Jeny M. Blume
Sustainability & Behaviour Change Strategist
I help organisations understand why sustainability and change initiatives get stuck — and identify what needs to change for implementation to work.
Systems thinking · Behavioural strategy · Participatory practice
How I help
The solution is in place. Maybe it even worked at first. But progress has stalled, uptake is uneven, or things are slipping back to how they were before.
You don’t need more activity. You need to understand what’s stopping the change from sticking.
People have been consulted, invited and informed. Yet participation hasn’t become ownership — and without ownership, momentum is difficult to sustain.
Being included in a process isn’t the same as having a reason to carry it forward.
You can see the symptoms: low uptake, resistance, delays, conflicting priorities. Everyone has an explanation — and perhaps already a solution.
The harder question is whether you’re solving the problem that’s actually causing them.
I help organisations find where things are getting stuck before deciding what needs to change.
Selected work
Selected work examining implementation from different angles — from stakeholder engagement and circular adoption to the conditions shaping everyday behaviour.
Stakeholder Engagement · Strategic Communication
The value was already there. The problem was that the people who needed to see it had to work too hard to find it.
The E-Waste Column had substantial expertise, content and ambition, but different audiences needed clearer pathways to understand its value and know what to do next.
Working as part of the ETHO Agency team, I contributed behavioural and systems perspectives to reshaping those stakeholder journeys and strengthening the path from interest to engagement.
The founder began implementing recommendations during the programme and later reported stronger audience interest and successful funding developments.
Circular Economy · Adoption
The circular solution exists. But existence doesn’t guarantee use.
Repair, spare parts, buy-back and resale systems can make circular consumption possible. This project examined what happens between those solutions being available and customers actually participating in them.
Gender Equality · Behaviour Change
When behaviour isn’t changing, lack of motivation may not be the problem.
This project examined the gap between intended and actual behaviour — identifying whether the conditions surrounding people, rather than capability or willingness alone, might be shaping what happens in practice.
Developing practice
A diagnostic and decision-support framework for sustainability implementation
A practitioner-oriented framework I am developing to examine what happens between an intervention being introduced and the participation required for it to work.
Approach
I do not assume that low adoption, weak participation or stalled implementation automatically requires more communication, training or another workshop. First, understand what is actually happening.
People do not act independently of the systems around them. I examine behavioural conditions alongside structures, relationships, incentives, constraints and context.
I do not arrive with a favourite framework looking for somewhere to use it. Methods are selected according to the problem, evidence and context.
Strategy is useful only when it can survive contact with implementation.
About
Long before I worked in sustainability, I worked in complex operational environments where plans had to survive contact with people, competing priorities and real-world constraints.
More than a decade in international service and operations taught me to read situations quickly, coordinate across cultures and functions, and act decisively when circumstances demanded it. It also taught me something I value just as much today: knowing when urgency is useful — and when the better judgement is to slow down, observe or step back.
My background in psychology gave that experience another dimension: a deeper curiosity about why people behave as they do, and how environments, relationships and conditions shape those behaviours.
My work in sustainability brought those threads together. Systems thinking widened the lens; behavioural science sharpened the questions; participatory practice reinforced the importance of designing change with people rather than around them.
Today, I work across sustainability, behavioural change and implementation — helping organisations understand what is happening between a good intention and the outcome they hoped to create.
I bring no single method to every problem. I bring curiosity, pattern recognition and judgement — then choose the tools, pace and response the problem actually requires.
Because good ideas rarely struggle for lack of intention. The interesting part is what happens next.
Systems thinking
Behavioural strategy
Participatory process design
Circular economy
Facilitation
Implementation & programme work
Sometimes the difficult part isn’t having something to say. It’s making sense of what is really worth saying.
I support organisations in exploring complex sustainability, behavioural and organisational questions — finding the patterns, tensions and human implications within them, and turning those insights into clear, thoughtful writing people can understand and use.
Analytical articles · Thought leadership · Explainers · Knowledge products
If something is getting stuck between intention and implementation, let’s start by understanding the problem.
Availability
Available for independent consulting assignments, project-based work and selected collaborations — remote, hybrid and selected international work.
Scope and fee agreed after briefing.
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