Sustainable Communications: The Known Universe
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This document discusses sustainability communications and public involvement. It provides a history of sustainability and climate messaging from the 1970s to present. It discusses challenges to behavior change like structural constraints, threats to values, and emotional responses. Best practices for communications include making solutions local and relevant, connecting environment to economy, focusing on quality of life, and celebrating local successes. The document advocates for values-based messaging tailored to local communities and iterative communications that blend old and new approaches. It notes gaps in data around quality of life measures.
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Sustainable Communications: The Known Universe
- 1. Sustainability communications: the known universe IAP2 PI Network Event March 7, 2012
- 2. communications and public involvement • What’s the difference? • Working together for change
- 4. history of sustainability/climate messaging • 1970s: Earth Day, local pollution • 1980s: Greenpeace introduces climate • 1990s: Rio Earth Summit, “sustainability” & sustainable development • 2000s: Inconvenient Truth, scientists speak out • 2007: IPCC report • 2009: ClimateGate • 2011: Climate and sustainability fall in priority for public
- 5. 2006: a pivotal year
- 7. trust in public institutions
- 8. behavior: the “say-do” gap • Structural constraints • Single-action bias • Threats to values and self-interests • The “free rider” effect • Emotional response
- 9. Tim Kasser: a crisis of „values‟
- 10. “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Albert Einstein
- 11. awareness v. behavior • They aren’t exactly the same • Moving towards a greater reliance on CBSM • Integration of the grassroots and the digital
- 12. best practices • Do your research • Make solutions local and relevant and urgent • Connect environment with the economy • Focus on quality of people’s lives
- 13. best practices, continued • Align messaging with supportive structural change • Tap into people’s identities • Communicate through trusted, local sources and reach people through their existing networks • Celebrate local successes
- 14. go beyond the media buy • Move beyond traditional media campaigns • Leverage peer-to-peer influence • Reach people when they’re in the right frame of mind • Make invisible behavior visible
- 15. values-based messaging • Well-crafted messages are those that invoke common ground in your audience • Finding the right values means you need research • Find the most effective spokespeople (hint: maybe not government)
- 16. examples of local value- based messaging value: clean air & water “Oregonians want to protect our clean air and clean water, and livable communities give us a way to build great neighborhoods while reducing pollution.”
- 17. examples of local value- based messaging value: community “Livable communities allow us to live close to where we work, go to school and shop, making our lives simpler. We will have more time to spend with family and friends—and less time spent alone in our cars.”
- 18. examples of local value- based messaging value: health “Livable communities provide more ways for people to walk, bike and take transit as they go about their daily lives, helping us get more exercise and improving our kids’ health.”
- 19. examples of local value- based messaging value: economic growth “Our community drives less and spends less on gas, cars and car repairs. Our money stays in the local community helping local businesses and creating local jobs, instead of leaving the state.”
- 21. blend old and new
- 22. data gaps • Better ways to measure quality of life rather than quantity of stuff (rethink GDP) • More research into the willingness of people to buy less and do more • From Green Dividend to “Neighborhood Dividend”
- 23. summary • Avoid large, uniform communications campaigns • Communicate at the most local level possible • Test your messaging • Invoke the values of your community • Evaluate – Pilot tests before take to scale – Test your results and refine your campaign as you go • Integrate communications with program design • Leverage success
- 24. terra incognita?
Editor's Notes
- Intro firm, clients, experience (land use, transportation, cleantech, renewable energy, green building and green business)
- This is a world map from 1550, prior to most of the great explorations of Africa, North and South America. Nothing really looks like we know it to be. I would suggest that our former communications tactics about sustainability and behavior change are a little bit about this map—we know in general where things are, but we have to do a lot of exploration before we feel more certain about the terrain.
- We have moved from point-source problems—the pipe from the factory that threatens the fish in the Willamette, to the diffuse, and that is difficult for people to get a handle on.1970s-Tom McCall—”Pollution in Paradise”1980s—fringe, more radical enviro groups start to talk about climate change1990s—The Rio Earth Summit is the first big international, state-sanctioned environmental conference, sponsored by the UN2000s—Inconvenient Truth means that climate breaks into the wider consciousness; 2006, series of major publications (Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, etc.) have “Earth Day” themed issues and cover stories about the environment2007: Majority of scientists agree with the comprehensive IPCC report that climate change is occurring, and it is accelerating2009—ClimateGate and the climate deniers start to really make an impact. A tiny minority of scientists, mostly funded by industry, start to raise objections to the majority of scientific opinion. The media report on these deniers as if they were larger than they are.
- 2006: High point for people’s support of climate change action. Big awareness of green issues. “An Inconvenient Truth”Pretty soon, however, things started to drop
- Here’s a ranking of people’s top policy priorities from a 2010 Pew Center poll. Even though this same poll shows that more people than ever believe in climate change and that a majority believe that its human caused, and after more than 30 years of messaging and good work by all kinds of organizations, environmental issues are low on the list, and climate is last. Perception of risk v. actual risk—we’re bad predictors of what actually threatens us. Your chance of dying of terrorism is very, very low, and yet people want government to spend a lot of money to protect them from it.Frog in pot of boiling water—we’re bad at assessing risk that slowly builds to threaten. Causal, observable and immediate.DISCUSSION
- Trust in public institutions across the board is down (this from March 2010)Every large institution—particularly those undergoing some kind of crisis—are feeling this(From Trust in Public Institutions over the Business Cycle, American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 2011, 101:3, 281–287http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.3.281
- One of the reasons I’m focusing on communications for behavior change is that you can get people to agree with you but they may not take action. We did some research on why they don’t act, and here are a few reasons. (Use Metro document as an example)Structural constraints. Even if people want to make climate-friendly choices, the options may be inconvenient, cost-prohibitive or unavailable. For example, a lack of direct public transportation routes requires a significantly longer commute time, existing housing stock is old and energy inefficient and energy efficient upgrades are too expensive (Ockwell, et al, 308). “Single action bias.” Once people take one small action to address climate change, such as changing their light bulbs or purchasing an energy-efficient washing machine, they may actually be less likely to take additional actions because they feel they have already done their part (Shome and Marx, 21). Threats to values and self-interests. Large homes, large cars and consumption in general are signs of status and financial well-being; shifting away from these feels like making a sacrifice under the prevailing value system (Ockwell, et al, 308). “Free rider” effect. People consider it pointless to change their behavior because the vast majority of people are doing nothing (Ockwell, et al, 311). “Drop in a bucket” effect. People believe that the problem is so large that individual action will not make a difference. There is a clear consensus in the literature that communication “for communications’ sake” is not enough; to drive change, messages and information must be combined with reduction of barriers. As Moser and Dilling state: “For communication to be effective, i.e., to facilitate a desired social change, it must accomplish two things: sufficiently elevate and maintain the motivation to change a practice or policy and at the same time contribute to lowering the barriers to doing so” (494).
- Tim Kasser, a professor of psychology at Knox College, is one of the researchers who is doing work on the study of people’s underlying values, and how they intersect with the kinds of changes individuals need to undertake to live with less impact. Particularly, Kasser is looking at the “self-enhancing, materialistic concerns for money, wealth, possessions, status, and an appealing image.”People in the self-enhancing quadrant (which indicate poor environmental outcomes) generally suppress those in the community quadrant (which is associated with better environmental outcomes), and vice versa. Kasser also notes that people who have more intrinsic orientation generally report higher levels of happiness. The big takeaway from Kasser is that by talking to people in the financial success-oriented, extrinsic frame—even about environmental issues—tends to suppress the behaviors that we want people to take. For example, talking about energy savings when trying to get people to by CFLs actually suppresses environmentally-friendly behaviors. Using money-oriented frames could be useless or even counterproductive.He recommends invoking some American values that have existed in our culture through our communications campaigns, which include:Voluntary simplicityTime affluence (more time for family and friends)In addition, he recommends some more drastic solutions, including:Restrictions on advertisingChanging the way we value our economic system to include the costs of externalities and the benefits of things like happiness and well-being DISCUSSION
- So you are probably thinking: why? Why would rational, scientific-based arguments not work, when we who work in the field accept that the natural world has limits and rules and that we must change our way of living in order to survive and thrive?I want to hear what you have to say about this, since I don’t think anybody has a concrete answer currently—at least not one they can defend.Much of the information you’ve seen prior in this presentation has led communications professionals like myself to completely change the way we do things.
- Description of City of Eugene project/City of Portland Thoughtful ConsumptionStarting with researchWant to understand how people think about consumption and how consumption is part of their identityCity of PortlandThey are tapping into the “new simplicity” with their campaignFocusing on time with family and friends
- They are going “outside the media buy” and creating a map of local stakeholders/groups (Eugene)They are reaching people through Fix-It Fairs and local events where people are already focused on re-using and repair (Portland)Tapping into the supportive structural change around food (local, seasonal, organic, etc) by developing menu planner first (Portland)
- Research is showing that large (expensive) traditional media campaigns aren’t changing behavior – advertising should be part of full suite of approach that makes sure that your advertising is reaching the target audience – not a scattershot.Community-based social marketing approaches (reciprocity, social proof)Talk about the towel study
- I know from my work with my colleague Adam Davis at DHM Research that there are regional and local values that work when you are trying to communicate about sustainability issues, and that there are right and wrong ways to frame messages. For example, according to Davis, people in this region are strongly supportive of parks and open spaces and trails, as well as sidewalks and the ability of kids to walk to school. But if you talk to them about density—even people who support parks and sidewalks turn against you.Research is key. This is a tough takeaway for budget-poor governments and non-profits these days, but I no longer do my job by doing a quick scan and writing your key messages. When you want to talk to people about tough issues in tough economic and political times, you need to know where you stand with them. That means quantitative (survey) research and qualitative (focus group) research.Last, my colleague Adam Davis did 4 focus groups for Metro recently on climate change opinions locally and he is of the opinion that small business people are the best spokespeople for sustainability that we have. They are educated, they know their communities, and according to the focus groups that he conducted, they were generally in agreement with sustainable policies.
- Measure quality of life not quantity of stuffTom Bowerman: “In five 2011 polls of Oregonians and one national survey, Bowerman and Markowitz find 74 to 80 percent of respondents “support reducing consumption and believe doing so would improve societal and individual well-being.” Joe Cortright, Green Dividend:2007 study: “We estimate that a combination of public transportation and land use policies, coupled with consumer choices, save consumers in the Portland metropolitan area more than a billion dollars a year in out-of-pocket transportation costs, compared to the average US urban resident. This "green dividend" results in more income that local residents can spend on other goods and services, stimulating the local economy.”
- Map from about 1750.