28 May 2025 – What was the driving force in your career shift towards looking at inner transformation and systems change?
I started out as a medical doctor, working on health at an individual level. Gradually I started expanding my view to consider larger populations. As soon as you start doing that, you get curious about why certain people get sick or stay healthy. Then you start bumping into systems -whether it’s public health or global health and development, or the United Nations. I ended up working at UNDP and UNICEF. Now instead of antibiotics and medication, you’re looking at policies and budgets, public attitudes and beliefs. It’s an interesting mix, you question priorities, define problems and try to get at the underlying causes of problems rather than just treating the symptoms. It really appealed to me as somebody who’s always trying to get to the root of things. This means you also need to look at inner transformation, because I realised it wasn’t just about having the right policies in mind or the smartest people in the room. It was often about how we shift culture, mindsets, consciousness, values and beliefs.
A lot of the work we’re doing at The Club of Rome is looking at how we shift the economic system or financial systems, but it’s also about shifting attitudes around defining what is a “good life”. What is driving mass consumerism and materialism? What is the impact of not feeling a sense of belonging, purpose or meaning in one’s life? In many high-income countries, this is driving a culture of FOMO (fear of missing out) and overconsumption, which then propels an extractive economy and further inequality. Being human is messy – if we’re serious about sustainability, systems change and wellbeing, we need to engage with all these aspects too.
What are some significant challenges to achieving wellbeing today?
Many of the climate and social change activists I’ve met are really committed and functioning at a high level, but one of the real challenges they face is acknowledging that looking after their own wellbeing is neither self-indulgent nor a luxury. It’s much harder to recover from burnout than it is to prevent it. But for people who are really committed to their work, the mindset, training, education and work environment are set up in such a way that you could easily end up sacrificing your own wellbeing at the altar of your work.
Another challenge is almost the opposite – an over-focus on trying to manage personal wellbeing in the absence of recognising how we need to change larger systems. It can become an issue if you are looking after your health, diet, exercise and emotional wellbeing to the extent that it becomes a bit of a cocoon. Some people have the belief that tackling inequality is not such a big priority, as long as they can protect their own little island of wellbeing. But the inequality gap is widening globally. With that comes cascading social unrest, growing fear, mistrust, crime and the destruction of our social fabric. Nobody can be well or happy for long in that kind of environment. We could instead participate in making it more possible for all of us to access a healthy and flourishing life – redefining how we want our economy to work so that people aren’t constantly struggling to survive or chasing after an endless treadmill of consumption.
How can The Club of Rome drive the conversation on global wellbeing?
The Club of Rome is doing great work, reaching out to wider audiences and partners, through Earth4All, the Emerging New Civilisations impact hub and The Fifth Element. I see there’s a huge opportunity for integrating the different impact hubs more. For example, what are the deep shifts in societal attitudes and world views that can shape how we think about the kinds of policy proposals that are being put forward through Earth4All? What is the consciousness shift and the social movement that needs to emerge, to nudge policy makers in the right direction?
One of the strengths of The Club of Rome is it’s now beginning to diversify membership and voices. There’s room to bring in world views from diverse wisdom traditions to contribute to shaping systems and shaping even how we convene, how we listen to each other, how we hold uncertainty, how we move towards consensus or not. This can also start influencing our work on changing finance, moving beyond GDP, Earth4All – finding more creative ways of engaging each other.
Do you find leaders open to the idea that compassion and mindfulness are core capacities for innovation and leadership?
I think that there’s more of an entry point to be able to talk about it than there’s ever been before. Partly because people are so stressed out and burned out that leaders can’t ignore the need for these core capacities, even if it is under the mantle of productivity. Leaders are struggling to know how best to do that and how to bring it into the workplace in a way that feels respectful and legitimate. We’re seeing these concepts begin to influence business and there’s an appetite for it in the education sector as well.
There’s now a recognition that students are under a lot of stress with the pressure to perform on exams, and there are also increasing mental health issues. We see a question about how to balance academic performance with social and emotional learning. The inner development of students and the inner wellbeing of teachers is also critical. Recently at an international conference on education in Bhutan, there was a collective conversation about how elements such as compassion, mindfulness and wellbeing could be integrated into curricula, and into how we measure “success” in education.
There are promising examples in both business and education, but an ongoing challenge is that they could still be left largely at the individual level – how people can look after their own wellbeing in the face of essentially dysfunctional systems. I think a more interesting and relevant question is: how can we make these systems more mindful and compassionate? So, I would say there’s been a promising start and some notable inroads, but we still have a long way to go.
What have been your experiences around the world with different attitudes to nature, health and wellbeing?
It’s been a real privilege and an eye-opener to be able to live in southern Africa and Bhutan. And more recently in Canada, I’ve had the chance to begin connecting with this country’s indigenous roots. A common denominator I’ve noticed in these very different contexts is that nature is not seen as something separate from us as human beings. We are a part of nature and we’re completely interdependent and integrated with it and with each other. There’s a kind of humbleness that comes with that realisation. It’s hard to be arrogant, and to believe that as human beings we are somehow the “masters” over all of this. At a deeper level, there’s a kind of reverence for the natural world, which can lead to caring for that world in much the same way that you would naturally care for your loved ones. It doesn’t have to be enforced so much through policy, or arguments around efficiency, and it’s a very different world view.
This comes back to the importance of addressing the inner dimensions of systems change. It could be less about policing people and forcing them to do the right thing for “the environment” (as some separate, external entity). It could be accompanied by less fear of having to “give up” my lifestyle and my way of life to protect the environment. It could reduce this false sense of dualism. That’s something that we could really learn from other parts of the world. And this also relates to our view of health and wellbeing – for many modern societies, it’s about our personal access to health insurance or good healthcare – it’s a very individualistic health system concern. Of course, it’s important that people have access to appropriate healthcare, but the medical system is primarily focused on curative treatment, and not so strong on prevention and health promotion, which is where the biggest impacts on our health could be. If we were more attuned to these upstream aspects and actually living in harmony with the natural world rather than ravaging it, addressing the determinants of health (as opposed to disease) starts to become a natural outcome. All of this requires a rethinking of how we live our lives, how we build our societies, how we structure our economies and what we choose to prioritise.
What does a sustainable society look like to you?
When we talk about a sustainable society, what’s often implied is what’s sustainable for human beings, and this tends to be sustainable for some people and not others. It’s not necessarily looking at the bigger picture of life itself. A sustainable society really is about understanding our interdependence with each other and the natural world, with some humbleness about our own place in that world.
And as human beings, we’re not here merely to survive; we can aspire to cultivate our highest potential – for care and compassion and generosity, finding purpose and meaning in our lives. I think many among the younger generation, and even those who are doing fine on that survival level, are really struggling because of a lack of sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we could be “relearning” from our ancient wisdom traditions, and bringing those insights and practices together with the best of modern science and technology. This could really point the way forward.
Some of our visionary leaders in The Club of Rome, like Aurelio Peccei and Donnella Meadows, were always pointing towards that, and we need to bring these world views together with our work in new ways. Computer modelling and scenario building are what we have historically been known for – but also the deep wisdom, asking the right questions and getting to the root causes of our crises. That is also very much a part of The Club of Rome’s heritage and fabric, and it’s needed now more than ever.
