Grief & Anxiety About Climate Change–Renée Lertzman Offers Help
Graphic by Nicole Kelner
Climate change is impacting more than weather, biodiversity, and travel. It’s impacting our humanity, and that’s especially true of young people. In a 2021 survey of 10,000 young people in 10 countries, nearly half of respondents said the climate crisis has “impaired their ability to function: to eat, work, sleep, spend time in nature, have fun, and be fully present in their relationships.”
But another study shows that as they enter the job market, many members of Gen Z want to work for companies that act on climate. That’s good news for the many Activate Fellows for whom confronting climate change is a motivator, if not the raison d'être, for starting their company.
A quick internet search for “climate change anxiety” generates scores of articles and studies. But not long ago, this was little more than a niche topic among those working at the intersection of psychology and environmental studies. Renée Lertzman, who earned her Ph.D. in psychosocial studies, was one of those people. Over the past decade, she has gone from being one of the few voices raising awareness for the need to address climate anxiety through an integrative approach across the climate movement, to her current role as a climate psychologist and business strategist. We sat down with her to learn more about her approach and what she’s learned about supporting climate founders’ mental health at her own startup, Project InsideOut.
Graphic by Nicole Kelner
Activate: You were working exclusively with non-profits earlier in your career. What led you to start working with for-profit organizations, and to take on the mantle of strategist? Because strategist and psychologist seem like different roles.
Renée Lertzman: It evolved over time. I left academia around 2010 and started working with a variety of organizations across sectors. After teaching in a graduate program I started to feel really curious about working in the private sector, and with business. Because my experience was that there were silos between climate advocacy, government, and business. I found myself giving a talk at a conference called Sustainable Brands. I was fascinated with how they were talking about and asking questions around motivating people and engaging with people.
[In my role] I'm simply translating, and applying psychological insights, and perspectives and tools, in service of anyone who's working to address climate change and environmental issues. I support, enable, and build capability, and partner with teams, organizations, and leaders, so that they can be more skillful at navigating the existential change management that they are in. And so what I really enjoy doing is precisely being a strategic partner with the people who have technological insight and offerings. [I ask], how can they enhance their effectiveness at uptake and engagement with what it is they are working on?
Activate: Talk about this idea of existential change management.
Lertzman: Anyone working in the space is doing existential change management. And I didn't even know what change management was before I started working in the business sector. And then a senior leader at Google, who I've been working closely with for the past three years, literally brought me in as his change management advisor. And I was like, I'm a climate psychologist, like what am I doing here? And then I realized: Oh, he knows exactly what he's doing. And I've been training for this for many years.
Activate: So you inhabit both those roles—psychologist and strategist—deeply.
Lertzman: What we're talking about is very psychologically complex and fraught—emotionally, cognitively, politically, and, culturally—but I feel like if you are going to be effective in this domain, you really do need to understand some baseline psychological principles.
My focus is building literacy. I want to ensure that if you're working on climate, you understand the psychological terrain that you’re in.
Activate: Do you think that helping them as individuals is in your domain, or do you think that kind of individual work is for their own therapist or whomever they seek support from outside of work?
Lertzman: I work with teams, organizations, and leaders, as a trusted partner and advisor and collaborator. I encourage therapy generally as a powerful and productive source of support, that helps people process their experience that goes beyond climate, to our own personal traumas and growth. That's a win. However, I don't separate these domains. And I actually feel like we need to not separate them. [People tend to put] mental health over here and business over there. And I think that's just a phase of where we are right now. But eventually, we'll move towards more integration. I'm already there.
“[People tend to put] mental health over here and business over there. And I think that’s just a phase of where we are right now. But eventually, we’ll move towards more integration. I’m already there.”
How you are managing your own self and your own well-being, your own mental health, your stress, your anxiety about what's happening with the planet and the climate—that is very much a part of who you are as a practitioner and as a leader. And so the most powerful thing that we can do is to really attend to the inner and the outer as a [continuum].
It's more than okay, it's actually just a given, that it’s going to be emotionally fraught at times. And there'll be times when you're feeling inspired, other times you're feeling overwhelmed, and other times you feel really frustrated. It’s a roller coaster. Building resilience is a central part of doing this work.
“How you are managing your own self and your own well-being, your own mental health, your stress, your anxiety about what’s happening with the planet and the climate—that is very much a part of who you are as a practitioner and as a leader.”
Activate: A lot of our fellows are working toward decarbonizing some really entrenched industries that do not change quickly or, necessarily, based on anything but economics. What have you seen that works, or doesn't work, when advising founders on what their roles are? Should they be trying to change hearts and minds versus just building better products that are also better environmentally?
Lertzman: I don't advise changing anyone's hearts and minds. It's not about that. It's about relating and attuning. And I would never, ever recommend speaking explicitly about existential change management, that's literally just for the practitioner and the leader to understand what they're doing.
The bottom line is, we have to be attuned to people's anxieties, their ambivalence, and their aspirations. We need to be sensitive and attuned to where people are coming from, how they're coming to it, and not make assumptions about whether or not they care.
We can't just push our solutions on people, and try to convince them and persuade them and pitch them. People don't want to be pitched, persuaded, or convinced. People want to be heard, understood, acknowledged, and partnered with and enabled and supported.
Because it really comes down to trust. Your fellows can reflect on: What builds trust for me? What makes me feel trust? How can I bring that into the work that I'm doing? How am I showing up? How's my anxiety? Am I taking the anxiety I feel about the planet and unconsciously letting it drive the way that I conduct myself in my business?
Activate: How can investors frame a relationship with founders in a way that shows they understand the anxiety they might feel around the urgency of their work on climate and the pressure they might feel in terms of projecting positivity to their funders, no matter what?
“We want investors to give the investees permission to show up as their full human selves, because that is what will foster health and resilience at the end of the day.”
Lertzman: I'm very influenced and inspired by the research and work of Amy Edmondson who introduced the concept of psychological safety. A big part of fostering psychological safety is by the practice of transparency and vulnerability, to really acknowledge what someone is feeling and experiencing. We want investors to give the investees permission to show up as their full human selves, because that is what will foster health and resilience at the end of the day.