Throughout this blog, I’ve been talking about the possible reasons why people might be reluctant to live sustainably. For a change, this week I’ll instead blog about something that might encourage us to make lifestyle changes. Overwhelmed by the perceived difficulty of living sustainably, some of us may proceed to give up before even trying. This is where the beacon of hope: the Pareto Principle, comes into play.
the principle
Also known as the 80/20 rule, the Principle states that for many things, 80% of outcomes come from 20% of the causes (the ‘vital few’) (source). For example, 80% of a country’s land is owned by 20% of the population, 80% of a grade comes from 20% of the studying, and so on. In essence, it describes how the first bit of effort put into a task brings about the greatest amount of results, and continuing to put in more effort will eventually give diminished returns.
effort vs results
There are many ways to live a more sustainable life. But often, it is the most daunting lifestyle changes that are the most prominent ones: veganism, zero waste, renewable energy, etc. This creates the false idea that sustainability must be an enormous undertaking; where one must accomplish each separate task in its entirety, or fail at living sustainably altogether.
Taking the 80/20 rule into consideration, this mentality hardly makes sense. Since the marginal returns to effort only decrease the closer we get to 100% completion of a task, why set our sights on accomplishing a single goal perfectly, instead of dabbling in multiple things, then demoralise ourselves into inaction?
To illustrate, let’s examine diet types and their respective carbon footprint.
Estimate of the carbon footprint of the four different diet types,
based on daily energy intake of 2600kcal in the United States (source).
From this data, the vegan diet is clearly the most sustainable option, at 40% better than average. However, it is also the strictest and most intimidating diet of the three. Then there’s the no-beef diet. Allowing for all food varieties, apart from beef, this diet is both the simplest and most feasible. However, at only 24% better than average, the no-beef diet loses to the vegan diet by quite a significant margin.
But that doesn’t mean that small change is useless. Flipping the perspective, by only doing one step (cutting out beef from your diet) instead of going the full mile of turning vegan, your carbon footprint can be already reduced by 24%. Doesn’t that give you the highest marginal return for the effort put in?
in closing
Following that train of thought, what if in every aspect of our life, we cut out the ‘vital few’ that we could easily do without; take the imperfect step in every direction? Would that not result in a far more significant of an outcome than sinking all our time and effort into a single goal?
It is for this reason that I wish the Pareto Principle brings hope to people. That even though we may believe ourselves incapable of living the ideal sustainable life, we should not be discouraged; for our efforts, no matter how small, might not be as insignificant as we think it to be. A small step taken to reduce our impact on this world is still a step in the right direction.
You know when you just love your students ? This blog and this post.
Nevertheless, what you’re saying here gives me cause for concern. I mean, I understand and appreciate your stance when applied to individual actions. But if we apply this principle to larger scales, I’m thinking we won’t survive this crisis.
For instance, if countries only cut exploration, processing & combustion of fossil fuels by 25 % or reduce deforestation by 25 % or save 25 % of the currently threatened species, will that be enough ?
So, when you were writing this, were you thinking about it from that perspective too ?
Thanks,
jc
Hi Dr Coleman,
While I definitely wrote this to be applied on an individual level, I did briefly consider its implications on a national/ corporational level. My intent with this blog post was to essentially encourage people to make more immediate changes. Hence when extended to a larger scale, I was hoping that it could encourage these players to make real changes instead of fussing about and getting nothing done, even if it might mean only getting rid of the low-hanging fruits (although hopefully, it doesn’t end up being the only action taken).
However, as I didn’t think that I understood the problem well enough, I did not want to touch on it haha. After all, what I just proposed might just be wishful thinking.
Wow, if 25 % better is wishful thinking… You know ?
Hello Rachel!
Thank you for sharing about the Pareto Principle, it’s my first encounter with it and it reminds me of economics and diminishing returns!
I agree with what you shared that people should just take small steps instead of wasting time pondering over huge changes that need a lot of courage and conviction to accomplish! And it’s quite ironic that sometimes, the more one thinks about making this huge change, the more intimidated the person may feel and may easily back out in the end. Plus, if they set out these huge goals, they would easily feel disheartened, just like you mentioned!
However, although “removing the vital few” delivers a huge impact, I think that it isn’t as easy as it seems despite the small magnitude of the change taken. This is because there’s always a huge initial inertia that comes with taking the first step! And often, the following steps/changes come much more easily once we’re able to overcome that intial inertia.
I think that it is this initial intertia that stops people from committing to lifestyle changes for the environment, that despite having the heart to want to do something about environmental issues, they just decide not to do anything at all. What do you think? Do you agree with this struggle on initial inertia? If so, how do you think people can overcome it?
Can’t wait to hear from you!
Yee Qi
Hi Yee Qi,
I definitely agree that the first step is always the most intimidating and sometimes even paralysing. However, I do also think that if you don’t actually take the first step, it simply means that your degree of concern isn’t great enough to outweigh whatever perceived barriers there are. There are plenty of people who like to talk about things that they will do, that they are going to do, and then end up putting it off and not doing it (I would know with how much I procrastinate hahah). The very act of being able to put something off for ‘another time’, doesn’t that mean that it isn’t yet of pressing importance to that person?
Thus to me, there are 2 clear ways to help people overcome this initial inertia. Either reduce the inertia by encouraging them that the barriers aren’t as big and scary as they might seem (something like this post), or increase their motivation to overcome the inertia by letting them learn about the severity of the crisis.