Amid Plastic Free July – the global campaign urging people to cut down on single-use plastics – attention turns once again to how our everyday choices affect the planet. Initiatives like this not only highlight environmental issues; they also emphasise individual responsibility. With that, a nagging sense that we are not doing enough may surface. Should we skip that summer flight? Eat less meat? And if we don’t, should we feel bad about it? This kind of ‘feeling bad’ can be defined as eco-guilt or eco-shame, and in a time of great societal focus on sustainability, many of us navigate these emotions in our everyday lives.
Guilt and shame are complex and distinct, but both are considered ‘moral emotions’, part of our moral compass. They help regulate our behaviour and opinions by making us feel bad (guilty or ashamed) when we somehow violate moral or social norms. Typically, they motivate us to make things right, reinforcing what is seen as ‘good’ in society. But they don’t always lead to constructive action; sometimes they trigger defensiveness, blame-shifting or inaction instead.
By exploring eco-guilt and eco-shame – how and whether people experience them, as well as how they respond – we can learn about the moral values and social norms shaping our views on environmental problems and sustainability. If you, for instance, feel bad about plastic waste, meat consumption or flying, it’s likely because you care about the planet, and/or because you are part of a social group that believes we ought to.
Is feeling bad a good thing?
When I began interviewing people about their emotions and views on environmental problems and sustainability, expressions of eco-guilt and eco-shame were often embedded with strong opinions and moral undertones. Central to these expressions was the question of whether such emotions were good to experience.
One common way this came across was through reflections on the usefulness of emotions, specifically, whether they led to more sustainable behaviour. The underlying logic seemed to be: if we’re going to feel bad, it had better be useful. Some saw these emotions as necessary green motivators. Others dismissed them as unhelpful, preferring to focus on what they could do rather than dwell on what they couldn’t. This made me wonder whether we a) have become so attached to positivity that we suppress negative emotions unless they clearly serve a greater good; b) have internalised a mindset of efficiency and usefulness that extends even to how we manage our emotions; or c) suppress feeling bad not because it’s useless, but because it reminds us that we’re imperfect and cannot always live up to our sustainability ideals.
People also challenged the authenticity of these emotions. Many feared that expressing eco-guilt or eco-shame might come across as performative. Some criticised those they saw as ‘jumping on the bandwagon’, treating environmental concern like a passing trend. As a result, even those who genuinely cared often hesitated to show eco-guilt, eco-shame or broader environmental concern, worried they would be perceived as moralising or trying to provoke those feelings in others. This hesitation is understandable: there is a strong culture of resistance to openly expressed environmental concern, which is often dismissed as moralising, and triggers a provocative response, or even: ‘I’ll show you how bad I can be’.
However, I argue that when people express their environmental concern and emotions like eco-guilt or eco-shame in ways that feel authentic and non-moralising, there is real potential to shift emotional norms and spark collective engagement and change. Emotions are social and, in a sense, contagious: expressing eco-guilt or eco-shame signals to others that the planet’s wellbeing is a moral issue, which may affect how they think it is appropriate to feel, think and act in response.
It’s not you, it’s capitalism?
Returning to the matter of personal responsibility amid climate change and environmental crises, it is important to recognise that powerful actors such as corporations, governments and industries have a vested interest in shifting the burden onto individuals. A particularly revealing example of this strategic deflection is that the term ‘carbon footprint’ was popularised by BP (British Petroleum) as part of a marketing campaign designed to redirect attention from corporate accountability to individual emissions.
This is especially problematic because, as the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek argues, the discourse around environmental problems that highlights personal responsibility distracts us from the real root of the problem. This dynamic is especially evident in how we experience eco-guilt and eco-shame: these emotions often compel us to manage our moral discomfort by correcting personal behaviours, rather than prompting us to confront the larger, structural causes of environmental harm.
Still, because eco-guilt and eco-shame hold a moral potential, I’m not suggesting we dismiss them with a shrug and say ‘It’s not me, it’s them’ – where ‘them’ could refer to the entire capitalist system, political inaction, Big Oil and other major polluters, or those who mock Greta Thunberg and ‘angry vegans’. So, should we feel bad for the planet? The answer isn’t simple. Emotions like eco-guilt and eco-shame can be burdensome. However, when they arise not from manipulation or misplaced responsibility, but from a sincere desire to live more harmoniously with nature, they may prompt moral reflection and more thoughtful choices.
The key is perhaps not to reject these emotions outright or accept them uncritically, but to pay attention to where they come from, what they reveal and how we respond. At the same time, we can continue to push for systemic change while using our emotions, including the uncomfortable ones, to navigate how to live meaningfully and in accordance with our values in a time of environmental crises.
Rikke Sigmer Nielsen holds a PhD in environmental sociology and environmental ethics, and works as a research consultant at the Business Academy Copenhagen.
Is it good to feel bad about unsustainable behaviours? Reflexivity around environmental emotions by Rikke Sigmer Nielsen, Thomas Bøker Lund and Christian Gamborg in Emotions and Society is available to read on Bristol University Press Digital.
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