I love people. I think people are awesome. People made vaccines, books, music, and hockey. Yes, people make problems, but if I thought the species was totally useless I wouldn’t be in this field. Most of my job involves talking to people and figuring out how to get many people to work together towards some noble end goal. No business is an independent spirit, free of the trials and triumphs of the people inside and around it. Businesses are made up of people. Societies are made up of people! And I love people.

Systemic thinking can be overwhelming. In scale, yes, but also in the way that it can make the problems we face seem insurmountable. It is more than just having solar panels on your roof. It is about the entirety of the world we live in – the social, economic, and environmental contexts, nested together to create our reality. For many people, it is simply too much. Action seems futile.

There is this weird individualism in sustainability actions for the average person. So many recommendations are about what you can do on your own – go plant-based, reduce consumption, take a bus. There is an acknowledgment that the ability to do so requires systems that support these actions, such as having public transit or a grocery store that stocks tofu. Yet there is still a lack of engagement with the way that collective action is a centerpiece of sustainable progress.

I think this comes from two things. First is the cultural inclination in the United States towards individual action and responsibility. Much has been discussed about individualism by other sustainability experts, so I won’t spend too much time on it here. The second piece is that it is sometimes just easier to write a blog about individual actions. You can make a list and a video about that list more easily when it is self-contained and less dependent on community realities. Many of the recommendations about group interaction come at the end of the article, as a strange sort of tacked on, impact expanding option. (I did this in my sustainable event attendance article, but I stand by my recommendations there.)

The pushback against the focus on individual responsibility is justified, as there is a huge amount of industry and governmental decision making that drives issues like climate change. No amount of me personally refusing to eat steak is going to make a big enough difference that the world’s challenges will be solved. But if everyone takes action? There is absolutely going to be an impact. And crucially, the biggest impacts will come when people connect.

It is only by individuals coming together that the system is going to change. Individual actions are important, but the systems are not just individual components. They are also the relationships between those components. Living within a system can make it seem inevitable, but that does not absolve individuals from responsibility towards making that system better. You just have to keep perspective on how systems actually work and what impact you can have.

Furthermore, humans love other humans, and the accomplishments that come from small, local, microactions can be more motivating in the long term. One day of massive impact is less helpful for the climate movement compared to decades of dedicated, small scale, systemic work. Collaborating with others to make a difference can create a positive, motivating feedback loop that leads to resilient, connected communities. An emphasis on individual action isolates us. A dismissal of any personal responsibility dis-empowers us. Yet an awareness of how individuals can operate independent and together within a system to transform it is where the magic happens.