More, Not Less: Regeneration and Reframing

Photo by Akin Cakiner on Unsplash

As I’ve mentioned a few times, the Montreal Protocol to reduce CFCs and repair the ozone layer likely succeeded not because corporations suddenly became altruistic, but because ready—and profitable—substitutes existed. Similarly, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring may have sparked a US DDT ban, but several viable substitutes existed, even if they didn’t have quite the same dose effectiveness. Without viable and ready substitutes, my bet is that the US would not have banned DDT. 

Maybe cynical, but also realistic. Incentives are key to getting buy-in—for almost any initiative. 

Yet, too often, climate-change activists’ messages don’t show this understanding. Stop unnecessary air travel. Give up your enjoyable lifestyle. Get used to less.

Less. Stop. Give up. Degrowth. 

These steps may be necessary to some degree—the Limits to Growth model predictions appear to be proving true so far—but from a marketing perspective, they are brutal sells. 

The marketing dilemma

We need a different approach to get people on-board to counter climate change. It’s too late to stop some feedback loops from manifesting, and we’re approaching several tipping points, but it’s not too late to mitigate even worse damage and eventually slow and reverse those cycles. 

This is still not a fantastic marketing message. Mitigation sounds like the slog it often can be. 

But, surprisingly and poignantly, the tragedy of the COVID pandemic shows us a different way.

During the pandemic, people shifted to remote work if they could. Many people traveled less, ate out less, and pulled back on high-consumption lifestyles to some degree. But there was also gain: without commutes, many people found they had more time available to spend with family and loved ones, or to cultivate hobbies, or to get more physically fit, or to cook and eat healthier meals, or to simply relax a bit more. 

Those gains were, understandably, perceived as hugely valuable. So valuable that many people didn’t want to go back to the office. 

So, show the benefits to spark change?

Yes. And that’s a valuable insight, from a climate-change perspective. To put it simply, people need something in return for making sacrifices. If they gain enough, they will willingly change their behavior. 

Here’s a hypothesis: if you tell employees they can work fully remote and for fewer hours at the same pay in exchange for reducing leisure travel and decreasing their carbon footprint, a significant portion will take that deal, as long as they can keep vital benefits like health insurance. 

Recent surveys seem to support this hypothesis. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll found “75 percent of workers would prefer working four 10-hour days versus five eight-hour days”¹, and a poll conducted by ResumeBuilder.com found a majority of US employers either already using or ready to try a four-day workweek, as this article at The Hill explains. That could open up flexibility not just for remote jobs, but for in-person jobs, too.

If trends are already favoring flexibility, then why not a three-day week with reduced hours in exchange for carbon footprint reduction? 

It’s the carrot, not the stick

After many years of losing ground on the climate-change front, the approach that will (finally!) work is to replace things people don’t like with things they do like, and to replace carbon-heavy things people do like with things they like even more. That’s a trade-off people will make. It works with human nature, not against it. 

It is probably a leverage point. 

De-carbonization doesn’t have to mean less of everything, a reduced existence, an era of wishing for bygone good times. Instead, it can mean a regeneration and renewal of our connections to our local communities and natural landscapes, to our loved ones and hobbies, to a slower pace that lets us appreciate what we do have. 

That’s not emphasized nearly enough in the cacophony of escalating warnings and remonstrations. Yes, we didn’t do enough before. Yes, climate change will impact almost everyone on Earth. Yes, we need to reduce certain activities. But there’s still a lot to gain if we’re willing to reframe and regenerate our lifestyles in a way that offers more of what’s truly important. 

1. Abril, Danielle. “Workers want a four-day week. Why hasn’t it happened?” The Washington Post, May 24, 2023.