The emergence of gnomes

This post isn't really about gnomes, it's about norms. Emergent ones.

For one reason and another, we’ve recently been revisiting some of the reams of literature on UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) programme. ESD, with its foundational competencies that include critical thinking to develop informed opinions, systems thinking to figure out the complexity of it all, and self-awareness to reflect on personal values and behaviours in relation to sustainability, is the basis for much of what we write about on The Green Edge. Plus, the ESD for 2030 roadmap, which includes the promotion of community-led sustainability initiatives, very much aligns with at least one of our key themes for 2024.

But it was a point made in one of the later chapters of its 2018 report on issues and trends in ESD (at least, as they were six years ago) that caught our eye and, as is often the case, got us thinking a little laterally:    

Sustainability challenges at the local level are complex because they are generated by a web of connected concerns and issues; they are contextual because of the localized nature of the matters of concern; and they are contested due to unequal access to resources and power relations among others.

The success [of a sustainable local solution can be influenced by] an ‘emergent norm’, which can be accelerated through education via the ‘bureaucratic norm’ of government.

Source: UNESCO

We paraphrase somewhat above, but it’s an interesting point, isn’t it: the thought that we can bang on as much as we like about globalised citizen skills for sustainability, while much of the path toward (hopefully) a sustainable planet might be spontaneous and unplanned, with rules or expectations developing locally within groups of individuals in response to specific situations.

There’s a whole body of psychology and sociology research around emergent norms – the effect of group size and nature of the drivers, the differences in their development in urban versus rural communities, and so on – and we don’t intend to get into any of that that here: it’s certainly not our field. But, thinking about it, we do live in a world where new norms are emerging – and in some cases, submerging again – all the time. The pandemic response was a prime case: tons of emergent norms around handwashing, social distancing, mask-wearing, vaccination and the like. During the Covid years, the bureaucratic norm played a big accelerating role, of course, and it’s interesting to note how a goodly number of those emergent norms have at least partially submerged again when the bureaucracy was called into question.

An emergent gnome (AI generated). Image: MissyWhimsyArt

One emergent norm from the pandemic which has a whole bunch of nested norms emerging around it is home working. We can find new norms – perhaps presented as best practices - around virtual meetings, flexible work schedules, digital collaboration tools, and maintaining work-life balance in remote settings. Our own micro-norms for managing and producing The Green Edge is one such example, worked out as we’ve gone along over the past couple of years.

Within and without the home working domain, we find norms emerging all the time around digital etiquette. The ever-increasing spread of social media, online communication platforms, and digital technologies has given rise to emergent norms regarding online behaviour, cyberbullying prevention, digital privacy, and responsible use of technology. We can find guidelines for students and others alike wherever we look.

Sustainability is not without its emergent norms, of course, although many of these may still have some way to go before they fully emerge. Quite apart from the social equity norms which are creating so much controversy at the minute, we have environmental norms developing around things like use of single-use plastics, supported in part by the plastic bag charge; and separating food waste out into those little brown bins sent out by the Council.

One area where we might hope to see a raft of emergent norms in the not-too-distant future is around sustainable consumption. Advocacy for more conscious and sustainable consumption habits, including buying locally produced goods, choosing products with minimal packaging, and opting for environmentally friendly alternatives is already there to some extent, although in our opinion still has some way to go. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is getting more widely adopted, although extending that meme up through the ‘virtue chain’ and into the higher-order circular economy practices like repair and redistribute remains somewhat, shall we say, niche.

Then there’s mindful purchasing. Now, there’s a norm that’s waiting to emerge. We can find plenty of earnest scribblings on it from sources as widely dispersed as Harper’s Bazaar and the Hindustan Times, but how many of us can put our hands on our hearts and truly say we shop mindfully every time? A googling of ‘mindful shopping at Amazon’ produces a top hit of a book on the subject, but strangely we don’t find a mindful shopping store anywhere on Amazon itself – or, if anyone knows of one, please do let us know.

The concept of mindful purchasing also leads us to what we might regard as a number of interesting ‘sub’ norms which we might see as really bucking the trend of modern living. A move towards minimalism is one: a concept appealing to many in principle but a nightmare in practice, given the task both physical and psychological of decluttering one’s living space. Don’t worry though, Amazon also has a book on it.

Another of these ‘sub’ norms is a return to quality over quantity. ‘They don’t make ‘em like they used to’ is oft heard these days, but a move away from easily-purchased disposable or low-quality items towards quality products that are durable, repairable, and built to last might be a significant mindshift for many. Not to mention the up-front hit on the pocket and the need to consider purchases in a more lifetime-costed, systems-thinking kind of way.

There are others, like support for companies and brands that invest in sustainable innovation and eco-efficient production methods. Here, as we reported in our recent post on SDG 12, is where the ‘architects’ of our daily choices – supermarkets, online retailers and so on – need to make sustainable choices more visible, identifiable, and purchasable.

One final thought. Over the past few weeks, The Green Edge has been co-authored and produced in the UK and South Africa. Many differences may be observed first-hand between the two countries, but one we feel is relevant to this post comes from glimpses we have been afforded into the potential and perception for reuse in South Africa. Here, charity and thrift stores tend to be a rarity, if they exist at all. Instead, the established norm for reusing things seems to be much more direct and baked into the culture. Certainly, the have / have not divide is more obvious, and that is a significant factor. But the sight of an old, yet still useable, fitted carpet being removed from one of Cape Town’s more traditional apartments and carefully rolled for reuse does leave something of an impression on the mind. Perhaps South Africa is still one of the few countries in the world where the Global North / Global South divide can be seen in microcosm in this way.