Dear List Members:
I am seeking your opinions and your ideas on what the next "Blue Box" could be for the sustainability movement. Is there another action that could as successful in bringing together the idealism of youth and the social pressures of adulthood? What might be the next social marketing success story for sustainability?
RVW
The Next Blue Box????
Sign in or Sign up to comment
Peta:
I think we also need to create connections between the different behaviors that we are asking people to engage in and place these behaviors in the larger context of moving toward a sustainable future. At present, individuals and businesses are being asked to engage in a wide array of behavioral changes by a wide array of organizations. This has to be confusing from their perspective as there is little or no connection made between these various activities. Further, there is no road map. By that I mean that we have failed to articulate for our audiences what a sustainable future would look like, why it is preferable to where we are right now, and what actions would move us toward that goal. In addition, we often don't provide feedback on the progress we are making. Without this feedback it is challenging for people to feel any sense of collective efficacy in dealing with what are often overwhelming problems. How do we connect these various behaviors so that the public and businesses see them as being part of something larger? One possibility is to begin to brand the behavioral changes so that there is at least on the surface some connection between them. Auckland, New Zealand has begun to do this with their "It's a living thing" program that ties together a variety of behavioral changes at the municipal level. It can be challenging, however, to create these connections when different departments and agencies are working on different parts of the puzzle. I understand that the recent merger of agencies that occurred in the State of Victoria, Australia (which led to the formation of Sustainable Victoria) was in part spurred by an attempt to create some cohesion across different behavioral changes. Somehow we also have to place these branded activities in the larger context of a national or state wide social marketing campaign that broadly educates people and engages them with respect to sustainability. What I imagine is a multi-decade social marketing campaign that provides a vision of what a sustainable future might look like and why it is preferable, articulates the range of behavioral changes that we need to make, and then provides feedback on our progress. At the same time this state/national campaign would be tied back to the various discrete activities that we are promoting through branding so that our target audiences saw a clear connection between the goal of a sustainable future and what was being asked of them on a day-to-day basis. I'd enjoy hearing other thoughts on this.
Best,
Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr, Ph.D.
McKenzie-Mohr Associates
(506) 455 5061 voice/pager
(506) 455 0550 fax
[email protected]
http://www.cbsm.com
Dear RVW,
I'm not actually familiar with the 'blue box' you mention, however one of response is training motivated young people to be effective change agents, which may or may not include CBSM methodologies. A program that I coordinate at the Australian National University, which originated at Monash University (Vic, Aust.) aims to do just that, called Green Steps. The particularly interesting thing about it in relation to your question is that it was originated for and by students who were sick of learning about the worlds problems without seeing any useful way to act on them. Rather than conforming to an unsustainable mainstream life after they graduated, or dropping out, they devised an extra-curricular program that they felt would help them find a critically engaged career as change agents. The course does happen to introduce CBSM as a possible tool, but the main point is that it is a way of fostering the next generation of 'marketeers'. Since young people do seem to be increasingly disengaged and 'doom-fatigued' with sustainability, I think this makes identifying and supporting new leaders all the more important, and doesn't mean having to target the whole generation at once. Details of the program can be seen at: http://www.mei.monash.edu.au/GS_training.html We've also written a chapter on it for an upcoming book which I can send you if you are interested.
hope that is of help,
Stefan Kaufman
What's a blue box? Peta Wellstead is correct. I field questions like "should I use cloth diapers?" People really want to know what's important. Of course the answer is "do as you please: kids have to poop, and diapers make up only 1% of landfill waste. Go for the discretianary and more important decisions, like buying efficient appliances." But I only know that because I read Rathje's "Rubbish". Government can't afford research. Universities do research better. It's my job to get it and share it. Other venues do this: Grist's "ask Umbra" column sets manageable and accurate information in a "Miss Lonelyhearts" format. But Umbra has trouble with those "which is better" questions, because they're really hard. Is it more sustainable to buy fresh potatoes, frozen tater tots, canned potatoes, potato flakes? Who the hell can figure it out? Lifecycle analysis is not only hard, it keeps changing with fuel efficiency and location. If we want a broadly useful message, we need to stay away from these choices and go for the easy ones: yes, it is always worth installing a low-flow shower head. The Union of Concerned Scientists came up with a book about how to really achieve sustainability, and naturally, the most substantive things are hard and expensive. (Not that my peers don't have money: they would just rather spend it on personal watercraft than low-flow washing machines.) If you want something that young and old can manage, how about paperless commerce? Reject hard catalogs, pay bills on line, publish newsletters on line, opt out of junkmail, etc. There is already momentum, and it doesn't require deprivation. It's pure source reduction. No question about whether newsprint is more sustainable than glossy. It offers few barriers, and builds initial buy-in. If we had a unified "next message", how would we promote it?
Sondra Flite
Principal Environmental Specialist
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
As one of the people involved in creating the first Blue Box I couldn't help but want to join a discussion about the "next Blue Box". I thought Peta's observations about information were excellent. People want to hear what's meaningful, information that makes them richer in some sense, probably more in terms of personal satisfaction and comfort, well-being, than simply bank account richer. People want to feel like they matter, like they can make a difference, certainly a key to the success of the Blue Box. There are - in a sense, unfortunately - a huge number of areas where we're facing major problems right now. So the silver lining is that we have huge opportunities where another "social marketing success story for sustainability" can potentially be created. And perhaps if everyone on this list got together to work on just one of these problem areas the result would be a guaranteed successful Blue Box V2. Like many people on this list I'm continually and very happily working on new creations that will contribute a little or a lot to sustainability success. And I'm hopeful that these discussions will help. Glad that Doug got this going and that we've made it past the start-up trauma.
Cheers
Jack
Hello,
First I would like to answer the question "what is a blue box"? Here in Ontario Canada we have had a "blue box" for many years that is used literally for our recycling each week (cans, bottles, etc.)and figuratively to depict the "reduce, reuse, recycle" concept. In regards to what is the next blue box, I have asked myself the same question many times and I would love to find the answer as it has been such a successful program here. I do have an idea though and it is energy conservation. Let me explain: I am the project manager of a small project in Shelburne Ontario called "Reduce the Juice" that used local high school and university kids to go to door to door to encourage people to conserve energy this past summer. We believe that young people are the agents of change and the message is best to come from them just as it did with the blue box campaign. We used the blue box model when creating our marketing plan and came up with the "Shelburne Blue Barrel". A 50 gallon drum used to visually depict the amount of CO2 that goes into the atmosphere from coal fired electricity generation using 1kWh is equal to 1 kg of CO2 and a barrel can hold 0.4kg therefore for every 1kWh used 2.5 barrels full of CO2 is released into the atmosphere. This worked incredibly well as we felt our major hurdle was getting people to make the connection between their actions and the larger picture of climate change. We also tried other things to bring a person's commitment to energy conservation out from the privacy of their home into the neighbourhood to try to make energy conservation a new social norm. For one we used lawn signs, for more information see our website www.reducethejuice.ca. The beauty of the Blue box from my perspective is it is visible every week when you put it to the curb full of your recyclables. All of your neighbours can see you are participating in this program and it has become socially unacceptable to not do it. If we could find a way to make sustainable living socially acceptable (I believe it already is in some circles) and socially unacceptable to not live in a sustainable fashion, we would be well on our way. I agree with Doug's view that we have not yet found a cohesive way to engage the public and maybe climate change can be that "thing" that brings all of us together to show people the connection between their way of life and the damage it is doing. I like the idea of a roadmap. Any other thoughts on this as we are currently putting together next year's project and would welcome any suggestions.
Theresa Sauren
Project Manager
Reduce the Juice PURE
Dear "Blue Box" respondents:
In appreciation for the thoughtful and interesting responses, I tried to summarize the points raised and their implications. Premises: 1. A long-term social marketing campaign that; 2. National, if not international in scope that, 3. Youth are the instrumental to designing and running. Using a backcasting approach, the first step is the creation of a vision of a sustainable future. Some folks define sustainability as a preferred future so this is consistent with emergiing ideas on the topic. The preferred future is the basis for continuous evaluation. Young people are trained as sustainability leaders, establishing and providing a database of behaviours, complete with the relative worth of these actions as well as their relationships other sustainable behaviours. One of the outcomes of the database is a source of behaviour change strategies that are eventually prioritized. This prioritization process is part of a national social marketing campaign that determines the most salient behaviours base on the number of connection any single behaviour has to other sustainable behaviours. How such a campaign succeeds was not discussed and this might be the source of Sondra's question about promotion. My own opinion, based on health promotion, is that policy support must contain the appropriate incentives. Doug suggested branding, I see fun and popular culture as instrumental. Perhaps this is another question. Thanks everyone, I hope this summary was helpful.
ROB
Has the Blue Box been successful? Well, from the perspective of being an innovation whereby it has became a social norm supported by the first half of the bell curve, yes. It is true that we had the innovators and early adopters involved. I believe that it certainly earmarked the first broad based opportunity for individuals to participate in doing something positive for the environment whereas before it started the only social engagement process was to complain to someone (government, industry, peers). As an interesting early day case study for social engineering, it holds the attention of many. Jack McGinnis and many others worked diligently to get it kick started. Careers were made and jobs were lost in the development phase. But the Blue Box has hit a plateau. It has not got enough people involved consistently. There are still the laggards or late adopters who are NOT involved. And currently, the quality of material as output has dropped considerably. Part of this is poor management by those responsible for program design. Part of this is insufficient communication and education. Part of this is that we leave in an increasingly complicated world with decreasing amounts of free time. Current pressures to make the Blue Box do more than it was designed to do are driving the costs up, the end product quality down, and we need to do something to get it off its current plateau. There are a number of people and quite a few industries, very interested to determine how its value as a social norm can be leveraged to counter its current downward trend. There are a number of industries too that are very concerned that the public's faith in the Blue Box is protected even at a financial premium until they can sort out the 'management' problems with it. I find it interesting that some industry players would do that. The question is now can we get it off its plateau, enhance the quality of materials and increase the quantities captured? How do we have to rethink the design? What incentives are needed to get late adopters and laggards involved? I am far less interested in penalty approaches to stir late adopters and laggards as I do not believe we have put enough effort into the opportunity side of the equation. I am interested in the thoughts of others to address the slow pokes.
L. E. Johannson B.E.S., (Hons) M.Sc.,
FRSA Ontario
To provide a "next blue box" for energy conservation based on actual performance, an existing model is the USEPA Energy Star program. The web page presenting the basics of a residence qualifying for Energy Star status is http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=new_homes.hm_earn_star. There are equivalent pages for most non-residential building types as well. This website contains a good resource called Putting Energy into Stewardship on the USEPA Energy Star web site at http://www.energystar.gov/ia/business/small_business/congregations.pdf This program may simply lack adequate social marketing in the US. Maybe it could provide qualifying homes an attractive star symbol for a front window, LED-lit on photocell control for low-energy nightly display. This might go over especially well in the Lone Star State.
Bill Carter
Water Quality Monitoring & Assessment MC
165 Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
P.O. Box 13087 Austin, TX 78711-3087
Phone: 512-239-6771
Fax: 512-239-4410
[email protected]
I am an information professional and from the perspective of my work the "next blue box" which can harness youthful energy with the social pressures of adulthood is accurate and meaningful information about what is do-able within the context of the everyday Western experience of living, most often in an urban setting. Unfortunately the environment sector has become like health. Everyday there is a new piece of information bombarding our sensibilities about what needs to be done to fix the problems which confront us. Much of this information is contradictory, confusing, bad science, and 'so what'. This is alienating and confusing to everyone and leads to inertia or worse - flawed responses which make people feel better but actually achieve little or nothing, while they are not doing things that would really improve things. People really want good quality information which helps them make good choices for daily living. Things like: Is it better or worse to drive 10km to buy organic food, or should shop unorganic locally, Is it better or worse to buy milk in glass bottles, cardboard cartons, or plastic, Does my water saving shower head actually make any difference, What really happens to the material I put in my recycling bin, How much energy is wasted by leaving my computer on overnight, If I drive to a closer holiday destination is that better or worse than taking a jumbo to another destination, Is it better to grow some of my own vegetables, which uses water and adds to the nutrient load locally, rather than buy commercially grown. Is it better to wash my car at home on the lawn, or take it to a car wash. While these type of issues may sound trivial to some, these are the type of questions that everyone deals with everyday, and they just don't have the information they need to made good choices. Most of the information is generated by the "photo stop" opportunities for politicians - hardly a reliable source, but is often all average people have. If people are going to become engaged and active over the life span they need quality information to help them make the small changes in their everyday behaviour which they know really make a difference, and are sustainable for them over time.
Peta