Ecological empathy: relational theory and practice

Sustainability science researchers are increasingly interested in human–nature connection as a leverage point for societal transformation. Empathy has potential as a way to reconnect people to nature by building relationships among more-than-humans. However, current approaches to empathy with more-than-humans usually prefer sympathy and compassion. I argue that these approaches limit the potential of empathy when considering human–nature (re)connection. I use the established concept of social empathy (Segal 2011, 2018) to structure a new presentation of empathy with more-than-humans: ecological empathy. Ecological empathy, as presented in this paper, consists of two subcomponents: contextual understanding of more-than-human interdependencies and more-than-human awareness and earth system perspective-taking. From this new perspective, I suggest defining ecological empathy as a cognitive and affective ability, which allows for internal coherence across bodily separation in humans and their environment. Integrating literature from biophilia, deep ecology, embodied cognition and multi-species ethnography, I elaborate on ecological empathy with inspirational practices that can be advanced across a range of decision, policy and design environments to address human–nature (re)connection.