Heal the world. A solution-focused systems therapy approach toenvironmental problems

Steffen Roth a, b, *

a La Rochelle Business School, Excelia Group, 102 Rue de Coureilles, 17000 La Rochelle, Franceb Department of Sociology, Yerevan State University, Alex Manoogian 1, 0025, Yerevan, Armenia

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 14 April 2018Received in revised form25 September 2018Accepted 13 December 2018Available online 14 December 2018

Keywords:EnvironmentalismGrowthCapitalismSolution-focused brief therapySystemic structural constellationsAddiction

a b s t r a c t

In observing a capitalist lifestyle of addiction to relentless growth responsible for an imminent self-extinction of the human race, environmentalism is a particularly problem-centred movement. Thepurpose of this article is to address and manage the risk that the movement is co-dependent on and co-performs the problems it tries to solve. To this end, a supervision framework is developed based on theinsight that knowledge of a problem is not required for solutions to that problem to emerge. Core ele-ments of solution-focused brief therapy, systemic structural constellations, and social systems theory arecombined to demonstrate that there would be better success with the higher goals of environmentalismif environmentalists focus not on problems of capitalism and growth, but on those non-economic aspectsof social life that can be grown instead. An outlook shows that this shift of focus from problem to theproblem ecology resonates well with ambitions to ensure sustainable development and to designalternative indices that go beyond the OECD well-being framework or the Happy Planet Index.

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1. Introduction

As careful observers of the state of the world, environmentalistsoften feel the natural impulse not only to interpret this world invarious ways but also to change it. As the need for urgent changecould not be more obvious in the twilight of the bleak prospects forthe future of our planet, there is serious concern about the slowpace of this change as well as the still considerable resistance facedby those concernedwith the prevention of the self-extinction of thehuman race. The dominant strategy to speed up change is toconfront sceptics and resisters with the sheer omnipresence ofwarning signs that indicate the severe side-effects of decades ofunsustainable growth mania (Daly, 1974; Mishan, 1967; vanGriethuysen, 2010) or fetishism (Hamilton, 2004) and the corre-sponding lifestyle of unrestrained compulsive consumption andbehavioural addiction (Higham et al., 2016; Ryan, 2013). In fact, aconsiderable number of serious scholars (e.g., Jackson, 2009;Latouche, 2009; Lorek and Spangenberg, 2014; Rees, 1999;Slaughter, 2012; van Griethuysen, 2010; Victor, 2008) confrontthe public with the diagnosis that capitalist “societies are addicted

to growth: there is always a demand for more, no matter how largethe economy is already” (Haapanen and Tapio, 2016, p. 3495). Thisappetite for growth and self-destruction does not even spare sus-tainability concepts as environmentalists must face that “(e)ven themost recent ‘circular economy’ strategies aim at ‘boosting theeconomy’” (Khmara and Kronenberg, 2018, p. 721).

Unfortunately, however, confrontational approaches themselvescreate side-effects such as defensive denial and reactance andtherefore are rarely effective or even used in the treatment of ad-dictions (Costanza et al., 2017a, 2017b). The development of lessconfrontational and more pragmatic and solution-oriented copingstrategies for the diagnosed capitalist lifestyle addiction thereforeappears to be a critical element in the achievement of natural andsocial climate change goals (Bell and Morse, 2005; Brugnach et al.,2011; Folke, 2006; Harangoz!o and Zilahy, 2015; Stout, 2010; Vira,2015). The main challenge here is not so much in a lack ofadequate intervention methods as techniques that work at the in-dividual level can obviously be scaled up to the level of society(Costanza et al., 2017b). Rather, the issue seems to be complicatednot only by how confrontational environmentalist positions typi-cally are typically presented but also by how biasedly the respectiveevidence it is produced in first place. In fact, environmentalism is,often avowedly, problem-centred (Kirschke et al., 2017; Sandmo,2015; Siebenhüner et al., 2016) as a strong fascination with

* La Rochelle Business School, Excelia Group, 102 Rue de Coureilles, 17000 LaRochelle, France.

E-mail address: roths@excelia-group.com.

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Journal of Cleaner Production 216 (2019) 504e510

imminent and potentially fatal threats, risks, and crises caused bythe above collective behavioural addiction is foundational for themovement. Consequently, the movement is concerned most withthe determination and insistent communication of the scale, scope,and urgency of these problems, whereas the development of so-lutions is given short shrift. Often even the goals and solutionsremain in problem mode. The concept of degrowth, for example,first identifies growth as a problem and then aims to observe less ofthe problem it continues to observe. As a result, “one could hardlyfind a more inadequate term to describe a project positively intenton ecological democracy and frugal abundance” (Latouche, 2012,p. 77).

As natural as it is to focus a problem to better understand itscauses, so too is it true that even the sharpest problem focus cannotbut sharpen the problem. Too strong and exclusive a focus on aproblem is therefore likely to produce problems itself, includingissues with patronizing behaviour and dysfunctional helping alsoreferred to as co-dependency.

The problem addressed in this article is therefore the risk thatenvironmentalists are co-dependent ondand thus co-perform-dthe very problems they address and try to solve. To solve thisproblem and minimize the corresponding risk, this article suggestsitself as a form of supervision explicitly based on the assumptionthat knowledge of the problem is not required for the developmentof effective solutions. Given the limited space of an article, themethod of choice is solution-focused brief therapy (Berg, 1994; deShazer, 1985, 1994), which is combined with key elements of so-cial systems theory (Luhmann, 1982, 1990, 2013) and solution-focused systemic structural constellations (Sparrer, 2007; vonKib!ed, 2006)da therapeutic intervention method that allows forthe spatial representation and redesign of relationships withinconflicting social systems.

2. Elements of solution-focused brief therapy

The invention of solution-focused brief therapy is attributed toSteve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg (de Shazer, 1985; de Shazer andBerg, 1997; de Shazer and Dolan, 2007). “Solution-focused therapyis a non-pathologizing, positive, and future-oriented approach”(Anderson, 2016, p. 196) distinguished by its focus on the con-struction of solutions rather than on the resolution of problems.Whereas the solution-focused approach has strong roots in socialconstructivism and Wittgensteinian language philosophy (deShazer and Berg, 1992), its intervention techniques are informedby extensive best practice-oriented observations of therapy ses-sions. Therapeutic behaviours and interventions that reliableinduced desired change were identified and incorporated into theframework. As solution-focused brief therapy has developed, thesignificance of diagnosis, anamnesis, or problem definition hascontinued to decrease to the extent that the therapy is even suc-cessful in solving unknown problems (George et al., 1999), forexample, in the context of ambiguous or hidden systemic structuralconstellations (Sparrer, 2007). This does not mean that solution-focused therapists are problem-phobic (de Shazer, 1994; Sparrer,2007). Instead, they assume that

! A comprehensive knowledge of the problem is not required forsolutions to occur.

! Clients have the capacity to envision and perform change.! Clients are motivated and often already trying to make changehappen (Weiner-Davis et al., 1987).

As the focus is on the preferred future, the client's problemdefinition is redundant. All solution-focused brief therapy needs tobe effective is clients whose strain is strong enough to maintain a

desire for change even in the face of an apparently unchangeablesituation.

In the course of the years, solution-focused therapists havedeveloped a set of classical interview and intervention techniques.

As solution-focused therapists start from the assumption thatchange is a constant in any system, they regularly use copingquestions. The purpose of this type of questions is to make clientsaware of how they actively stabilise their problem and maintain itover time (Berg, 1994). To this end, the therapist asks such ques-tions as, “How come things aren't worse?” or “What have you (orothers) done to keep things from getting worse?”. The purpose ofthese question is not only to develop solutions from successfulexperiences, but also to show clients they are not helpless victimsofdbut have control overdthe problem.

Another technique routinely applied in solution-focused brieftherapy are scaling questions. These questions are used not so muchto rate the size of the initial problem (usually on a scale from 1 to10), but to track change and to document progress as well as tocalibrate the ratio of effort and effect that goes alongwith identifiedcoping strategies.

Scaling questions may also be combined with relationshipquestions so as to ask clients to view and rate problem situation andprogress through the eyes of their significant others. This procedurehelps clients to assess whether their therapeutic progress ordesired future is appropriate to their social context. An example is:“Howwould your husband rate your motivation to change on scalefrom 1 to 10?” Moreover, relationship questions may also stand ontheir own such as in “What differences in your behaviour would tellyour wife that you are feeling already much better now?”

Yet another key principle of solution-focused brief therapy isthat clients are encouraged to “start small” as, from a systemsperspective, even the smallest change in one part of a systemchanges the structure of the entire system. For example, it oftentakes only small-scale individual change to trigger a “butterfly ef-fect” that results in considerable change of an entire family struc-ture. Moreover, the sense of achievement resulting from evensmall-scale success makes clients more resourceful in finding so-lutions to larger problems. Solution-focused therapy thereforeoften begins with small and simple solutions, and, as a matter ofprinciple, does not assume that particularly complex problemsnecessarily call for particularly complex solutions (de Shazer, 1991).

One of the simplest and best-known solution-focused techniqueis the miracle question. The therapist asks the client to image that amiracle has happened and made their problem disappear (de Jongand Berg, 2012; de Shazer and Dolan, 2007). As with the othertechniques, the intent is to defocus the problem and to help clientsenvision their life as it would be if their preferred problem weresolved.

The virtue of miracle questions can be further increased if theclients are not just asked to imagine the miracle, but actually madeto see it happen. This wonder may be accomplished by solution-focused systemic structural constellations as developed by Mat-thias Varga von Kib!ed and Insa Sparrer (Sparrer, 2007; von Kib!ed,2006). As with traditional family or systemic constellations, thekey principle of systemic structural constellations is the creationand modification of a tangible, spatial representation of a client'sinternal picture of a particular issue. Typically, persons or, alter-natively, lifeless objects represent elements, components, or as-pects of the issue. Persons or objects are then arranged andrearranged in space until their spatial constellation corresponds tothe client's inner picture of the issue at stake. A facilitator theninvites the client to explore and experiment with alternativestructural arrangements, which emerge whenever elements aremoved in, removed from, or added to the constellation space. Forexample, the elements of a typical problem constellation are:

S. Roth / Journal of Cleaner Production 216 (2019) 504e510 505

! Focus (the index patient or any other indicator of the problem),! Goal (the desired yet currently unachievable state),! Obstacles (whatever is blocking the way to the desired state),! Resources (whatever is necessary to achieve the desired state),! (Hidden) Return (that is, the return on the persistent return tothe problem), and

! Future tasks (that need to be accomplished once the goal isachieved).

In this context, the miracle often happens when the focus orproblem is physically taken out of the constellation, and theremaining elements are rearranged or complemented to fill the gapleft by the missing problem. This manoeuvre regularly leads to thediscovery of new resources or the definition of alternatives goals.

In reviewing the above intervention strategies, it must beconfirmed that a solution-focus must not be confused with naiveproblem oblivion or problem phobia (de Shazer, 1994; Sparrer,2007). This is why, in the subsequent section of this article, onecan afford to take a brief glance on typical problem constellations ofcapitalism and growth before one continues to strategically ignorethem.

3. Dys-/functional problem constellations of capitalism

In this section, some of the above solution-based brief therapyand systemic structural constellation techniques will be applied toexplore solutions to the problem of capitalism and unsustainablegrowth. The similarities between these problems and those ofhealth recovery challenges are obvious (Jepson, 2018). Moreover,the problems are observed to be as serious as persistent not leastbecause of “the ability of capitalism to survive and prosper has beenwell documented” (Hesketh, 2016, p. 890).

Within a solution-oriented framework, however, there is noneed a particularly comprehensive or sophisticated account of theproblem to develop effective solutions. Rather, in our context, it issufficient to understand that problems of growth are intertwinedwith problems of capitalism because growth seems to be either fuelor engine of capitalism; and that problems of the phenomenon(Victor, 2008), institution (Jackson, 2009), or ideology (Latouche,2009) of growth actually are problems of economic growth. Ascapitalism, too, is defined by a specific and often problematicdominance of economic principles over other aspects of social life,the uniting feature of the intertwined problems is the negativeimpact the past and present economic performance has on theeconomy's social and natural environment.

If systemic structural constellation is used to reify mental pic-tures of these issues, then it can be shown that one prominentdefinition of capitalism is that of a society dominated by theeconomy (see Fig. 1):

Fig. 1 depicts a context in which the idea of economic domi-nance is translated into a constellation where economy is the most

central aspect of social life. In this context, there is no need to definethe other elements of the social system to understand the problem.This constellation corresponds to a situation one might refer to, forexample, as “capitalism's economic dominance” (B. Anderson &M'Gonigle, 2012, p. 43).

If one proceeds to indicate some of the other elements, then onecan illustrate slightly different constellations inwhich politics playsa role, too (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 illustrates constellations in which the problem also ap-pears not only as one of economic dominance, but also one of adominant ideology. This constellation refers to ideas of growthcapitalism as a hegemonic economic policy or a situation wherecapital rules, respectively.

A similar constellation corresponds to the prominent notionthat there is basically no difference between economy and politicsas expressed by slogans such as “money is power” (see Fig. 3).

More comprehensive constellations emerge as one rearrangesor adds further elements. Thus, one finds that triangles are popularnot only in family therapy, but also in social theory (see Fig. 4).

In looking at the constellation depicted in Fig. 4, our focus is onthree central elements of social life. The figure represents a

Fig. 1. Problem focus: The dominance of capitalism (author provided).

Fig. 2. Problem focus: Political economy (author provided).

Fig. 3. Problem focus: Money is power, red is green (author provided).

Fig. 4. Problem focus: Critical theory, triple helix, and PEST (author provided).

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constellation of power relations, instrumental rationality, andeconomic exploitation that is typical for critical-theoretical obser-vations of social systems. The figure also corresponds to the triplehelix of university-industry-government concept (Leydesdorff andEtzkowitz, 1996) or to the main components of the infamousstrategic management tool PEST.

It is evident that in all three cases, the focus is on issues ofpolitics, economy, and science/technology, whereas other suppos-edly subordinate issues are either faded out of or put into containerconcepts such as the “social” or “socio-cultural” in PEST in manyenvironmentalist articles (Siebenhüner et al., 2016).

The shortcomings of all these modes of observation have beenearly discovered. As with other cases of reductionism, the naturalimpulse has been to seek salvation in the discretionary addition offurther key elements. For example, there have been several at-tempts to design enhanced versions of PEST (such as PESTEL,STEEPLED, or SPELIT) or to determine the adequate n in an n-tupleof helices (Leydesdorff, 2012). Yet, the issue with these additiveprocesses is that it does neither question the initial choice of keyfactors nor systematically avoids contingency in the addition offurther elements. For example, there is serious doubt as to whetherethics, demographics, or environmental factors are logical com-plements of the original PEST factors (Roth et al., 2017). Moreover, aproblem focus remains a problem focus even if one expendsconsiderable energy on the addition of ever more problem context.It is therefore not the ambition of this article to engage in a detailedand comprehensive analysis of problem constellations associatedwith capitalism and growth. The above constellations depicted inthe above figures have illustrative purpose, and the only agreementone needs to proceed is that capitalism as much as the growthenvironmentalism is normally concerned about are issues relatedto the economy's impact on its natural and social environment.

If a zoom-out of the problem and into the problem ecology is astandard technique of solution-oriented therapy, then the decisivemove to solutions for problems of capitalism and growth is to un-derstand that a problem focus cannot but sharpen the problem andthat one, therefore, needs to defocus issues of capitalism andgrowth. This strategy implies that one draws the attention awayfrom the assumedly dominant economy. Such an ecological movewould normally not be hard to achieve for environmentalist were itnot for the fact that the problems at stake appear as huge (as urgentand that there is nothing more natural than our attention beingpaid to the most severe, urgent, and challenging problems. This isprecisely why a miracle is needed to come anywhere close to evenjust the imagination of solutions to problems of growth andcapitalism.

4. Multi-system miracle questions for environmentalists

There can be miracles when one believes, and even when onedoes not. One advantage of systemic structural constellations is thatit makes the effects of miracle questionsdwhich remain purethought experiments in traditional SFBTdmore tangible or visible,at least (see Fig. 5).

Fig. 5 illustrates how a miracle question may be used for theexploration of solutions to problems of capitalism and growth. Tothis end, the figure presents the constellation of Fig.1, inwhich, by amiracle, the once dominant economy has disappeared. If one sup-poses that precisely this miracle has happened and all difficultieswith economic growth and capitalism have disappeared, then onecan ask oneself what would be different in the way one doesresearch or defines what is (a good) society?

One first consequence of a disappeared economy would be ahuge gap for researchers in fields such as ecological economics,critical management studies, or economic sociology which would

need to be filled with imagination of colourful alternatives beyondthe traditional negative black-and-white pictures of society pre-sented under the caption “capitalism”.

A second consequence would be the question what can replacethe economy or whether economy can at all be replaced. Thisquestion does not stop atdbut may well start withdthe imagina-tion of governments, NGOs, and other policy makers whose mainfocus is not on the stimulation (or limitation of negative side effects)of economic growth, but on the growth in and of other aspects ofsocial life (Fig. 6).

In a similar vein, one may also imagine critical theories, triplehelixes, or popular strategic management tools that marginaliseeconomic aspects to the same extent that earlier theories, helixes,and tools have excluded critical non-economic aspects of social life(see Fig. 7).

Once one has seen the economy disappear, however, one canthink differently about how the observation of economic domi-nance actually had come about in first place.

An answer to this question is that economic issuesdincludingthat of the dominance of capitalismdcan only be observed against

Fig. 5. Solution focus, version 1: A world without economy (author provided).

Fig. 6. Solution focus: From political economy to political what? (author provided).

Fig. 7. Solution focus: Non-economic critical theories, triple helixes, or managementtools (author provided).

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the background of a rather young form of social differentiationknown as functional differentiation. This is true because functionaldifferentiation is the answer to the question how the economy canat all be distinguished from analytically similar concepts such aspolitics or law, and how problems of an only insufficient separationof economy and politics such as corruption can be identified andmanaged.

The significance of functional differentiation can thereforehardly be over-estimated. The concept is widely recognized to beindispensable for the understanding of modern society (Luhmann,1977, 1982; 1990, 2013; Valentinov, 2015b; Valentinov et al., 2015;Vanderstraeten, 2005) and a comprehensive presentation of theconcept and its significance is given elsewhere (Roth et al., 2018;Valentinov, 2014b; Will et al., 2017). Suffice it to mention that theconcept of functional differentiation is associated with thedistinction of probably ten function systems e politics, economy,art, science, religion, law, sport, health, education, and mass media(Roth et al., 2017).

These ten systems are incommensurable and therefore not yetsorted into a predefined ranking of importance, because there is notone logical reason for assuming that the economy is in principlemore important than politics or education, science more importantthan art or sport, or law more important than health or religion.Then again, there is evidence that these function systems can beobserved to be differently important to different eras or areas ofsociety (Schimank, 2015). This apparent contradiction can beresolved if it becomes clear that it is not despite, but preciselybecause of the absence of a predefined ranking that these systemscan be ranked at all. Thus, the incommensurability of the functionsystems is a necessary prerequisite for the analysis of trends such asan economisation or a secularisation of society, too.

If the observation of problems of and solutions to capitalism,growth, and environmental degradation is resumed in the light ofthe above considerations, then the economy appears as just one inten function systems (see Fig. 8).

In looking at Fig. 8, it becomes clear that a focus on the red tokenrepresenting the economy might be an option to better understandthe problemwith that red token. At the same time, it holds true thateven just the problem with the red token is not fully understoodbefore the red token's position is considered within the entireconstellation of other tokens and hence the other function systemsof society. If the focus is switched from a gaze on the red token tothe more ecological perspective, then it appears that the red tokencan be moved from the centre to any other, probably more mar-ginal, position within the constellation. Still, even this smart moveis again just one in an almost inexhaustible set of options. Instead ofremaining concerned with finding the right place for the red token,one could also explore what happens if one changes the position ofother tokens. This manoeuvremakes sense even if the ultimate goal

remained to deduce the right position of the red token within itssocial environment. In other words: even if the one decided toremain concerned with economic issues in general and with side-effects of capitalism and economic growth in particular, then thesolution to these problems is to focus all of attention not ondefining or fighting capitalism and economic growth, but to redi-rect one's appetite for definition and de-/growth to those so-farneglected aspects of social life that one wants to redefine andde-/grow instead.

5. Outlook: ecological economy or ecology of the economy?

This article developed a solution-focused systems therapyapproach to environmental problems based on the knowledge thatsolutions to problems will not be found in an ever-intensifiedconfrontation with these problems. Consequently, this articledemonstrated how problems caused by a capitalist lifestyle ofaddiction to economic growth can be defocused, how the conceptof growth can be freed from its narrow economic connotation, andhow interest in other, non-economic forms of growth can be grown.

Based on pertinent groundwork by Valentinov (2014b), thearticle insisted that the economy is just one in a constellation ofprobably ten function systems such as politics, art, science, religion,law or education. An obvious conclusion from this relatively un-controversial claim is that an increased interest in these and furthernon-economic aspects of social live will lead not only to a moredetailed and comprehensive account of the economy's ecologicalfootprint in society, but also to amore adequate repositioning of theeconomy within its social and ultimately its natural environment.This framework therefore resonates with concepts of neo-growth,its precursors and cognate concepts (Breyer et al., 2017;Heinonen, 2013; Heinonen et al., 2001; Heylighen andLenartowicz, 2017; Kaivo-oja et al., 2001), which for some timepast promote the idea that “growth should have a deeper meaningthan mere economic growth” (Breyer et al., 2017, p. 9) and thatthere is a need to redefine prosperity both at the level of individual(social or green) entrepreneurs (O'Neill and Gibbs, 2016) and at theglobal scale (Jackson, 2009).

For sustainability researchers as well as for environmentalpolicy-makers and managers, another implication of the presentedsolution-focused approach is the need to challenge the prevailingand often-automated over-concentration on economic problems.One concrete challenge in this context is that models based on thethree pillars of sustainabilitydalso known as triple bottom lineframework (Elkington, 1994; Elkington and Trisoglio, 1996)dwillneed to rest on more than three pillars in the future. Thisassumption is consistent with the original idea of the triple bottomline as a framework “focusing on economic, environmental and,increasingly, broader societal consequences” (Elkington andTrisoglio, 1996, p. 763). It is therefore important to single out andhighlight the significance of individual social factors formerlycontained in the social box such as, for example, public health is-sues (Garcia et al., 2016). Even more important, however, is a sys-tematic account of the undeniable incommensurability andequivalence of the economy and all other function systems ofsociety.

If the economy is just one out of probably ten systems, then theeconomy's environment, too, is only one out of ten environments. Ifthisdperhaps not too surprisingdobservation is taken seriously,then it follows not only that the environment referred to in ob-servations of Limits to Growth is not the environment per se. In fact,whenever this environment is referred to as nature, it is not theenvironment of the economy (which would be the market), butrather the environment of natural science. The question, however,remains whether or why environmentalists of all political colours

Fig. 8. Solution focus: The economy as just one in ten function systems of society(author provided).

S. Roth / Journal of Cleaner Production 216 (2019) 504e510508

or disciplinary backgrounds should continue to, by default, placeand observe the function system economy within the environmentof the natural sciences. In fact, this strategy is not necessarilyconsistent and might be part of the reasons for the systemic sus-tainability issues recently observed by Valentinov (2014a, 2015a)and Thompson and Valentinov (2017).

Yet another notable circumstance is that the present frameworkcorresponds well with attempts to further develop alternativeindices of well-being and development replacing, challenging, orcomplementing established indices such as GDP or HDI (Alier,2009; Giannetti et al., 2015; Pieterse, 1998). Alternative measuresclearly “can help to overcome the political addiction to growth”(Lorek and Fuchs, 2013, p. 40). Consequently, it can now beobserved that the Happy Planet Index (HPI) has changed the initialeconomy-bias of the traditional indices for a significant health biasas two out of its originally three factors refer to the health of eitherindividuals (life expectancy) or the planetary ecosystem (ecologicalfootprint). In the Good Life Index (Delhey and Steckermeier, 2016),too, health is a particularly prominent function system. From ascientific point of view, however, a health-bias remains as contin-gent a bias as is an economy-bias which may be why the HPI hasrecently been updated to now also include a factor referring todistributive justice. Even more comprehensive systems such as theOECD Framework for Measuring Well-Being and Progress, however,still remain focused on contingent selections of function systemsand reduce sustainability to an interplay of only four types ofcapital (natural, economic, human, and social capital). Here, econ-omy is again singled out, the other function systems remain hiddenin a crowded “social” container category, and the implicationclearly is that economy is treated as if it were not social. Against thisbackdrop, the development of not necessarily more comprehen-sive, but more logically consistent, unbiased, and multifunctionalframeworks still remains a key challenge in our ability to achievethe higher goals of environmentalism.

In the light of the above considerations, environmentalists candecide whether they wish to remain focused on particularlyenvironmentally-friendly forms of economy or turn into ecologistsof the economy. Both strategies are feasible but, in the former case,the question remains whether environmentalists can maintain thestrong focus on economic problems without becoming or beingco-/dependent on economic problems. As has been shown in thisarticle, one proven solution tomanage the risk of co-/dependency isindifference, albeit not growth indifference (van den Bergh, 2011),but economy indifference. The price for this effective strategyamounts to a shift of focus from problems to the problem ecologiesand hence to a considerable reorientation of analytical habits andprofessional biographies.

Conflicts of interest

None.

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Prof. Dr. Dr. habil. Steffen Roth is Full Professor of Management at the La RochelleBusiness School, France, and Research Professor of Digital Sociology at the KazimierasSimonavi#cius University in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is also Honorary Professor of Soci-ology at the Yerevan State University, Armenia. He holds a Habilitation in Economicand Environmental Sociology awarded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University,and Research; a PhD in Sociology from the University of Geneva; and a PhD in Man-agement from the Chemnitz University of Technology. He is an associate editor ofKybernetes and the field editor for social systems theory of Systems Research andBehavioral Science. The journals his research has been published in include Journal ofBusiness Ethics, Administration and Society, Technological Forecasting and Social Change,Journal of Organizational Change Management, Journal of Economic Issues, and Futures.His ORCID profile is available at http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8502-601X.

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