Halliday, E. C. (2024). Facilitating and inhibiting factors of internal-external transformation toward sustainability: An integral inquiry [Unpublished Master’s thesis]. Alef Trust & Liverpool John Moores University.
For more than 50 years it has been public knowledge that the Earth is a finite environment incapable of supporting unlimited levels of development and resource consumption. Humanity’s inability to address the disparity between current practices and sustainable utilization has created a global polycrisis which has significantly degraded planetary health and human wellbeing. Our failure to understand the nature and dynamics of interrelationships within complex natural systems has been identified as the underlying source of this crisis. Climate change and systems theory scientists have clarified that movement toward sustainability requires transformation across all reams of human activity, at practical, political, and personal levels. Systems theory identifies the personal factors which motivate human behavior as internal dimensions – the collection of mental states which include individual values, beliefs, and worldviews. This Integral Inquiry study has explored these internal dimensions by asking What is the relationship between a transformative life experience, and engagement with activities focused upon sustainability? Quantitative tools were utilized to identify a sample of 145 participants demonstrating authentic transformation and sufficient integration of profound personal change. Qualitative inquiry gathered in-depth information from a subset of the sample, exploring values, beliefs, worldviews, and engagement with movement toward sustainability. The central finding identified that transformative experiences which produce a felt sense of intraconnection organically clarify the universal values, beliefs and actions which support movement toward a more sustainable future for all life.
