How can individuals make a difference?

Part 4 of a conversation with the Aspen Initiative Africa

During summer, I sat down in Cambridge, UK, with Laila Macharia, Director of the Aspen Initiative Africa, host of their Factivist podcast, which features “compelling conversations from the world's most influential thought leaders, bringing you fresh takes on Africa's past, present and future”. Here is the fourth of a series of extracts from the conversation that I think you will find interesting.

Laila Macharia: What about at the individual level? We have spoken earlier about how sometimes it feels overwhelming. What can you do as a person to make a difference, to thrive and to contribute to thriving?

Wayne Visser: Well the first thing is to realise that actually individuals do make a difference, because individuals are part of the collective. And there's been some experiments in social settings where it turns out that only between five and 25% of a crowd can shift the behaviour of a whole crowd. So it's actually a purpose aligned minority that can make a difference.

That means one of the things you can do as an individual is be very clear on your purpose, and have a purpose. You may want to align it with one of the Sustainable Development Goals, or just on your values, but have a very clear purpose, because when others are aligned to the same purpose, you're going to shift the whole of society to thrive. So that's one thing.

There are also very practical things you can do. What's your buying behaviour? Which products and services are you supporting? Are they fair trade,? Are they products that are designed to be renewable or to be recyclable—so supporting the circular economy? Every day that we make a choice in the marketplace, we're making a choice for either a positive or a negative impact. So what you buy is important.

How do you get around? What's your transport system? Are you using public transport? Are you, where you can, walking or cycling? Electric vehicles are coming, and they're coming to Africa as well by the way. Electric vehicles have already reached cost competitiveness with with fossil fuel cars. Of course, they're much cleaner, much less pollution, and much better for the climate.

BYD, the Chinese automaker, the biggest electric vehicle automaker in the world now, has just overtaken Tesla. And they're producing cars at half the cost of what we're producing in Europe and America. These are going to come to Africa, and they should be embraced. They should be supported by the infrastructure. Of course, governments need to help, to invest in that. But make those choices about how you get around.

Then one of the biggest things is, where do you work? How are you spending your time? This is a third of your life. Are you working in an organisation, or perhaps running an organisation that is purpose-led, that is trying to make a positive difference, or are you supporting a company that is part of the problem? So we need to make a choice on how we use our time.

Another one which can have a really big impact is your diet. What do you choose to eat? Are you thinking about eating less meat? That's a hard message for some people to hear, but in terms of impact on climate and biodiversity and water, one of the biggest things you can do is just reduce your consumption, especially of red meat. There is a hierarchy—chicken and fish is better than red meat, and maybe making even plant based choices, where you can.

Of course, where do you put your vote? Which parties are you supporting? Are they parties that are actually champions for social cohesion, and for environmental sustainability?

So these all have an impact as an individual—and together, they add up.