Today one of my colleagues told me that a very common reaction she gets in her department is that people do not want to talk to her about sustainability because “that makes them feel guilty”, and also say that is why they do not want to talk about sustainability with their students. To me, that really feels like a “you” problem — how is it my, or her, problem that you feel guilty because I talk about something that matters to me? Then do better and you don’t need to feel as guilty! — but at the same time that’s probably not the most constructive approach to deal with that situation. So let’s see what the literature says what is going on and what we should do about it!

Dunlop & Rushton (2022) investigate the conditions under which certain emotions arise (which i summarize here). For guilt, they find it can arise when people feel that they individually are being blamed or held responsible for a systemic failure, but actions they could take would not be able to address the situation fully, so they don’t even try. One way to address this is to try and re-appraise the situation such that it feels possible to have a positive effect.

Zembylas (2019) explore “encouraging shared responsibility without invoking collective guilt”. They state that there are two common responses (to suffering and injustices, not climate change or sustainability specifically) by students: Denial of collective guild, and feeling guilty and responsible despite not having direct involvement. Guilt is paralysing, and, citing the authors citing Arendt (2003) with something that really resonated with me: ‘Where all are guilty, nobody is’. They then cite Young (2004): “One has the responsibility always now, in relation to current events and in relation to their future consequences”, so that is a much more activating emotion. And they write further that “students are encouraged to understand that responsibility is not an all-or-nothing matter, but there are different degrees of culpability“. They do not explain further what that effectively means in a teaching context, but I find quote in bold very helpful to work with further. You don’t have to carry all the suffering and wrong-doing of the world, but you also need to start doing better.

Yacek (2022) writes about “Anxiety, guilt and activism in teaching about climate change”. They state that “with respect to climate change, guilt seems a manifestly fitting response to what we human beings have done to the environment”. In that, we feel collective guilt just by being human and alive during these times, and our guilt is not about any particular action, but for being embedded in, and part of, a destructive system. It is therefore also that we cannot single-handedly turn everything around, but that solutions need to come on the system level. But they cite Moore & Yang (2020) who wrote that eco-guilt “has particular efficacy for motivating behavioral change with respect to the environment”. But only if we don’t use guilt as retribution (or if it is not being perceived as such): “The other person recognizes all-too well what we are up to, and either begins to feign guilt or to fight back. The result is the very opposite of what the feeling of guilt was supposed to accomplish. We are left with a damaged relationship and unchanged behavior.” What they recommend teachers do instead is “model how to cultivate guilt without falling into the feeling of being trapped or paralyzed by the monumental proportions of the climate change problem and by the moral anxiety that can attend it”, and refocus students’ thinking on aspects that they do have a direct influence on.

Vandaele & Stålhammar (2022, my summary here) finally give concrete suggestions for how hope as an activating emotion can be supported in a university setting. For example:

Ultimately, they state that “constructive hope should be cultivated in university education at multiple levels by fostering: a sense of community; discussion and visions of the future; a sense of agency at the individual, collective and professional level; trust toward external actors; and providing space for emotional expression.“

So I still don’t really know what to suggest to respond in the moment when my colleague is told to stop talking about sustainability because she is making someone else feel guilty, but the suggestions above can be helpful when we, more generally, work on creating the conditions for constructive conversations and positive actions.

And now I need to stop working and start a weekend of recovery so I don’t burn out. Happy weekend, everybody!

Dunlop, L., & Rushton, E. A. (2022). Education for Environmental Sustainability and the Emotions: Implications for Educational Practice. Sustainability, 14(8), 4441.

Vandaele, M., & Stålhammar, S. (2022). “Hope dies, action begins?” The role of hope for proactive sustainability engagement among university students. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 23(8), 272-289. [link to pdf]

Yacek, D. W. (2022). Anxiety, guilt and activism in teaching about climate change. In Creating Green Citizens: Bildung, Demokratie und der Klimawandel (pp. 115-134). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Zembylas, M. (2019) Encouraging shared responsibility without invoking collective guilt: exploring pedagogical responses to portrayals of suffering and injustice in the classroom, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 27:3, 403-417, DOI: 10.1080/14681366.2018.1502206