Three questions for Fredrik NG Andersson!

We asked Fredrik NG Andersson, Lecturer at the Department of Economics at the University of Lund, some questions about the pandemic and how to engage in sustainability!

How will the pandemic change how you and your organisation work?
The university has become much more digital due to the pandemic. All teaching and student meetings have been held online. We are likely to increase the amount of digital teaching methods in the future even when we switch back form online to campus.

Who do you follow for the best input when adapting for a more sustainable future?
No single individual or organization holds all the answers. We must learn from the successes and failures of everyone.

What is your best advise to those who don’t know how to engage for sustainability?
Start with your own life. Ask yourself three questions: 1) what can you easily do to live more sustainable? 2) what could you do that is a bit more challenging? And 3) what do you need to do to live a sustainable life but is outside your own capacity to achieve? Change those things you can and set yourself the goal to also address the changes that are a bit more challenging.

In the end you will notice that most of the changes you need to do to live more sustainable fall in the third category. They are changes that requires collective changes, very of then linked to political change. A problem with the debate on sustainability in recent year is that it has become individualized. The blame and the burden to achieve sustainability is put on each individual. That is wrong. Achieving a sustainable society requires collective answers to problems of energy, transport, material consumption etc. People, firms and organizations are important to find sustainable solutions, but before politicians changes the rules-of-the-game, little will happen at a large scale. If we wish to see true change at the large scale we need to work for collective political change.

Then do everything you can do easily, set as a long term goal to change those things which are a bit more challenging.