4.4. Values for sustainable life

As we have learned, climate change is heavily connected with the lifestyle of the affluent, i.e., the lifestyle of the middle class in high-income countries and the lifestyle of the wealthiest part of the population in low-income countries. The emission accounting of 2018 states that people with high or above average income, i.e., 51% of the world's population, accounted for 86% of greenhouse gas emissions. Changing the situation requires political actions, but they are impossible to perform if not supported by values and culture. Consumer society is one of the big influences behind environmental crises and the prevailing norm in many high-income countries today. How can we detach ourselves from such norms? What kinds of values and ways of life are needed if we wish to replace consumer culture?

Meaningful life within planetary boundaries

The principles of ecosocial education, which were introduced in section 3, can be considered a good framework for the values sustainable culture. The advocates of ecosocial education have stressed that values that idealise consumerism and unlimited growth must change. Philosopher and educationist Arto O. Salonen and the docent of social policy Marjatta Bardy have suggested that the felt meaningfulness of life can act as a counterbalance for consumer culture.

Ecosocial education is thus based on the understanding of planetary boundaries. It is a view based on sufficiency that supports stating “this is enough for me”. At the same time, ecosocial education appreciates communal and relational values. According to Salonen and Bardy, the experience of meaningfulness is based on the human experience of being validated and dignified: that one is seen and heard. Dignity is therefore communally produced when an individual participates in the activity of a society. Salonen and Bardy (2015, 10) point out that: “There is a bridge between a sense of community and environmental consciousness, because when friendship and participation are realised, the significance of material possessions is diminished. The emphasis of consumption is shifted from ownership to the use of services.” They also claim that the participation in solving ecological questions increases the sense of living a meaningful life.

The significance of participation and collaboration has also been emphasised by psychologist Glenn Albrecht, who has focused on studying the recovery of groups of people suffering from environmental destruction. In Albrecht’s research projects, people suffering from environment-related depression and anxiety have participated in voluntary work for restoring local environments polluted by industry. The studies suggest that the restoration work both improved the mood of the participants and increased their experiences of inclusion and belonging to a place. In his work, Albrecht has emphasised the significance of local and social activity in surviving the environmental crisis – both on an individual and communal level.

Salonen and Maria Joutsenvirta have discussed post-material values that are based on meaningfulness instead of consumption. According to them, a positive future specifically requires the identification of changing values as well as active action for the interests of citizens and the greater common good. Post-material values focus on human well-being within the planet’s boundaries. In this way, meaningful life can involve combining the goals of ecosocial education and planetary well-being. At its best, ecosocial education advances planetary well-being.

So, what concrete changes should be achieved through these values? For example, moderating consumption, developing meaningful relations, and communal activity could be a start.

Degrowth and sufficiency

Criticising consumption is as old of a phenomenon as consumer culture. Even before the golden age of current consumer culture, there has been steady resistance against excessive consumption, especially against the excessive spending of the ruling elite. However, current consumer culture differs from the ostentation of aristocrats in that the lifestyle based on the extensive purchasing of goods and services is possible for large populations. In other words: goods are cheap. This is the case at least if one happens to live in a high-income country. in In the 20th and 21st century, when goods have been cheap and buying them has been valued in both social circles and on a political level, resisting unreasonable consumption has been considered as subculture and counterculture activity. Along with the climate crisis, however, the criticism of consumption has become increasingly mainstream.

One form of consumption criticism that developed in the late 20th century, degrowth, aims to provide positive alternatives for consumer culture. We have already discussed degrowth in chapter 1.5, but here we focus particularly on its founding values, including sufficiency.

According to the Finnish Kohtuusliike.fi (degrowth movement) web page, degrowth aims to an ecologically sustainable, healthy, and democratic society in which the systems of economy are not based on the pursuit of continuous growth. Degrowth does not mean that economic growth should necessarily be relinquished in everything and everywhere, even in high-income countries. It is more of a question of what ideals inform the goals of a society. Economic growth has long been an ideal that is believed to bring about so much good that it cannot be abandoned: it is often claimed that the “economic reality” prevents, for example, increasing environmental actions or restricting consumption. The degrowth movement aims at challenging this belief. According to science journalist Mikko Pelttari (2021, 137) the ethical question posed by the degrowth movement is “how can growth be an ideological goal if its by-products are instability and irrevocable destruction?” Pelttari suggests that degrowth can be considered the “new reality” of economy: planetary boundaries set the minimum conditions according to which the economy must be organised. These boundaries are described, for example, by the doughnut economy model introduced in chapter 1.5.

The possibilities of degrowth have been investigated in social science and economics, and the international degrowth movement draws heavily from university critiques of continuous growth and from alternative economic theories. Many outlines of “1.5-degree lifestyles” and “one planet lifestyles” have been published in recent years. Examples include 1.5-Degree Lifestyles: Towards A Fair Consumption Space for All (2021), an international co-publication of think tanks concentrating on solutions for the climate crisis. The report introduces policy instruments with which the consumption of high-income countries could be brought down to a sustainable level reflecting the principle of sufficiency. The authors suggest consumer-specific carbon budgets and restricting consumption that causes large emissions, such as luxury yachts and holiday flights. To counterbalance the restrictions, the authors claim that there must be adequate meaningful alternatives for citizens to satisfy their basic needs – housing, transport, food, and healthcare – in a sustainable and sufficient manner. According to the report, a guaranteed basic income distributed to all citizens would be a practical way for enabling a just and sustainable transformation.

It is obvious that, when implemented, such transformative policies would cause strong resistance in a culture accustomed to striving for an unlimited freedom of consumption. The resistance would be particularly strong in the groups of people that already consume a lot, and thus have a lot to lose. In any case, restrictions placed “from above” will raise political resistance in those who do not support the party making the restrictions. Sustainable lifestyles can be theorised and calculated, but implementing the changes is impossible if people themselves do not want them.

Consequently, researchers of degrowth spend a lot of time reflecting on cultural values and aspirations. Degrowth actors emphasise that an ecological society would value aspects of social and societal life that do not get adequate attention in the current system. Such aspects include care, environmental protection, communality, and recreation. One of the central claims justifying degrowth is that in addition to causing ecological harm, a culture striving for continuous growth also causes psychological and social distress: working life based on competition and continuously growing productivity causes severe stress and does not leave time for encountering and appreciating fellow humans or nature. Therefore, promoting a working culture centered on growth does not advance human well-being.

The values of degrowth include, for example, recognising and appreciating the “invisible work” that is done outside of the monetary economy. This kind of work includes activities such as domestic care work, communal work in associations and voluntary organisations, activism, art, and subsistence farming. Feminist economists in particular have highlighted how heavily formal economy is based on invisible work. Simple examples could be that the work done by a wife at home enables the husband to go to work, or that the children of poor families gather raw material for the industrial use of big business. There have also been attempts to discern the work of non-human beings as part of diverse “natural economies” on which the work of humans depends. The sufficiency perspective holds that a wider conception of economy can also help people to extend their conceptions of what kinds of activities are useful and respectable.

Relationality and care

The perspectives of both ecosocial education and degrowth emphasise meaningful relations. So, we must examine more thoroughly what sustainability research has said about the different relations between humans and between humans and others. The concept of relationality describes the significance of relations. Chapter 2.2 already briefly discussed the relational conception of the human as well as relational values. It is easy to say that meaningful relations are important for human life, but what do they mean for sustainability or planetary well-being?

The relational perspective focuses on what happens when humans and other beings are simply in relations: i.e., when nothing “useful”, such as monetary value or products, is produced. From relational premises, the environmental activity of humans is significant in itself. For example, the work group of conservation biologist Kurt Jax (2018) has proposed that concrete caring work that involves lots of time and effort, such as the restoration of natural environments and food production practices based on “earth care”, should be appreciated more in sustainability action. According to Jax's team, time spent on such work should not be considered in terms of spending resources – such as time or work – but as an intrinsically important effort to develop relations with nature, earth, and community.

The significance of relational care is foregrounded in ecofeminist thinking. Botanist and philosopher Robin Wall Kimmerer has written about it to a wider audience, for example, in her work Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (2013). Kimmerer interprets, for example, gardening and foraging as interrelations where humans and plants care for each other and give each other gifts such as nutrition, shelter, fertilisers, and gratitude. Kimmerer’s view therefore places humans and plants in an ethical relation in which it is impossible to see plants as a “resource”, i.e., something that is always ready to be utilised by humans. Instead, plants are seen as agents that have their own inclinations and aspirations that might not be entirely understood by humans but should be respected – in a similar fashion of respecting the habits and views of one’s grandparents. Kimmerer draws from the tradition of the Potawatomi people who have rich customs for utilising plants in respectful ways. Customs respecting plants include, for example, leaving over half of a plant's yield unharvested to ensure next year’s harvest (this applies particularly to foraging). A small gift, such as an audible expression of gratitude or a small amount of tobacco, may also be given in return to the plant when its being harvested.

The idea of relationality helps to understand the practices described by Kimmerer. Their import does not lie in the philosophical dispute on whether plants have sentience or aspirations but on the practical, functional, and meaningful relations that humans engage in with plants. Meaningful relations orient one’s actions: if you respect the woods of a forest like your grandparents, how do you go about harvesting firewood or timber? If you ask a mushroom permission to gather it, in what way do you listen for a response? Kimmerer also toys with the notion of what would happen if the ethical customs of the Potawatomi people set the rules for big business. What type of a return gift would a mining company leave to the place it has emptied out of ore?

Arto Salonen and Raisa Foster (2021) have also reflected on relationality through the notions of engagement and separation. According to them, attaching to and engaging with the world can also cause anxiety because, from the perspective of the ideal of freedom based on separation, it deprives one of their freedom. On the other hand, understanding oneself as part of the world – in meaningful relations to diverse beings, phenomena, and places – can increase the experience of agency and belonging. Salonen and Foster propose that a human agent that lives in meaningful multispecies relations can be considered “a planetary citizen”.

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