Rethinking theories of change in the light of enactive cognitive science: Contributions to community-scale local sustainability initiatives.

open access articleSocial innovation projects commonly refer to operationalized theories of change to inform strategy and to deliver intended outcomes. Community based sustainability campaigns, as one example, emphasize the elicitation of pro-environmental activities and decision-making among members of a host community, drawing on mainstream psychological theories of behaviour, motivation and cognitive (mental) processes. Locating an argument within the neurobiological base of structure determinism, this paper explores how theories of change for sustainability campaigns might be reimagined through the lens of enactive theory. Following a brief introduction to the enactive model of embodied cognition, implications associated with trying to operationalize the model to inform how theories of change are mapped out and used in sustainability initiatives are discussed. The paper concludes by drawing on insights from approaches to psychotherapy, which also endeavoured to apply this model of mind, and considers these within the strategic context of sustainability initiatives and public engagement