Integral sustainability

A holistic approach to sustainable transformations across micro, meso and macro levels.

Sustainability from the inside-out

Alongside a growing number of scholars, I propose that the current polycrisis related to social-ecological sustainability is not simply a problem of the “external” world, but perhaps a reflection of our inner lives.¹ ⁵

The missing piece

If our inner lives - including our goals, values, worldviews, and emotions - are underlying drivers of social-ecological unsustainability, then inner sustainability might be a deep leverage point for sustainability transformations.¹ ² ⁵ As such, cultivating and enabling inner sustainability could complement current technological, economic, institutional, and behavioural approaches to climate change mitigation - addressing the puzzle piece that has so far been neglected.¹ ⁵

Bottom-up and top-down

In practice, an integral approach means working across multiple leverage points or scales at once. This reflects the understanding that individuals and systems continually shape one another, with feedback loops reinforcing existing conditions.² ⁵

Development or transformation?

With an integral approach to sustainability, we're not just aiming to make current systems more efficient or consistent — we question what gives rise to them in the first place.² ⁵ ⁶ It means moving beyond incremental development toward paradigm shifts: new ways of narrating, visioning, worlding and re-storying what we consider worth striving for.⁵ ⁷ This includes reimagining our relationships with ourselves, each other and the more-than-human world — transformational indeed!⁵ ⁶ ⁷

Toward inner and outer sufficiency

If efficiency asks how we can do more with less and consistency asks how we can do the same thing differently, then sufficiency asks a more fundamental question: What is enough to begin with?³ ⁴

By exploring what sufficiency means to us, as well as how we can embody and enact it in the world, we can begin to cultivate psychological and social-ecological sufficiency in unison.⁴ ⁵ In other words, we can move toward integral sustainability.⁵

Sources

¹ Ives, C. D., Freeth, R., & Fischer, J. (2020). Inside-out sustainability: The neglect of inner worlds. Ambio, 49(1), 208–217. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01187-w

² Abson, D. J., Fischer, J., Leventon, J., Newig, J., Schomerus, T., Vilsmaier, U., von Wehrden, H., Abernethy, P., Ives, C. D., Jager, N. W., & Lang, D. J. (2017). Leverage points for sustainability transformation. Ambio, 46(1), 30–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-016-0800-y

³ Iten, T., Seidl, I., & Pütz, M. (2024). Sufficiency policy: A definition, conceptual framework, and application to municipalities. Sustainability Science, 19, 1709–1734. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-024-01534-1

⁴ Hartmann, E. (2024). Sufficiency as relations of enoughness. Sustainable Development, 32(6), 7201–7214. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.3090

⁵ Ives, C. D., Schäpke, N., Woiwode, C., & Wamsler, C. (2023). IMAGINE sustainability: Integrated inner-outer transformation in research, education and practice. Sustainability Science, 18, 2777–2786. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-023-01368-3

⁶ Pascual, U., Balvanera, P., Anderson, C. B., et al. (2023). Diverse values of nature for sustainability. Nature, 620, 813–823. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06406-9

⁷ Riedy, C., & Waddock, S. (2022). Imagining transformation: Change agent narratives of sustainable futures. Futures, 142, 103010. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2022.103010
Contribute your perspective anonymously

What is inner sustainability?

Explore what inner sustainability means to you by partaking in this anonymous survey of 20 questions, taking roughly 30-40 minutes.

No former understanding of (inner) sustainability needed.

Participate in the case study

How is your experience of inner sustainability?

This qualitative case study consists of bi-weekly or monthly interviews over the course of one year. The study aims to explore how your interpretations and lived experience of inner sustainability develop over time.

No former understanding of (inner) sustainability needed.