What Are the Stimuli to Change to a Sustainable Post-COVID-19 Society?

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted how inadequately prepared humanity is to manage global disasters. Conversely, this crisis also offers an exceptional opportunity to move towards a more equitable and sustainable future. This paper explores three stimuli that can lead people to the change towards sustainable Post-COVID-19 societies: crises, knowledge, and alternative paradigms. From a theoretical approach, the paper addresses the roles of each stimulus and the capacity they may have, individually or together, to encourage the debate about the relationship between environmental conditions and human crisis. This study contributes to the discussions on the importance of strategic transformations of the global consumption and production systems. It takes this unique opportunity to move towards a more sustainable future. Moreover, it urges that this transformation process be articulated with alternative paradigms that seek to go beyond inequalities, conflicts, imbalanced development, and ecological deterioration.

Could practices of reduced consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic facilitate transformative change for sustainability? Experiences from Sweden and Ireland

“…Transformative learning is a perspective stressing a critical, self-reflective dimension of learning; learning that questions basic frames of reference and "habits of mind" (Mezirow, 2009;Lotz-Sisitka et al, 2015;Boström et al, 2019). An external crisis such as a pandemic can be an important trigger for reconsidering knowledge and stimulate alternative paradigms (Almeida et al, 2021). With reference to changed lifestyle and practices of reduced consumption, a general process of transformative learning may be needed as people have been so deeply socialized into reproducing mass consumption habits (Boström, 2020).…”

“…Whereas some kinds of consumption and consumer activities have been, in periods, impossible or greatly restricted (e.g., air travel, shopping, clothes, restaurants, hotels, visiting amusement parks and public events), others continued as before or increased (food, online shopping, traveling to nearby nature parks, furniture, household articles including services for the household, communication devices) (see Echegaray et al, 2021;Holmberg, 2022). Viewing the pandemic crisis as a "window of opportunity" for transformative change (de Haas et al, 2020;Almeida et al, 2021;Dartnell and Kish, 2021;Orîndaru et al, 2021;Forno et al, 2022;O'Garra and Fouquet, 2022;Schmidt et al, 2022) this disruption to consumer practices offers an interesting opportunity to explore experiences and the potential for "switching actions toward a more responsible, lower footprint way of living", (Echegaray, 2021 p. 568; see also Greene et al, 2022). A key question is if new consumption patterns brought on by the pandemic have the potential to institutionalize, i.e., if they can result in durable change.…”

The Influence of Crisis Management, Risk-Taking, and Innovation in Sustainability Practices: Empirical Evidence From Iraq

“…Open innovation is crucial to an organization's prosperity, ensuring its long-term survival and global competitiveness (Edgeman et al, 2015). Open innovation in businesses is contingent upon the human, financial, and natural resources they possess because of their involvement in producing value for the organization through the generation of new and beneficial ideas (Almeida et al, 2021). The capacity to generate new ideas also acts as a resilience element, enhancing the capacity of working individuals to deal with the demands of tasks and job duties (Bengtsson et al, 2015).…”

“…Corporate growth in emerging markets and developing countries is considerably hindered by limited corporate sustainability. Companies have also struggled to overcome many constraints that impede growth, survival, and sustainability (Almeida et al, 2021). Such constraints include risk-taking and decision-making, which may increase the financial performance of public companies in the Ministry of Electricity (Anwar & Ali Shah, 2020).…”