Exploring the Sustainability mindset and countervailing beliefs
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Abstract:
This seminar uses Donella Meadows’ concept of leverage points as a lens to examine early-stage research on the **Sustainability Mindset**. Professor Black will explore current theoretical perspectives and emerging empirical insights into the knowledge, beliefs, and cognitive capacities that enable large-scale sustainability action. A key focus is on deeply entrenched beliefs—such as the primacy of GDP growth and reliance on carbon offsetting—that resist counter-evidence and hinder rapid, systemic change. Initial conceptual work suggest that these beliefs can be viewed as fetishistic and may require a therapeutic approach to shift them.
Bio:
Professor Black is Professor of Sustainable Consumption, University of Strathclyde Business School. His main expertise and interest is in sustainable consumption and climate change. His research focuses on why people choose not to consume, deconsumerisation, responses to scarcity and why we say will act sustainably but don’t. He’s been published in: Journal of Cleaner Production, Sustainable Development, Psychology & Marketing, the European Journal of Marketing, Marketing Letters, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Management and Journal of Consumer Behaviour.
Recent publications include “Learning from tobacco control : understanding and challenging negative feedback loops” Global Tipping Points (2025), “Triggering positive tipping points” Black & Zorell SCORAI (2024). He is a reviewer of The Global Tipping Points Report 2025 (Lenton et al, 2025).