Campaigns Stimulate Behaviour Change to Conserve EnergyIt's one thing to believe it's a good idea to buy high-efficiency furnaces, commute by public transit and get rid of beer fridges. It's quite another to convince large numbers of people to take those actions.
The trick - for municipalities, government agencies and advocacy groups - is to organize environmental campaigns that will persuade many people to change ingrained habits. What these organizations are discovering is it's not enough to just post educational information on websites, offer the odd rebate and hope for the best.
The new world of green campaigning is increasingly complex, embracing such techniques as behavioural psychology, once used for, say, getting people to quit smoking. An added challenge is that campaigns are often issue and site specific and must thus be targeted to each situation. In other words, what works to reduce idling probably won't work to increase composting, and what's successful in Calgary may well flop in Strathmore. The good news, these days, is that if your message is on target, the public is increasingly willing to listen - and act.
Obviously, education remains a vital component of any public program to reduce such things as energy use, waste and greenhouse gas emissions. At one end of the educational spectrum are people who may not realize their actions contribute to a problem and who may be ill inclined to voluntarily change that behaviour. At the other end are highly-motivated people seeking detailed information on, say, what needs to be done to install a high-efficiency furnace in their house.
Besides deciding how to tailor these messages to divergent audiences, organizations must determine how they're going to deliver the information. Options here include website postings, brochures and newsletters, phone lines and public talks, workshops and trade shows. But studies have shown that providing information, on its own, is usually insufficient to prompt changes in behaviour.
One thing that seems to consistently work well in regards to changing behaviour is face-to-face interactions. For example, ATCO EnergySense (a service offered by ATCO Gas and ATCO Electric) found that when its technical experts carried out federal government-subsidized home energy assessments, homeowners were enthusiastic for information on retrofits and the purchase of energy-saving furnaces and appliances. "The ability to go into the house and educate customers via the evaluators is very important," says Mark Antonuk, program manager for ATCO EnergySense.
Combining face-to-face energy assessments with financial incentives can be an even more powerful motivational tool. When ATCO EnergySense delivered Natural Resources Canada's subsidized EnerGuide for Houses service for $150 more than 40,000 initial and follow-up assessments in Alberta were completed over five years. Those assessments led to energy-saving improvements that produced average greenhouse gas reductions of 3.2 tonnes for houses where follow-up assessments were completed. Without that subsidy (it now costs $400 for an initial and a follow-up assessment), the number of inspections has fallen to approximately 150 per month, even though federal grants are still available for undertaking energy-saving home improvements following the initial assessment.
BC Hydro discovered the power of combining incentives with direct interaction when it ran a compact fluorescent light (CFL) give-away campaign five years ago. At the time, CFLs were expensive, hard to find and didn't always work well. So, through its Power Smart program, BC Hydro offered customers coupons for two free CFL bulbs, redeemable at participating retail outlets, where Power Smart staff were on hand to provide information and answer questions. Additional free and discounted bulbs were available through a follow-up program involving manufacturers and retailers. As a result, some 73 per cent of BC Hydro customers now have CFLs - averaging nine bulbs per household - and lighting shelf space devoted to CFLs in major outlets has increased from less than two to nearly 20 per cent.
"Incentives do two things," says Pat Mathot, BC Hydro's manager of residential marketing. "One, they address the capital barrier if there is one - in this case, the $8 or $9 cost, at the time, of a CFL bulb, compared with 75 cents for an incandescent bulb. Two, they draw people's attention better than a general awareness campaign.
"Giving away free light bulbs was a good way to kick-start the market, especially for something that was relatively expensive," says Mathot. "But I think you can't offer incentives for too long. One risk is that as soon as you end them, the market collapses. Incentives should be used to stimulate the market (and people's actions) to be self sustaining." In the case of the CFL program, the incentives could be safely removed once prices had come down, bulbs were widely available and people were accustomed to using them and could see the benefits on their electricity bills.
These days, environmental campaigns are becoming increasingly sophisticated, going far beyond standard information-only programs. One of the most popular and comprehensive approaches is community-based social marketing. Its proponents believe behaviour change is best achieved through community programs that focus on removing barriers to an activity while enhancing its benefits.
One example of this approach is a Sudbury, Ontario program that gave free low-flow showerheads to low-income households. People went door to door, explaining the energy-saving benefits (without a reduction in performance) of the showerheads. If the residents expressed interest, a plumber would arrive within 30 minutes to install the showerhead. In this case, the program removed all the barriers - lack of information and motivation, cost, a trip to a hardware store and installation.
For each campaign, the social marketing approach follows four detailed steps:
Each step involves several actions. Identifying barriers and benefits, for example, requires a literature review, focus groups and a survey of a random sample of residents.
"It's a rigorous process, which makes it much more likely that a program is going to work," says Fredericton-based environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr, who has helped pioneer this approach in Canada. "It identifies which behaviours to go after and it helps systematically remove as many barriers as possible."
Of course, this method requires considerable expertise, resources, and time. McKenzie-Mohr believes major cities like Edmonton and Calgary should be able to afford to hire qualified social marketers to help run their public environmental programs. Smaller municipalities and non-government organizations, he says, would likely require provincial assistance to properly conduct social marketing campaigns.
The good news is the public is increasingly receptive to the message that green campaigners are trying to get across. The success of anti-idling campaigns, for example, shows that people are willing to do something about air quality and will respond to peer pressure when attitudes start to change.
"I think the marketplace is ready for these types of messages," says Antonuk. "It's not just high energy costs that people are responding to now. More and more, it's the social good and environmental benefits that motivate them." |
