The Application of a Social Identity Approach to Measure and Mechanise the Goals, Practices, and Outcomes of Social Sustainability

Abstract

Today, ‘social sustainability’ is a key feature of many organisations’ environmental, social, and governance strategies, as well as underpinning sustainable development goals. The term refers to the implementation of targets such as reduced societal inequalities, the promotion of social well-being, and the practice of positive community relations. Building a meaningful, accountable, and quantifiable evidence-base from which to translate these high-level concepts into tangible and achievable goals is, however, challenging. The complexities of measuring social capital—often described as a building block of social sustainability—have been documented. The challenge lies in measuring the person, group, or collective in interaction with the context under investigation, whether that be a climate goal, an institution, or a national policy. Social identity theory is a social psychological approach that articulates the processes through which an individual internalises the values, norms, and behaviours of their contexts. Levels of social identification—a concept capturing the state of internalisation—have been shown to be predictive of outcomes as diverse as communication and cognition, trust and citizenship, leadership and compliance, and health and well-being. Applying this perspective to the articulation and measurement of social sustainability provides an opportunity to build an empirical approach with which to reliably translate this high-level concept into achievable outcomes.

1. Sustainable Development—Its Aspirations and Its Failings

Today, we are grappling with a sustainability crisis. This crisis represents the collective effect of ongoing environmental threats to the planet, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. It is important to note, however, that we have been grappling with this crisis for over 70 years. In 1952, approximately 12,000 people lost their lives due to breathing in industry pollutants in the U.K.’s capital city, and in the U.S., major cities such as Los Angeles and New York City suffered some of their most fatal pollutant-fed smogs in the 1960s. During the intervening decades, many other environmental catastrophes have taken place1^, and it is in reacting to these crises that societies’ awareness of the need to protect both the planet and its people has gained momentum.

Fuelled by this growing social awareness, the concept of ‘sustainable development’ has emerged. Described in the 1987 Brundtland Commission as development “…that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations 1987, p. 16), this term now plays a significant part in attempts to determine the processes and pathways to sustainability (Ruggerio 2021). For instance, in the face of ongoing global temperature increases, countries across the world have endeavoured to set emission targets from which to achieve sustainable development (UKRI 2025). To this end, the first annual UN Climate Change Conference, known as the Conference of the Parties (COP), took place in 1995, and in 1997 the first treaty to limit greenhouse gases—the Kyoto Protocol—was established (United Nations 2025; University of Cambridge 2025). Failure to meet these targets, however, has prompted further efforts, and in 2015, nearly every country in the world signed the Paris Agreement, a legally binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Today, despite there being controversy over current emission rates, most reports indicate that we are still falling significantly short of achieving the targets necessary to reach a level of development that is in any way near sustainable (Andersen 2024; UNFCCC Secretariat 2025).

Faced with this emerging truth, scholars and practitioners have begun to look at what the inhibitors to sustainability progress might be. At a foundational level, it has been pointed out that the concept of ‘sustainability’ contains inherent ideological blind spots (Beckerman 1992; Onisto 1999; Van den Bergh 1996). Put simply, sustainability goals are fundamentally at odds with the prevalent drive for economic growth, and without addressing this core contradiction, sustainability progress cannot be anything except constrained (Spaiser et al. 2017)2. Adding to the challenge of endorsing one system of human-made ideals over an opposing system of human-made practices, many scholars of sustainability today also point to the complex ecological intersection between people and nature—one in which the motivation, role, and impact of people is so complex as to almost be indiscernible. Addressing this, scholars have described of the need for macroscopes—a term encompassing both literal and metaphorical tools with which to observe systems too large and complex for the individual eye, or, as put by one climatologist, that can give “…earth-system scientists an objective distance from their specimens—no longer too close for cognitive comfort” (Schellnhuber 1999, p. 20; de Rosnay 1979).

The upshot of these reflections is that when it comes to the challenge of achieving the level of societal change required to enact sustainable development, we appear to be our own blind spot. Meaning that our inability to discern, measure, and manage the complex and entrenched nature of our human values, norms, and behaviours leaves us consistently ill-informed when designing sustainability solutions. This subsequently renders us ill-prepared to implement the processes, interventions, and changes necessary to achieve our own sustainable development goals (Bossel 1999). In response to a growing awareness of this blind spot, the term ‘social sustainability’ has begun to gather momentum, representing an attempt to better articulate, measure, and understand the human side of sustainable development.

In this essay, I argue that the social psychological theory known as the social identity perspective could be a useful framework able to shed light on this entrenched problem. I highlight decades of evidence accumulated from within this perspective to underscore its relevance for measuring (and thereby understanding) social sustainability processes and outcomes. I also present this perspective in contrast to the concept of social capital—an idea often leant on in the space of sustainability research. I highlight how the now recognised constraints of social capital are resolvable using the social identity perspective. Finally, I use an Agriculture 4.0 case study to complement this theoretical analysis. In so doing, I aim to present a concrete example of how the social identity perspective can bridge the gap between the ideals of inclusivity and participatory practice inherent in social sustainability and their measurable—and achievable—delivery.

2. An Emerging Need to Understand the Social Dimension of Sustainability

Despite the fact that humans have always sat at the heart of the concept of sustainability—whether as the root cause of environmental catastrophes, the catalysers of planet-saving solutions, or as victims of the devastating consequences of climate change—there remains little by way of a coherent empirical assessment of the ‘people’ side of the sustainability equation (Hopwood et al. 2005). This lack of evidence has, however, not stopped a recent growth in interest in the ‘social’ dimension of sustainability, whether in scholarly, policy, or institutional circles (Eizenberg and Jabareen 2017; Klerkx et al. 2019). In fact, in the last couple of decades the concept of ‘social sustainability’ has gathered momentum and now takes the form of the third underpinning structure in the ‘three-legged stool’ of sustainability, whether classified as the three Es of economy, ecology and equity, or the three Ps of prosperity, planet, and people (Boyer et al. 2016). Despite raising awareness of the integral role that people play in the landscape of sustainability, progress has largely been observed only on the monetary and planetary dimensions, with the social ‘leg’ remaining at best ill-perceived and at worst chaotic and unhelpful (Dempsey et al. 2011).

A number of reasons have been put forward for the ‘grand challenge’ that surrounds ‘people’ and their role in making or breaking sustainability progress. In their paper on the ‘missing pillar’ of sustainability, Magnus Boström suggests that one of the core reasons for the chronic failure to get to grips with the social dimension of sustainability development is the complexity involved in understanding the competing interests and values of different social groups (Boström 2012). Relatedly, they describe how the social dimension is not merely a prerequisite for the more visible economic and environmental pillars, but rather an integral part of their process and potential, and one that is largely unaccounted for and therefore not understood. For instance, access to fresh produce and green spaces is an environmental issue for residents living in poorly designed urban landscapes, and yet not so for those campaigning against urban development on the grounds of ecosystem conservation (Boyer et al. 2016). Encapsulating these challenges, scholars Eizenberg and Jabareen write, “The dissociation between the social and the ecological and economic leaves the social undefined, inapplicable and utopian, thus impossible to fulfill, control and facilitate” (Eizenberg and Jabareen 2017, p. 4). In attempting to move our understanding beyond this disassociation, they suggest using the concept of ‘risk’ as a unifying framework, shaped across four dimensions: equity, safety, eco-prosumption, and urban forms. They describe, for instance, how the physical form should promote a sense of community and attachment in order to increase access for all to positive social capital. Based on the top-down principle of protecting (all) people from risk, however, this framework bypasses the question of how to inclusively enact ideals such as equity and safety—processes which are themselves fundamentally ‘people’-based. To illustrate, returning to the example of urban planning, the question of who decides how to endow others with the promise of redistributed social capital remains both unasked and unanswered (Eizenberg and Jabareen 2017).

3. Social Capital and Its Role in Understanding Social Sustainability

This concept of ‘social capital’ has emerged as a useful idea when it comes to discussing social sustainability (Garrigos-Simon et al. 2018). The concept appears to hold promise when attempting to operationalise the mechanisms of sustainable development, particularly when thinking of social capital alongside financial and natural capital. Furthermore, social capital has been shown to be related to outcomes of direct relevance to sustainability practices—trust in others, adherence to shared norms and values, societal participation, and political engagement (Engbers et al. 2017). A number of scholars have leant on the concept when attempting to explain the importance of accounting for social sustainability. Medina and Sole-Sedeno, for instance, described the need to integrate the concept of social capital when understanding and improving the role of food systems within sustainable development (Medina and Sole-Sedeno 2023). Eriksson and colleagues studied differences in social capital in order to inform targeted sustainability-related policy planning aimed at increasing social cohesion (Eriksson et al. 2021). Kusakabe examined which of the three types of social capital—bonding, bridging, and bracing—were more influential in achieving sustainability goals (Kusakabe 2012). And Falk and Kilpatrick discussed how micro social interactions might produce or build social capital and thereby positively contribute towards the social change required to support sustainable development (Falk and Kilpatrick 2000).

The range of studies using the concept of social capital underscores a need to articulate this social dimension. However, scholars often note the ill-defined nature of the concept and how this can lead to an absence of direction when it comes to quantifying the existence (and distribution) of social capital, and thereby our ability to leverage it for good (DeFilippis 2001). This lack of theoretical and methodological coherence has been critiqued (Bjørnskov and Sønderskov 2013; Fine 2010). To start, it has been noted that social capital’s origin story—in which it was presented as anything from an asset to a structure to an outcome—has led to definitional problems today. It is now used to represent resources or assets, social relationships, or institutionalised structures (Falk and Kilpatrick 2000; Bourdieu 2018; Coleman 1988; Putnam 1994; Baker 1990; Portes 1998; Baycan and Öner 2023). Subsequently, both scholars of social capital and practitioners wishing to leverage its potential describe how notoriously difficult it is to measure this concept in any reliable or validated fashion (Baycan and Öner 2023; Claridge 2018; Engbers et al. 2017; Stone and Hughes 2002).

George Coleman—one of the founding contributors to the concept of social capital—stated that social capital “Is not a single entity but a variety of different entities, with two elements in common: that all consist of some aspect of social structures, and they facilitate certain actions of actors—whether persons or corporate actors—within the structure” (Coleman 1988, p. 98). This insight suggests that what we need is a way to understand—and measure—the intersection between the individual and the social structures in which they inhabit, and across all levels of societal hierarchy. Social capital research, however, presents little coherency when it comes to this need for consistent operationalisation. Social Identity Theory (SIT), however, is a scientific approach that has been theory-building and evidence gathering for more than six decades and can potentially respond to this need. Described as a theory of group processes and intergroup relations, the social identity approach, which comprises SIT and Self-Categorisation Theory (SCT), articulates the contextual operationalisation of group-mediated phenomena (Hornsey 2008).

4. The Social Identity Approach

In essence, the social identity approach both describes and demonstrates how a person’s self-concept is informed by the social context in which it is situated. The reason this is so important to consider is that over a century of psychological research has demonstrated how it is the self-concept that drives people’s emotions, thoughts, attitudes, and behaviours (Back et al. 2009; Cooper 1992; Epstein 1973; Greenwald et al. 2002; Marsh and Martin 2011). These intersections between the individual and their social landscape take the form of what is referred to as ‘social identities’. A social identity can encompass any type of psychological alignment with others, whether that be on the basis of gender, ethnicity, age, education, family, vocation, culture, shared interest, or an alignment of goals.

The original demonstration of social identity ‘in action’ involved stripping away all social affiliations, and—within this void—introducing an arbitrary group affiliation (a token social identity) to assess its impact on individual outcomes. Known as the ‘minimal group studies’, this experimental paradigm was first tested in the early 1970s by one of the founders of SIT, Henri Tajfel (Tajfel et al. 1971). He brought people into the laboratory and assigned them randomly to different groups, and on the basis of meaningless and arbitrary criteria, such as their estimates of the number of dots on a page. The participants were then asked to allocate points to members of their own ‘ingroup’ or members of the other ‘outgroup’. Results showed systematic evidence of the prioritisation of one’s own group, despite the group having no content, no interaction, no history, no future, and most importantly, despite the individual participant having no way of personally benefiting from their group’s status (Billig and Tajfel 1973).

SCT evolved after Tajfel’s death and aimed to explore the cognitive aspects of SIT (Turner et al. 1987). As such, SCT has evolved to isolate, measure, and articulate the dynamic and contextual cognitive dimensions of the social identity approach. The premise being that each individual has a number of different and evolving social identities that comprise their self-concept, and these take on quantifiably more or less significance at different moments. The reasons proposed for these psychologically influential dynamics are thought to relate to the cognitive aspects of accessibility and fit. Accessibility describes the extent to which a social identity is activated in a particular context, and fit, the extent to which they are appropriate and individually ‘useful’ within a context (Oakes 1987; Oakes et al. 1991). To bring this theory to life, imagine a female lawyer dropping her daughter off at kindergarten. Before getting out of the car, she slips on her running shoes, unstraps her daughter from the car chair, and hoists her onto her hip. She leaves her suit jacket in the car and enters the building, her identity as a mother now salient, both internally and externally. Thirty minutes later, the same woman—now wearing heels, a suit jacket, and a briefcase in her hand—enters her law firm, her identity as a lawyer replacing that of a mother. Each of these very different social identities comes with its own set of psychological parameters, and these are evidenced through differences in ways of perceiving, thinking, feeling, communicating, or behaving.

The power of the social identity approach lies in its ability to mechanise the intersection between a person and their social context in ways that explain a broad range of outcomes. It is important to note that these can be value-neutral; in other words, SIT can explain human outcomes perceived both negatively and positively. For instance, in its early days, social identity research began by studying issues of human prejudice and stereotyping (Brewer 2013; Haslam et al. 1992; Reynolds et al. 2012), but today has made significant in-roads into fields as diverse as health, leadership, and learning (Bentley et al. 2023; Haslam 2017; Haslam et al. 2018, 2022). Deconstructing further assumptions about ‘intrinsic’ human qualities, social identity researchers have taken on some of the canons of more traditional social psychological research. The famous Milgram studies, which ostensibly demonstrated the mindless obedience of people such that they were able to administer lethal electric shocks to others when told to do so (Milgram 1963; Milgram and Gudehus 1974), were challenged by Haslam and Reicher when they reframed the work as a study of social identity process (Reicher et al. 2012). Their findings demonstrated how it was only in very high levels of social identification that ‘conformity’ took place, and that this conformity was far from the ‘blind obedience to authority’ referred to by some (Lutsky 1995; Miller 1995), but rather was a carefully orchestrated demonstration of social identity mechanisms. A similar re-analysis took place on the infamous Zimbardo prison experiments (Zimbardo 1969), but here again, an argument was put forward to explain how shifts in the norms associated with various social identities provided a more convincing explanation of the behaviour of individuals than some sort of mindless deindividuated aggression (Reicher et al. 1995). This explanation was further supported in a meta-analysis conducted by scholars Postmes and Spears (Postmes and Spears 1998).

In summary, the social identity approach provides both a theoretical basis—as well as a wealth of evidence—to support an understanding of how humans function in their various group-based contexts, whether at work, in a classroom, a boardroom, or indeed, at a football match (Platow et al. 1999). These social identity mechanisms—conceptualised in terms of the constellation of a person’s social identities as well as the strength of identification with each identity—provide both a means of understanding and predicting outcomes. These causal processes have been demonstrated in psychological outcomes as diverse as information processing and memory, stamina, self-esteem, and physical health (Bentley et al. 2017; Christ et al. 2003; Haslam et al. 2022; Jetten et al. 2014, 2015). Furthermore, they have been demonstrated across applied settings ranging from academia to farming. Such diverse work has not only provided evidence of the important role of social identity in driving outcomes, such as recent data demonstrating how positive identification as a farmer leads to a stronger willingness to enact land protection (Li et al. 2024), but also its potential to inform behaviour-change processes. In this way, many psycho-educational interventions have leant on SIT, such as those demonstrating the importance of group membership for learning and well-being (Bentley et al. 2017, 2020; Dingle et al. 2025; Haslam et al. 2019), or those highlighting the role of group process for leadership (Steffens et al. 2014).

Applying the social identity approach to the question of social sustainability has the potential to provide a means to establish a reliable and validated evidence-base from which to tackle sustainability challenges. Its potential speaks equally to an understanding of the internalisation of sustainability values and subsequent behaviours, and to the measurement of social outcomes, whether related to societal coherence or group-based inequities. Indeed, the ability of SIT to expose the contextual process giving rise to polarising outcomes provides equal insight into behaviours in support of sustainable development or those that jeopardise its progress. Foreshadowing its usefulness, a number of studies have already been conducted that serve to illustrate the important contribution the social identity approach can provide to understanding sustainability-related behaviours, whether those relate to consumer behaviour, policy enactment, or agricultural land management (Irene et al. 2024; Valera and Guárdia 2002; Liu and Qi 2022; Xiao et al. 2021; Champniss et al. 2016; Li et al. 2024). A sample of these studies is touched on below, followed by a deeper assessment of the potential for SIT to offer insight into the measurable delivery of social sustainability within Agriculture 4.0. This case study is presented as a means of mapping out how an SIT foundation can both theorise, metricise, and operationalise the deployment of the participatory methodological practices needed to harness the advantages of Agriculture 4.0, and most importantly, in ways that are responsible, inclusive, and fair. In other words, in ways that achieve social sustainability.

5. A Social Identity Approach to Understanding Sustainability Outcomes

Positive sustainability progress depends much on human behaviour, whether at an individual level, such as a person’s retail or travel choices, or at collective levels in terms of group-based behaviour. Emerging work undertaken from a SIT perspective has shed light on the factors explaining these behaviours. Beginning at a national level, research conducted in South Africa by Irene and colleagues showed how country-wide expressions of social identity contributed to individual environmental behaviours (Irene et al. 2024). Their work demonstrated how ingroup and outgroup dynamics influenced pro-environmental behaviour through the enactment of values, interests, and norms. At a more local level, research from Spain showed how stronger neighbourhood identity and a deeper sense of belonging increased awareness of the environment (Valera and Guárdia 2002). This work articulated the notion of a socioenvironmental identity and investigated its role in determining the relationship between a person and their living environment.

Studies conducted in workplaces have demonstrated how higher levels of organisational identification are associated with increased citizenship, as well as positive psychological outcomes such as reduced burn-out and increased well-being (Agyeiwaah et al. 2024; Steffens et al. 2017; Van Dick et al. 2006). When it comes to using SIT to examine sustainable processes at organisational levels, Liu and Qi showed how the strength of ‘green organisational identity’ mediated the relationship between perceptions of organisational support towards the environment and individual pro-environmental citizenship behaviours (Liu and Qi 2022). In other words, this highlights the importance of the sense of collective identity for sustainability outcomes. Work by Xiao and colleagues looked at how sustainability-related identities impacted the influence of leadership on Organisational Citizenship Behaviours for the Environment (OCBEs). Their findings demonstrated how the emergence of a moral identity mediated the relationship between leadership and OCBEs and again found that this effect was stronger the more collective the identity (Xiao et al. 2021).

Finally, testing these relationships under laboratory conditions, experimental research by Champniss and colleagues demonstrated how membership of a group aligned with sustainability goals contributed towards the enactment of sustainability-aligned behaviour (Champniss et al. 2016). This work is set against the long-known gap that exists between human attitudes and human behaviours (Bernardes et al. 2018). Despite there being some evidence of a causal pathway, previous research has largely demonstrated the inaction of people even when holding positive sustainability attitudes (Park and Lin 2020). The findings of Champniss and colleagues demonstrate a novel social identity pathway through which to close this gap.

6. A Case Study: Delivering a Socially Sustainable Agriculture 4.0

One domain that captures well the complex ecological intersection between people and the environment—and at individual, organisational, and policy levels—is the agricultural domain. Furthermore, from individual farmer behaviour to industry governance, agricultural practices have the potential to profoundly impact sustainability outcomes. Adding to the complex intersection of people and land, technological developments are now revolutionising agriculture. Today, Agriculture 4.0 represents the push to use technological developments in ways to support agricultural productivity as well as achieve more sustainable outcomes. What follows is first a brief presentation of the current state of Agriculture 4.0 and second, a suggestion as to the use of SIT as a perspective from which to ensure that Agriculture 4.0’s technological integrations are quantifiably supportive of positive social sustainability outcomes.

Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 is a term used to describe the latest wave of digital technology, including the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, big data, and Artificial Intelligence (Lasi et al. 2014). It is inevitable—in the light of population increases, inequities in food access, and environmental challenges—that people are today looking to deploy these technologies within the agricultural industry. This has taken the form of Agriculture 4.0, a term that emerged a decade ago and describes the use of on-farm automated sensors, robots, and AI (Rose et al. 2021). The aspiration behind Agriculture 4.0 is that the level of precision provided by technology can increase productivity and efficiency as well as the quantity and quality of agricultural output. Relatedly, Agriculture 4.0 is expected to be able to both adapt and respond to climate change through the superior optimisation of natural resources (Araújo et al. 2021).

Agriculture 4.0. Developing in parallel with Agriculture 4.0 is the concept of Sustainable Intensification. The two dimensions underpinning this term mirror the aspirations of Agriculture 4.0. First, the concept of ‘sustainable’ indicates a move towards more restorative farming practices that limit negative environmental impacts (Cassman and Grassini 2020; Pretty 1997), and second, ‘intensification’ implies an intention to increase crop and livestock yields. In terms of both Sustainable Intensification and Agriculture 4.0, scholars have noted the strong focus on productivity and the environment, whilst observing an absence of regard for the human side of these technologically underpinned aspirations (De Clercq et al. 2018; Klerkx et al. 2019). This absence follows a long tradition of underestimating the people side of socio-technical transitions, evident in fields as diverse as energy, transport, or housing (Geels 2019; Geels et al. 2020; Wittmayer et al. 2020). Indeed, in a systematic review of the social implications of Industry 4.0, Grybauskas and colleagues noted, “there is a sheer lack of empirical evidence on the positive or negative impacts of Industry 4.0 on social sustainability, based on which rigorous conclusions can be drawn” (Grybauskas et al. 2022, p. 13).

Socially sustainable Agriculture 4.0. In response to this chronic blind spot, agricultural scholars Rose and colleagues outlined a framework of ‘multi-actor co-innovation’ with which to put the people back into ‘people, production, and the planet’. They point out that without adequately addressing the social dimension, farmers’ readiness for technological changes, as well as their ability to harness on-farm technology, will be compromised. Alongside downstream social inequities in food distribution, this lack of insight into the human dimension of farming and food production is considered likely to further tip the playing field away from equity, and in so doing, contribute little to the quest for social sustainability (Rose et al. 2021).

Few would disagree with the suggestion that we need to consider the people side of the technological revolutions that are happening in agriculture (and elsewhere). However, when it comes to measuring, managing, and motivating the social sustainability side of agriculture, there is currently little in the way of a coherent theoretical and evidence-based foundation. Rose and colleagues suggest using a Responsible Innovation (RI) framework (Owen et al. 2013a, 2013b, 2020; Stilgoe et al. 2020) to deliver fairer and more inclusive solutions. RI principles aim to encourage practices that include anticipating the social impacts of innovation, ensuring its inclusive management, reflexively examining the assumptions and values behind these practices, and responding appropriately to societally endorsed changes in need or direction. Translating this into the agricultural domain, Rose and colleagues describe the importance of bringing together diverse stakeholders to have open conversations about the future of farming, to reflexively assess the role of on-farm technology, to anticipate its implications, and to respond collectively to the responsible deployment of technological innovation.

Here, however, we start to see the familiar disconnect between the principles of social sustainability and their quantifiable delivery. In assessing the presence of measurable RI-related practices in agriculture, scholars have articulated these concerns: “RI [] tends to be only partially operationalised, with a mismatch between aspirations, rhetoric, and practice” (Jakku et al. 2023, p. 2). Relatedly, Rose and colleagues point out that without the quantifiable implementation of collective and inclusive practices, the underlying impact of drives such as Sustainable Intensification cannot be responsibly assessed, or at least not in ways that measurably reflect the values of social sustainability (Rose et al. 2021). In this, they refer to the work of Wynne-Jones and colleagues who conducted studies with farmers to explore the role of social sustainability within Sustainable Intensification (Wynne-Jones et al. 2020). Their findings showed how important peer collaboration was to successful farming practices and noted that farmers often expressed concern that the focus on productivity inherent in Sustainable Intensification was threatening their ability to maintain interpersonal relationships and thus social sustainability (Wynne-Jones et al. 2020).

The words of Rose and the findings of Wynne-Jones highlight the need to ensure both a people-based understanding and a people-based response to the call for agricultural sustainability. Their learnings describe how such a response must actively promote the identification of shared values, the establishment of a common language, and the promotion of collective action [a ‘social soil’; (Bentley et al. 2025)]. To date, however, there is little in the way of a theoretically grounded evidence-based framework from which to know how to go about this.

Applying SIT to Agriculture 4.0. Delivering social sustainability for Agriculture 4.0 requires challenging the “…techno-centric framings of digital agriculture and encouraging more socially responsible processes and outcomes” (Jakku et al. 2023, p. 20). It is here that the social identity perspective holds promise. Agricultural researchers have pointed to the need for inclusive and reflexive participatory practices to ensure an anticipatory and responsive approach. The RI literature, from which these principles are drawn, is underpinned by the requirement for “aligning societal values on the one hand with developments in science and technology in the other” (Boenink and Kudina 2020, p. 451). There is little, however, in the RI or social sustainability literature that describes how to go about measuring such an alignment. Standing on over five decades of SIT and SCT research, the social identity approach can offer a theoretical base alongside validated methodological processes with which to measure societal alignment, and in so doing, help build socially responsible outcomes.

To illustrate this, Figure 1 presents a simple overview of the application of a social identity approach to the question of how to grow a social science for sustainable Agriculture 4.0. The diagram aims to visually describe how this approach—delivered through the methodological stages of mapping, measuring, managing, and mobilising—can inform the practices needed to responsibly integrate technological applications within the agricultural domain.

The first methodological stage identified is mapping social identities—a process through which socio-contextual data can be quantitively gathered, capturing the ‘ground-up’ reality of people’s social identity networks (Bentley et al. 2023). Previous research in this space has demonstrated the need to measure the various dimensions of these networks, whether related to the subjective importance of salient social identities, to feelings of support, positivity, or belonging provided by social identities, or issues of compatibility between them (Bentley et al. 2020; Cruwys et al. 2016). Being able to quantitively capture these dimensions allows us to empirically build on the qualitative work of Wynne-Jones when they describe the importance of social contact and interdependence within the farming community as a means of providing psychological support (Wynne-Jones et al. 2020).

The next methodology highlighted is measuring levels of social identification. Decades of research from the social identity perspective have used a number of survey tools to capture a person’s subjective sense of psychological alignment with their group-based identities. These tools have been validated in a range of contexts from organisational to clinical settings (Postmes et al. 2013, 2019; Steffens et al. 2017). Strength of identification has been shown to be particularly important when understanding the contextual dynamics of identity shifts. For example, in the face of prejudice, minority groups have been shown to receive significant positive psychological resources from stronger levels of social identification with others subjected to the same group-based prejudice (Branscombe and Wann 1994). Relating this back to work undertaken in the farming community, the need for strong social bonds is highlighted in the research of Wynne-Jones when they describe how such bonds are built through informal interactions and only once in place, lead to secure and trusted relationships (Wynne-Jones et al. 2020).

Managing and mobilising are the next two methodological stages represented. These stages build on the back of mapping and measuring and allow for the design and development of targeted social identity-informed behaviour-change processes. Outside of the domain of agriculture, such interventions have been tried and tested in a number of applied settings, with programmes leveraging the building of important and positive social connections shown to be of benefit in clinical, community, and educational domains (Bentley et al. 2022; Cruwys et al. 2022; Dingle et al. 2025; Haslam et al. 2019; Young et al. 2025). Of particular relevance to the goal of successfully managing sustainability change, the Social Identity Model of Identity Change (SIMIC) has been shown to have predictive power in settings such as retirement, health, or organisational transitions, and in which it has been shown that more—and more positive—group connection is demonstrably related to more beneficial outcomes (Haslam et al. 2021). Other social identity-informed work has led to the development of leadership programmes, in which a group-based understanding of leadership process is described and delivered, and in contrast to more traditional (yet under-evidenced) notions of individualised leadership (Haslam et al. 2022; Steffens et al. 2014).

Here again, the need to better manage as well as strategically mobilise social identity processes is of relevance to Agriculture 4.0. The risks of Sustainable Intensification and Agriculture 4.0 identified by scholars include exacerbated societal inequities, marginalisation of communities, and the financial disempowerment of smaller stakeholders. Solutions to these risks involve a thorough understanding of the realities of all groups impacted, and upon which to create ground-up collective resources to ensure visibility of values, equity of voice, and empowerment of action. This shift from a top-down technology (and profit) led momentum cannot happen in an ad hoc and reactive fashion. Its success relies on a systematised management of the group-based processes involved, as well as the responsible mobilisation of those groups in order to enact positive change.

In summary, applying a social identity lens to Agriculture 4.0 provides a theoretically informed means of investigating what the social sustainability dimensions of agriculture and technology look like today. The associated methodological approach allows for the mapping and measuring of relevant social contexts, and subsequently, the informed management and mobilisation of these contexts in ways that support key stakeholders. Furthermore, the social identity approach can provide the means to add a dimension of quantitative evaluation to the RI-inspired processes that often lie at the heart of socially sustainable agriculture, such as public participatory practice, multi-actor collaboration, or responsivity to diverse stakeholders.

7. Conclusions

“Whilst the benefits of transdisciplinary approaches are widely acknowledged, the integration of such approaches in conservation research and practice remains limited, underscoring a significant gap in current efforts to address global biodiversity and sustainability challenges”.

(Twomey et al. 2025, p. 26)

The social identity approach continues to be a thriving area of research, offering theoretically informed and methodologically validated analyses demonstrably relevant to a number of diverse human domains. In the last year alone, SIT has been successfully applied to an understanding of athletic performance and well-being (Butalia et al. 2025; Collict et al. 2025), military operations (Knox et al. 2025), and global leadership crises (Gleibs 2025). The nature of today’s research processes, however, is that perspectives often remain siloed—constrained by academic and practitioner legacies (Lah 2025; Twomey et al. 2025). Today, in the domain of sustainability research, there is a notable lack of empirical knowledge expansion, and this has significant implications when it comes to the chronic gap in our understanding of the social sustainability process, practices, and outcomes. Providing a theoretically grounded and evidence-based means of filling that gap is the only way that researchers and practitioners can begin to alter the course and tempo of the human-led changes needed to ensure we achieve our global sustainability goals. Applying a social identity lens to an understanding of social sustainability may provide the step-change required to shore up what is a pivotal aspect of the entire sustainability landscape.