Community The Power to Change

Community, Sustainability and the Power to Change 03 Idit Alhasid

Community and Environmental Identity The process of changing habits, patterns of action and thought is not a matter to be taken for granted. This usually requires a complex process of adoption and internalization of new points of view and implementing them while simultaneously acquiring new habits. Research studies have indicated that even when people understand the magnitude of a climatic disaster facing humanity, they are not necessarily interested in or capable of adopting these new habits. Therefore, in order to create successful cooperation that focuses on an environmental agenda, an effective information system is insufficient. Encouraging long term processes is required, including adopting a focus on sustainability and making environmental practices (travelling by public transportation, wise consumerism, reusing waste, etc.) second nature for the person who adopts them. This approach requires viewing each individual as part of a community and a social system, which impacts all the habits, norms and thought patterns of its members. According to this philosophy, practices are a means by which a

person can indicate to his environment who he is and to which community he is affiliated (or: who he is not and to which community he is not affiliated). In one social space, a practice may be perceived as part of the definition of a worthy person and grant the person who practices it prestige and social standing. However, in a different space, the same practice may be given the opposite interpretation. For example, in one social space, separating trash before discarding it in the bin may be considered a commendable act; and in a different space, it may be perceived as a repulsive or embarrassing act of rummaging through the trash. In other words, the community and its accepted norms perform a significant role in encouraging effective civic cooperation with environmental initiatives. It is therefore important to adapt environmental activities to the unique characteristics of each and every community and to strengthen sustainable communities in which environmental practices are perceived as important values, like the practices that have been created at Ramat Hanadiv in recent years.

“Concern for sustainability is an important expression of the civic duty to care for the common good. Ensuring sustainability expands the concept of the common good and includes not only the people living with and around us, here and now, but also the future generations” (Sadan, 2009). Currently, no one denies that the ‘environmental problem’ and all of its aspects (air pollution, global warming, etc.) are largely the result of human action. Consequently, alongside the technological solutions and regulation, broad civic cooperation reflected in behavioral change is necessary. For example, to address air pollution, individuals would need to give up driving their private car. Similarly, one of the effective solutions to the waste problem is to avoid unnecessary consumption. A successful way to create widespread cooperation on the part of citizens is to promote sustainable communities, in which environmental practices become an integral part of its members’ daily routines.