Winning The Persuasion Game, Part 1

Behaviour change is the holy grail of sustainability. So what's the trick for making it happen?  If e're going to cut the impact of our lifestyles down to a size the planet can manage, many of the things we do every day will have to change. That's no secret. The good news is that we have a host of technologies and strategies available here and now to help us do just that. The bad news is we don't use them.
So how can we change our behaviour on anything like the sort of scale required? Ask an expert, and you're likely to be hit with a litany of tried and trashed techniques. Top of the list is initiatives that offer information and nothing more.

Thanks to a slew of public education campaigns, more people than ever are aware of climate change and the impact of CO2. Today, almost 50% of Brits know what a carbon footprint is, up from 25% in 2007, according to a survey by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. But it also found people had little appetite for making far-reaching changes in their own behaviour. "In other words", says Lorraine Whitmarsh, of Cardiff University's School of Psychology, "people do not act in accordance with what they know or [say they] care about".  It's a point reinforced by environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr. In Fostering sustainable behaviour, he cites studies which found that numerous sustained efforts to educate people about the impact of their behaviour failed to make a difference.  Take for example the One-Tonne Challenge, a major Canadian media campaign. It reached 51% of the population – but to no effect. According to the report, many Canadians found it "too inconvenient or time-consuming" to change anything, and weren't sure how to go about it. Other campaigns were much clearer about what to do – but their outcome was just as disappointing. In the Netherlands, projects which provided households with information on energy conservation and water efficiency, accompanied by workshops and a state of the art handbook, were found to have absolutely no impact on behaviour.  If environmental education worked (and, remember, we started back in the 50s) we wouldn't be having the problems we're having", points out Ray De Young, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment. Meanwhile, says McKenzie-Mohr, "millions have been squandered on advertising campaigns, because the barriers [to more sustainable lifestyles] go far beyond a simple lack of awareness."  s the old adage goes, you can lead a horse to water – but getting it to drink is another thing entirely. Especially if what you want is not for the horse to just take a sip, shrug and wander off, but for it to have a good gulp, mull it over and come back for another… and eventually decide that this particular stream will be its preferred watering spot for the rest of its days.
One obvious answer, surely, is to make it worth people's while to change. In other words, bribe or reward them to do the right thing. On the surface, this works. Tesco went all out to sell 10 million low-energy lightbulbs in 2009, telling shoppers that each one could save them £9 a year. Within seven days, Tesco had sold more energy-saving bulbs than it had in the whole of 2006.  Result? Solitaire Townsend, Chair of sustainable communications company Futerra, who has led a range of research on behaviour change, has her doubts. "It is an obvious way in, yes – [but] it's an obvious way in for everything. It's an obvious way to sell piles of crap, as much as it is to sell behaviour change." And the danger, she adds, "is if you sell something purely on the basis that it's cheaper, you get no loyalty to that behaviour. We know this from other money-saving messages. The moment something comes along that's even cheaper, you are off. That's how capitalist society works. You have competition on price: you have absolutely no loyalty to that decision."  Which may explain the failure of the much-vaunted Residential Conservation Service, brought in by the US Congress. The act granted homeowners the right to free energy audits to find ways to save energy, and then interest-free loans to carry out the work – with the aim of cutting consumption by 20% per home. Nearly 6% of households targeted took up the offer, and 50% had work done as a result. Not wildly impressive, perhaps, but a lot better than nothing. However, says McKenzie-Mohr, a final evaluation revealed energy savings of no more than 2-3% per participating home – a pretty paltry return. The National Research Council concluded that the service had assumed that people would make all necessary changes to save money – forgetting the "rich mixture of cultural practices" that influence what we do in our homes, and how far we'll change them.  "Of course, if you give someone an astounding amount of money, you get a dramatic rate of change." concludes Raymond De Young. "But you have to ask, would they do it without the reward? Could they convince their friends to do it?"  If anyone can convince their friends to do something, it's Hermione Taylor. When she decided to cycle over 2,000 miles to Morocco, she felt a bit bad asking her cash-strapped mates to sponsor her. So instead, she asked them to do something instead. Over 200 friends, and friends of friends, agreed to specific carbon-saving actions, from washing their clothes at 30°C to cutting down on burgers. Together, they saved over 16 tonnes of carbon: the equivalent of 83 flights from London to Morocco.  What's more, almost three quarters of the sponsors carried on the actions beyond the two months. "The response was staggering", says Taylor. "Even my 'meatoholic' brother now only eats meat once a week. He realised that he didn't become a raving hippy just by changing his habits."  Taylor founded The DoNation to encourage other social groups to show support for each other by doing, not spending. "Your friends know what you've pledged, and can (informally) monitor whether you're sticking to it", says Taylor. "And you're going to stick to it, because you're not the only one making an effort, and because you get the chance to talk about how well you're doing, or ask for help if you're finding it tough."  Hermione Taylor: just ask your friends   Taylor isn't the only one to have spotted how great a difference the desire to impress or fit in with others can make. Such 'social proofing' is key to many successful strategies. "A live, warm, blood-thumping human being is top trumps when it comes to changing behaviours", explains Townsend.
"It's one of the reasons we still have car showrooms. Human interaction is much more likely to affect your decision than anything you read online – however logical, clear and comprehensive that is." In fact, our concern for how we are perceived is so great, she argues, that we're affected by people we don't even know or like. "So, if the car salesman, or another dad you meet in the park, says, 'I don't see you as being a Volvo man', you don't then make a decision about whether or not you are going to accept that label. It just sneaks into your head."  You buy it, in other words. And you don't buy the Volvo.  Another effective behaviour change box ticked by Taylor's model is a sense of solidarity. "One of the reasons why people are passive", explains John Thøgersen, Professor in Economic Psychology at the Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences, "is that they feel no one else is doing anything. When it comes to climate change, your contribution is so small it doesn't really matter. What matters", he goes on, "is what other people do. If you don't perceive that many people are also saving energy, then you [feel] a bit of a sucker, because you lose something without helping the problem.  "For Thøgersen, this suggestibility comes down to the basic way we function as humans: "We're social animals, and we learn the right way to act by observing others. That's how we conquered the world." It's hardly surprising. For the vast majority of human evolution, we have lived in small groups, on which we've pretty much depended for our survival. We learnt the hard way that we were much more likely to get eaten by a tiger or killed by marauders if we strayed from the group, stood out from it too much, or lost its approval.  So it's not surprising that some of the most effective behaviour change techniques are those that involve people doing things together. It's a lesson taken to heart by Transition Together, part of the Transition Towns movement, which aims to help communities make the switch to a low-carbon, 'post-oil' lifestyle. Transition Together, a finalist in this year's Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, features groups of neighbours and friends in the Devon town of Totnes, who meet up regularly to work out what they can do by way of living more sustainably, and support each other in doing it. The actions may be simple enough – buying local food, using low-energy lights. But as Peter Capener, an independent energy and community adviser who has observed it closely, points out, the scheme "generates real enthusiasm that is based as much on the social interaction as it is on the subject matter". People love coming together in a shared endeavour, says Capener, and "it creates the kind of reservoir of commitment" that can keep the momentum going over time. This can help people to go beyond the 'been there, done that, changed the light bulb' approach to behaviour change – and instead look at the roots of their unsustainable behaviour, "at the stories we tell each other around what success means in society".