Transformative Change

“Transformation is not a larger project; it is a different system. ”

Transformation has become the preferred adjective for ambitious sustainability work. Programmes promise transformative finance, transformative agriculture and transformative partnerships. The word often means that an initiative is large, innovative or important. None of those qualities establishes that the system producing the problem has changed.

The 2024 IPBES Transformative Change Assessment defines transformative change as fundamental, system-wide shifts in views, structures and practices. The emphasis is on underlying causes and the determinants that keep unsustainable outcomes in place. A project can scale across countries and remain incremental if it leaves the governing incentives, power relations and patterns of production unchanged.

The distinction can be seen through the Montreal Protocol.

The agreement did not rely on consumers voluntarily choosing fewer ozone-depleting products. It created legally binding controls on production and consumption, adjusted those controls as science developed, supported technology assessment and financed implementation in developing countries. The result was not one successful pilot but reorganisation across regulation, industry, technology and international cooperation.

The Ozone Secretariat reports that 99 per cent of controlled ozone-depleting substances have been phased out. Transformation therefore acts at leverage points. Donella Meadows distinguished between changing parameters, such as a subsidy level, and changing deeper elements such as information flows, rules, goals and paradigms.

Sustainability programmes often remain at the parameter level because those interventions are measurable and politically easier.

They improve a practice without changing why the harmful practice remains economically rational. Incremental change is not the enemy. Farms need better soil management, factories need safer equipment and companies need improved data. These actions can reduce harm and build capability. The error is to call every improvement transformative.

Accurate language helps organisations see when incremental gains are necessary but insufficient relative to the speed and scale of the problem. Power is part of transformation. Rules and markets have beneficiaries. Removing a harmful subsidy, changing land rights or shifting value within a supply chain creates losses as well as gains. Incumbent actors may resist, delay or redirect change.

A transformation plan that describes technology but not power, political economy and distribution is incomplete. Values and narratives also matter.

A food system organised around maximum volume produces different decisions from one organised around nutrition, resilience and dignified livelihoods. A business model that treats nature as an externality will not become regenerative through a biodiversity project alone.

Transformative change asks whether the purpose and decision criteria of the system have shifted, not only whether its impacts are being managed more efficiently. Transformation can produce harm when speed overrides rights. Renewable-energy infrastructure, conservation and restoration can displace communities or restrict customary access. A just transition is therefore not a separate social add-on.

It is part of the legitimacy and durability of systemic change. Processes should recognise rights, distribute costs, support affected workers and communities, and preserve routes for remedy. Measurement must move beyond project outputs. Evidence may include changes in rules, budget allocation, ownership, market share, institutional mandates, social norms and feedback loops.

Early indicators can show whether the system's direction has changed before final ecological or social outcomes are visible. But organisations should remain cautious about claiming transformation while the dominant structure continues unchanged. Transformative change is rarely controlled by one actor.

Governments set law, finance shapes capital, companies influence markets, communities hold knowledge and rights, and civil society creates pressure and alternatives. Coordination matters, but collaboration should not blur responsibility. Each actor should identify the leverage it controls and the coalitions required for deeper change. For practitioners, the discipline is to name the mechanism.

Which rule, incentive, relationship, resource flow or underlying goal is expected to change? Why has it resisted change? Who gains and loses? What protects rights during transition? If the intervention ended, would the new pattern persist because the system now rewards it? Transformation becomes credible when the answer describes a different set of conditions, not merely a larger set of activities.

Practical application

Map the structures that reproduce the current outcome: rules, subsidies, procurement, ownership, information, norms, decision rights and power. Identify leverage points and distinguish incremental measures from interventions expected to alter the system itself. Set indicators for institutional and distributional change alongside environmental or social outcomes.

Build coalitions around specific rule changes, anticipate resistance and stranded interests, and integrate rights, remedy and just-transition measures from the beginning.

Why it matters

Many sustainability challenges persist despite decades of projects because the systems generating them remain intact. Transformative change directs attention from scaling activities to changing the conditions that make harmful outcomes normal.

Common misconception

Transformative change is often equated with size, innovation or rapid growth. An intervention is transformative only when it alters underlying structures, relationships, incentives or goals in ways that can persist beyond the project.

Connections

Systems Thinking identifies feedback and structure. Theory of Change makes mechanisms explicit. Transition Plan organises action over time, while Just Transition addresses distribution and rights. Additionality, Contribution and Evaluation test whether systemic claims are supported by evidence.

A question worth asking

If your largest sustainability programme ended tomorrow, which rule or incentive would remain permanently different because it existed?

Selected references

IPBES. 2024. Thematic Assessment Report on the Underlying Causes of Biodiversity Loss and the Determinants of Transformative Change. Meadows, D. 1999. Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System. Geels, F. W. 2002. Technological Transitions as Evolutionary Reconfiguration Processes. Research Policy 31(8-9): 1257-1274. O'Brien, K. 2018. Is the 1. 5 C Target Possible? Exploring the Three Spheres of Transformation.

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 31: 153-160. United Nations Environment Programme, Ozone Secretariat. 2024. Facts and Figures on Ozone Protection.