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199 / Wool Sneakers, Woke Words & The World's Most Accidental Degrowth Activist
Published 4 months ago • 4 min read
Hello friends 👋
Lately I've been thinking a lot about energy management. Not the Scope 3 kind; the “how do we manage our capacity to do this work” kind.
In two recent (and totally unrelated) Change Hub member gatherings, I got introduced to new approaches to energy that I can’t stop thinking about:
🗽 Energy sovereignty — the idea of knowing where your responsibility ends and everyone else’s begins, so you can lead big, complex projects without losing yourself in the process. Vital for people working in impact, where the mission can feel all-consuming and burnout is rampant. FromKacie Brennell’s excellent “Project Management for Non-Project Managers” Leadership Lounge session.
🧴 Energy hygiene —the idea that energy (from other people, from certain situations) accumulates in your body but can be cleared through intentional, grounding practices. From our interview with impact strategist and alignment coach Drew Taylor Cohen on “How I Bring My Spiritual Self to Work”.
Two different entry points, same underlying truth — that this work carries a specific kind of energetic load, and we need as many creative approaches for making it sustainable as we can get.
Are you familiar with these approaches to energy? Are there other ways of thinking about energy that have had an impact on you? Drop a comment in my recent LinkedIn thread, I'd love to know what’s landed for you.
P.S. Speaking of energy management, I’ll be taking a few weeks off for the spring holidays so we’ll be skipping the next newsletter edition. See you in mid-May!
As Reconsidered enters its 10th year, we’re conducting a listening tour of our community and it would mean a lot if you could take 5-10 minutes to join in. Your input will directly help us shape our next 10 years!
Allbirds is selling for $39 million — down 99% from its peak — and the post-mortems are flying. Fortune's verdict includes a pointed lesson for sustainability communicators: the brand got so focused on its eco story that it didn’t focus enough on its product. Oof. But maybe fair? Of course, LinkedIn is clapping back. I appreciated ex-Timberland COO Ken Pucker’s analysis of Allbirds’ product and retail missteps, as well as Parson prof Raz Godelnik’s take on the perils of accepting VC funding and going public too early. (8 minutes)
👉 PAYWALLED? If you have the resources, consider subscribing — quality journalism matters. If not, see if you get access through your organization or library, or try a tool that searches internet archives like this one.
I'll be honest, initially I wasn't sure what to take away from this NYT Opinion video debate on political correctness, woke culture and the language of social change. Three writers I respect talked in circles for an hour — and yet, somehow that felt like the most accurate reflection of where this debate actually is. For those of us still trying to figure out how to talk about DEIB and corporate responsibility in 2026: the confusion you're feeling isn't a “you” problem. The ground really has shifted, and I don’t think anyone has a clean map yet. (10 minutes)
Forty years of degrowth scholarship moved GDP approximately nowhere. Then Trump took office. I chuckled when I came across this tongue-in-cheek tribute to "the most efficient degrowth activist in history" from physics PhD Jonathan Frost, which highlights the dark irony that those who most propped up the current capitalist system now find themselves most exposed to its unraveling. “The universe doesn't issue warnings,” Frost writes. “It issues invoices.” (6 minutes)
And two new consumer research reports to bookmark for your next business case deck…
With ESG backlash headlines so rampant, I'm keeping an even closer eye on new consumer research data to try to make sense of it all. This annual Public Inc. study of U.S. and Canadian consumers (published in partnership with Ipsos and Engage for Good) offers some optimism: 40% of North American purchases were influenced by social and environmental factors, up from 38% last year. But perhaps more interesting: income and political affiliation had little correlation with values-driven purchasing. (5 minutes)
Across the pond, Drapers' latest research zeroes in on UK fashion consumers — and the headline stat is a whopping 83% who say sustainability influences their purchasing decisions. Great! 🥳 Except: the intention-action gap is still very much with us, with price sensitivity and claims confusion doing what they always do. 😒 The good news is the full report goes deeper than the headline, with more nuanced data on what's actually shifting — and what brands can do about it. (8 minutes)
Liz Johnston is the Principal Consultant at Liz Johnston Consulting and a member of the Reconsidered Change Hub. In this profile, she shares how studying on the Great Barrier Reef shaped her career, her experiences leading land conservation initiatives in the Pacific Northwest and her connection-led approach to place-based impact.
Get fresh finds from the world of corporate responsibility, sustainability + social impact delivered straight to your inbox, every other week. Each issue includes 5 thought-provoking links, a curated list of impact job opportunities, interviews with global impact leaders and loads of exclusive tools + resources for sustainable business professionals.
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