EcoTypes

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Overview | EcoTypes | COMPLEMENTARITY

Overview

The EcoTypes—environmental frameworks—you are assigned from the survey have gone through several changes over time. We recently decided to assign EcoTypes that potentially apply to anyone throughout the world, whereas in past they were more customized to higher education environmental students as our main participants.

What was the reason for this change? Difference is a reality in our world, and often the source of bitter conflict, preventing genuine environmental progress. Can we work with difference as a resource for, not an obstacle to, environmental progress? This is our ultimate hope via EcoTypes, and why we are now extending opportunities to other people in other parts of the world.

What might be the environmental frameworks of people around the world? Some have claimed to answer this huge question, using surveys or religious texts, but the aim of EcoTypes is more humble: to explore patterns of Place, Knowledge, and Action—the three EcoTypes themes summarizing all twelve axes—among many different kinds of people. It is possible that many care, just differently. We approach environmental frameworks—Ecotypes—of many people from the same non-judgmental perspective.

This global approach to EcoTypes is guided by major cross-national studies of values, including the World Values Survey and the Schwartz values research program. Both of these studies suggest two fundamental dimensions of values, such as the World Values Survey dimensions visualized on the cross-cultural diagram at right. These fundamental dimensions are similar to the three EcoTypes themes in summarizing a much greater array of difference.

Following pilot tests, we decided to visualize Place and Knowledge in two dimensions as the EcoTypes phrase, then add Action as a suffix. This approach follows the logical order of the three theme questions, in which Place and Knowledge form a foundation for Action:

• (Place) What is the place of nonhumans and humans on Earth?
• (Knowledge) What old and new ways of knowing will help us build this place?
• (Action) What action at small and big scales will help us build this place?

Here is a sample EcoType you might receive on your EcoTypes survey report, including an EcoTypes phrase and Action suffix.

The Place and Knowledge characteristics of the four EcoTypes phrases are summarized in the table below; the two Action suffixes are (S) for small Action and (B) for big Action.

EcoType	Place	Knowledge
Earth Spirit	Nonhuman	Old
Ecoscience	Nonhuman	New
Technoprogress	Human	New
Traditional Ways	Human	Old

Here is a chart of these EcoTypes, from over 2700 survey responses in 2022-23. You can readily see that Earth Spirit and Ecoscience, the two EcoTypes tending toward nonhuman Place, were far more prevalent among respondents (generally environmental college students), as were big Action (B) EcoTypes. This pattern may well change as we invite other people to participate in EcoTypes.

And below is a dynamic 3D chart of the same 2022-23 data,* where each survey response is located via its Place, Knowledge, and Action coordinates. Spin it to rotate around each theme, zoom in/out to see pattern details, or click to limit to a particular EcoType. Or, you may view the chart in its own tab.

*Many thanks to Jeremy McWilliams of Lewis & Clark’s Watzek Library for assistance on 3D chart code.

Four EcoTypes

Earth Spirit | Ecoscience | Technoprogress | Traditional Ways | (S) / (B)

Earth Spirit

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Ecoscience

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Technoprogress

If your EcoType were Technoprogress, you may offer this answer to the first two questions above:

We believe in technological progress to advance humanity on Earth.

Technoprogress primarily embraces human Place and new Knowledge; this EcoType is thus in the upper right sector below. Its complementary EcoType is Earth Spirit.

Human Place and new Knowledge are idealized theme attractors, each summarizing four statistically related EcoTypes axis poles. Feel free to study these poles via the axis links below: if you are Technoprogress, which represent you?

Human Place	New Knowledge
Crafted Aesthetics	Orthodox Science
Dynamic Ecosystems	Secular Spirituality
Anthropocentric Ethics	Philic Technology
Hybrid Nature	Future Time

As examples of Techoprogress, consider two EcoTypes personae, Kabir and Claire. Kabir and Claire both embrace human Place and new Knowledge, but Kabir embraces small Action, while Claire embraces big Action. If you read their summaries and global priorities, you’ll see interesting similarities and differences! If your Ecotype is Technoprogress, you may feel something broadly in common with them.

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Traditional Ways

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Small/Big Action

These four EcoTypes offer various answers to the first two big questions above. But what about the third question?:

What action at small and big scales will help us build this place?

This is the question underlying the Action theme, for which there are two attractors, small and big Action. Based on your survey responses, your EcoType includes an (S) or a (B) initial, depending on how you lean relative to these two attractors.

Here is a summary of the small and big Action attractors in terms of their contributing axis poles. Feel free to study the axis poles representing your Action initial via the links below: which represent you?

(S)mall Action	(B)ig Action
Incremental Change	Radical Change
Market Economies	Planned Economies
Individual Social Scale	Institutional Social Scale
Consensus Society	Conflict Society

If you study the EcoTypes personae, you may see that the Action initial results in important differences between the two personae sharing the same EcoTypes phrase. So, even if you might broadly agree with another person on Place and Knowledge, if your Action initial is different you may not feel similar to them.

Complementarity

Your complementary EcoType is the environmental framework that differs from yours the most. It’s easy to identify your complementary EcoType: just go to your EcoTypes chart and look for the sector opposite your dot. Then switch your Action initial as well.

Complementarity is a principle derived from physics, in which two opposing descriptions of reality are each true, yet a fuller truth arises from considering them both. The differences embedded in EcoTypes arise from our differing interactions with reality and can be a strength, if we are willing to engage with people whose EcoTypes differ from—indeed, may be the opposite of—ours.

If you’d like guidance on how to take some practical next steps with complementarity, see the Going Deeper page. The forthcoming EcoTypes book offers a much fuller treatment of complementarity.