Glossary of Terms

This glossary provides definitions for 250 key concepts used throughout the Data-Driven Ethics and Systems Change course. Definitions follow ISO 11179 standards: precise, concise, distinct, non-circular, and free of business rules.

Academic Sources

Peer-reviewed publications, university research, and scholarly works that have undergone expert evaluation before publication.

Academic sources provide the highest credibility for ethical analysis because they undergo rigorous scrutiny. They form the foundation of evidence-based arguments for systemic reform.

Example: Journal articles, dissertations, and research reports from university centers studying industry impacts.

Accumulation

The process by which stock variables increase over time as inflows exceed outflows.

Understanding accumulation is essential for predicting how problems compound over time. Many ethical crises result from gradual accumulation that suddenly crosses critical thresholds.

Example: Atmospheric CO2 accumulates when emissions (inflow) exceed natural absorption (outflow).

Adaptive Management

A systematic approach to managing uncertainty by treating policies as experiments, monitoring outcomes, and adjusting strategies based on learning.

Adaptive management acknowledges that complex systems are unpredictable and requires continuous adjustment. This approach is essential for long-term reform efforts.

Example: Adjusting carbon pricing levels based on observed emission reductions and economic impacts.

Addiction Mechanisms

Neurological and psychological processes that create compulsive behavior patterns despite harmful consequences.

Understanding addiction mechanisms reveals how industries deliberately design products to create dependency. This knowledge is crucial for effective intervention design.

Example: Gambling apps use variable reward schedules that trigger dopamine responses similar to substance addiction.

Adverse Selection

A market failure where one party's hidden information leads to an unfavorable mix of participants in transactions.

Adverse selection explains why voluntary ethical commitments often fail—companies with the worst practices have the strongest incentive to avoid disclosure.

Example: Companies with poor safety records avoid transparent reporting while safer companies participate.

Advocacy Strategies

Organized approaches to influencing public policy, corporate behavior, or social norms through targeted communication and action.

Effective advocacy transforms data-driven insights into real-world change by mobilizing stakeholders and influencing decision-makers.

Example: Combining shareholder resolutions, consumer campaigns, and legislative lobbying to pressure industry transformation.

Air Pollution Deaths

Premature mortality caused by exposure to harmful airborne particles and gases from industrial, transportation, and energy sources.

With approximately 8 million annual deaths globally, air pollution represents one of the largest preventable causes of mortality linked to industrial activity.

Example: Fossil fuel combustion produces fine particulate matter (PM2.5) that causes cardiovascular and respiratory deaths.

Analytical Writing

Clear, structured communication that presents evidence, reasoning, and conclusions in a logical and persuasive manner.

Strong analytical writing is essential for conveying complex ethical arguments to diverse audiences and decision-makers.

Example: Policy briefs that synthesize data findings into actionable recommendations for legislators.

Anonymization

The process of removing or modifying personally identifiable information from data to prevent identification of individuals.

Anonymization protects research subjects while enabling ethical use of sensitive data for harm analysis.

Example: Replacing names with codes and aggregating location data to prevent identification of whistleblowers.

Attention Economy

An economic model where human attention is treated as a scarce commodity that businesses compete to capture and monetize.

The attention economy drives social media design toward addictive features that maximize engagement regardless of user wellbeing.

Example: Infinite scroll, notification systems, and algorithmic feeds designed to maximize time spent on platforms.

Audience Analysis

The systematic assessment of target audiences' knowledge, attitudes, needs, and communication preferences.

Effective advocacy requires understanding different audiences to craft messages that resonate and motivate action.

Example: Tailoring presentations for policymakers (emphasizing feasibility) versus activists (emphasizing urgency).

B Corp Certification

A third-party verification that a company meets rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

B Corp status represents a structural change in corporate purpose that legally protects stakeholder-oriented decisions.

Example: Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's maintain B Corp certification requiring annual benefit reports.

Balancing Loops

Feedback loops that counteract change and push systems toward equilibrium or stability.

Balancing loops explain why systems resist transformation and why interventions often produce disappointing results.

Example: As a product's price rises, demand falls, which limits further price increases.

Behavioral Economics

The study of psychological, cognitive, and emotional factors that influence economic decisions, revealing systematic deviations from rational choice.

Understanding behavioral economics is essential for designing interventions that work with human nature rather than against it.

Example: Loss aversion explains why "don't lose $100" motivates more than "gain $100."

Bias Recognition

The ability to identify systematic distortions in data collection, analysis, interpretation, or reporting.

Bias recognition is fundamental to maintaining objectivity in ethical analysis and preventing manipulation.

Example: Recognizing that industry-funded research may systematically understate harm.

Buffer Sizes

The capacity of stocks in a system to absorb fluctuations and maintain stability.

Larger buffers increase system resilience but also slow response to intervention. Understanding buffer dynamics helps predict intervention timelines.

Example: Soil carbon stores act as buffers that delay the full impact of emission reductions on atmospheric levels.

Capstone Project

A culminating academic project that synthesizes learning from an entire course into a comprehensive, original work.

The capstone project transforms theoretical knowledge into practical skills by applying all course frameworks to a real industry.

Example: Analyzing the fast fashion industry and proposing a multi-level reform strategy with implementation timeline.

Carbon Footprint

The total greenhouse gas emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event, or product.

Carbon footprints provide a standardized metric for comparing climate impacts across industries and activities.

Example: A cotton t-shirt's carbon footprint includes farming, processing, manufacturing, transport, and disposal.

Carbon Pricing

Market-based policies that put a price on carbon dioxide emissions to internalize the social cost of climate change.

Carbon pricing represents a leverage point intervention that changes economic incentives across entire industries.

Example: Cap-and-trade systems and carbon taxes both attach costs to emissions.

Causal Loop Diagrams

Visual representations showing circular cause-and-effect relationships, feedback loops, delays, and polarity within systems.

CLDs are fundamental tools for understanding why problems persist and identifying where to break harmful cycles.

Example: The tobacco addiction loop: Nicotine use → Withdrawal symptoms → Craving → Nicotine use.

Choice Architecture

The deliberate design of environments in which people make decisions to influence choices without restricting options.

Choice architecture enables ethical nudges that help people act on their values without coercion.

Example: Placing healthy foods at eye level while keeping unhealthy options less accessible.

Climate Change Impact

The effects of global temperature increases on ecosystems, weather patterns, sea levels, and human systems.

Climate impacts represent the largest-scale externalities in human history, affecting all societies regardless of their emissions.

Example: Rising sea levels, extreme weather events, agricultural disruption, and mass migration.

Coalition Formation

The strategic process of building alliances among diverse stakeholders around shared goals.

Coalitions multiply advocacy power by combining resources, legitimacy, and reach across different constituencies.

Example: Environmental groups, labor unions, and public health advocates joining forces on climate policy.

Cognitive Biases

Systematic patterns of deviation from rational judgment caused by mental shortcuts and emotional factors.

Understanding cognitive biases helps predict how people will respond to ethical information and interventions.

Example: Confirmation bias leads people to seek information supporting existing beliefs while ignoring contradictions.

Cognitive Load

The total amount of mental effort required to process information and make decisions.

High cognitive load impairs decision-making quality, making simplified ethical choices more likely to succeed.

Example: Complex nutritional labels overwhelm consumers; simple traffic-light systems work better.

Collective Action

Coordinated efforts by groups to achieve common goals that individuals cannot accomplish alone.

Many ethical challenges are collective action problems where individual rationality produces collective irrationality.

Example: Reducing carbon emissions requires coordinated action since unilateral efforts are insufficient.

Common Pool Resources

Resources that are available to all but depletable through use, creating potential for overexploitation.

Common pool resources are central to many environmental ethics challenges where individual incentives conflict with collective sustainability.

Example: Fisheries, groundwater, and the atmosphere as a carbon sink.

Complex Systems

Systems with many interconnected components whose behavior emerges from interactions in ways that cannot be predicted from parts alone.

Complex systems require systems thinking because reductionist analysis misses crucial emergent properties.

Example: Financial markets, ecosystems, and public health systems all exhibit complex behavior.

Confirmation Bias

The tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms pre-existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.

Confirmation bias is a major threat to objective ethical analysis that can perpetuate harmful practices.

Example: Industry researchers may unconsciously design studies that are unlikely to find harm.

Corporate Accountability

The principle that corporations should be answerable for their actions' impacts on stakeholders and society.

Strengthening corporate accountability is a key leverage point for transforming harmful industries.

Example: Legal liability for environmental damage, mandatory disclosure of social impacts, and shareholder rights.

Corporate Engagement

The practice of using ownership stakes and business relationships to influence corporate behavior from within.

Corporate engagement can achieve changes that external pressure cannot, particularly when combined with other strategies.

Example: Institutional investors voting on shareholder resolutions about climate disclosure.

Corporate Responsibility

Business practices that integrate social, environmental, and ethical concerns into operations beyond legal requirements.

Corporate responsibility has evolved from philanthropy to systemic change, representing significant leverage for reform.

Example: Moving from charitable donations to transforming supply chains and business models.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

A systematic process for comparing the costs and benefits of decisions, policies, or projects.

Cost-benefit analysis helps prioritize interventions but can be manipulated by excluding hard-to-measure harms.

Example: Comparing healthcare costs prevented versus regulatory compliance costs for pollution controls.

Cradle-to-Grave Analysis

Assessment of environmental impacts from raw material extraction through manufacturing, use, and disposal.

This comprehensive approach prevents problem-shifting where improvements in one stage cause harm in another.

Example: Analyzing a smartphone's impacts from mining through manufacturing to e-waste.

Critical Thinking

The disciplined process of actively analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to guide belief and action.

Critical thinking is essential for navigating competing claims and identifying manipulation in ethical debates.

Example: Questioning the source, methodology, and funding behind industry-funded research.

Cross-Validation

A statistical technique testing model predictions on independent data not used in model development.

Cross-validation strengthens confidence in ethical conclusions by testing whether patterns hold across different contexts.

Example: Verifying that harm patterns found in one country also appear in independent data from other countries.

Cumulative Impact

The combined effect of multiple stressors or exposures that may exceed the sum of individual effects.

Cumulative impacts reveal that focusing on single industries or harms underestimates total burden on affected communities.

Example: Communities facing pollution from multiple industries experience combined health effects.

DALYs (Disability-Adjusted Life Years)

A measure combining years of life lost to premature death with years lived with disability.

DALYs provide a standardized metric for comparing diverse health impacts across industries, enabling evidence-based prioritization.

Example: One DALY represents one year of healthy life lost to death or disability.

Data Aggregation

The process of combining data from multiple sources into summary statistics.

Aggregation can reveal patterns invisible in individual data but may also hide important variation.

Example: Aggregating factory-level emissions data to calculate industry totals.

Data Cleaning

The process of detecting and correcting errors, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies in datasets.

Proper data cleaning is essential for reliable ethical analysis; errors can produce misleading conclusions.

Example: Identifying and handling missing values, duplicates, and outliers before analysis.

Data Credibility

The degree to which data can be trusted as accurate, reliable, and representative.

Assessing data credibility is fundamental to ethical analysis because flawed data leads to flawed conclusions.

Example: Government statistics typically have higher credibility than industry self-reports.

Data Documentation

The practice of recording metadata about data sources, collection methods, and processing steps.

Documentation enables reproducibility and allows others to assess data quality and potential biases.

Example: Recording when, where, how, and by whom data was collected, plus any transformations applied.

Data Literacy

The ability to read, understand, create, and communicate with data.

Data literacy empowers citizens to evaluate ethical claims and hold industries and governments accountable.

Example: Understanding what statistics can and cannot prove about causal relationships.

Data Privacy

The right of individuals to control information about themselves and how it is used.

Respecting data privacy is an ethical obligation that can conflict with transparency goals in harm measurement.

Example: Protecting identities of workers who report safety violations.

Data Quality Assessment

Systematic evaluation of data accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness, and relevance.

Quality assessment prevents drawing conclusions from unreliable evidence.

Example: Checking for missing values, implausible outliers, and consistency across sources.

Data Visualization

The graphical representation of information to reveal patterns, trends, and insights.

Effective visualization communicates complex ethical issues more powerfully than text or tables alone.

Example: Maps showing pollution hotspots overlaid with health outcome data.

Data-Driven Ethics

An approach to moral analysis that grounds ethical judgments in empirical evidence and quantitative measurement.

Data-driven ethics moves beyond philosophical debate to measurable harm and evidence-based intervention.

Example: Using mortality statistics to compare the ethical urgency of different public health issues.

Decision Fatigue

The deterioration of decision quality after making many decisions, leading to impulsive or default choices.

Decision fatigue explains why people often fail to make ethical choices despite good intentions.

Example: Shoppers are more likely to buy unhealthy impulse items at the end of shopping trips.

Default Options

Pre-selected choices that take effect unless someone actively chooses differently.

Defaults are among the most powerful nudges because they leverage status quo bias for positive outcomes.

Example: Opt-out organ donation systems achieve much higher participation than opt-in systems.

Delay Lengths

The time between an action and its observable consequences in a system.

Long delays make it difficult to connect causes and effects, allowing harmful practices to persist.

Example: The 20-30 year delay between smoking and cancer onset allowed tobacco denial.

Delays in Systems

Time lags between actions and their effects that complicate system behavior and management.

Delays cause oscillation, overshoot, and difficulty learning from experience in complex systems.

Example: The delay between emissions and climate effects makes immediate feedback impossible.

Depletion

The process by which stock variables decrease over time as outflows exceed inflows.

Understanding depletion dynamics reveals how resources can suddenly collapse after gradual decline.

Example: Fishery stocks depleting as catch rates exceed reproduction rates.

Mortality caused or significantly contributed to by dietary patterns, including overconsumption and malnutrition.

With 11 million annual deaths globally, diet-related mortality represents one of the largest preventable harm categories.

Example: Deaths from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers linked to ultra-processed food consumption.

Disability Weights

Numerical values between 0 and 1 representing the severity of health states relative to full health.

Disability weights enable standardized comparison of diverse health conditions in DALY calculations.

Example: Blindness might have a disability weight of 0.4, meaning each year lived with blindness equals 0.4 DALYs.

Divestment Strategies

Approaches to selling investments in harmful industries for ethical, political, or financial reasons.

Divestment creates financial pressure and social stigma that can accelerate industry transformation.

Example: Universities and pension funds divesting from fossil fuel companies.

Donella Meadows

An environmental scientist who developed the influential framework of twelve leverage points for system intervention.

Meadows' work provides the theoretical foundation for strategic thinking about where to intervene in systems.

Example: Her 1999 article "Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System" is foundational to this course.

Drug Pricing

The determination of pharmaceutical prices, often involving tensions between profit, innovation, and access.

Drug pricing illustrates market failures in healthcare where profit motives can conflict with public health.

Example: Insulin prices in the US exceeding those in other countries by tenfold or more.

Due Diligence

The investigation and analysis performed before making decisions to assess risks and ethical implications.

Due diligence processes can embed ethical considerations into business decisions systematically.

Example: Supply chain audits investigating labor practices before selecting suppliers.

Dynamic Equilibrium

A state where opposing forces balance so that system variables remain stable despite ongoing activity.

Understanding equilibrium helps identify what maintains harmful systems and what could shift them to new states.

Example: Market equilibrium where supply and demand balance to set prices.

Economic Externalities

Costs or benefits affecting parties who did not choose to incur them, not reflected in market prices.

Externalities are central to ethical analysis because they represent harm imposed on society without accountability.

Example: Air pollution costs borne by healthcare systems rather than by polluting industries.

Emergence

The arising of novel properties at the system level that cannot be predicted from component properties alone.

Emergence explains why reductionist analysis fails for complex ethical problems.

Example: Traffic jams emerge from individual driving decisions without any driver intending to create them.

Eroding Goals

A systems archetype where performance gaps are closed by lowering standards rather than improving performance.

Eroding goals explains how environmental and safety standards gradually weaken under industry pressure.

Example: Regulators reducing pollution limits because industry claims original targets are "unrealistic."

Escalation

A systems archetype where competing parties continually increase their actions in response to each other.

Escalation dynamics can explain arms races, advertising wars, and other resource-wasting competitions.

Example: Fast food companies spending more on marketing to counter competitors' spending.

ESG Metrics

Environmental, Social, and Governance factors used to evaluate corporate sustainability and ethical performance.

ESG provides standardized frameworks for assessing corporate responsibility, though measurement challenges remain.

Example: Carbon emissions (E), labor practices (S), and board diversity (G) as assessment criteria.

Ethical Data Collection

Data gathering practices that respect participant rights, minimize harm, and maintain scientific integrity.

Ethical collection ensures that measuring harm doesn't itself cause harm through privacy violations or exploitation.

Example: Obtaining informed consent, protecting anonymity, and sharing findings with participants.

Ethical Reasoning

The systematic process of evaluating actions, policies, or systems according to moral principles and frameworks.

Strong ethical reasoning connects data to values, translating evidence into normative conclusions.

Example: Using harm data to argue that industry practices violate principles of justice and beneficence.

Ethics

The branch of philosophy concerned with concepts of right and wrong conduct and moral obligations.

Ethics provides the normative framework that gives meaning to data-driven harm measurement.

Example: Consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethics offer different lenses for evaluating industry behavior.

Ethics Washing

The practice of making superficial ethical claims to deflect criticism without substantive change.

Recognizing ethics washing prevents being misled by corporate responsibility theater.

Example: Announcing ethical initiatives while core business practices remain unchanged.

Events Level

The most visible surface layer in the iceberg model, representing observable occurrences.

Events capture attention but represent symptoms of deeper patterns and structures.

Example: A factory pollution incident is an event; the pattern is repeated violations across the industry.

Evidence Presentation

The organization and communication of data and analysis to support conclusions persuasively.

Effective evidence presentation makes complex ethical arguments accessible and compelling.

Example: Using visualizations, narratives, and strategic framing to communicate findings.

Evidence-Based Ethics

An approach to moral judgment that prioritizes empirical evidence and systematic analysis over intuition or authority.

Evidence-based ethics enables rigorous comparison and prioritization of ethical interventions.

Example: Using DALY data to compare the urgency of addressing tobacco versus fast fashion harms.

Fast Fashion Industry

Clothing production and retail emphasizing rapid turnover of trendy, inexpensive garments.

Fast fashion exemplifies multiple harm categories including labor exploitation, environmental damage, and consumption addiction.

Example: Global brands producing 52 "micro-seasons" per year with garments designed for brief use.

Feedback Loops

Circular causal chains where effects eventually influence their original causes, either reinforcing or counteracting change.

Feedback loops are central to understanding why problems persist and how interventions can transform systems.

Example: Success breeds success (reinforcing) or thermostats maintain temperature (balancing).

Financial Fraud

Deceptive practices designed to secure unlawful financial gain.

Financial fraud represents direct harm to victims while also undermining trust in economic systems.

Example: Ponzi schemes, securities fraud, and accounting manipulation.

Five Whys Technique

A root cause analysis method that repeatedly asks "why" to trace symptoms back to fundamental causes.

The Five Whys prevents superficial solutions that treat symptoms while underlying problems persist.

Example: Why child labor? Low wages. Why low wages? Low cocoa prices. Why low prices? Market power concentration.

Fixes That Fail

A systems archetype where solutions work temporarily but create unintended consequences that worsen the original problem.

Understanding this archetype prevents implementing solutions that backfire after initial success.

Example: Building more highways to reduce congestion induces demand and eventually worsens traffic.

Flow Variables

Quantities measured as rates over time that change the levels of stocks in systems.

Flows determine how quickly stocks accumulate or deplete, affecting system dynamics and intervention timing.

Example: Annual emissions (flow) versus atmospheric concentration (stock).

Food Addiction

Compulsive eating behaviors driven by neurological responses similar to substance addiction.

Food addiction reveals how ultra-processed foods are engineered to create dependency for profit.

Example: Combinations of sugar, salt, and fat designed to trigger dopamine responses.

Fossil Fuel Industry

Industries extracting, refining, and distributing coal, oil, and natural gas for energy.

With 8 million annual deaths from air pollution plus climate impacts, fossil fuels represent one of the highest-harm industries.

Example: Oil and gas companies, coal mining, and petrochemical refiners.

Framing Effects

The phenomenon where how information is presented significantly influences decisions and judgments.

Strategic framing can make ethical messages more persuasive by connecting to audience values and concerns.

Example: Framing climate action as "protecting our children" versus "restricting industry."

Free Rider Problem

The situation where individuals benefit from collective goods without contributing to their provision.

Free rider problems explain why voluntary ethical commitments often fail without enforcement mechanisms.

Example: Companies benefiting from industry-wide reputation while avoiding individual responsibility investments.

Future of Ethics

Emerging challenges and opportunities in ethical analysis as technology, society, and knowledge evolve.

Understanding future directions prepares students for careers addressing ethical challenges that don't yet exist.

Example: AI ethics, genetic engineering ethics, and space ethics as emerging fields.

Gambling Industry

Businesses offering betting, gaming, and wagering services designed around risk and chance.

The gambling industry deliberately exploits psychological vulnerabilities for profit through addiction mechanisms.

Example: Casinos, sports betting, lotteries, and online gambling platforms.

Geographic Shifting

The displacement of problems from one location to another rather than genuine resolution.

Geographic shifting often moves harm from visible to less visible locations without reducing total impact.

Example: Exporting electronic waste to developing countries instead of proper domestic recycling.

Government Data Sources

Statistical information collected and published by governmental agencies.

Government data typically offers high credibility and systematic coverage, though political interference can compromise quality.

Example: EPA pollution data, BLS employment statistics, and census information.

Graphical Storytelling

The use of visual elements to construct narratives that communicate complex information accessibly.

Graphical storytelling makes ethical arguments more memorable and emotionally compelling than data alone.

Example: Infographics showing the journey of a product through harmful supply chains.

Grassroots Organizing

Community-based mobilization that builds power from the ground up through local engagement.

Grassroots organizing creates the political will for policy change that top-down approaches cannot generate.

Example: Door-to-door campaigns, community meetings, and local action networks.

Greenwashing

Marketing practices that create misleading impressions of environmental responsibility.

Identifying greenwashing is essential for distinguishing genuine reform from superficial public relations.

Example: Oil companies advertising small renewable investments while expanding fossil fuel extraction.

Growth and Underinvest

A systems archetype where growth is limited because capacity investment is delayed or insufficient.

This archetype explains how short-term thinking undermines long-term sustainability.

Example: Delaying infrastructure investment until capacity constraints cause crises.

Harm Definition

The conceptual specification of what constitutes negative impact requiring ethical attention.

Clear harm definitions enable consistent measurement and comparison across industries and contexts.

Example: Distinguishing physical harm, economic harm, psychological harm, and environmental harm.

Harm Per Revenue

A normalized metric expressing harm relative to the economic value generated by an industry.

Harm per revenue enables fair comparison between industries of vastly different sizes.

Example: Deaths per billion dollars of revenue across tobacco, fossil fuels, and fast fashion.

Harm Quantification

The measurement and numerical expression of negative impacts using standardized metrics.

Quantification transforms subjective concerns into objective evidence that can guide intervention priorities.

Example: Calculating total DALYs attributable to a specific industry globally.

Harm Scorecards

Structured assessments comparing industries across multiple harm dimensions using standardized metrics.

Scorecards provide comprehensive overviews that prevent focusing on single harm categories while ignoring others.

Example: Ranking industries on environmental, health, social, and economic harm indicators.

Health Impact Assessment

Systematic evaluation of the potential health effects of policies, programs, or projects.

Health impact assessment reveals hidden health costs of business decisions before they occur.

Example: Assessing how a new factory might affect respiratory health in nearby communities.

High Leverage Points

Intervention points in systems where small changes can produce large effects.

Identifying high leverage points enables efficient use of limited resources for maximum transformation.

Example: Changing corporate purpose from shareholder primacy to stakeholder capitalism.

Iceberg Model

A systems thinking framework analyzing problems at four levels: events, patterns, structures, and mental models.

The iceberg model reveals that visible problems are symptoms of deeper systemic issues requiring deeper interventions.

Example: Events (oil spill) → Patterns (repeated safety violations) → Structures (cost-cutting incentives) → Mental models (profit over safety).

Identity Theft

The fraudulent acquisition and use of personal information to assume another person's identity.

Identity theft represents a growing harm category enabled by digital systems and data breaches.

Example: Using stolen credentials to open financial accounts or commit fraud.

Impact Investing

Investment approaches that seek both financial returns and measurable positive social or environmental impact.

Impact investing channels capital toward solutions while demonstrating that ethics and profit can align.

Example: Investing in renewable energy, affordable housing, or sustainable agriculture enterprises.

Impact Mapping

Visual representation of cause-and-effect relationships between interventions and desired outcomes.

Impact maps clarify theories of change and identify where interventions can be most effective.

Example: Mapping how policy changes lead to behavior changes lead to harm reduction.

Implementation Strategy

A detailed plan for putting proposed interventions into practice, including resources, timeline, and responsibilities.

Strong implementation strategies distinguish practical proposals from wishful thinking.

Example: Specifying who does what, by when, with what resources to achieve reform goals.

Incentive Design

The structured creation of rewards and penalties to motivate desired behaviors.

Well-designed incentives align individual self-interest with collective wellbeing.

Example: Tax benefits for sustainable practices or penalties for pollution.

Independent Verification

Confirmation of claims or data by parties without vested interest in the outcome.

Independent verification overcomes the credibility problems of self-reported industry data.

Example: Third-party audits of factory conditions or emissions levels.

Industrial Agriculture

Large-scale, mechanized farming emphasizing efficiency, monocultures, and chemical inputs.

Industrial agriculture illustrates complex tradeoffs between productivity and environmental/health harms.

Example: Factory farms, monoculture crops, and heavy pesticide and fertilizer use.

Industry Comparisons

Systematic evaluation of multiple industries using consistent metrics and frameworks.

Cross-industry comparison enables prioritization and reveals common patterns in harmful practices.

Example: Comparing deaths, economic costs, and social harms across tobacco, fossil fuels, and gambling.

Industry Self-Reporting

Data and claims provided by industries about their own performance.

Self-reported data requires critical evaluation due to obvious incentives for favorable presentation.

Example: Corporate sustainability reports and industry-funded research studies.

Information Asymmetry

The situation where one party in a transaction has more or better information than the other.

Information asymmetry enables exploitation and prevents markets from producing efficient or ethical outcomes.

Example: Companies knowing about product risks that consumers cannot detect.

Information Flows

The movement of data and knowledge through a system, affecting decisions at various points.

Changing information flows is a powerful leverage point that can transform behavior throughout systems.

Example: Mandatory disclosure of pollution levels that enables community response.

Infographics

Visual representations combining images, charts, and minimal text to communicate information quickly.

Infographics make complex ethical arguments accessible and shareable for broader audiences.

Example: A single-page visual showing the lifecycle of a fast fashion garment.

The principle that participants must understand and voluntarily agree to research or data collection.

Informed consent is a fundamental ethical requirement protecting individual autonomy and dignity.

Example: Explaining how interview data will be used and obtaining explicit permission.

Interconnections

The relationships and interactions between components within a system.

Understanding interconnections reveals how effects propagate and why isolated interventions often fail.

Example: The connection between poverty, education, and child labor in agricultural supply chains.

Intergenerational Harm

Negative impacts that affect future generations who cannot participate in current decisions.

Intergenerational harm raises unique ethical challenges about representing the interests of those not yet born.

Example: Climate change impacts that will primarily affect people born after current decision-makers.

International Standards

Globally recognized norms, guidelines, and specifications for products, services, and practices.

International standards create baseline expectations that can drive improvement across jurisdictions.

Example: ISO environmental standards, ILO labor standards, and UN human rights frameworks.

Intervention Hierarchy

The ranking of intervention types by their potential for systemic impact.

Understanding intervention hierarchy helps choose strategies appropriate to available resources and goals.

Example: Parameters (weak) → Rules (moderate) → Goals (strong) → Paradigms (transformative).

Intervention Sequencing

The strategic ordering of interventions over time to build on each other's effects.

Proper sequencing creates momentum where early wins enable later, more ambitious changes.

Example: Building public awareness before pursuing policy change; achieving policy before structural reform.

Intervention Timing

The strategic selection of when to implement interventions for maximum effectiveness.

Timing interventions to coincide with windows of opportunity or crisis moments increases success probability.

Example: Launching tobacco regulation efforts after major research findings or public scandals.

Labor Exploitation

The use of workers under conditions that violate their rights, dignity, or fair compensation.

Labor exploitation is a common feature across harmful industries seeking to minimize costs.

Example: Sweatshop conditions, wage theft, and unsafe working environments in global supply chains.

Legal Liability

The legal responsibility for actions or failures that cause harm to others.

Strengthening legal liability is a leverage point that changes corporate risk calculations.

Example: Product liability lawsuits against tobacco companies for health damages.

Leverage Points

Places within systems where small changes can produce large effects.

Donella Meadows' leverage points framework provides the strategic foundation for efficient intervention design.

Example: Changing tax policy (low leverage) versus changing corporate purpose (high leverage).

Life-Cycle Analysis

Comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts across all stages of a product's existence.

LCA reveals hidden impacts in supply chains that simple metrics miss.

Example: Assessing a t-shirt's impacts from cotton farming through disposal.

Limits to Growth

A systems archetype where growth processes encounter constraints that slow or stop expansion.

Understanding limits to growth helps anticipate when and why systems hit barriers.

Example: Population growth limited by food production, or market saturation limiting sales growth.

Loss Aversion

The tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains.

Loss aversion is a key behavioral insight for framing ethical appeals effectively.

Example: "Don't lose your health" motivates more than "gain better health."

Low Leverage Points

Intervention points where changes have limited system-wide effects.

Recognizing low leverage points prevents wasting resources on interventions that cannot produce transformation.

Example: Adjusting tax rates by small percentages without changing underlying structures.

Market-Based Solutions

Policy approaches using economic incentives rather than direct regulation.

Market-based solutions can achieve outcomes efficiently but may fail when markets themselves are flawed.

Example: Carbon trading systems that let markets find the cheapest emission reductions.

Market Failures

Situations where market mechanisms fail to allocate resources efficiently or ethically.

Understanding market failures reveals why many ethical problems persist despite economic activity.

Example: Externalities, monopolies, information asymmetry, and public goods problems.

Media Strategy

Planned approaches to engaging news media, social media, and other communication channels.

Effective media strategy amplifies advocacy messages to reach broader audiences.

Example: Press releases, op-eds, social media campaigns, and journalist relationships.

Mental Models

Internal representations, assumptions, and beliefs that shape how individuals understand reality.

Mental models are the deepest leverage point because they determine what solutions seem possible.

Example: The mental model that "nature is a resource to exploit" versus "nature is a partner to steward."

Mental Models Level

The deepest layer in the iceberg model, representing the beliefs and assumptions creating system structures.

Changing mental models produces the most fundamental transformation but requires the most effort.

Example: Shifting from scarcity thinking to abundance thinking about energy.

Message Framing

The strategic selection of how to present information to influence audience interpretation.

Effective framing makes the same information more persuasive by connecting to audience values.

Example: Framing climate action as patriotic energy independence rather than environmental protection.

Meta-Analysis

Statistical methods combining results from multiple studies to identify patterns and increase power.

Meta-analysis overcomes limitations of individual studies and provides more robust evidence.

Example: Combining 50 studies on tobacco harm to establish definitive health conclusions.

Missing Data

Information that should be present in a dataset but is absent.

Understanding how to handle missing data prevents drawing incorrect conclusions.

Example: Developing imputation strategies when some factories don't report emissions.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Systematic tracking of intervention implementation and outcomes to assess progress and enable learning.

M&E enables adaptive management by providing feedback on what is and isn't working.

Example: Tracking policy implementation, measuring outcome indicators, and adjusting strategies.

Moral Hazard

The situation where one party takes risks because another party bears the consequences.

Moral hazard explains why industries may engage in harmful practices when costs fall on society.

Example: Banks taking excessive risks when government bailouts protect them from losses.

Morbidity Rate

The frequency of disease or health conditions in a population over a specified period.

Morbidity rates capture suffering that mortality statistics miss.

Example: Rates of asthma, diabetes, or depression attributable to industry impacts.

Mortality Rate

The frequency of death in a population over a specified period.

Mortality rates provide the most concrete measure of industry harm to human life.

Example: Age-adjusted death rates from lung cancer attributable to tobacco.

Movement Building

The process of developing sustained collective action capacity for social change.

Movements create the political will for systemic change that individual advocacy cannot achieve.

Example: The tobacco control movement that transformed smoking from glamorous to stigmatized.

Multi-Dimensional Harm

Negative impacts spanning multiple categories such as health, environment, social, and economic.

Multi-dimensional assessment prevents focusing on one harm type while ignoring others.

Example: Fast fashion causing environmental pollution, labor exploitation, and consumer debt.

Nash Equilibrium

A game theory concept where no player can improve their outcome by unilaterally changing strategy.

Nash equilibrium explains why harmful collective outcomes persist even when everyone knows they're bad.

Example: The prisoner's dilemma equilibrium where both parties defect despite mutual cooperation being better.

Negative Externalities

Costs imposed on third parties who did not choose to incur them.

Negative externalities represent the core mechanism through which harmful industries shift costs to society.

Example: Healthcare costs from pollution borne by taxpayers rather than polluters.

Negative Feedback

Feedback that counteracts change, pushing systems toward stability or equilibrium.

Negative feedback explains system resistance to intervention and the need for sustained pressure.

Example: Thermostat-controlled heating that reduces output as temperature rises.

Negative Feedback Strength

The power of stabilizing feedback loops to resist change in systems.

Strengthening beneficial negative feedback is a leverage point for improving system outcomes.

Example: Increasing pollution penalties to strengthen the feedback against emissions.

Network Visualizations

Graphical representations of relationships and connections between entities.

Network visualizations reveal influence patterns and key actors that tabular data obscures.

Example: Maps showing connections between industry lobbyists and legislators.

NGO Data Sources

Information collected and published by non-governmental organizations.

NGO data often provides alternative perspectives to industry and government sources, though advocacy agendas require consideration.

Example: Human Rights Watch reports, Transparency International indices, and environmental NGO monitoring.

Nonlinear Dynamics

System behavior where effects are not proportional to causes and small changes can produce large effects.

Nonlinearity explains why gradual interventions sometimes produce sudden transformations (and why they sometimes fail).

Example: Climate tipping points where small temperature increases trigger runaway changes.

Normalized Metrics

Measures adjusted to common scales enabling fair comparison across different contexts.

Normalization is essential for comparing industries of different sizes and types.

Example: Deaths per million people rather than absolute deaths; harm per dollar of revenue.

Nudge Theory

The concept that indirect suggestions and default options can influence behavior without restricting choices.

Nudges offer ethical ways to promote better decisions while preserving autonomy.

Example: Automatic enrollment in retirement savings with opt-out rather than opt-in.

Objectivity

The quality of being based on facts and evidence rather than personal feelings or biases.

Maintaining objectivity in ethical analysis is challenging but essential for credibility.

Example: Considering evidence that contradicts preferred conclusions.

Open Data

Data that is freely available for anyone to access, use, and share.

Open data enables independent verification and democratic participation in ethical analysis.

Example: Government pollution databases and academic research datasets.

Opioid Crisis

The epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death resulting from overprescription and subsequent transition to illegal opioids.

The opioid crisis exemplifies how industry practices can cause massive public health harm.

Example: Pharmaceutical marketing that understated addiction risks leading to widespread dependency.

Outlier Detection

Methods for identifying data points that differ significantly from the majority.

Outlier detection prevents both erroneous data from distorting analysis and identification of genuine extreme cases.

Example: Identifying factories with emissions far above or below industry norms.

Paradigm Shifts

Fundamental changes in the basic concepts and assumptions that define reality.

Paradigm shifts are the highest leverage point, transforming what solutions become conceivable.

Example: The shift from seeing smoking as sophisticated to seeing it as self-destructive.

Pareto Efficiency

A state where no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off.

Pareto efficiency is often used to justify harmful arrangements by ignoring distribution and power imbalances.

Example: Market outcomes may be Pareto efficient while still being profoundly unjust.

Patterns Level

The second layer of the iceberg model, representing trends and recurring behaviors over time.

Recognizing patterns reveals that individual events are not isolated but part of ongoing dynamics.

Example: Not just one oil spill, but a pattern of increasing spill frequency over years.

Peer Review

The evaluation of research by independent experts in the same field before publication.

Peer review provides quality assurance that increases confidence in research findings.

Example: Academic journals requiring expert reviewers to approve articles before publication.

Per Capita Impact

Harm measures divided by affected population size.

Per capita metrics reveal disproportionate impacts on specific communities.

Example: Pollution burden per resident in different neighborhoods.

Persuasive Communication

Strategic messaging designed to change attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors.

Effective persuasive communication translates evidence into action by connecting to audience motivations.

Example: Using storytelling, emotional appeals, and credible messengers to promote change.

Pesticide Exposure

Contact with agricultural chemicals through occupational, residential, or dietary pathways.

Pesticide exposure illustrates how industrial agriculture creates health risks for workers and communities.

Example: Farmworker health effects from chemical application in fields.

Pharmaceutical Industry

Businesses researching, developing, manufacturing, and marketing medications.

The pharmaceutical industry illustrates tensions between profit motives and public health obligations.

Example: Drug development, pricing practices, and marketing to physicians.

Pigouvian Taxes

Taxes on activities that generate negative externalities, designed to internalize social costs.

Pigouvian taxes represent a market-based intervention that changes price signals to reflect true costs.

Example: Carbon taxes that make fossil fuels reflect their climate and health damages.

Policy Advocacy

Efforts to influence government decisions, legislation, and regulation.

Policy advocacy translates evidence into institutional change with system-wide effects.

Example: Lobbying, public comment submissions, and legislative testimony.

Policy Design

The process of developing rules, incentives, and institutions to achieve desired outcomes.

Good policy design applies behavioral insights and systems thinking to create effective interventions.

Example: Designing regulations with enforcement mechanisms and appropriate incentive structures.

Positive Externalities

Benefits that accrue to parties not involved in a transaction.

Positive externalities may be under-produced because those creating them don't capture full benefits.

Example: Education benefits society beyond the individual student.

Positive Feedback

Feedback that amplifies change, pushing systems away from equilibrium.

Positive feedback explains growth, escalation, and how small changes can produce system transformation.

Example: More users attract more developers, which attracts more users.

Positive Feedback Gains

The strength of amplifying feedback loops in systems.

Controlling positive feedback gains is a leverage point for preventing runaway harmful dynamics.

Example: Limiting the amplification of viral misinformation on social platforms.

Present Bias

The tendency to overvalue immediate rewards relative to future benefits.

Present bias explains why people make short-term choices despite knowing long-term harm.

Example: Choosing immediate gratification from unhealthy food despite future health consequences.

Primary Sources

Original materials providing direct evidence about topics of study.

Primary sources offer the most reliable foundation for ethical analysis when available.

Example: Corporate internal documents, government data, and original research data.

Principal-Agent Problem

The difficulty of getting one party (agent) to act in the interest of another (principal).

Principal-agent problems explain why corporate managers may pursue personal interests over stakeholder welfare.

Example: Executives prioritizing short-term stock prices for bonus compensation over long-term sustainability.

Prisoner's Dilemma

A game theory scenario where individual rational choices lead to collectively irrational outcomes.

The prisoner's dilemma models many ethical collective action problems.

Example: Two companies polluting because each fears competitive disadvantage from unilateral cleanup.

Problem Shifting

Moving problems from one area to another rather than solving them.

Recognizing problem shifting prevents celebrating false victories that simply relocate harm.

Example: Reducing plastic in one product by increasing it in packaging.

Public Awareness Campaigns

Organized efforts to inform and educate the public about issues and encourage action.

Effective campaigns can shift public opinion and create pressure for policy change.

Example: Anti-smoking campaigns using health warnings and social marketing.

Public Goods

Resources that are non-excludable and non-rivalrous, available to all without depletion by use.

Public goods are under-provided by markets, requiring collective action for adequate provision.

Example: Clean air, national defense, and basic research as public goods.

Publication Bias

The tendency for studies with positive results to be published more often than those with null findings.

Publication bias distorts the evidence base by hiding failures and inflating apparent effectiveness.

Example: Industry-funded studies finding "no harm" get published while damaging studies stay buried.

QALYs (Quality-Adjusted Life Years)

A measure combining life duration with health quality, where one QALY equals one year in perfect health.

QALYs enable comparison of interventions affecting both length and quality of life.

Example: A treatment that extends life by 2 years at 0.5 quality produces 1 QALY.

Qualitative Analysis

Research methods emphasizing in-depth understanding of experiences, meanings, and social contexts.

Qualitative methods capture nuances that quantitative metrics miss.

Example: Interviews with affected communities revealing lived experiences of industrial harm.

Quantitative Analysis

Research methods using numerical data and statistical techniques.

Quantitative analysis enables standardized measurement and comparison across contexts.

Example: Statistical analysis of mortality rates across industries.

Random Sampling

Selection of study participants where every member of the population has an equal chance of inclusion.

Random sampling produces representative data that supports valid generalizations.

Example: Randomly selecting factories for inspection rather than targeting known violators.

Rebound Effects

Situations where efficiency improvements lead to increased total consumption.

Rebound effects can eliminate or even reverse expected benefits from efficiency interventions.

Example: More fuel-efficient cars leading to more driving and similar total emissions.

Reform Proposals

Specific recommendations for changes to policies, practices, or structures.

Strong reform proposals translate analysis into actionable recommendations with implementation paths.

Example: A detailed proposal for extended producer responsibility legislation with specific provisions.

Regulatory Approaches

Government methods for controlling behavior through rules, standards, and enforcement.

Regulation remains essential where market-based approaches fail to protect public interests.

Example: Emission limits, safety requirements, and disclosure mandates.

Regulatory Capture

The phenomenon where regulatory agencies serve industry interests over public interests.

Regulatory capture explains why regulation often fails to protect the public from harmful industries.

Example: Environmental agencies staffed by former industry executives making industry-friendly decisions.

Regulatory Enforcement

The implementation and application of rules, including monitoring, penalties, and compliance verification.

Regulations without enforcement are merely suggestions that industries can ignore.

Example: Inspections, fines, and license revocations for regulatory violations.

Reinforcing Loops

Feedback loops that amplify change in the same direction, creating growth or decline.

Reinforcing loops explain how problems escalate and how interventions can create positive momentum.

Example: Success attracting resources that enable more success.

Reporting Bias

Systematic differences between what is observed and what is reported.

Reporting bias undermines data quality when harmful outcomes are systematically underreported.

Example: Industries underreporting workplace injuries to avoid regulatory attention.

Reproducibility

The ability of independent researchers to obtain consistent results using the same methods and data.

Reproducibility is essential for scientific credibility and enables verification of ethical claims.

Example: Publishing data and methods so others can verify findings.

Research Methods

Systematic procedures for collecting and analyzing information to answer questions.

Rigorous research methods distinguish evidence-based ethics from opinion-based advocacy.

Example: Survey design, experimental methods, and statistical analysis techniques.

Resilience

The capacity of systems to maintain function and recover from disturbances.

Building resilience into reformed systems prevents backsliding when conditions change.

Example: Diverse energy systems more resilient than dependence on single fuel sources.

Risk Assessment

Systematic evaluation of potential hazards, their likelihood, and potential severity.

Risk assessment helps prioritize attention and resources toward the most important threats.

Example: Evaluating the probability and magnitude of different environmental or health risks.

Root Cause Analysis

Systematic investigation to identify the fundamental causes of problems rather than just symptoms.

Root cause analysis prevents wasted effort on superficial fixes that don't address underlying issues.

Example: Using the Five Whys technique to trace child labor back to market power concentration.

Sampling Methods

Techniques for selecting subsets of populations for study.

Proper sampling ensures that study findings can be generalized to broader populations.

Example: Random sampling, stratified sampling, and cluster sampling approaches.

Scientific Method

The systematic approach to inquiry through observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and conclusion.

The scientific method provides the foundation for evidence-based ethical analysis.

Example: Formulating testable hypotheses about harm causation and testing them against data.

Secondhand Smoke

Tobacco smoke inhaled involuntarily by non-smokers in proximity to smokers.

Secondhand smoke extends tobacco harm beyond users to innocent bystanders.

Example: Non-smoking family members developing lung cancer from household smoke exposure.

Secondary Sources

Materials that interpret, analyze, or summarize primary sources.

Secondary sources provide synthesis and context but are further removed from original evidence.

Example: News articles, academic reviews, and textbooks summarizing original research.

Selection Bias

Systematic error arising from non-random selection of study subjects.

Selection bias can make harmful practices appear beneficial when affected populations are excluded.

Example: Studying only surviving workers ignores those who left or died due to occupational hazards.

Self-Organization

The spontaneous emergence of order and structure in systems without external control.

Self-organization is a high leverage point because it determines what new structures become possible.

Example: Markets, ecosystems, and social movements that organize without central direction.

Shareholder Primacy

The corporate governance principle prioritizing shareholder returns above other stakeholder interests.

Shareholder primacy creates structural pressure toward harmful externalities for profit.

Example: Cutting safety investments to increase quarterly earnings.

Shifting the Burden

A systems archetype where symptomatic solutions erode the capability for fundamental solutions.

This archetype explains how industries become dependent on harmful practices.

Example: Using pesticides erodes natural pest control, creating dependence on more pesticides.

Side Effects

Unintended consequences that accompany intended effects of actions.

Anticipating side effects prevents interventions from creating new problems.

Example: Pollution controls that increase energy consumption.

Accounting frameworks that include external costs imposed on society beyond traditional financial measures.

Social cost accounting reveals the true economic impact of industries by including externalities.

Example: Calculating that tobacco's $35 billion in profits come with $1 trillion in social costs.

Situations where individual rational choices lead to collectively suboptimal outcomes.

Social dilemmas explain why harmful practices persist despite being bad for everyone collectively.

Example: Overfishing where each boat's rational choice depletes stocks that all boats need.

Organizations using business methods primarily to pursue social or environmental objectives.

Social enterprises demonstrate alternative models that align profit with positive impact.

Example: Fair trade companies, social purpose businesses, and mission-driven organizations.

Systematic analysis of how policies, programs, or projects affect communities and social conditions.

Social impact assessment reveals harm to communities that economic analysis may ignore.

Example: Evaluating how factory closure affects local employment, services, and social cohesion.

Negative effects of social media platforms on mental health, social cohesion, and information quality.

Social media harms illustrate how attention-based business models can conflict with user wellbeing.

Example: Depression, anxiety, misinformation spread, and polarization linked to platform design.

Shared expectations about appropriate behavior within groups or societies.

Social norms powerfully influence behavior and can be leveraged for ethical change.

Example: The dramatic shift in social norms around smoking in public spaces.

Soil Degradation

The decline in soil quality through erosion, nutrient depletion, compaction, or contamination.

Soil degradation threatens food security and represents a slow-moving but severe environmental harm.

Example: Industrial agriculture practices reducing soil organic matter and productivity.

Source Triangulation

Using multiple independent sources to verify information and increase confidence.

Triangulation overcomes the limitations and biases of any single source.

Example: Confirming harm patterns using government data, academic studies, and NGO reports.

Stakeholder Analysis

Systematic identification and assessment of parties affected by or affecting a situation.

Stakeholder analysis reveals power dynamics and identifies allies and opponents for change.

Example: Mapping who benefits from harmful practices, who is harmed, and who has power to change them.

Stakeholder Capitalism

A corporate governance model optimizing value for all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

Stakeholder capitalism represents a fundamental shift that could transform harmful industries.

Example: Considering impacts on workers, communities, and environment alongside shareholder returns.

Stakeholder Engagement

The process of involving affected parties in decisions that affect them.

Inclusive stakeholder engagement improves decision quality and builds legitimacy for change.

Example: Consulting workers, communities, and environmental groups in reform design.

Statistical Thinking

The approach of understanding variation, uncertainty, and patterns in data.

Statistical thinking prevents both overconfidence in uncertain findings and dismissal of strong evidence.

Example: Understanding confidence intervals, statistical significance, and sampling error.

Stock-Flow Structures

System configurations determining how stocks accumulate through inflows and deplete through outflows.

Changing stock-flow structures is a higher leverage point than adjusting parameters.

Example: Redesigning production systems to create circular material flows rather than linear waste.

Stock Variables

Quantities that can be measured at a point in time, accumulating or depleting over time.

Stocks represent the inertia in systems that causes delayed responses to intervention.

Example: Atmospheric CO2 concentration, population, and capital assets.

Stocks and Flows

The fundamental building blocks of system dynamics, distinguishing quantities from rates of change.

Understanding stocks and flows reveals system behavior that snapshot analysis misses.

Example: Wealth (stock) changes based on income minus spending (flows).

Stratified Sampling

A sampling method dividing populations into subgroups and sampling from each.

Stratified sampling ensures representation of minority perspectives that random sampling might miss.

Example: Sampling proportionally from different geographic regions, income levels, or demographics.

Structures Level

The third layer of the iceberg model, representing the systems, relationships, and incentives creating patterns.

Changing structures creates lasting change; changing events or patterns without structural change allows recurrence.

Example: The economic incentive structures that reward cost externalization.

Subjectivity

The quality of being influenced by personal feelings, opinions, and experiences.

Acknowledging subjectivity helps identify where bias may enter analysis.

Example: Value judgments about what harms are most important cannot be purely objective.

Subsidies

Government financial support reducing the cost of producing or consuming certain goods.

Subsidy reform is a leverage point for changing which activities are economically favored.

Example: Fossil fuel subsidies that make dirty energy artificially cheap.

Success Metrics

Quantitative measures used to evaluate whether interventions achieve their intended goals.

Clear success metrics enable accountability and learning from experience.

Example: Reduction in emissions, improvement in health indicators, or policy adoption rates.

Success to the Successful

A systems archetype where initial advantages compound through resource allocation.

This archetype explains increasing inequality and market concentration.

Example: Rich companies can afford more lobbying, which creates rules favoring rich companies.

Supply Chain Ethics

Moral considerations regarding practices throughout production and distribution networks.

Supply chain ethics reveals how consumer products depend on hidden harms far from point of sale.

Example: Labor conditions, environmental practices, and corruption in global supply networks.

Sustainability Reporting

Corporate disclosure of environmental, social, and governance performance.

Sustainability reports provide data for ethical analysis, though quality and honesty vary.

Example: Annual reports covering carbon emissions, labor practices, and governance structures.

System Archetypes

Recurring patterns of behavior in systems that produce predictable problems.

Recognizing archetypes enables learning from one context to apply in others.

Example: Tragedy of the Commons, Shifting the Burden, and Fixes That Fail.

System Boundaries

The conceptual lines defining what is inside and outside the system being analyzed.

Boundary choices significantly affect analysis conclusions; narrow boundaries hide externalities.

Example: Analyzing a factory versus analyzing its entire supply chain and waste streams.

System Collapse

The rapid failure of a system's ability to maintain function and structure.

Understanding collapse dynamics helps identify warning signs and prevention strategies.

Example: Fishery collapse when overfishing exceeds ecosystem regeneration capacity.

System Components

The elements that make up a system, including actors, resources, and processes.

Identifying components is the first step in system mapping and analysis.

Example: Firms, regulators, consumers, and resources in an industry system.

System Dynamics Models

Computer simulations representing feedback structures, stocks, and flows to explore system behavior.

System dynamics models enable testing intervention scenarios before implementation.

Example: Simulating how different carbon prices affect emissions trajectories over decades.

System Goals

The purposes that systems are organized to achieve, whether explicit or implicit.

Changing system goals is a high leverage point that transforms what constitutes success.

Example: Shifting corporate goals from profit maximization to stakeholder wellbeing.

System Intervention

Actions taken to alter system behavior, structure, or outcomes.

Effective intervention requires understanding system dynamics and leverage points.

Example: Policy changes, market mechanisms, or cultural shifts designed to reduce harm.

System Rules

The formal and informal guidelines governing behavior within systems.

Changing rules is a moderate-to-high leverage point affecting all actors within the system.

Example: Regulations, property rights, contracts, and social norms.

Systematic Review

Rigorous synthesis of research on a specific question using pre-specified methods to minimize bias.

Systematic reviews provide the most reliable summaries of evidence across multiple studies.

Example: Cochrane reviews synthesizing all studies on health intervention effectiveness.

Systems Thinking

A holistic approach analyzing interconnections and patterns within complex wholes.

Systems thinking is essential for understanding root causes and designing effective interventions.

Example: Seeing how tobacco harm involves addiction loops, regulatory capture, and economic dependency.

Textile Waste

Discarded clothing and fabric materials from production, consumption, and disposal.

Textile waste illustrates how fast fashion's business model creates environmental harm.

Example: Millions of tons of clothing ending up in landfills or exported as waste.

Thresholds

Critical values at which system behavior changes qualitatively.

Understanding thresholds helps anticipate and prevent dangerous tipping points.

Example: Temperature levels at which ecosystems shift to different stable states.

Time Shifting

Moving problems from one time period to another rather than solving them.

Time shifting delays costs to future generations who cannot participate in current decisions.

Example: Borrowing to fund current consumption that future generations must repay.

Tipping Points

Critical thresholds where small changes trigger large, often irreversible shifts.

Tipping points explain how gradual change can suddenly produce system transformation.

Example: Climate tipping points where warming triggers runaway feedback loops.

Tobacco Industry

Companies producing and marketing cigarettes and other tobacco products.

With 7-8 million annual deaths, tobacco remains one of the highest-harm industries globally.

Example: Major cigarette manufacturers and their marketing, lobbying, and product strategies.

Tobacco Mortality

Deaths attributable to tobacco use through cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions.

Tobacco mortality data provides the evidence foundation for tobacco control advocacy.

Example: Lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, and COPD deaths caused by smoking.

Traditional Moral Philosophy

Classical approaches to ethics based on principles, virtues, or consequences without empirical measurement.

Traditional ethics provides normative frameworks that give meaning to quantitative harm data.

Example: Kantian deontology, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and utilitarian consequentialism.

Tragedy of the Commons

A systems archetype where individual rational use of shared resources leads to collective depletion.

This archetype explains many environmental and social problems requiring collective governance.

Example: Each fishing boat maximizing catch depletes the fish stocks that all boats need.

Transcending Paradigms

The ability to see paradigms as mental constructs rather than absolute reality.

Transcending paradigms is the highest leverage point, enabling flexibility to choose appropriate frameworks.

Example: Recognizing that economic growth is a paradigm, not a law of nature.

Transparency

Openness and accessibility of information enabling scrutiny and accountability.

Transparency is essential for informed decision-making and public participation in ethical issues.

Example: Open access to emissions data, corporate governance decisions, and supply chain information.

Triple Bottom Line

A framework expanding corporate success measures to include social and environmental performance alongside profit.

Triple bottom line thinking helps companies and analysts track impacts beyond financial returns.

Example: Reporting on People, Planet, and Profit as three dimensions of performance.

Ultra-Processed Foods

Industrial food products made primarily from extracted substances and additives with minimal whole foods.

Ultra-processed foods are engineered for overconsumption and linked to 11 million diet-related deaths annually.

Example: Soft drinks, packaged snacks, and ready-to-eat meals with multiple industrial ingredients.

Unintended Consequences

Effects of actions that were not anticipated or planned by the actors.

Anticipating unintended consequences prevents interventions from creating new problems.

Example: Prohibition creating organized crime; abstinence education increasing teen pregnancy.

Vested Interests

Parties with personal stakes in maintaining current arrangements.

Vested interests explain resistance to reform and the need for political strategy.

Example: Fossil fuel companies with assets that lose value in a clean energy transition.

Water Footprint

The total volume of freshwater used to produce goods and services.

Water footprints reveal hidden water consumption embedded in products and supply chains.

Example: The thousands of liters of water required to produce one kilogram of beef.

Whistleblowing

The disclosure of information about wrongdoing within organizations to authorities or the public.

Whistleblowers play crucial roles in exposing hidden harm and enabling accountability.

Example: Tobacco industry scientists revealing internal knowledge of health risks.

Wicked Problems

Complex social or policy challenges that are difficult or impossible to solve due to incomplete knowledge, interconnected causes, changing requirements, and the absence of a clear stopping point.

Wicked problems resist traditional problem-solving approaches because every attempt to address them changes the problem itself. They have no definitive formulation, no stopping rule, and no objective measure of success. Understanding wicked problems helps explain why systemic issues like climate change, poverty, and healthcare reform persist despite decades of intervention attempts.

Example: Climate change is a wicked problem because it involves competing values, uncertain science, global coordination challenges, and solutions that create new problems.

Years Lived with Disability

The component of DALYs measuring time spent in less-than-perfect health states.

YLD captures suffering that mortality statistics miss.

Example: Years living with chronic pain, depression, or physical limitations.

Years of Life Lost

The component of DALYs measuring premature mortality relative to life expectancy.

YLL quantifies deaths in terms of life that should have been lived.

Example: Deaths at age 40 representing more YLL than deaths at age 80.