Environmental frames: Exploring culture in Socio-Ecological Systems (SES)

Abstract

Using a critical case from the Global North (i.e., a Danish private-equity firm, committed to the utmost environmental protection activities) one emulated a stress test upon a highly homogenous sample-group from the Global South to comprehend if in a seven-hour timespan one would be able to influence a behavioral framework. Through the fashioning of a 7-hour length virtual seminar, the participants on the event were challenged in their cultural DNA with a content on Environmental and Sustainable Development and a rhetoric of Environmental Activism, covering carbon-rescuing, natural habitat’s reconstruction and paths to zero carbon footprints. Our starting point was the general focus research question (GFRQ): Will one be able to influence an environmental frame, rooted in deep cultural assumptions? Confronting two diametrically opposing national cultures (Denmark and Nepal) and agencies (i.e., the speaker’s activism versus the participant’s passive listening), one aimed to comprehend the resilience of the latter, Nepalese (NP) individual to outer influences from dissimilar national and corporate cultures. Then one measured the impact of the event on individual’s opinions, centered on the environmental pillar of the sustainable development goals (SDGs): SDG6; SDG7; SDG11; SDG13; SDG14 and SDG15. The socio-ecological system (SES) of the focal country revealed a close-fit to a logic of dual paradigm (openness and resistance) found at the microsphere of environmental frames, with openness being neat-tied to manmade dimensions. The results from the enquiry were validated against three (3) streams of supplementary data: the 6-D model of Geert Hofstede (GH), plus the 7-D model of Fon Trompenaars (FT); and the six SDG indexes, aforementioned, and finally confirmed using the index of nature connectedness (IoNC) with results revealing unequivocally a wider perceptive framework, with an accentuated criticism on own’s nation environmental frame, and particularly on four dimensions that are more susceptible to determine urban-living public policy and investment; and on the other hand, highly resilient on other two dimensions related to nature and wild life.