Mid Sweden University

The climate crisis is accelerating even quicker than feared and has devastating consequences for nature, animals and the people, especially people that social workers engage with. Sweden has, despite severe cutdowns, an international reputation for being a sucessful welfare state and it has  a strong self-conceptualisation as being a role model for environmental sustainability. Yet, Swedes have one of the highest ecological footprints on earth on account of high consumption rates. The 2022 People’s Charter exhort social workers across the globe to embrace  eco-social justice and environmental sustainability, with the first call to action framed as Ecological integrity: From exploitation to recognising the rights of nature for sustainable co-existence. This presentation, drawn from qualitative research with social workers in Sweden, highlights the gaps between global rhetoric and on the ground realities, and the huge chasm between social worker’s commitment to climate justice on a personal level and their professional practice. The empirical data show that while social workers are aware of the importance of responding to climate change, they see the call to action as being far removed from the demands of daily practice. There are strong indications that individualization, specialization and the impositions of efficiency and narrowly defined outcomes, which are features of neoliberalism and new public management, influence social workers’ scope of work in decided ways. We discuss the implications of these for the politization of social work and the importance of an emancipatory praxis in social work education and practice.