that are easy, but have limited potential for transformational change). Thus, there is an urgent need to focus on less obvious but potentially far more powerful areas of intervention. We propose a research agenda inspired by systems thinking that focuses on transformational 'sustainability interventions', centred on three realms of leverage: reconnecting people to nature, restructuring institutions and rethinking how knowledge is created and used in pursuit of sustainability. The notion of leverage points has the potential to act as a boundary object for genuinely transformational sustainability science.

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Leverage points for sustainability transformation

Review: Identity and the Natural Environment: The Psychological Significance of Nature By Susan Clayton and Susan Opotow (Eds.) Reviewed by Pramod K. Nayar University of Hyderabad, India Susan Clayton and Susan Opotow (Eds.). Identity and the Natural Environment: The Psychological Significance of Nature. Cambridge, Mass. and London: The MIT Press, 2003. 353 pp. ISBN 0-262-53206-9 (pbk) US $ 29.00 The Clayton-Opotow volume is a useful primer on identity and the environment. Since both "identity" and "nature" are slippery terms, the introduction sets out their parameters. Personal identity emerges in a social context that includes interpersonal and group memberships. Thus identity has a cultural and social aspect. The experience of nature is rooted in a social and cultural experience. Environmental identity can be conceptualized as occurring along a continuum. Identity and the Natural Environment is divided into sections based on the degree of social influence on environmental identity, ranging from the minimal to the strong. Steven J. Holmes in the opening essay surveys the available literature/theories on identity and the natural environment. The first section of the book deals with a minimal degree of social influence, and is therefore titled "Experiencing Nature as Individuals." Susan Clayton's essay defines environmental identity as a meaningful source of self-definition. Her research findings demonstrate conclusively that environmental identity relates to values, attitudes and behaviors. Gene Myers and Ann Russell examine the human-natural interactions that produce an environmental identity. Ulrich Gebhard et al analyze how children use human identity to construct an anthropomorphic identity for natural objects. They demonstrate how such a construction of identity - interpreting human identity in terms of nature or natural objects, what they term "physiomorphism" (as opposed to "anthropomorphism") - enables children to develop a form of empathy with nature. Peter Kahn, Jr. comes to a similar conclusion in his research on children and the environment, arguing that children use either anthropocentric or biocentric ways to think about the non-human environment. He suggests that environmental identity must be talked about in terms of both multiplicity and unity. Elisabeth Kals and Heidi Ittner also focus on children, specifically their motives for nature-protective behavior. They conclude that nature-protective behavior in children stems from a combination of emotional attachment to nature and moral concern about threats to nature. In Section II of the book, the essays deal with moderate social influence on environmental identity. Focusing on social and community contexts, the essays in this section research the concerns about environmental justice constructed at local levels. Linda Kalof looks at the ways in which humans think about animals, locating such attitudes within the matrix of race and ethnicity. …

/pdf/identity-and-the-natural-environment-the-psychological-4sz9j4gfwz.pdf

Identity and the Natural Environment: The Psychological Significance of Nature

https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/preview/868370/Ives%20et%20al%202017%20COSUST%20pre-print.pdf

Human–nature connection : a multidisciplinary review

Calls for humanity to ‘reconnect to nature’ have grown increasingly louder from both scholars and civil society Yet, there is relatively little coherence about what reconnecting to nature means, why it should happen and how it can be achieved We present a conceptual framework to organise existing literature and direct future research on human–nature connections Five types of connections to nature are identified: material, experiential, cognitive, emotional, and philosophical These various types have been presented as causes, consequences, or treatments of social and environmental problems From this conceptual base, we discuss how reconnecting people with nature can function as a treatment for the global environmental crisis Adopting a social–ecological systems perspective, we draw upon the emerging concept of ‘leverage points’—places in complex systems to intervene to generate change—and explore examples of how actions to reconnect people with nature can help transform society towards sustainability

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Reconnecting with nature for sustainability

https://summit.sfu.ca/system/files/iritems1/17937/etd10638_CMackay.pdf

Do people who feel connected to nature do more to protect it? A meta-analysis

https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/bitstream/123456789/7076/1/to%20upload%20-%20A%20literature%20review%20of%20connectedness%20to%20nature%20and%20its%20potential%20for%20env....pdf

Brian Restall

Papers

A literature review of connectedness to nature and its potential for environmental management

Connectedness to nature: Mapping the role of protected areas.