Everything Big Starts Small
BY Roland HArwood
Image Credit: Brian Yurasits (via Unsplash)
What if litter picking could save the planet? I know it sounds ridiculous but please hear me out.
The transition to a climate-positive future demands nothing less than a major rethinking of the global carbon cycle and rewiring of our physical world.
Yet for the last few decades, most innovation has followed the software playbook: big upfront investment, then exponential scaling at near-zero cost.
Hardware plays by different rules. It needs bolder ambition and new models of collaboration. Solar panels on every roof. EV chargers on every corner. Heat pumps humming quietly behind every home.
And because this is primarily a physical transformation, both places and people really matter.
On-Ramps for Action
Places don’t change on their own. No local transition will succeed without the engagement of their citizens and communities. It’s not just about engineering solutions; the non-technical barriers are vital: trust, consent, and collective effort. Getting buy-in at street level is as important as designing breakthrough technology.
I was amazed to learn* in the UK Social Attitudes survey, that 60% of people say they want to volunteer, but only 3% actually do. How do we close that gap? We need new platforms for participation, new ways to activate ecosystems, and new on-ramps for action.
At the same time, while many people understand the urgency of the climate crisis, most also feel powerless to act. The dominant narratives of gleaming techno-optimism on one side, doom and despair on the other, rarely inspire action. Rather they freeze** us in place.
So we’ve learned that one of the most effective strategies is to reframe the narrative around health and wellbeing. What if climate action wasn’t about sacrifice, but about co-creating the best possible places to live and work? Where might we start?
Action Inspires Hope
In her excellent book Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit has eloquently argued that hope inspires action. But perhaps it’s also the other way around: action inspires hope. Margaret Heffernan put it even more plainly when she said to me recently: “litter picking is a gateway drug to climate action.” Small steps unlock bigger ones.
As with many great insights, I knew it to be immediately true. I’ve often picked up litter myself. I think I inherited this from my parents - especially my mum, who would regularly confront people who dropped litter and, politely but firmly, ask them to put it in the nearest bin. Responses varied, but mostly it worked. More recently, I’ve noticed my kids emulating this behaviour too, which makes me proud: a small but meaningful intergenerational inheritance.
That’s why we should think less about silver bullets and more about ladders of change - small actions building into systemic shifts.
Ladders of Change
One such ladder is the Net Zero Journey, originally designed with and for towns and cities with Elizabeth O'Driscoll Kerry McCarthy James Taplin Emma Fenton Lily Ludford Gurjit Singh Lalli Nick Drage and Roland Harwood 🌍.
The Net Zero Living Journey (Liminal & Innovate UK)
It has since gone on to have a big impact through the Net Zero Living Programme from Innovate UK working with 59 different places from across the uk, that we at Liminal | B Corp™ helped convene with Urban Foresight and Forum for the Future - with particular kudos to Hannah Wright, Rhiannon James, Dinah Jackson, Jennifer Martin, Pippa Scott, Kara Cartwright, James Taplin, Christian Inglis, Sophie Kempthorne (and many, many more) for the hard work making this happen.
And yet it’s still not nearly enough, so perhaps we keep going back to first principles:
First rung: picking up litter, planting a tree, cutting food waste.
Next rung: installing solar, joining a local retrofit scheme, supporting a community energy project.
Higher up: scaling new finance models, forming neighbourhood co-ops, rethinking infrastructure street by street.
Yet individual citizens can’t carry this alone. Governments and corporations control the levers that make or break progress - finance, regulation, infrastructure, supply chains. Our small actions create momentum, but their big decisions set the direction of travel. If leaders don’t match the ambition of their citizens, they’re not just slowing us down - they’re standing in the way.
Big change rarely starts big. It starts small, local, and human - and step by step - then can build into superclusters*** of climate action, at speed and scale. The question is whether those with power will climb with us, or leave us hanging.
As ever I’m curious to hear any thoughts in response to this article and in particular in response to these two questions:
What other gateway drugs might inspire people to take action?
What’s the next small rung on your ladder of climate action?
* Thanks to Tessy Britton and Nat Defriend for pioneering work on participatory cities.
** Or perhaps more accurately they are gradually boiling us (🐸) to oblivion!
*** Hat tip to my co-founders and fellow litter-pickers Hannah Scott and Sam Goodall.
