Creating pathways for positive change

One of the key recommendations of the 2012 report, Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing, is 'empowering people to make sustainable choices.' Prepared by the United Nations Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability (2012), this landmark report reframes sustainability while-like other reports before it-challenging those in the conservation community to consider how to create the pathways to empower people to make sustainable choices, to change their future, to be resilient. The hope of empowering people to make sustainable choices is not new, but the approaches and tools by which improved decision-making is facilitated and supported are changing rapidly. This article examines emerging, successful trends in communication and its link to change management. It explores contextualizing a problem or challenge, influencing policy through strategic communication, engaging stakeholders, and managing change. To better describe these linkages, this article presents a sample change strategy, the processes used to manage change, and the various aspects of a change management approach. Creating pathways for positive change is of special interest to the representatives of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Commission on Education and Communication (CEC), who developed this article. Sharing a vision of a global community that loves and values nature, the Commission facilitates capacity building, change management, knowledge management, learning processes and communication activities worldwide as a way to create pathways for positive change. © Author(s) 2012.