Part 4 focuses on visions of change, particularly the role of technology and shifts in economic policies in shaping the future; conditions of change: that is, the drivers and barriers to changes in human behaviour; and interpretation and subjective sense-making, exploring how individuals and societies perceive and understand the changes occurring around them.

The green economy is an important feature of policy discussions around the world. It is portrayed as part of the solution to the global economic crisis, and as an innovative, efficient means of advancing the climate change agenda. It promises a targeted economic stimulus to launch the transition to a low carbon economy and spur long-term prosperity based on radical new technologies and improvements in resource efficiency. Clearly, this is a seductive idea worthy of careful scrutiny by social scientists.

Using nanotechnology, scientists can change the atomic configuration of matter. New materials have seemingly magical applications, with promise that ranges from harnessing energy from the sun to eternally recycling materials by breaking them down into their atomic building blocks and reassembling them. It is vital, as UNESCO has urged, that social scientists engage fully in debates on nanoethics, and contribute to policy and decision-making processes concerning the use of nanotechnology in achieving sustainability.

The chemical industry, perhaps more than any other, needs to change if it is to be acceptable and viable in a greener, more sustainable world. Chemists and chemical engineers are taking up this challenge through “green chemistry,” and social scientists with backgrounds in economics, politics and law, along with environmental health scholars, are increasingly collaborating with them to produce socially robust knowledge through interdisciplinary scholarship.

Negative consequences normally lead people to change their behaviour, but the timelag between behavioural cause and many environmental impacts makes it hard for people to see the connection. Other barriers to change include lack of a fear response and habits. To promote change, new behavioural routines need to be established using default options and social imitation. Existing goal conflicts need to be minimised by better communication of the co-benefits of environmental goals. Since many people in developing countries aspire to a western lifestyle that adversely affects the global environment, different models of human happiness need to be explored.

Polls show that very few people purchase green products or curb their consumption to become more green. Owing to natural selection, most humans tend to prioritise their self-interest, disregard the future, desire status, imitate others, and ignore evolutionary threats such as global climate change. All of these obstacles can, however, be overcome, or be used to promote sustainability.

The complex and variable structure of households makes it difficult to design policies to help them behave in a greener way. Cultural research methods, particularly ethnography, provide survey research with the necessary extra depth. These perspectives illustrate pathways towards sustainable results and the problems of achieving more sustainable outcomes.

Environmental change research often relies on simplistic, static models of human behaviour in social-ecological systems. This limits understanding of how social-ecological change occurs. Integrative, process-based behavioural models, which include feedbacks between action, and social and ecological system structures and dynamics, can inform dynamic policy assessment in which decision making is internalised in the model. These models focus on dynamics rather than states. They stimulate new questions and foster interdisciplinarity between and within the natural and social sciences.

Municipal solid waste is seen either as a nuisance or as a commodity and social dimensions are less important. Waste problems require an integrated, multifaceted, interdisciplinary approach. Informal but organised recycling in Brazil is an example of an innovative, inclusive resource recovery and environmental awareness strategy that has many benefits for the environment and for the waste collectors. Policies need to safeguard the social dimension and the ecological and economic aspects of waste management.

It is essential for China’s fast-growing cities to reduce their environmental impact. Vanke, a major housing development in Shanghai, has been a test case of what is possible in the area of waste reuse and recycling. It shows that considerable issues remain unsolved in terms of altering the behaviour of Chinese householders.

Under the auspices of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), UNESCO is leading efforts to integrate educational responses to climate change, mitigation and adaptation. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), which is growing in schools around the world, encourages pupils to think broadly about pressing scientific, technological and human issues. It also recognises that a sustainable environment is essential if children are to live a secure and rewarding life.

Education for Sustainable Development in France is taught at all levels across all subjects in state schools. Climate change is not taught as a subject in its own right, until secondary level. Good teacher training is essential to enable teachers to teach this controversial issue in an interesting and scientific way.

Western development over the past century involves the interdependent development of a cluster of high-carbon socio-technical systems and related social practices. Reversing these systems will be a massive challenge. Instead a set of low-carbon models or systems are needed, using new practices of low-carbon innovation. This article explores the likelihood of these developing as more than tiny niches, and ends by noting some green shoots of such alternatives.

Cross-national surveys indicate that environmental issues are not the main concern in any country or region, and from 1993-2010 there were, on average, no large or consistent trends in public concern with climate change. Climate change is the environmental issue mentioned as the most important in ten of the 33 countries and regions surveyed in 2010. There is no international consensus, although in general, richer nations are more concerned than poorer nations are. Younger generations mention global warming more often than older generations.

An OECD survey, carried out every three years, assesses the effects of environmental policy on people’s attitudes and behaviour concerning the environment.

This article focuses on one of the world’s first online qualitative global surveys of young consumers and their lifestyles. The discussion highlights how the survey has informed subsequent planning for a new mixed-method global study of urban youth, CYCLES for sustainability. This research aims to equip young people, local and national governments to support flourishing young lives and sustainable consumption more effectively.

The Equity and Sustainability Field Hearings project set out to ensure that poor communities have the opportunity to share their views on sustainable development and poverty issues. Coordinated by the Initiative for Equality, civil society and research groups are working to find out what poor and disadvantaged communities think about their future. Their responses will be compiled and included in the Sustainable Development Goals dialogue and decision-making processes.

The Cape Farewell project brings environmental scientists and creative artists together to consider the challenges posed by climate change. It has sent over 200 artists to places and communities around the world to produce responses, in music, verse, prose and other forms, to human-induced environmental change.