Have you ever heard of Eco-Anxiety?

If you ask me what my number one worrying about my daughters´ future is, it won´t take me a second to answer: “climate change”.

If you ask me, as a sustainability professional, if I think that we stand a chance to fix climate change – on a bad day I will just answer “No Way”.

Bright white letters on a pastel pink pegboard deliver a calming message: "Don't Panic."

Often, when I throw something away, I just can’t avoid thinking about where it will end up, a landfill, an ocean, will it really be recycled? I feel frustrated because as much as I try, I still generate a huge amount of waste, every day.

Every other week, I find myself loosing track of time as I scroll from an article, to a video, to another news piece, to a tweet – into a rabbit hole of sustainability and climate change doom news. 

When I talk to family and friends about climate change, net zero and what my job is about, I feel that I struggle to articulate well enough how hugely important this is, and I feel a sense of powerless and guiltiness – I could have done better, I could have done more to engage them.

Does any of this sounds familiar to you? 

These are just some examples of how Eco-Anxiety can manifest, and it can get very intense, in particular for young people.

I am, and have always been, a very positive and optimistic person by nature – if something has a chance to go well, I am usually convinced it will go that way. So why it is difficult to keep positive and optimistic when it comes to the climate change, or the broader sustainability debate? 

For me personally, it is due to two main reasons:

• The amount of information, data, news, sources available is overwhelming. Everyday we receive newsletters, news feeds, LinkedIn feed all related to climate change and sustainability. Keeping up is just not possible, and it feels like you never know or understand enough.

• The main narrative that surrounds anything related to climate change – at this point, we all know, or can easily find out, how terrible the future will look like if we miss the 1.5C target. But do we hear enough about how great our life will look like if we implement what is needed to achieve the target, and what progresses are made every day already?

Don’t get me wrong, climate change is the single biggest threat to humankind that we have ever faced – so we do need the IPCC reports, we do need to see charts and photos showing the impact of rising temperatures across the world, we do need to read the news about wildfires, dry rivers, scorching temperatures, biodiversity loss and melting glaciers. 

But we also need to hear about the changes that are happening all around the world, the progress in technology, the innovation, the positive stories for as small and imperfect as they can be. We need to celebrate every step in the right direction, even if the challenge remains there as big as it was a second ago.

I remember last year I listened to the audiobook of The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis written by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett. And one of the first few chapters are dedicated to describing how the world, and our life, will look like in a future where have taken action, and we have made the changes needed to remain under the 1.5C.

I have read lots of books about climate change and sustainability, and listen to dozens of podcasts, and still that chapter for me is just the most powerful thing I have ever read or listened to. No data, no complex analysis, no charts – just a simple story, a description of how beautiful everyday life could look like in the next 20 years, when nature and community life have taken centre stage into our cities and lifestyle.

So earlier in the year, I have made a personal pledge: I have decided to change the way that I tell the story, the narrative that I use when I talk to friends or when I post here on Linkedin, and to focus on the positives, on the changes that are happening, on the amazing technology that already exists and that is being tested, celebrating every little milestone, and applauding the pledges that individuals, governments, and organisations worldwide are making every day.

It's a conscious decision, which doesn't undermine the huge challenge ahead, but it certainly helps me balancing the overwhelming exposure to climate crisis related information, and I hope it will help others in the same way, even if for a few seconds while scrolling on a Linkedin feed.

I share some interesting links in the comment if you want to read more about eco-anxiety and where to find some positive stories about the environment.