Report: International review of behaviour change initiatives

This report (Southerton D, McMeekin A and Evans D (2011). International review of behaviour change initiatives: Climate change behaviours research programme, Scottish Government) commissioned by the Scottish Government, reviews a range of behaviour change initiatives that have attempted to reduce the carbon intensity of consumption practices. It aims to enhance understandings of the different combinations of mechanisms for behavioural change, and to explore the potential transferability of initiatives to other regional, specifically Scottish, contexts.

The first stage of the research involved the identification and review of a wide range of publicly available reports, from which thirty cases were chosen to provide a ‘long list.’ Six of these initiatives were selected for further research and presentation as case studies.

The report notes that while the thirty cases cannot be seen as fully representative of the range of behaviour change initiatives that are out there, they do suggest something about the patterning of initiatives. In particular they focus disproportionately on the individual context for behaviour change, especially informational campaigns seeking to change consumer attitudes in the hope that this would result in behavioural change. This focus is to the exclusion of the social contexts in which individual decisions, attitudes and choices are often understood and framed. The material context was most obviously attended to in areas of public service provision, where infrastructures of energy, water and travel clearly affect patterns of behaviour.

The report says there are three key lessons that can be learnt from the review:

1. Behaviour change initiatives will be more effective if they go beyond targeting the individual context (especially through informational campaigns) to include mechanisms which intervene in the social and material contexts. Targeting moments of transition (moving home, having children, and so on) and pressure points in infrastructural systems represent opportunities for sustained behavioural change.
2. There appears to be significant, as yet untapped, potential to employ a set of mechanisms, within a coordinated framework, based on a coherent vision of the required changes in a specific sector or domain or consumption. This provides an opportunity for otherwise individual, ‘single action’ schemes to complement one other towards a common goal – and to reduce the possibility that they might pull in opposite directions.
3. There are opportunities to change the provision of goods and services without necessarily altering specific behaviours (e.g. renewable energy). Using non pro-environmental issues related to health and fitness, diet or even concerns about time pressure (e.g. to encourage home working) can also be used to mobilize pro-environmental behaviours.

Four general conclusions are offered in the report:

• There is a need for more robust evidence
• Schemes cannot just cut and pasted to other areas - they need to be context specific
• Who leads an initiative (government, firm or community) is likely to influence how the initiative is perceived and has potential to affect outcomes;
• Most of the iniatives reviewed target modest improvements in carbon impacts – the question then follows as to whether these approaches are sufficient.  It is important to consider the potential for wider-reaching system level changes, which radically transform what and the way we consume, to achieve much more significant GHG savings.