Page - 304 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

304 initiated. Behavioural entrepreneurship is about self-initiating behaviour change. Yet, whether acting individually or in groups, these entrepreneurs will need the capacity to envision, craft and then initiate responses all while functioning within a radically changed context. 13.5 Capacities-First Approach Given that today we cannot fully know the behaviour patterns needed later this cen- tury, we must instead ask what are the conditions under which future citizens can respond with competence and equipoise. There is an innovative means of extracting these conditions. It employs a method used within psychological discussions of intentionality (Baumeister et  al. 2011; Mele 2001) and is referred to as a capacities- first approach (Seligman et  al. 2013). This approach is a form of envisioning (Meadows 1996) and is wholly unlike our current tendency to construct interven- tions that are primarily past-driven. A past-driven approach is a leveraging of traits, decision-making tendencies, knowledge, norms and motives from people’s immediate and distant past. For instance, we assess whether an individual holds an eco-centric, ego-centric or social-centric value orientation and then create an intervention that leverages their dominant orientation. Another example starts with individuals who are inclined toward a specific environmental stewardship behaviour but lack the necessary pro- cedural knowledge to carry out that behaviour. The intervention would then focus on providing the needed behavioural skills and strategies. A third example is mak- ing more salient an existing social norm using a public service announcement. In each instance, we, the experts, assume the role of creating interventions that manip- ulate existing factors to promote conservation behaviours among citizens. In contrast, a capacities-first approach is future-centric. Citizens are imagined as actively coping with the challenges in that future context having successfully recast their behaviours into forms that fit that future ecological situation. Perhaps most significant, these future citizens are in no particular need of expert designed and managed interventions. However, perhaps we, the experts, could be of some help in the present. Although we cannot assume to know the specific future behaviours that citizens will be pursuing, we may assume that how they go about identifying and self-initiating those behaviours will be much the same as they do today. They will be using the same mental processes, cope with the same social challenges, be affected by the same emotions and need to develop skills well matched to the future context. Therefore, employing a reverse-engineering metaphor, we can imagine, in the present, what general capacities those future citizens must be in possession of, and the support they will come to rely upon while creating and initiating specific future behaviours. Providing for the development of those capacities now and sup- porting them in the future becomes a necessary, although perhaps not a sufficient, pre-condition for supporting future sustainability. R. De  Young