Hi all,  When I was a student in university, I took a course on Mahatma Gandhi. I was awestruck by how this great man lived by his principles, including the principle of non-violence, which he called ahimsa. It was this principle that inspired him to be a vegetarian. The project I was working on for the course required me to be a vegetarian for one month, which I did. Moved as I was by all of this, I decided at the end of the month to continue to be a vegetarian. I continued this for about a year until I discovered that my iron and B12 levels were dangerously low. I started to eat some meat again (less than before) and my health returned to normal. I probably could have continued to be a vegetarian had I paid more attention to my nutrient levels, but I didn’t want to take the chance. I recount this story to impress upon you the importance of small, incremental changes. I went from eating meat to being a 24/7 vegetarian, which was too big of a leap for me. This might also be the case when you encourage people to adopt plant-based diets. Rather than asking too much of your target audience, consider asking them to skip eating meat only one day of the week.  Enter Meatless Monday. This is a dynamic campaign that encourages people to shift towards a plant-based diet by eating a meatless meal every Monday. The campaign began in 2003 and has since spread to 40 countries around the world, existing in 22 different languages. The behavior here—“skip eating meat once a week”—is clear, memorable, and easy to do. The campaign website features case studies, success stories, research and reports, a quick guide to cooking with plant-based proteins, and promotional materials. There are also ideas on how to involve friends and family in order to stay committed and suggestions to set reminders for yourself on Sundays so you have an extra day to prepare. 

One success story featured on the website is that of Bedford, New York, a small town north of New York City. Over 300 households in the city took the Meatless Monday challenge as part of a larger community climate action plan. Meatless Monday, together with the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future provided the community with science-based and promotional materials to support a 12-week campaign to encourage local restaurants, businesses, faith-based organizations, and school cafeterias to offer more plant-based menu options on Mondays. Results? By the end of the campaign, the Bedford community had reduced its carbon footprint by 25 tons (the equivalent of driving 56000 fewer miles). This behavior change campaign coincided with significant increases in residents’ beliefs that they could successfully prepare and order plant-based options. 

A key contributor to success in this case was that the behavior change being sought wasn’t too much for the target audience. Keep in mind that we don’t all have to be Mahatma Gandhi. Going meatless once a week is already a step in the right direction when it comes to human health and planetary well-being.  To learn how to get started with a Meatless Monday campaign, click here. 

Hi all,  Jack Johnson is a Hawaii-based folk musician who is actively involved in sustainability initiatives. He runs a campaign called “All at Once”, which is a collaboration between him and green charities that promote fan involvement at his concerts. One of the things he does is to encourage fans to support sustainable, local food systems. There are a variety of ways to do that, of course, but one of the most interesting ways that he promotes fan involvement in this regard is through public commitments at his concerts. There is an area at each of his concerts where you can “Capture your commitment”. The fans hold up a sign with a commitment such as “I will eat a locally grown meal every week” or “I will compost my food waste”. The fans can then search for their photo after the show, as it is published on the All at Once website.  The All at Once campaign also encourages fans to capture their commitment at home, a local farmers market, or a community garden. They can simply choose a commitment, take a photo/video of that commitment, and then share it on social media using the following hashtag: #AAOLocalFood.  Commitments are effective in promoting a variety of sustainable behaviors. One of the key elements of effective commitments that the All at Once campaign has captured well is that commitments should be made public (i.e. witnessable by others). This is illustrated in a study that compared private versus public commitments to conserve electricity and natural gas. Some study participants were asked if their names could be published in the local newspaper. Those who agreed to this public commitment saved significantly more energy than those in the private condition. Notably, even after the researchers told the study participants that their names would not be published, they continued to save energy. Simply asking for their names to be made public resulted in a 15% reduction in natural gas and a 20% reduction in electricity used. Why are public commitments so effective? This may have to do with our motivation to be recognized as consistent. It may also have to do with our desire to enhance our public image and identity. The need for social approval has been shown to influence many behaviors, whether sustainable and healthy or not.  In addition to commitments being made public, they should also be durable, meaning that the commitment is in place for a significant period of time. This is not necessarily the case for the All at Once campaign, as the commitment being made here is a one-time occurrence. In your programming, you may want to consider public commitments with call backs or a follow-up of some kind that ensures participants’ commitments are both public and durable. To read more about Jack Johnson’s All at Once campaign, click here. To read more about the use of commitments to influence sustainable behavior, consider purchasing the 4th edition of Dr. Doug McKenzie-Mohr’s Fostering Sustainable Behavior book here.  

Hi all,  Ocean Legacy is a Canadian-based, international non-profit that is dedicated to ending ocean plastic pollution around the world. One of the ways that they do this is through education. They have what is called an EPIC Academy, which is a free online educational curriculum that is suitable for learners aged 14 years and up. The curriculum touches on a number of topics, such as: -       The basics about plastic-       How plastics travel to the ocean-       Why is there so much plastic?-       Impacts of ocean plastic pollution-       Encouraging behavior change to help prevent and clean up ocean plastic There are two levels, beginner and advanced, and many lessons, each one taking about 45-60 minutes to complete.  These lessons are available in English, French, and Spanish, and there is no time limit. Your progress is autosaved, so you can pick up where you left off at any time. I completed lessons 1 and 7 to check for quality, and I can assure you that they are interactive, interesting, and well done. To access the curriculum, you need only register with them. Registration and login processes are a bit tricky, but if you can get past that, the content is well worth it.  Lesson 7 discusses the Habit Loop, which is a cycle of events that explains how habits form.

The Habit Loop starts with a cue, which is information that enters our brain indicating that we have an opportunity to earn a reward. The cue triggers a craving in our body. A response is then elicited from the craving, offering an incentive of a reward. Finally, the reward is the pleasure that comes from a chemical reaction in the brain that is a response to the craving. The cycle continues as ongoing cues enter our brain from the surrounding environment. The Habit Loop is explained further in the context of a case study involving Manuel & Moe, two colleagues who are working in a high-stress environment and discover a coffee stand a short walk away from their office building. They find that the walk, the brief chat, and the coffee are energizing to them and help get them through the rest of their workday. Here is what the Habit Loop looks like for them:  Cue – Fast-paced work environment with a lot of stressCraving – Relieve stress and increase energyResponse – Visit local coffee stand and buy a cup of coffeeReward – Feel relief and increased energy. Associate relief with visit to coffee stand

The problem in this scenario is that Manuel & Moe are contributing to waste in the environment by purchasing coffee in disposable coffee cups. They want to bring reusable mugs, but they often forget, and, in the moment, their desire to relieve stress wins out over environmental considerations. What should they do to modify the Habit Loop? In CBSM terminology, they need a prompt to bring a reusable mug so that it too becomes a part of the Habit Loop. What Manuel & Moe do is set an alarm on their phone every night to remind them to pack a reusable mug in the bag they carry to work. They also talk to the vendor, who agrees to give them a 10 percent discount on their daily coffee purchase when they bring a reusable mug. Consciously and intentionally adding cues, or prompts, at the beginning of the Habit Loop helps Manuel & Moe to develop a new habit that is also good for the environment.  To find out more about Ocean Legacy’s EPIC Academy and/or to register, click here.

Hi all,  Researchers estimate that between 100 million and 1 billion birds are killed each year from collisions with buildings in the United States. This is believed to be one of the factors that has led to a nearly 30% decline in North American birds since 1970. According to research by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Chicago is one of the most dangerous cities for migrating birds. Within Chicago, the building that was known to be the most lethal was McCormick Place’s Lakeside Center. Dr. David Willard, an ornithologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, had heard that birds were striking the windows of the conference center, so one morning in 1978, before work, he went to check it out. He found two dead birds. A few years later, in 1982, he started monitoring bird collisions every day at McCormick Place and has continued doing so through 2024. In total, Dr. Willard and his colleagues have recorded 41,789 birds killed by the windows at McCormick. As the years passed and the death toll increased, advocates pushed for changes. McCormick managers tried a few different interventions: In the 1980s, strips of netting. In the 1990s, bird-of-prey calls and silhouettes. They even created a nine-acre rooftop park of native prairie and woodlands to draw the birds away from the windows. Despite these measures, hundreds of birds died during spring and fall migrations. Then, on October 5, 2023, Dr. Willard was at McCormick for his daily inspection and stumbled across hundreds of dead and dying birds along the walkway. Overwhelmed by the sheer volume, he contacted a colleague for help. “They were continuing to crash as we were picking them up,” Dr. Willard recalled. He and his colleague walked away with around 975 dead birds bulging out of plastic bags.  News of this tragedy ricocheted around the world, and the managers at McCormick met with public outrage unlike anything they had ever seen. The American Bird Conservancy took out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune that read, “One Night. One Building. 1,000 Birds Dead.” People began to question what they could do so that this would never happen again. Drawing on research from an ornithologist based out of Pennsylvania, the managers at McCormick decided that the glass needed a pattern over its entire surface. The pattern has opaque dots that are no more than two inches apart, so that even a tiny hummingbird would be prevented from darting through. The treatment cost $1.2 million and was paid for by the state of Illinois. The birds now perceive the glass, and the results are impressive. During fall migration, deaths had been reduced by around 95% when compared with the two previous autumns. Across North America, with Toronto being a leader, there are a growing number of bird-friendly policies being adopted by building managers that are helping make cities safer for birds. And Feather Friendly, the company that manufactures the window dots, has had people emailing them saying that they want what McCormick Place has on their windows. 
This is a success story that came about through trial and error. The managers at McCormick Place tried a few different methods before landing on the window dots. It also took a crisis point before the best solution was found. In your programming, remember that deeply understanding the environmental problem you are faced with will put you in a position to find strategies and solutions to the problem. That deep understanding usually comes about through research, whether that is barrier and benefit research or research on the target audience’s needs and wants. Inadequate research is one of the top reasons why social marketing programs fail. Know your target audience well, along with the problem they are facing, and you will have a better chance of program success. Research matters.  To read more about Feather Friendly’s work at McCormick Place, click here. 

Hi all, Human survival on Earth depends on our ability to sustain the natural systems that provide clean air, water, and food. While there are many success stories regarding humans protecting the planet, we are failing at the highest levels. Part of the reason for that is that in our conservation work, we treat people as part of the problem. Local communities are often viewed as passive stakeholders rather than active agents of change. They are told what not to do, where not to go, and how not to develop their communities. This approach needs to change. People need to be seen as part of the solution.  When it comes to Protected Areas (PAs), they are being downgraded and downsized, resulting in losses of millions of square miles, and over half of the world’s PAs are underfunded or unmanaged. Local populations are seen as cost layers that ‘maximize’ conservation outcomes. Instead of viewing people in this transactional way, we should ask questions like: What are the needs of the local communities most vulnerable to climate change, poverty, and overfishing? What are the most promising community-led solutions to a current problem? What are the barriers to bringing locally-led solutions to scale? In addition to asking those questions, this approach means that we recognize local leadership. It means direct investment in local communities and their leaders. Their knowledge, traditions, and needs should be integrated into conservation strategies. An example of this is the Coastal500 network of mayors and local leaders.

In social marketing, putting communities at the center means talking about people rather than audiences, and serving people rather than targeting them. It also means shifting from a marketing-to perspective to a marketing-with perspective (Lefebvre, 2013). In other words, it would benefit us to view the group whose behavior we wish to influence as value co-creators. In community-based social marketing, specifically, we recognize that direct, personal contact at the community level is one of the best ways to foster sustainable behaviour (Lynes et al, 2014). If we keep in mind that communities and individuals are agents of change as we are, we may be better positioned to tackle our most pressing conservation challenges.  To read more about a people-centered approach to conservation, click on Rare’s article here. 

Home Energy Labels in Oregon is one of the first and best evaluated implementations of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Home Energy ScoreTM. The Home Energy ScoreTM was developed to provide homeowners, buyers and renters with credible and directly comparable details about a home’s energy consumption. The ultimate goal was for homeowners to implement energy efficiency renovations. During the six months between July and December 2023, 464 participating households carried out home upgrades that saved 840,974 kWh per year, or 1,812 kWh per home per year. They undertook energy efficiency upgrades eleven times as often as non-participating households, and they claimed an upgrade incentive twelve times as often. An increase in consumer knowledge about energy efficiency, provided through assessor interaction and scorecard information, was a leading factor in the increase in upgrades. Designated a Landmark case study by our Building Energy panel in 2024.  https://toolsofchange.com/en/case-studies/detail/772/