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Want to promote climate-friendly behavior? Show people how.
A new study finds that leading by example is the most effective way to prod people to adopt behaviors that reduce individual emissions.
CLIMATEWIRE | As an office manager, you noticed that your co-workers rarely turned restroom lights off on their way out.
You first blasted out an all-office email telling people how much energy the company is wasting. Then you held a mandatory session discussing how everyday choices could lead to positive climate impacts. Neither of those worked.
It turns out the solution was simple — making sure that the bathroom lights are turned off at the beginning of a workday.
The tactic is an example of the most effective way to prod people to adopt behaviors that reduce individual emissions, according to a study published Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The best strategies, the study says, are ones that demonstrate ideal behaviors and implicitly encourage people to follow them.
“There's often a lot of room to change behaviors in recycling, using public transportation, choosing a vegetarian lunch, saving electricity or not littering,” said Magnus Bergquist, one of the study’s authors and a lecturer in psychology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
The lead-by-example approach works better than giving people feedback on how their actions affect emissions or educating them about the severity of climate change, Bergquist said.
Individual actions to reduce emissions are often overlooked but can play a role in slowing climate change. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its latest warning about increased emissions, stressed that every fraction of prevented global warming can make a difference (Climatewire, March 21).
The U.N.’s ActNow campaign says reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 requires both “bold, fast and wide-ranging action” by governments and industries and “the participation of citizens — especially in advanced economies.”
The new study found “social comparison” models — those that allow people to compare their own actions with others’ — had the largest effect along with financial incentives. In studies, highlighting emissions-reducing actions by other people was at least twice as effective on average in changing behavior as providing feedback and three time more effective as education.
Education and feedback are still important but not sufficient to trigger meaningful behavior changes, Bergquist said.
Prior research cited in Bergquist's study illustrates effective measures.
In one study, researchers gave a smart meter to people that provided real-time information on their electricity use. Meters flashed green when electricity use declined and displayed a red light when use increased. Some of the meters also showed average usage in neighborhood households.
The study found that households that could compare their usage with other households used nearly 5 percent less electricity over two years than people in control groups who received feedback only on their own use.
Another study brought together a group of volunteers once a month to discuss steps they could take on climate change. The volunteers then tried to live by their own rules and regrouped a month later.
The monthly discussions helped change individual behaviors by providing social pressure and encouragement from fellow participants. After six months, participants cut their waste by 20 percent on average and reduced carbon emissions by an average of 17 percent.
“We use other people as guidelines for what's an effective or correct behavior,” Bergquist said. “When I say change in behavior, it could mean kilowatt-hours saved if we are targeting energy conservation.”
The effectiveness of the efforts varies depending on the type of behavior being modeled and the individuals being targeted, Matthew Goldberg, another study author who is at Yale University, said in an email. “But overall," Goldberg added, "we can confidently say that these approaches are among the most promising for increasing pro-climate behavior."
