This PhD thesis comprises nine published papers covering three case study areas namely
flexitarianism, the new human agenda and sustainability humanistic education. Whilst the
case studies are concerned with three deliberately diverse areas, specifically food choices,
development and tertiary education, they are united by the common conceptual themes of
individual empowerment and action as a way of countering increasing unsustainability. The
thesis takes a strong stance against the vast geopolitical megasystem of vested interests
flourishing within the dominant geopolitical economic discourse and emphasises the role of
personal power.
To date, most attempts at countering mounting local and global unsustainability have failed,
because those tasked and trusted to develop and implement solutions have a conflicting,
short-term vested interest in maintaining the sources of the global human and
environmental crisis. These globalised economic and political profit and power forces are
subverting essential transformative change.
The central premise on which the thesis is built is that there is an urgent need for a solution
that offers an accessible and immediate opportunity for regaining, repairing and renewing
human and biophysical wellbeing. Its main argument is that the possibility of countering
increasing unsustainability perpetuated by global power alliances lies in the collective
actions and outcomes of uncoordinated individual choices and endeavours mobilised
through awareness, empowerment and education. Through such personal liberation from
the duplicity of the megasystem and the ability to take back their power, humanity,
comprising a collective of individuals and personal actions the world over, holds the key to a
more sustainable future.
In this previously academically unexplored area flexitarianism, the new human agenda and
sustainability humanistic education are examples of how the sum of individual,
uncoordinated actions, holds restorative and transformative opportunities for the
achievement of a more sustainable world.