News
10 Messages from "What Works in Behaviour Change" Conference Reported
Published 30 July 2010 in Climate Change
The 28 June 2010 Scottish Government conference “What Works in Behaviour Change?” focused on pragmatic solutions to how individuals and households can reduce their carbon emissions. Feedback from delegates suggests that the conference was an important success. A main output from the conference was “ten key messages” for Government (and the wider public sector) about behaviour change, which included:
- The public expects Government (and its wider partners) to act. There is also an appetite for Government to lead.
- Government (and its wider partners) has to be seen to be consistently low-carbon in its approach to all elements of its portfolio.
- Government policy-making needs to do more to embrace the complexity of what drives action and inaction.
- Social norms are key. Seeing other people – neighbours, friends, leaders, colleagues - behaving pro-environmentally can have a profound effect on behaviours across society. The Government and its partners need to be able to influence social norms more effectively. Providing infrastructure is a visible way to success in this sense (e.g. walking and cycle routes, recycling street and house facilities). Regulation is also a key route to changing social norms.
- Change happens locally and in groups. Behavioural initiatives and campaigns tailored to local contexts and local or group (e.g. age, profession, workplace) identity are more likely to be effective than national ones because they speak to 'us' and our identity more directly.
- Transparency and simplicity are required in policies intended to change behaviours, e.g. road pricing, home energy tariffs. If it’s complicated, people stick with the status quo as this is the easier option.
- Any engagement work must approach behavioural change as a genuinely joint endeavour. If people are to be empowered to act, engagement work needs to avoid telling people what they should do. The focus needs to be on ‘we’ – acting together, moving towards the same goal.
- The Government needs to focus on key behavioural areas where a) tackling carbon emissions will genuinely make a difference to meeting our targets and b) we can actually enable or encourage people to change. This clarifies what we (as a nation) want to achieve and avoids people thinking they are doing their bit for climate change by taking on simpler green actions like recycling.
- Behaviour change is most effective when a number of levers (e.g. price, regulation, enabling measures and public benefits) are pulled in a coherent, co-ordinated and systematic way. This increases the likelihood of success. This joint approach reduces the risk of mixed messages and inconsistency, and provides opportunities to ensure fairness by enabling change at the same time as regulating for it. If policies are ultimately successful, initially hostile attitudes can change dramatically (e.g. London congestion charge).
- Behaviour change and technology need to be addressed together, as two sides of one coin. Too often they are polarised, but developing technologies that encourage behaviour change, and behaviour change initiatives that foster new technologies, would be a positive step.
To view the full report of key messages and conference presentations, visit the conference website: What Works in Behaviour Change