The Compass Festival: Charting Our Course

We are familiar with positive visualizations of towns and cities powered by green energy and reduced car use, but climate campaigns are over-optimistic about what equitable living at 1.5°C might look like in terms of shifts in consumption for the world’s relatively wealthy. It means radical reductions in material consumption, but what might we be gaining? Are we all truly on board for the recalibration of consumption this implies?

Building on the first collaborative and interactive event, this convening tackles what it means to work on this ambitious agenda, and what is needed to create the community of practice required. Participants hone in on a shared vision, or compass, toward an ambitious agenda and direction for work on sustainable and equitable living.

The Compass is meant to be a living tool for day-to-day guidance. Participants actively test its use in interactive sessions where they crowd-source how to upgrade existing campaigns and activities to be compatible with 0.7t living on an equitable basis.

Ideas are shared as to what practitioners, researchers, funders, and communicators need to do to place this work at the cutting-edge of ambition on sustainable + equitable lifestyles. Participants reflect on the challenges of closing the gap exposed in Chapter 6 of the UN Emissions Gap Report, which points out:

• The necessity to limit household consumption to 0.7t per person, with an equity basis by 2050, and 2.5t per person by 2030.
• The inequity within populations and between countries of the top income earners and those on the bottom.
• The systemic change required, including transformational policy progress that creates the social and technical infrastructure for sustainable living, as well as civil society and institutional leadership in shifting norms and practices.

On June 29, participants explore how a recalibrated Compass can help drive the sustainable and equitable lifestyles work deeper into mainstream climate policy processes.