NEW YEAR, NEW SUSTAINABLE US?
NEW YEAR, NEW SUSTAINABLE US?
Happy 2025!
(Image from: https://plumvillage.org/articles/can-the-new-year-really-be-new)
How will we be new this New Year? It may seem funny as an ex-post sustainability evaluator to write about the future rather than the past :). But ex-post learning is learning from past successes or failures for future improvements. Such learning is part of “longtermism” where “positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. It’s about taking the sheer scale of the future seriously, and how high the stakes might be in shaping it” (which for many of us means learning from the past to do better in the future). “It means thinking about the challenges we might face in our lifetimes that could impact civilisation’s whole trajectory, and taking action to benefit not just the present generation, but all generations to come…. Many social movements have fought for greater recognition for disempowered members of society. Advocates of longtermism want to extend this recognition to future people, too.”
Taking the longer view also means taking a global view and continuing to address the disparities that our economic system generates, and seems to be generating more destructively. As Oxfam’s excellent Inequality annual report tells us, “since 2020, the richest five men in the world have doubled their fortunes. During the same period, almost five billion people globally have become poorer.” At the same time, the UN cites a World Bank estimate that an additional 68 to 135 million people could be pushed into poverty by 2030 because of climate change”. Given the EU is 450 million and US is 330 million, imagine 20-30% of our populations falling into poverty due to changes we can make – but did not – in addressing inequality and a sustainable, liveable planet. I don’t know what your long-term vision for y/our world is, but I’m quite sure adding to global poverty is not on the list.
What can we do anew?
- Where life is stable: Focus on our collective communities and our planet and helping others: the NYTimes on making new year’s resolutions for collective happiness. I would add, we need to make choices from a planetary perspective – I got a plug-in electric hybrid Toyota CHR this year so I would pollute less and am a vegetarian (aspiring vegan) to decrease my tiny share of the 30% of emissions due to our food systems. Am reading the book The Logic of Sufficiency and preparing to read Less is More will help us consume less, as we need less. Remember, as we in the Global North consume less, the Global South is likely to suffer less, as they have caused so little of today’s climate crisis. Generation Climate Europe states: “In 2019, the top 10% of global emitters (771 million individuals) were responsible for about 48% of global CO2 emissions, while the bottom 50% (3.8 billion individuals) were responsible for almost 12% of all emissions.” This is a staggering statistic we all need to act to reverse.
- Take a longer view, doing ex-post evaluations, for sectors such as agriculture, even for disasters: 3ie admitted that only 4% of all impact evaluations include long-term learning about food systems interventions evaluating long-term outcomes (including climate change) and a collection of sustainability learning by IDEV’s Sustainability Matters asks us to take a holistic approach, covering the full spectrum of environmental, social and economic sustainability. Both sources tell us we need to do more evaluation and learning over the longer-term as climate shocks increase. Disaster Science also discusses the need for a longer-term view – this means putting out fires but thinking longer-term (see longtermism above :)) about how we can make our interventions more sustained. We can ‘bake-in’ or ‘hardwire” sustainability as we shared here in a VV blog about health projects. Also this includes evaluating climate adaptation ex-post as the Adaptation Fund has shared (and I spoke at the European Evaluation Society Conference) positive and negative lessons from our ex-post learning from past design/ implementation for future sustainability. Proud that the Fund has created the Adaptation Fund’s toolkit, and in 2025, look for more ex-post learning from the Climate Investment Funds and other clients!
EES Conference presentation – Rimini in 2024 (photo by the Vladislav Arnaoudov)
- Use our money to do more measurable good: pushing the private sector for more equitable investments given public funds to do good are so stretched: Dr G. Marcelle notes that we need transformative sustainable finance (which is environmental, social, and governance (ESG)) to address inequalities and address climate change harm being done. As an evaluator, we need to measure real impact as the Adaptation and Resilience Investors’ Cooperative does or the Global Impact Investor Network (GIIN) which has set up benchmarks in Agriculture, Forestry, Energy, and Finance. And we so need mandatory, transparent and comprehensive reporting which fosters trust, not greenwashing or wishful thinking. Also consider what banks you are funding, some profit from more fossil fuels.
- Appreciate and learn from what works and do more of it, patiently, especially at the community level! This BBC article celebrates 5 successes against biodiveristy loss. This Barbados conference “Sustainable Energy for Equity, Security and Prosperity” I will attend in 2025 (!) may also cover the exciting new debt for climate resilience deal which is the world’s first! IDEV reminds us conservation is most powreful at the community level, but we must learn from monitoring data, locally. IFAD reminds us sustained development takes time and resources and patience.
- What else would you add?
Happy Sustainable New Year, New Us!
