Presentation at the American Water Resources Association conference on water in urban environments, April 2015. The focus of this presentation is on measuring water-saving behavioral changes, using a case study from summer camps to illustrate. Includes some tips for promoting water efficiency and conservation.

1. Joanne Zygmunt
Chief Operations Officer
Joanne@ConservationGeneration.com
AWRA Conference
April 1, 2015
Los Angeles, CA

2. Making saving water and energy
fun, easy, and rewarding
² Awareness-raising products
² Behavior-influencing tools
² Customer engagement initiatives
² Educational entertainment programs
Gabi Trump Card Game
Founded in 2014, based in BostonWater Stewardship at Summer Camps

3. Rules of engagement, grounded in behavioral sciences:
² Information / awareness not enough - “cognitive misers!”
² Long-lasting change needs self-motivation and positive-
thinking; guilt and fear don’t work
² A small number of specific goals increases success
² Goals aren’t enough; practical actions necessary
² Connect with beliefs, values, and feelings; social norms
² Harness the sociocultural phenomenon of ludification,
“increasing spread of play as a routine activity in
everyone’s life”
² Combine tech and non-tech tools to spark change

4. ² Pilot with two camps in North Carolina
² 1,300 children aged 6 to 16
² 600 counselors and staff
Why camp?
² Willing: camps usually nature-aware
² Complementary: enjoyment of natural world
² Receptive: greater affinity for nature, usually
more environmentally responsible
² Opportunity: small part of camp to take home

5. Encourage campers, staff, and counselors to
1. Take up three specific water-saving behaviors
• Turn off the water when brushing teeth
• Take shorter showers
• Don’t use the toilet as a trash can
2. Talk about water-saving with family and friends
3. Share learning with parents
N.B. The actual wording we used was much less dictatorial, and a lot more fun!

6. ² Motivational talks to campers and counselors
² Variety of games, art projects, physical activities, etc.
² Augmented with shower timers, rain barrels, card game, etc.
² Posters as behavioral change prompts
² Retrofitted efficient showerheads, faucet aerators, light bulbs
² Linked into local rebate schemes
² Outreach to parents through social media, newsletter, emails

7. ² Baseline online surveys of campers’ parents, and staff/counselors
² Follow-up online surveys of campers’ parents, and staff/counselors
² Short paper surveys completed by campers at one camp at the
end of the summer
² Participant observation conducted by CG staff for two weeks at
one camp
² Telephone interviews with key staff at camps and at CG
² Data related to hardware removed and products retrofitted
² Water meter, well withdrawal records, and/or wastewater flow data
² Electricity bills and/or propane use records

8. First, some notes on method:
² Parents received an initial email inviting them to participate,
then about a week later a reminder
² Parents were incentivized to complete the surveys – at
baseline by a tree-planting offer and at follow-up by an
Amazon $100 gift card
² We used a matched sample; i.e., those individuals in our
sample (about 140) completed both the baseline survey and
the follow-up survey, which means we can be confident that
changes we’ve seen are not due to differences in
respondents at baseline and at follow-up
² Parents in our sample are representative of parents of
children at both camps

9. After camp, did fewer children leave the water running while
brushing teeth?
à YES! Fell from 23% who usually/almost always/always left the
water running to 15% (p=0.074)
After camp, did fewer children use the toilet as a trash can?
à NO, BUT…there was little room for change here since the vast
majority (95%) didn’t do this at home before camp; however,
camps told us there was less trash in their waste streams,
suggesting children did maintain this behavior while at camp –
something that wasn’t done in previous years.

10. Did children take shorter showers?
à YES! More children took shorter showers (≤5 min.) after camp
(27%) than before (22%); and, fewer children took long showers
(16-20 min.) after camp (6%) than before (11%). (p=0.042)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
1 to 5 6 to 10 11 to 15 16 to 20 21 to 25 26 to 30
%ofchildren
Shower duration
(minutes)
Baseline
Follow up
Base: all parents in the matched sample who recorded their child’s shower duration (n=137)

11. àYES!
According to parents, children talked more about saving
water after camp (23%) than before camp (15%). (p=0.012)
àAND, YES!
According to parents, children encouraged their family and/
or friends to save water more after camp than before.
(Increased from 37% to 49%.) (p=0.012)

12. à YES!
Families’ efforts to save water increased.
Before camp, 17% of parents disagreed with the statement ‘we
try to save water at home’; this fell to 10% after camp. (p=0.031)
à AND, SORT OF…
Parents’ knowledge about per capita use improved after camp,
but was still a long way off actual per capita use. (p=0.037)
Before camp the average (median) they guessed was 20 gallons,
while at follow-up it was 30 gallons.

13. ² We did not have a control so we cannot be 100% sure that 100%
of the changes we recorded were 100% due to the CG program.
² Regarding children, we are confident the program led to the
changes because the children were relatively sheltered from the
outside world while at camp, so it would be hard to explain what
else may have changed their behaviors if not the program.
² Regarding parents, without a control to compare to, other factors
may have had influence, like media coverage of drought out west.
² On bias, we were concerned parents would tell us what they
thought we wanted to hear; however, this didn’t seem happen.
Although we saw positive changes in water we didn’t see any in
energy or recycling.
² Changes are modest but significant, which should be expected
since the program was only a small part of camp.

14. Joanne Zygmunt, Chief Operations Officer
Joanne@ConservationGeneration.com
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