Last year, I came across a thought-provoking blog post by communications strategist Ruth Taylor on why environmental campaigns “have a duty to examine the deeper narratives that their work reinforces.” One of the most common underlying narratives that sustainability campaigns embrace either explicitly or implicitly, Taylor argues, is the idea that “many social and environmental challenges can be dealt with cheaply and effectively by prompting individuals to modify their behaviour through focusing on simple and relatively easy steps, for example; using less plastic, or washing clothes at 30???.” Propelling this individualizing narrative to global popularity in environmental campaigns — which points to individuals’ behavior as the root cause of our environmental woes—is a theory in behavioral science about social change called Nudge Theory. As Taylor goes on to argue,
Green, Green, My Soup is Green ???
There is nothing nicer than a hearty bowl of soup on a cold Fall or Winter day. The Portuguese specialty called Caldo Verde (Green…