Issues around climate change, sustainability and the environment have become much more prominent over the last few years, both in the media and, seemingly, in the public consciousness. There are many awareness-raising initiatives, from the large-scale global events like Live Earth and Earth Hour to much more specific or local campaigns. While on the surface this trend seems only positive, questions remain. How effective are these campaigns? Is simply raising people’s awareness enough? If our goal is to move to a truly sustainable society – and it should be – are current strategies for raising awareness and changing people’s behaviour likely to move us in this direction, or are they simply a way to make us feel better as we continue to do further damage to the planet?
It seems to me that the best answer is to not only raise awareness of what the problems are, but try and build understanding of why they are occurring. With that would hopefully come the realisation of the need to change the way our society conceives of and uses resources, moving from the current ‘take-make-use-waste’ model to a sustainable, closed-loop system.
Most mainstream campaigns, however, seem to focus either only on awareness-raising, or else promoting change through small, individual choices. Save the planet – all you have to do is get new light bulbs! The implicit message seems to be that we can keep doing what we’re doing, we should just do slightly less of it. Many campaigns address people primarily as consumers, with the idea that change will come about through individual purchasing decisions.
There is merit to this, of course. Consumers should take more responsibility for the consequences of their purchasing. My concern is that if such decisions are not backed up by proper knowledge, the action taken will be, at best, ineffectual, and at worst, harmful. If the campaign is simply designed to encourage more consumption, albeit with a green tinge, it doesn’t go any way to addressing the underlying causes of climate change and will probably do more harm than good.
I’ve been involved in a few small-scale campaigns myself. One thing which comes up often is the linking of sustainable behaviours to saving money. The main value of this, of course, is to counter perceived popular perceptions that taking the ‘eco-option’ will be more expensive. This is a common theme is many behaviour-change efforts, with slogans like “Go green and save green” and “save money – and the planet” being used often. I’m beginning to question the wisdom of appealing too much to people’s avarice, though. What do you do with all the money you’ve saved? Conventional thinking would be to blow it on consumer goods, or maybe an overseas holiday – which is what got us here in the first place and likely wipes out all the good that’s been done up to this point.
Luckily, it seems that using greed as a motivator is not necessary, and may in fact be ineffectual. A recent WWF report, ‘Weathercocks and Signposts: The Environment Movement at a Crossroads’ found that (and I’m quoting from the executive summary as I’m too lazy right now to go through the entire 42 pages)
such approaches may actually serve to defer, or even undermine, prospects for the more far-reaching and systemic behavioural changes that are needed. There is little evidence that, in the course of encouraging individuals to adopt simple and painless behavioural changes, this will in turn motivate them to engage in more significant changes.
It argues that appealing to materialistic values cannot form the basis for motivating systemic pro-environmental behaviour changes:
Individuals who engage in behaviour in pursuit of ‘intrinsic goals’ (of personal growth, emotional intimacy or community involvement) tend to be more highly motivated and more persistent in engaging in this behaviour than individuals motivated by ‘extrinsic goals’ (for example, of acquisition of material goods, financial success, image and social recognition). Moreover, more materialistic individuals tend to have higher ecological footprints.
It can be difficult, though, to orchestrate a campaign built around intrinsic values through traditional communication channels. The dominant paradigm in mainstream media is very much built around extrinsic values; the satisfaction of individual desires through consumption. It is not only that the media are structured this way because of the requirements of advertisers. The public has come to expect that this is how they will be addressed. It may be difficult to appeal to values of “personal growth, emotional intimacy or community involvement” without it coming across as wishy-washy greenie tree-huggery.
The prospects of the mainstream media properly informing the public of why environmental problems are occurring, and the necessity of moving to a more sustainable society, also seem remote. Most campaigns sponsored or championed by the media, such as Earth Hour, do not tend to encourage this type of thinking. Views seen as ‘radical,’ especially those which challenge conventional economic wisdom, tend to be marginalised in the news. Journalists, for their part, do not seem willing to go down this path. A 1994 study of science and environment reporters found a clear consensus amongst journalists that their role was to provide interesting, informative and entertaining coverage, not to educate the public on matters of scientific or environmental literacy. And perhaps it is not their place to do so – maybe this is better left to schools and other education providers. There is also evidence to suggest that behaviour-change campaigns are much more effective at a grass-roots, inter-personal level. The nature of the mainstream media, however, means it could be an obstacle to widespread acceptance of the need for change, although by no means one that’s impossible to overcome.
Tags: behaviour change, campaigns, climate change, education
