The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Luis Mundaca

Luis Mundaca

Professor

Luis Mundaca

Fostering collective climate action and leadership : Insights from a pilot experiment involving mindfulness and compassion

Author

  • Lena Ramstetter
  • Silke Rupprecht
  • Luis Mundaca
  • Walter Osika
  • Cecilia U.D. Stenfors
  • Johannes Klackl
  • Christine Wamsler

Summary, in English

Recent research suggests that mindfulness, compassion, and self-compassion relate to inner transformative qualities/capacities and intermediary factors that can support increased pro-environmental behavior and attitudes across individual, collective, organizational, and system levels. However, current insights focus on the individual level, are restricted to certain sustainability fields, and wider experimental evidence is scarce and contradictory. Our pilot study addresses this gap and tests the aforementioned proposition in the context of an intervention: an EU Climate Leadership Program for high-level decision-makers. The intervention was found to have significant effects on transformative qualities/capacities, intermediary factors, and pro-environmental behaviors and engagement across all levels. The picture is, however, more complex for pro-environmental attitudes. With due limitations (e.g., small sample size), this preliminary evidence confirms the feasibility and potential of mindfulness- and compassion-based interventions to foster inner-outer transformation for sustainability and climate action. Aspects that should be taken into account in larger confirmatory trials are discussed.

Department/s

  • The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
  • LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)

Publishing year

2023-03-17

Language

English

Publication/Series

iScience

Volume

26

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Applied Psychology

Keywords

  • Global change
  • Interdisciplinary application studies
  • Nature conservation
  • Psychology

Status

Published

Project

  • Agents of Change - Mind, cognitive bias and decision-making in a context of social and climate change

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2589-0042