Neoliberal sustainable social work
IT and recording reminders
The lecturer re-recorded this section due to a PowerPoint crash that caused unsaved work; eye twitch is a sign of rerecording.
Practical PSA: save frequently to OneDrive because OneDrive auto-saves every change and helps prevent loss when software crashes.
If a crash happens, take screenshots of everything. This serves multiple purposes:
Helpful for communicating with IT and obtaining extensions if needed.
Provides concrete evidence for the instructor when discussing due dates or technical difficulties.
If you experience tech issues, gather proof and use it to communicate with instructors promptly; avoid delays that can affect grading timelines.
Final quick reminder: use cloud-based autosave/workflow tools (e.g., OneDrive) to protect work.
Neoliberal sustainability and social work: overview
Neoliberal sustainability is not only policy; it shapes how social work is funded, measured, and practiced.
Neoliberalism has been discussed in relation to how it shapes the role and industry of social work and intersects with sustainability contexts.
Expect overlap with other concepts from previous lectures.
Key concept: managerialism within neoliberal sustainability
Neoliberalism introduces managerialism: emphasis on efficiency, KPIs, and return on investment (ROI).
Short-term project funding is prioritized; long-term development and non-monetizable well-being metrics are de-emphasized or sidelined.
This mirrors business practices (e.g., quarterly revenue targets) and political incentives (short election cycles).
In policy, sustainability agendas can become technocratic or marketing-oriented (green branding) rather than addressing root causes.
Positive note: practical actions like recycling programs, green offices, energy/resource use optimization, and paperless practices are still beneficial in practice.
The issue is that neoliberalism tends to valorize these surface measures over deeper systemic changes.
Deeper systemic questions often fall by the wayside: how organizations are resourced, who controls decision-making, and what the actual environmental impacts are.
Surface-level sustainability vs. systemic issues
Sustainability initiatives can look good on paper and aesthetically (e.g., greener offices) but may obscure underlying injustices or structural inequalities.
Tension for social workers arises when organizational sustainability aligns with performance metrics but not with justice, equity, or eco-justice for communities.
If unexamined, social work can become complicit in reproducing neoliberal framings of sustainability.
Individualized resilience is a recurring theme; this shifts focus to people’s capacity to adapt rather than addressing systemic causes of vulnerability.
Example tensions: resilience and behavior change
Example discussed: floods in the Northern Rivers region (2022) illustrate the tension between encouraging resilience and addressing structural causes that would mitigate need for resilience.
Emphasis on behavior change (recycling, energy-saving, consumption) is valuable but incomplete if systemic drivers (housing policy, energy markets) are ignored.
Policy example: energy and housing policy can have wide-reaching effects beyond individual actions; Insulate Britain in the UK is cited as a voting/advocacy example to address housing insulation as climate adaptation and financial relief.
Risk of co-option into greenwashing: social work programs branded as sustainable to meet KPIs or funding emphasis rather than engaging meaningfully with sustainability challenges.
The danger is that superficial green practices may distract from addressing structural injustices perpetuated by current systems.
The role of social work within sustainability politics
Social work should name the politics embedded in sustainability and position itself as a voice for justice.
Neoliberalism is a well-known system, but scholars acknowledge that its current form cannot deliver the needed sustainability changes.
The challenge is to move beyond surface-level organizational initiatives to examine deeper foundations and advocate for systemic change.
Emphasis on critical advocacy: evaluating who is funded, who benefits, and how transitions impact vulnerable communities.
Recommendations for practitioners who want to engage: return to resources like the brain bonus brain food from last week, and consider joining groups such as the AASW SA branch Green Practice group to engage in petitions, marches, and collective action.
Social workers’ relational and community-based practice places them in a strong position to understand and communicate real-world impacts of changes for those most vulnerable.
The goal is not only to adapt under neoliberal conditions but to create and hold space for alternatives emphasizing equity, justice, and collective well-being.
Week 8 preview: exploration of alternatives to neoliberal sustainability; emphasis on not viewing current systems as inevitable or neutral.
The politics of sustainability and why it matters
Sustainability is inherently political and not neutral; treating it as neutral risks complicity.
This week’s takeaways emphasize: sustainability should be connected to justice and eco-justice, not merely to efficiency or marketing.
Key takeaways
Takeaway 1: Neoliberalism shapes sustainability through marketization (examples include carbon trading, greenwashing, green marketing) and tends to prioritize profitability over justice, sometimes exploiting problems to gain opportunities.
Takeaway 2: Neoliberalism drives the individualization of responsibility for sustainable action, which can obscure systemic drivers of inequality and climate impact.
Takeaway 3: Neoliberalism depoliticizes sustainability, reinforcing inequality and the status quo in terms of who benefits and who bears the costs.
Psychological and practical implications in the neoliberal context
Acknowledging cognitive dissonance: people may choose options that align with personal morals (e.g., selecting products with fewer harms) even if broader systemic change is not achieved.
Small, individual changes provide a sense of control in a complex, large-scale problem, which can be reinforcing and empowering.
It is important to balance recognizing personal agency with addressing broader structural causes.
Practical recommendations for social workers and students
Build communities of practice and seek out groups actively working on sustainability and social justice (e.g., Green Practice SA group; petitions and marches).
Use social work’s relational approach to communicate how proposed policies affect vulnerable populations in real life, bridging practice and theory.
Move beyond adaptation and behavior change to advocate for structural changes (housing policy, energy markets, climate justice).
Maintain critical advocacy to prevent greenwashing and ensure that sustainability initiatives address root causes, not just surface-level improvements.
Remember: you are not powerless; there are organized, collective avenues to influence policy and practice.
Looking ahead: week eight and ongoing course context
Week eight will explore alternative systems and approaches to sustainability that move beyond neoliberal frameworks.
The course emphasizes that redesign, not reform, may be necessary to achieve meaningful sustainability and social justice.
Final reminders and course logistics
Book club entry this week is a meme to lighten the load after a heavy week.
Assessment is due in September; an extension of days is available to all students.
If you plan to use the extension, submit as early as possible because extension requests are not checked on weekends or outside business hours; large weekend submission surges can delay handling.
Use the assignment forum or email the instructor with questions.
Concluding note
Sustainability is inherently political and not neutral; social work must engage critically with current systems while advocating for equitable, just, and collective well-being.
The next week will focus on exploring viable alternatives to the neoliberal paradigm and how to implement them in practice.