Environmental Psychology, Climate Anxiety, and Behavior Change with Dr. Renée Lertzman

Welcome back to Environmental Professionals Radio, Connecting the Environmental Professionals Community Through Conversation, with your hosts Laura Thorne and Nic Frederick! 

On today’s episode, we talk with Dr. Renee Lertzman, environmental psychologist and founder of Project InsideOut about Environmental Psychology, Climate Anxiety, and Behavior Change.   Read her full bio below.

Help us continue to create great content! If you’d like to sponsor a future episode hit the support podcast button or visit www.environmentalprofessionalsradio.com/sponsor-form 

Showtimes: 
1:35 - Green guilt
9:34 - Interview with Renee starts!
13:14 - Reframing environmental Action
29:43 - Listening to stakeholders
38:31- Five guiding principals

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This podcast is produced by the National Association of Environmental Professions (NAEP). Check out all the NAEP has to offer at NAEP.org.

Connect with Dr. Renee Lertzman at reneelertzman.com

Guest Bio: 
Dr. Renée Lertzman is a founder, psychologist, researcher, and strategist who has spent three decades investigating one of the most pressing questions of our time: why do people struggle to act on what they care most deeply about—and what does it actually take to change that? Her answer challenges everything we think we know about motivation, resistance, and human behavior. The problem, she has found, is never lack of care. It's that care gets buried under anxiety, unprocessed grief, and the weight of impossible-feeling choices, and the strategies we use to overcome that tend to make it worse. Her work, spanning corporations, governments, nonprofits, and communities across the globe—is built on a simple but radical premise: the capacity for change already exists in people. Our job is to unlock it. 

Renée has advised senior leaders and leadership teams at Google, IKEA, Johnson & Johnson, WWF, Live Nation, and the White House, and her TED Talk, How to Turn Climate Anxiety into Action, has been viewed over two million times. She is the author of Environmental Melancholia and the founder of the acclaimed Project InsideOut, seed funded by the 11th Hour Project and KR Foundation. Her forthcoming book, So You Want to Change the World? Creating the Future You Want from the Inside Out (Viking 2027), is the culmination of thirty years of practice and research  at the intersection of psychology and planetary change.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Hello and welcome to EPR your favorite environmental enthusiasts, Nic and Laura. On today's episode, Laura and I talk about green guilt. We interviewed Doctor Renee Lertzman about environmental psychology, climate anxiety, and behavior change. And finally, here are some fun facts about environmental psychology and climate engagement.

Environmental psychology looks at how people's thoughts, emotions and behaviors shape how they respond to environmental issues. Feelings of being overwhelmed, anxiety, and even avoidance are common responses to climate change. And can actually prevent people from taking action if not addressed.

Research shows that simply giving people more information isn't enough. Effective climate communication also needs to connect with values and emotions. Many organizations are now using psychology-based approaches to help leaders and communities stay engaged without burning out, and all of that is a great lead into our interview today. So how about that? Hit that music.

This year, NAEP is hosting their annual conference and training symposium in Anchorage, Alaska from Monday, May 11th through Thursday, May 14th. The conference is a great opportunity to learn about new projects, share technical knowledge, network with other industry professionals, and engage with environmental leaders.

Not a member yet? Join NAEP with special discount code EPR for $25 off your membership. Register now at www.NAEP.org. Let's get to our segment.

Have y'all ever felt green guilt feeling bad about flying? That's a good question from Sam.

If I've ever felt green guilt about flying, yeah, uh, if I flew more, maybe. Or like, you know, ordering Amazon things, excessive plastic. I mean, I think that one kind of kills me sometimes when you see something wrapped inside of plastic, inside of plastic, inside of plastic is really tough.

I think that's when sometimes where I feel like, wow, I'm really just making waste by buying. That gets me, and so does all the takeout. Like I felt like in COVID, right before COVID. Restaurants were starting to do more reusable packaging, and then when COVID happened, everything went disposable.

Yeah. Oh, we can't touch this twice, and you can't touch it, and you can't bring your own coffee mug, and, you know, right before that, I feel like I could bring in my own cup and they'd give you a reward for bringing your own thing in, and I feel like that all went away overnight.

And so now whenever I just today I ordered a wrap and it's like in a box with another container inside this giant bag and I didn't eat all of this, you know, yeah, yeah, and it's almost like I remember getting coffee and it's like, if you get like, I remember going and getting several coffees, right, and then they're giving me like a carrier for it, and the carrier is actually more inconvenient than just like I had, you know, holding it in two hands, and I'm like.

I don't know how to do that because I, I can't put it that carrier in a cup holder, and if I'm driving I can't. I mean, yeah, and so they're just, it's just, it's just waste, and I'm like, no, no, no, don't do this to me again. I won't do that.

But like, so there's times where like I will be like, I don't need a bag, I don't need a carrier, I don't need things because it's all it is is trash because I'm gonna use it one time and then I'm done and um, you know, there's like a guilt that I have like I was like, what if I go back and I bring the carrier that they gave me the last time and I'm like, hey, put them in this so you don't have to keep using a carrier, and I'm like that's silly.

And some of it's just simple as like, you know, kind of giving yourself a break on not being perfect with everything, you know.

Yeah, well, then plus, you know, the whole, what was that show, The Good Life, where very poignantly pointed out, like, You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Like, everything you do.

I've always had this argument with my own self about paper plates versus regular because paper plates I can throw away, but regular plates I gotta wash. So you're still wasting water. So it's like, it's all kind of what you think in your head and your own perspectives.

And then even like ordering from Amazon, I often think, well, wow, I live in Brooklyn now. I could go, there's a vitamin shop around the corner. I don't have to order stuff necessarily from Amazon, but It still got packaged and delivered to the vitamin shop, so it's not like, you know, just because I didn't see that packaging of waste doesn't mean it's not there.

So it's kind of like, you know, again, 61, half dozen the other, like, I don't, I don't know what's best. The only thing I do is make my best choices.

I have a whole cabinet full of plastic silverware that I can't just throw away, you know, I am guilt. I feel guilt about that, like, I can't even use it just once or twice. It's like I've got to try to use it, but then they pack up.

Yeah, oh gosh, like there's like, I have like, you know, you talk about takeout, and then they give you like plastic containers that takeout comes in. I keep all of those, like all of it, and then, but then like a year in, you have like 1000, you've got to get rid of some because it's just, there's too many, and it's like they don't keep well, and then they're hard to clean.

And so you're spending time trying to clean those things out, and like, I don't know what it is, but every single one I get has like. An indentation in the center and on the sides, so you have like two areas that are impossible to clean.

You have 4 corners and then you have 4 more corners, you know what I mean? So like there's always something like you said, washing that is a pain in the butt.

So it's just like, do I throw it away? Do I not order from there? And some restaurants do it where they give you uh biodegradable boxes and containers. That's great. That's fantastic.

But you know, is that enough for me to order from a place? I don't know. Like, it has to be really good food. That's the number one thing. That's the whole point of ordering for me anyway. And so it's hard. It's not perfect. It's not perfect.

And the, the other part of that is just, you know, if I think about like, oh, if I use this plastic fork 3 more times, then it goes in the landfill. Statistically, over time, there's no difference. There's really not.

All I've done is try to manage my guilt about I haven't just thrown it and. You know, this really became clear to me. Well, it's become, it becomes clear at any wedding, any large event, how they'll just put out like, OK, here's 50 tasty treats in a little plastic cup with a fork already in it.

And then maybe some people will eat those, they'll throw that away and they'll pick up another one. So some, some person who doesn't have this in mind at an event will probably use 5 forks in a bowl and throw them all away.

Yeah. And I'm like, OK, so I'm over here trying to reuse this fork like 10 times, and the other, and someone is undoing what I'm trying to hold on to.

So it's kind of like I just think at the end of the day you have to do what you can do.

Yeah, and it's OK to manage your guilt. If you need to use that fork a few times to make yourself feel better before you throw it away, do that. It's not like it's gonna hurt anything. It's no different.

You've already used it, it's already being used, it's already in the system, so to speak. But if it makes you feel better to reuse it, reuse it, you know.

I think we kind of put a lot of pressure on ourselves in lots of different ways. It was just every day we're putting pressure, like I'm not doing the right thing. I'm not doing them as much as I possibly can.

And so then you end up being paralyzed by that, and you don't do anything. You're like, well, I've, I give up. I've, I've tried so hard and I give up, and you don't wanna do that either.

That, that's. And then it adds to this like, I think we all have this societal stress of just all the things that are happening in the world, then you have this additional weight of not contributing to the environment or not being able to and it's frustration that just carries over.

So you have to kind of just accept things for what they are, and, but that doesn't mean we don't still keep trying to role model the change and try to, I would.

In some cases, kind of, like when I've got a survey for the office, the co-working space, it's like, hey, can we use less plastic, you know, like, let's keep making those suggestions and try to get some changes.

And that's a big one because like doing those kinds of things on larger scale events and larger scale platforms and programs, when you have the ability to choose what you put out yourself for your own event, you know, that's where you have the most power and the most influence, use it, that's when you should use it.

But if you're trying to visit someplace that you're interested in, going to see it, be OK with that. It's good to see the world, it's good to see how different people live, it's good to see all those things, and, you know, there are drawbacks to every kind of travel there is, but traveling is a beautiful thing, and so it's really important to kind of mitigate and manage those.

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know how to, like, it would seem odd to me to say, OK, I'm not flying to this conference or I'm not coming because I don't want to have that on my footprint.

Right. But does that benefit the world either? You know, and, and you can always donate time or money to causes that are important to you when you do that kind of thing.

There's carbon offsets, you know, there's all kinds of things you can do. Again, you're still managing your own guilt cause no one cares more about that than you, right? No one cares more about that than you.

And I think when you, when you put that, put it in that framework. You are the arbiter for your own guilt and your own absolution of that. That's up to you. So, no one else.

And I think we kind of put that pressure because everyone else is putting pressure on us. You have to be this way, you don't, but the way it works for you.

Well, I think now that we're having this conversation, it's clear to me that of all the people I see on a daily basis, I probably care and do more than the average person.

Yeah. So, as, as does probably everyone listening to this are environmentally inclined people, we should probably be proud of the things we're doing instead of guilty about the things we're not.

Exactly. Oh, that's so well said, dang it, I wish I'd thought of that.

So yeah. Exactly right, yeah. Be thankful for the things you are doing. You, I'm sure most everyone listening is doing more than Than most, like you said, that's very cool.

Yeah, well, Renee has some great things to say to you, so let's get to that interview. Sounds great.

Welcome back to EPR. Today we're joined by Doctor Renee Lertzman, an environmental psychologist and founder of Project InsideOut, working with organizations and leaders to bring psychology into environmental and climate work. Welcome, Renee.

Hello, good to be with you.

Awesome, we are glad to have you, and this is important topics right now, so I'm excited. to dive in at the start of your path into this work.

What first are you into focusing on human and psychological side of environmental issues?

Well, that's kind of a big, the big origin question. So, I tell this story in a variety of settings, including in my TED Talk that I did in 2019, where I talk about how I was a freshman in college at University of California, Santa Cruz.

And at the time, I was a psychology major. And really very, very focused on psychology. Like, it was part of my identity. There was no question I was going to be a psychologist, probably a psychotherapist. So that was my track.

And then I ended up basically signing up for an environmental studies 101 course at UCSC, which is one of these really big kind of introductory lecture type classes, you know, with probably a few 100 people.

And what I experienced was basically a sort of collision of worlds where I was having a pretty surreal experience of going into this lecture hall and learning about profound environmental threats facing our planet.

You know, and it was one of those like survey courses where one week, we might talk about deforestation, another week we might talk about toxins or contamination or species loss or climate.

And so I came out feeling primarily perplexed as to why This arguably is, you know, the most important topics we could be looking at right now.

Why, one, that wasn't really being addressed in any of my psychology classes, and also, why was this information being delivered in a way that seemed kind of dissociated or devoid of the emotional and experiential impact of what it means to be a human being.

Like really looking at what humans have done over, you know, relatively short amount of time, industrial progress wise, and then you want to add on to that, like, you know, layering on, learning about as an American in the United States, like indigenous history and what had happened to ways of life and ways of being.

That had been eradicated and, and all of this.

So, that came together for me in a quite a profound way. And at that point, I started kind of going around trying to find a professor who would sponsor me to bring these fields together and create my own major.

And I really couldn't find that one person because on the psychology side, they were just kind of like, oh, just make it easy on yourself, you know, like, just don't complicate things.

And then on the environment side, they kind of like, weren't getting it.

So I, I ended up Like, at that point, I was 19 or so, and I was like, this is, it was just very clear, like, OK, this is what I'm doing.

And so from that point on, it's literally been all I have focused on is what is this intersection.

Of those who are working on behalf of environmental issues and what does psychology and, you know, there's many schools of thought in psychology, obviously, what does the best of those fields have to offer and can inform the way we do our environmental work?

Yeah, this is great. I feel like recently we've had a few other guests on who just seem to have this. Calling, it's very clear, like out of everyone else around you, you see this, you know it, feel it, but everyone else is like, what are you talking about? But it's calling for you.

What do you think? Is there something in your background or why do you think it came to you to take this on?

Right. That's a very existential question. Because I think there's some mystery. There's mystery about, well, why?

Because I think there's some mystery. There's mystery about, well, why? Like, I've tried to, as a psychologist, obviously, I spent a lot of time kind of psychoanalyzing myself and my own background, like, OK, was it because I grew up in a very dysfunctional family with alcoholism and, you know, all kinds of stuff, and so I sought refuge out in nature, you know, and so nature was my guide and my friend, basically, you know, like, was it that?

Was it, you know, I was raised Jewish and like, there's something about also in the Jewish culture, there can be a kind of a quality of almost like critical thinking, interrogation of like, you know, really looking kind of deeper into things. Like, is it that?

It's really hard for me to say. But I do feel like I'm kind of uniquely positioned to do the work I'm doing, because I have this capacity to kind of zoom out and look at the bigger picture, but also still be engaged and involved in what's actually happening on the ground.

Yeah, um, so, yeah, it's kind of hard to say, but it was really cool, super clear, super clear to me.

Yeah, I mean, it's probably the perfect storm of all of those things, right? Your environmental factors and the external things that you learned and went through or experiences.

But I think I might have to look into this in the future and where do they think their callings came from? because it's very interesting to me.

But as you've been doing this work, and you're working with environmental professionals trying to make these improvements. What do you see as the behavior change that you see most often that people are just falling short with that they're not getting it?

Right. Well, I will, I'm going to be kind of provocative and say I'm going to start with even thinking about things in terms of behavior change, which is something that I, I encourage us to reframe.

I just want to acknowledge that those working on environmental issues, I believe, are in a very unique role. For reasons that I do not believe have been fully acknowledged and understood and identified, but that's literally what my work is about, my new book is about, which is this confluence of working in very high stakes conditions.

You know, the stakes are high, and it also involves drawing attention to things about our way of being, kind of our, like, as humans, I mean, that are deeply problematic, damaging. And so forth.

That can be very, like, so we're trying to make people look at something that might be hard to look at. And then third is like the way forward, the path forward of whether that's, you know, interventions, solutions, changing the way our practices.

That is a form of change. Like what you could call change management, that can bring up a lot of, you know, resistance from people.

So, it's kind of like this confluence. So I, I say that all because I have a lot of compassion for people who are working on these front lines of environmental work.

Like, so I say all of that with this acknowledgement, like, it's really a unique kind of role to be in.

Yeah. And what can happen is that we can default to ways of working and ways of framing the problem that's not helpful.

And one of those ways is, is by kind of getting kind of reductive. And by reductive, I mean really like focusing on, OK, how do we change this behavior?

And what, where I think what's more productive is, is actually asking, what are the conditions that, you know, enable or cultivate certain kinds of behaviors and practices and what are conditions that might get in the way of that.

That allows us to have a more systemic, kind of holistic approach rather than, OK. You know, we need to change the behavior of X, Y, and Z.

So that's one thing is that there's a tendency to default to that, understandably because the stakes are high and often people are working under kind of quite intense conditions.

The second thing that I noticed that's very common is a tendency to default to, you know, what I would call theories of change or change maker styles that reflect a mode of what I call yelling, telling, and selling.

And so most of us working on change really feel like it's either one or all of those things that we have to like yell at people, like really increase urgency and moral, kind of the moral outrage ethics like this is wrong, you know, yelling at people.

The telling is, I need to make sure you're informed and quote raise awareness, you know, we've been through 30 years of awareness raising.

So there's that kind of like, I need to educate you. And a lot of people go through programs and trainings where they're kind of encouraged to come out as subject matter experts, educators.

And then the third is cheerleading, which is this kind of like, oh, well, actually, we're gonna try to keep things really upbeat and positive, and I'm gonna try to keep you inspired and positivity and like solutions journalism and like try to, you know, offset the kind of doom gloom with positivity.

That's a cheerleading mode.

And if you think about it and the, the work I do with teams and organizations is like, I really encourage us to be very like, let's compassionately interrogate these ways of being.

It's not like you're, you know, doing it wrong, but let's really look at are these ways effective, one. And 2, are they about relationship, like, because they're not, they're all kind of ways of talking at people and you know, does that make sense?

Of course it does. It's actually, it's funny you say all that because I was, I was thinking about that because that is exactly where my brain went.

It's like you're talking at people, you do that. The first thing they do is glaze over and look away, you know, I'm like, OK, here we go.

So I want to ask, you mentioned your book and you are writing a book, so you want to change the world, creating a future, the future you want from the inside out.

So what is the core idea behind that? Why write the book as a frame into what you were just talking about?

Right. Well, the book is intended to be, one, a playbook.

So, I'm gonna give people basically like a, a roadmap to completely flipping the entire script around how we do our environmental work.

So you go from yell tell sell to what I call guiding, and guiding is a more relational way of leading change, frankly, it's, it's a form of leadership, but it's grounded in some core relational principles that are rooted in neuroscience and psychodynamic therapy and, you know, trauma and all this stuff.

So, it's meant to be a playbook, but I also want to acknowledge that it's also kind of an intervention. It's kind of an injunction.

And I'm really hoping to be skillful in the way that I'm delivering an injunction without, I don't want it to feel like I'm calling anyone out, right?

But I, I am actually saying, like, hey, folks, we've been actually kind of getting it wrong in the way that we've been going about this work, especially how we are trying to quote, change people or change behavior or whatever.

And like, let's try on a different approach that's actually grounded in evidence-based research about the human, like psychology, right?

Does that make, does that make sense to you?

Yeah, and so like, is there something like an exam, one example of like how that framing is you'd like to see it, you know, maybe not change might not be the right word to go like go from where we were to where we, where we are.

Yeah, so the book is going to be full of, of case studies and stories and interviews with people who have already been modeling this way of working and doing our, I call it change work.

And so, the, the journey there is going from, so I'm just going to take an example of organization I'm working with.

I won't say who, but it's a, a large multinational company that has a sustainability environmental team kind of embedded.

And this is very common. So, you've got this kind of a team of people inside a large company and the company itself is not about doing environmental work, but you have these people inside who are trying to inform and like shift the way the business does what it does through the lens of environmental and climate work.

And so the 1.0 version is you are kind of acting like a, in a silo. You are a little bit of a fortress.

Like, it's, let's say it's an Office of sustainability. So it's kind of like, OK, we're the Office of Sustainability, you know, and we're full of subject matter experts, and we're gonna go out and basically do our like campaigns.

Yes, yes.

So it's like presentations, reports, uh, maybe some web campaigns, maybe some like kind of cute employee activations, like, let's all go and do a cleanup or whatever.

OK, so that's a 1.0 version.

The 2.0 version is what happens when this team, uh, go through a bit of a journey and they like do some self-reflection and take stock of kind of where they're at, where they want to be in terms of their approach, their theory of change.

And then they begin, they do a listening tour across the entire company.

And they go and they meet with, with all kinds of stakeholders and people from different divisions, and their primary goal is to listen and learn how they're being perceived, what people already know, what they're already doing.

And then they, they take all that and then they come back with like, here, we're gonna reflect to what we just heard.

This is what we're working on. Where's your opportunity to join forces and partner?

And then imagine if that team evolves even more.

And they become less of a fortress and more of a hub, more of a, of a convener.

They take the role of conveners, and they actually bring people together.

Most environmental organizations and teams are doing incredible work that people are genuinely interested in, but they're not as good at knowing how to share that work or like, engage people around it, cause it's just outside of the skill set, maybe, or the orientation.

So when I'm working with a team or group, it's like, let's kind of blow your work out, like, let's get it out.

Like, let's have some salons and labs and dinners and whatever, like, create a sense of invitation versus like people feeling they're being pitched and sort of like trying to be convinced of doing something.

And then what you get is like integration ideally and co-ownership.

Yeah, hearing that, right, and that's something like if you say you work at an engineering firm, for example, as an environmental scientist that also would apply there.

It's um such an interesting observation where if you don't know what the problem is and you assume what the problem is, you might be solving the wrong problem and you're not starting from a place of listening, which is really hard to do sometimes.

We like you say, we're we're kind of taught. This is how things are.

And I think um I remember, so I actually have a psychology biology background too, so I'm always fascinated by that, and it's like the philosophy of biology is one of my favorite courses I ever took and it was kind of like talking about that that same kind of thing.

Where these are the rules, except they're not really, they're just usually the rules.

Sometimes things are a little different and the way we frame it is it's, it's absolutely always this way. Except when it isn't, and so it's kind of fascinating to me.

I had not considered even how you approach a presentation.

This is what environment does, and, and maybe they already know that. Maybe they have perceptions and they're tuned out.

Exactly.

So yeah, so now this team I'm working with are experimenting when they go into a, a meeting or a session with some like stakeholders or people from a division.

And they're expecting the presentation. And instead, they're opening up with, we want to hear from you, and they have like these prompts on the slide of like, what is your experience already been, you know.

And then like, it totally shifts the whole, the dynamic and creates a conversation versus a presentation.

Yeah, and that's so much more fun. Honestly, it's more interesting, you know, it's like, wait, you want, you want to hear from me?

I thought you were gonna waste my time, you know.

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, most, a lot of people have PTSD when it comes to environmental campaigns and issues, and it's just over decades of people going around like being kind of not very tuned in.

And, and again, I say that with a lot of compassion, but it's been this kind of like old school, like, I'm gonna just preach at you and, and whatever.

And so a lot of, unfortunately, that what that means is that you don't, before you even say a word, people are already projecting all kinds of stuff onto you, like you're going to shame them, you're going to police them, you're going to tell them what to do, you're going to judge them.

In actuality, all of that, which we know from psychology, all of that is pure projection of what people are already doing internally.

There's no way around it. That's literally like how it works.

So, if I think you're judging me, that means that I'm judging me.

And so, what that means for those of us working in the environmental space is we need to become adept at, at navigating that, like recognizing that and knowing how to skillfully work with that.

And one of the main ways of working with that is simply acknowledging it, like, I'm not going to shame you. I'm not going to judge you.

I know maybe you might think I will, but I'm not going, like, we have to kind of go out of our way to kind of repair some of the associations people might have with this work.

Yeah, and I mean, it's, you can frame it in lots of different ways.

It's like, it's if you keep trying to hit someone over the head with, you know, do the right thing by the environment or else, and then you know, that's the messaging that's been in someone's frame for so long.

And then you're trying to come in there and say, actually, no, I'm not trying to do that.

Their first instinct is still to kind of lean back, right, because that's what's been happening.

And so you do, you really do have to go out of your way to say, look, no, I'm not here to, I'm not here to to get on a high horse. I'm not at the top.

I'm just curious more than anything else.

I mean, isn't that why that movie that came out a year or two ago fell so flat?

It was like the end of the world, there's nothing you can do, and people were like, that's really not the message I want to hear, thanks.

Well, yeah, I mean, that goes to the whole area of like how we actually communicate about what's going on in a way that is psychologically informed.

And there's a gap currently in that, but I, I'm hopeful.

I think there's some evolution that's happening.

I can see, I can see like the creative spaces are starting to kind of be a bit more thoughtful about, well, how do we want to communicate about these issues, you know.

And trying to get out of this kind of like dark, hopeless or positivity, rah rah cheerleading, because that doesn't work either, because the cat's out of the bag and you lose credibility and trust if you're like, oh, but here's what we can do.

It's like, there's actually a middle path, you know.

Yeah, so when you're working with like businesses and leaders, that has to be something that, you know, you start hearing those themes uh from them.

So when you're like brought into an organization, you know, with your experience, what does that look like?

Do you show up and you say, hey, what do you want? What do you need from me? How do you get them to hear your message?

Right, well, it's not always easy, but what I found is really the only way it works is if a leader brings me in, who has already seen me or heard me.

Or usually it's a leader who has an instinct or an intuition that, oh, I think what we're doing is not working and I think we would really benefit from this kind of skill building and development.

So, if a leader brings me in, you know, then I'm introduced to a team.

And then there's this kind of, that's where it's kind of a delicate time where I do, I do a lot of listening.

I do a lot of attuning. I call it, I have these five guiding principles that I can share with you.

The first one is attune.

And so I, I always do a some form of, I mean, it's a survey.

I don't like to use the word survey because what I am doing is really a tuning.

And the way I'm designing these surveys is very, like, thoughtful.

It's not like, do you care about this or not, you know.

It's, it's like, hey, what's up for you right now?

Like, you know, what's keeping you up at night? Like, where are you feeling energy? Where are you feeling depleted?

And then I reflect this back to the team or the organization like a mirror.

And it's all unattributed, but it gives this kind of sense of like, oh, here's, this is where we are.

And then I can speak to that.

And all of this is building trust. It's building rapport, you know.

So then we can actually go into the, the next level of, well, let's look at how's it going and how are we showing up.

And then, you know, but again, I, like I said, I, I pay a lot of attention to creating the, the conditions so that people know that I'm very empathetic.

Even if I am delivering like a pretty direct like we're not doing that anymore, like, you know, like kind of the tough love, you know.

Yeah, the second word is love, you know, it's still still coming from the place of love and totally yeah.

That's really great. And that's also, I mean, it's, it's hard to do sometimes cause you wanna, you want to acknowledge and appreciate where people are coming from always.

It's just, you know, sometimes you need to say this is a new way forward.

So, to kind of borrow an example of yours, like you mentioned you work with Johnson and Johnson in building environmental stewards community.

So what was the aim of that project and you know, is it kind of, what can you tell us about it?

Well, that's an example of a leader, Paulette Frank is the chief sustainability officer at Johnson and Johnson, who is, you know, one of those rare leaders who is very, her values are really tied to empathy and being a good partner and kindness and compassion and all these things.

I mean, J and J is also very, you know, it's healthcare, so the culture is also oriented towards, you know, care.

And she had a vision of, you know, well what if everyone working across this massive organization who touches some aspect of environmental work, what if they were connected in a community that is not reliant on who you report to.

So, it's a non-reporting line, kind of, and that's, it's very rare in a big company.

You know, usually they're, they're these like enterprises or these divisions or whatever.

But she had this vision of I want people to feel like they have a community, and I want people to feel supported.

And I want people to feel connected with each other and learn from each other, like all of that.

And so that was the kind of inspiration of experimenting with creating that kind of a, a community.

I mean, I always learn a lot when I'm working with clients and what became very clear right away is community doesn't just happen.

You don't just say, oh, we're now a community.

Yeah, you know, you have to literally like do some groundwork.

So in that kind of situation, just like in others, you know, it starts with creating a bit of a council.

Like here's a subset of people in that community who can come together and decide what they want it to be.

It's not coming from the CSO, it's not coming from the Office of Sustainability, it's not coming from me.

It's coming from a group within the community to say, well, what do we want? How do we want to design this?

And then partnership with someone like me, who can provide guidance, begin to roll out, you know, a series of activations and opportunities for people to come together.

Nice.

Before we move on to our sort of wrapping up conversations, I wanted to have a chance to just step back to your first book really quick because I feel like it may be helpful to some of our listeners.

I know I've experienced environmental, I wouldn't say depression, but disappointments.

Um, especially living in, in Florida and doing environmental work in Florida where 800 people a day are moving here and there's the devastation is endless, it feels, um, and doesn't let up ever.

So, tell us a little bit about your first book before we move on.

Mhm.

Well, the first book was called Environmental Melancholia, and it was called Melancholia because that's a term that comes out of psychoanalysis, has a very specific meaning that I was using.

Which is a type of loss where you haven't fully mourned or processed a loss.

It's kind of gone underground and oftentimes can get kind of internalized.

And it came out of fieldwork I had conducted in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

I was a fellow of a, of a nonprofit environmental organization in the Great Lakes region.

And I basically went and did in-depth conversations with people in Green Bay, many of whom, at the time, it was, you know, it was like 2007, 2006 or 2007.

So, we were not as obsessed with political affiliation back then.

But in retrospect, most of the people I met with were conservatives, I'm sure, but I didn't even ask that question.

I, I didn't care about that.

But they were people who would seemingly not be that interested in the environment, you know, based on market research.

And so, the kinds of people that easily get written off from environmental groups.

And I went and spent time with people in their homes and just would start with an opening prompt.

Tell me about where you grew up.

That was the only prompt.

It took many weeks to come up with that prompt.

Prompts are very, how we ask questions is a superpower of guiding.

So, you ask an open-ended prompt, and then I would listen.

And I would discover that oftentimes, after a while, people would begin to tell me a lot about their feelings about what was happening with nature and water and the Great Lakes.

And they even knew a lot more than I thought about what was actually happening.

And what they would also share is how deeply alienated they felt from the environmental community.

And they would use language like, I'm not an activist.

They would say things like, I'm not a radical.

So they had already back then started, you know, the whole area had become more and more politicized.

But what I was able to see is that they just couldn't see themselves in the ways that these environmental initiatives and groups were kind of going about it.

Because one person would say to me very point blank, I'm not the kind of person who would sign a petition, donate to an organization, or do a cleanup.

So, where does that leave me, right?

And meanwhile, I'm like sitting with this person who I could envision many ways they could contribute, right?

But they just hadn't been asked.

And they weren't really engaged in that way.

And so I came up with this whole premise of the myth of apathy, which was the name of my PhD and what the premise of the book is, and a lot of what I do is that apathy is a myth.

And that really what's going on is often like people feeling a lot of complicated things under the surface.

Right.

So, there's a lot of reasons for that perceived apathy.

Exactly.

And it's our job to get curious about it.

Yeah, interesting.

Well, we're on to the show, by the way, right?

I get curious.

I like that.

Yeah, I do want to mention the, the guiding principles though before we close, because I mentioned, you know, I have these 5 principles.

It's the sort of heart of the new book.

It's also what was created with Project InsideOut, which was a, a grant supported initiative.

And those 5 guiding principles are attune, reveal.

So reveal is about how do we reveal what's happening, but with compassion and skill, convene.

How do we see ourselves more as conveners who bring people together, equip.

Giving people tools and resources to be effective, like in their respective domain, and sustain.

Which is how do we keep ourselves sustainable, but also how do we make sure the work is sustaining.

You know, and that goes back to the first principle, it's kind of, they're all mutually connected or they're influencing.

Because for this work to sustain, we need way more people.

And so how do we have more people?

We create the sense of partnership and co-ownership.

Yeah, that is a great list, and I think you've probably gone through it many times and vetted it out very well.

And um so we'll make sure that that people get that message and pick up the book if they want to learn more.

And so, outside of your work, you said you tend to gravitate towards things like hiking and music and farm to table things.

Uh, what of those are your favorite things to do?

When it all comes together.

Having an amazing farm to table dinner outside in nature that you have to hike to.

I've only had that experience once Inverness, which is north of San Francisco.

There was this really cool, kind of, they had a dance performance and then they had this dinner and it's just like, we're out in nature on an estuary, it all kind of came together in a beautiful way.

Um, but I really do love being outside and being, I'm looking at right now, there's a whole kind of, I don't know what you would call it.

I'm sure people listening would know, but like a whole posse of pigeons.

that. I love that.

Yeah, I think a group of pigeons is a posse.

If it's not, it should be changed to that.

Yeah, yeah, I love that.

Um, yeah, I live in an area where there are these, the band-tailed pigeon.

So there's like a bunch of them that come out and hang out on my deck, and that makes me really happy.

Nice. I love it.

Well, we are running out of time, which is tough cause this was so, so interesting.

I feel like I talked to you for like 3 hours, but um we can do another one.

Yeah, we, we really might have to.

Is there anything else that we didn't get to that you'd like to talk about before we let you go?

I just, I feel like it's appropriate to acknowledge the time that we're in now and what it means to do this work now and how incredibly intense it is.

And how it just seems probably really bleak for some people.

And I just wanna, you know, acknowledge that and encourage people to, I guess, just take extra good care of ourselves at this time.

But I also think that this time is inviting us to do things differently.

And if we can really take that, like, COVID was kind of like that where it just was such a disruption.

I feel like we could have probably leveraged that more as humans to like, oh, how do we want to rebuild?

And I feel like we're in a moment with the environmental climate space.

My hope is that we can leverage this time to really rethink our work through this lens of what does it mean to do, do things differently.

That is less about the exhausting yelling, telling, and selling.

And more about the energizing way of like, well, let's, how do we like foster more conversation and connection around these, these issues that I believe humans care very deeply about.

I do have worked with science institutions like California Academy of Sciences and organizations like the American Museum of Natural History or Monterey Bay Aquarium or whatever.

Like people still are coming out in the millions.

People like love nature, right, in the environment.

So there's that.

But our job, I think in the space is like, OK, like, how do we really connect with people at a deeper level than just like educating them.

Yeah.

Or pushing like action steps at them.

There is a middle path, as I say.

Yeah.

Oh, and that's a great spot to end.

And if people do want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

I have a website, rennelertzman.com.

And there's a way to contact me that way.

I have a sub stack called Becoming Guides that I would love people to subscribe to.

Ideally paid subscription would be amazing because I'm writing my book and, and not, not working that much.

Um, and then I'm active on LinkedIn as well.

That is very cool.

Renee, thank you so much for being here. This was great.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for a great conversation, hosting this space.

And that's our show.

Thank you, Renee, for joining us today.

Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review.

See you, everybody.

Bye.