An Invitation

Can a single report contribute to quantum social change? Yes! The IPBES transformative change assessment is an invitation to actively engage in conversations and actions that matter.

Finished

It’s done. Following five days of line-by-line negotiations over the text, the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment was officially approved by governments on December 15, 2024 at the IPBES-11 plenary in Windhoek, Namibia. The Summary for Policymakers was launched on December 18th, and it’s now available for all to download and read. Hooray!

The assessment, written by a team of 101 experts from 42 countries, draws attention to the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and nature’s decline, including how to overcome challenges and barriers to transformative change. It considers visions, approaches, strategies and options for achieving a just and sustainable world. It identifies key principles of transformative change that can guide shifts in views, structures, and practices. Among other things, the report points to the danger of decisions and actions that prioritize short-term, individual, and material benefits, recognizing that these lead to a concentration of wealth and power that is destructive to both nature and people. The assessment provides an evidence-based framework and guidance for engaging with transformative change.

And now?

I’m feeling both exhausted and exhilarated.

After working on this report intensively for more than three years, I was able to enjoy a few days in the Namibian desert with springbok, oryx and zebras — together with some co-authors and friends. It gave me some time to recharge and reflect on what the transformative change assessment means in practice. Is this report a game changer? Can it contribute to quantum social change?

These questions are still spinning in my head as we move into the new year. In particular, I’m wondering how we can “real-ize” transformative change for a just and sustainable world. In other words, how do we collapse a potential into a lived reality? It will not be easy.

Reflecting on 2024: This year was an unprecedented opportunity for people to express their voices and visions for the future through democratic elections. Half of the world’s population living in 72 countries had the possibility of going to the polls to vote. Unfortunately, urgent issues like biodiversity loss and climate change were all but invisible on most ballots. As CNN reported, “It appears we are still selfish, survivalist in the immediate sense, and tribal – by and large we voted for ourselves and not our collective interests. Fear and greed remain big motivators.” Ouch.

Anticipating 2025: This will be a pivotal year for the environment. If we do not deliberately transform in response to multiple, intertwined ecological and social crises, we will all be losers. Yet at a time when transformative responses are urgently needed to secure an equitable and thriving world, we lack coherent strategies and a game plan. And leadership.

This is where the IPBES transformative change assessment comes in. The assessment tells us what transformative change is, how it comes about, and the key strategies and actions that can help us achieve the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity — a vision that emphasizes living in harmony with nature and Mother Earth. You can read more about this in the media release or the Summary for Policymakers, and eventually in the five chapters of the assessment.

Here, I want to build a bridge between transformative change and quantum social change and emphasize why this assessment — and what we do with it — is a game changer.

Building bridges

The transformative change assessment provides much-needed guidance for potent, powerful, and enduring social change. At a time when many global trends are heading in the wrong direction and few leaders seem truly concerned about equity and sustainability, such an assessment can be a “bridge over troubled water.” The findings can guide us through the critical years ahead with intentional and coherent strategies and actions that get to the heart of many of today’s problems.

Can a single report really change the world? In the classical realm, reports are collections of words that are carefully strung together to emphasize some key points. They often generate attention and enthusiasm after their launch, but seldom do they impact everyday decisions and actions. More often, reports are perused and then “shelved.”

From a quantum perspective, the power and potential of the IPBES transformative change assessment lies in the conversations and actions that the words generate. Three important focal points for bridging transformative change and quantum social change relate to 1) patterns; 2) principles; and 3) small changes that make a big difference.

1. Patterns

The assessment focuses on the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and nature’s decline. These are the deeply rooted and interconnected patterns in cultures and societies that reinforce all of the indirect and direct drivers of biodiversity loss, such as climate change, pollution, and the direct exploitation of nature.

To transform the indirect and direct drivers of biodiversity loss, we need to disrupt the patterns that fragment and fracture societies and exploit and degrade nature. Underlying these patterns is often the perception that humans and nature are separate. The transformative change assessment highlights relationality, weaving in Indigenous and local knowledge to emphasize the importance of human-nature relationships, including spiritual relationships to nature that respect both human and non-human species and entities.

Most of the dominant societal patterns today consider individual and collective interests as separate and distinct; often one is prioritized over the other. Quantum social change represents a both/and perspective and comes about through conscious, non-linear, and nonlocal processes that recognize the entanglement of all life. We have the opportunity in every moment to disrupt life-destroying patterns and to generate new ones that support the whole. This “re-patterning” represents a fractal approach to scaling transformative change. When we recognize, embody, and generate new patterns, we transform relationships with ourselves, each other, nature, and the future.

2. Principles

When it comes to transformative change, it is not only what we do that is important (the means) — it is also how we do it (the manner). The assessment emphasizes that what we deeply care about for all makes a difference. Principles of transformative change can help us to overcome challenges and shift views, structures, and practices. It identifies key principles of transformative change, including equity and justice, pluralism and inclusion, and respectful and reciprocal human-nature relationships.

Principles and patterns are entangled. Inner transformations and outer transformations cannot be separated in a dualistic manner. At the heart of quantum social change is the quality of agency that we bring to our conversations and actions. We generate transformative change when we show up with integrity, or wholeness, and when our words and actions are coherent, grounded in values and principles that apply to all, such as equity and justice.

3. Small changes make a big difference

The transformative change assessment recognizes the potential of small changes to make a difference when they address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and nature’s decline: “It is misleading to think of change as being either incremental or transformative in a simple, binary sense because diverse small-scale initiatives with transformative potential can contribute to a just and sustainable world” (SPM p. 23).

Quantum social change is not about the scale or size of our initiatives, projects, or interventions; it is how we show up in every moment. All of our thoughts, words, and actions have the potential to generate patterns and relationships that can shift cultures and systems. We are entangled through language, meaning, shared contexts, and our deepest values. Differentiating between small-scale versus large-scale change is a false dichotomy, as our actions always create ripple effects across space and time.

The invitation

Now that it is done, I hope that the assessment helps us to achieve the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity. Yet hope is not a strategy. This means that the real work starts now. The IPBES transformative change assessment is an invitation to engage with conversations and actions that matter in 2025.

The report emphasizes that transformative change is urgent, necessary, and challenging — but possible. We now have a unique opportunity to to be the bridge over troubled water and generate quantum social change for a thriving world. This involves recognizing that our deepest values and intentions can simultaneously be the source of individual change, collective change, and systems change. Although transformative change for a just and sustainable world can sound abstract and unattainable, in essence it is quite simple: you matter more than you think.

Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.

— Jawaharlal Nehru

And for fun…

Just before the final plenary approval of the IPBES transformative change assessment, authors, government delegates, and observers were invited to “play” together. 600 instruments were distributed in the plenary hall, and we were taught by experts how to create a collective rhythm and a collaborative vibe. What a great way to get everyone on the same wavelength!