Posts filed under ‘sustainability’
From cash to commitment
Amy Tomkins writes:
Tackling climate change requires collective action. Yet inspiring consumers to change their behaviour is tough. Lack of engagement, lack of understanding and a sense of powerlessness can all prevent people from taking steps to reduce their carbon footprints.
So I was interested in the presentation that Hermione Taylor, founder of The DoNation, gave when she came into the London office recently. Her new sponsorship site seeks to replace cash with action and help people inspire their friends to live more sustainably. By harnessing the social and viral nature of sponsorship, The DoNation encourages people to engage with environmental issues and take action to change their behaviour. As her diagrams above show, this changes the traditional sponsorship model and makes the whole transaction more direct and efficient. To sponsor a friend, you have to commit to at least one of a number of Do-Actions, or carbon-saving pledges, instead of giving money. Actions can be small steps, such as reducing the amount of meat you eat each week, or more significant, such as committing to installing solar panels.
By using friends seeking sponsorship as messengers, The DoNation aims to reach people who know they should do more for the environment, but need a nudge to inspire action. Sponsors have to commit to their action for two months, with the hope that it will become an ingrained habit. Early indicators suggest that some longer term behaviour change has been prompted, but time will tell if Hermione’s vision is realised.
Looking to the future, The DoNation raises an interesting challenge – does the key to environmental behaviour change lie in making it personal? Whether it be supporting a friend; saving money through energy efficiency or improving your immediate living environment, providing a personal connection point seems essential if people are going to reappraise their own behaviour and start to live more sustainable. Governments, companies and third sector organisations need to understand better the personal motivations to being more environmentally aware if they are to help achieve a sustainable global future.
You can visit The DoNation at http://www.thedonation.org.uk/
19 August 2011 at 4:19 pm thenextwavefutures Leave a comment
Changing green
David Bersoff writes: In the US, the current thinking is that ‘green’ and sustainability have become flaccid consumer touch points. But while The Futures Company has found decreases in the level of green activity, our analysis shows that these decreases are not evenly distributed. Instead, the biggest declines in green behavior were disproportionately centered among those with the least commitment to living green.
Apparently, without a tide of marketplace excitement, media attention and green chic to sweep them along, the least committed dropped many of the behaviors in which they were previously engaged. In contrast, the more committed became somewhat less zealous in some areas, but stepped up in others for a net gain in green activity participation.
In contrast to the behavioral data, the attitudinal trends show a significant cooling towards environmentalism even among the greenest consumers. While it is not uncommon for behavior sometimes to outstrip attitudes, this is not a stable state of affairs. Decreased attitudinal support may over time lead to the erosion of green activity participation if left unaddressed, especially regarding those activities that are not perceived to yield secondary benefits. In addition, with a less fertile attitudinal soil to plant them in, it becomes much more difficult to introduce new sustainability-oriented behaviors into the marketplace, especially those that require significant lifestyle change.
Ultimately organizations need to develop long-term strategies for helping people lead greener lives that can be effective even in the face of consumer passivity and lack of interest. Going forward, to the extent possible, green needs to baked into marketplace offerings, and not offered as an option that consumers can take or leave.
But the history of sustainability over a generation has shown quite sharp peaks and troughs in consumer engagement. There are real risks for organizations in deciding to wait until the next crisis before taking decisive action on sustainability issues. If they do, they may find that the severity of both the expectations and the necessary speed of response will be far more expensive and disruptive than taking the lead today on sustainability issues – regardless of the current environmental ennui in the US marketplace.
The image at the top of this post is from Carbon Rally, and is used here with thanks.
Water pressures
Lindsay Kunkle writes:
A group of us from the Chapel Hill office went to a lecture at the University of North Carolina’s business school this week on the future of water. The speaker was Charles Fishman (author of The Big Thirst, as well as The Wal-Mart Effect). Mr. Fishman was quite engaging, and the clear implication of his talk was that our perceptions of water – that it is safe, free, and unlimited – are already out of date.
Some of the stories that he told about water issues, in the US and elsewhere, were alarming. A few highlights:
- Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the U.S., and the water source for Las Vegas, is now half empty; areas of the reservoir that were once 100 feet deep are now bone dry.
- 70% of the people in India’s hospitals are there because of water related problems (treatment of diarrhoea is a huge cost for the country—and could be resolved almost completely by providing the population with safe drinking water)
- Still in India, one-sixth of the population still relies on “foot carried” water—in order for a family to have water the wife and daughters transport water from a well (often not close) to the family’s home.
However, Fishman stresses there is no ‘global water crisis,’ but rather there are local and regional water problems—conserving water in North Carolina will not help India have more water (just as cleaning one’s plate every night as a child did not help feed starving children in Africa, no matter what parents said.
And despite the portents, Mr. Fishman was hopeful about the future of ‘smart water’. In the U.S., Las Vegas is the poster child as the ‘smartest water city.’ The city has enacted many laws to control water use and to increase the amount of water that can safely be recycled for continued use. For example, it is illegal to let sprinkler water hit the sidewalk; new homes aren’t permitted to have pretty green front lawns; and as a result, 94% of the city’s water can be be reused.
And there are implications for the future of how we manage water.
- As long as water is ‘free’, it decreases consumer and business willingness to invest money or time in smart water solutions. And since American consumers drink on average 4 bottles of water per a week, they are not completely unfamiliar with the idea of actually paying for water.
- There is an emotional connection to water (think a hot bath on a cold day or diving into the cool ocean as a kid) that can be promoted to drive more creative smart water solutions as well as more creative water management in general.
- Water needs to be marketed! Promoting water through marketing campaigns that educate consumers on their water sources and how water gets to their homes is a good first step in working towards solving the water problems so many face.
It happens that this is an area in which The Futures Company has already engaged with a wide range of clients, both commercial and in government. It’s clear that water needs to rise up the agenda of most businesses and organisations – wherever they are based.
The photograph of Lake Mead at the top of the post is from the Scripps Institute at UCSD, and is used here with thanks.
Eating my greens
Eleanor Cooksey writes:
Early January, and it’s the time of year to be making New Year’s resolutions. After over-indulging during the festive season, it makes sense to decide to eat more healthily. And I would also like to try to be more green. However, I am not sure the two are compatible.
It might seem healthier to cook my cottage pie from scratch at home, but a study shows there are lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions involved in microwaving a ready meal version. This is because mass manufacture involves much more efficient use of resources and appliances, and being provided in portion format, is less likely to lead to wasting opened ingredients (such as that bit of mince that didn’t fit in the pan) or unconsumed cooked food (someone forgot the leftovers hidden at the back of the fridge).
Fine – so it looks like it could be better to eat ready prepared food, and many manufacturers are trying very hard to make their products healthier, for example by using oils high in polyunsaturated fats as oppose to saturated fat. However, it’s not that straightforward, as these oils need more water to clean the residues off the production lines, and I am not keen on increasing the embedded water content in what I eat.
Perhaps I would be better off to keep things simple, eat less meat, and focus on my ‘five a day‘. But who would have thought that it is greener to eat a salad with tomatoes imported from Spain than local produce needing lots of energy to heat the greenhouse, or that an English apple will have been consuming energy to stay fresh in refrigeration throughout the winter? Or that going for fish is equally challenging given the amount of research needed to ensure you are eating from truly sustainable sources?
To avoid subsisting on a diet of just Brussels sprouts, turnips and parsnips I need help. How can we cut through the complexity so we can all make good (ie healthy, green and good value) choices as a consumer?
The photograph at the top of this poast is from VegBox Recipes, and is used with thanks.
The green consumer
Josh Hunt writes:
The Futures Company’s recently-launched multimedia report, Greenprint, looks at the UK public’s engagement and behaviour in sustainability. The research, based on both quantitative and qualitative data, shows that while people report relatively high levels of engagement, this does not necessarily translate into changes in everyday behaviour.
Consumers, it appears, have a ‘costs and benefits’ view of sustainable behaviour, in which they assess trade-offs involved. Direct benefits to home and family have most influence, perhaps unsurprisingly, followed by benefits for neighbourhood and social networks. More general benefits, for example to the planet, have the least sway.
Consumers also find it difficult to conceptualise complex issues such as ‘embedded carbon’. There’s little understanding of why eating less meat improves sustainability outcomes, for example. Finally, consumers generally underestimate the benefits of more sustainable behaviour. But when they do change one aspect of their behaviour they tend to find that it leads to other benefits elsewhere in their lives.
The quantitative analysis led to the development of our Greenprint segmentation. The segments are differentiated by the extent to which people feel able to live an environmentally-friendly lifestyle, or are constrained, and the extent to which they are motivated by the idea of an environmentally friendly lifestyle. There are six segments, shown below: two engaged groups (Pioneers and Adopters), two interested but uninvolved groups (Strugglers and Confused) and two unmotivated groups (Sceptics and Passives). It’s also worth noting that – to a significant degree – consumers find sustainability messages confusing, and not sufficiently relevant. But there is considerable scope to change behaviours with the right messages.
The right messages are those that tap into genuine consumer motivations for change, and those that work across segments, rather than assuming that people will be moved by a desire to live more sustainable lives. Thus, encouraging people to pump up their tyres is more likely to be motivating if people are made aware of the potential cost savings as well as the environmental benefits (rather than reducing their carbon footprint). Equally, people are suspicious of the motives of marketers and wary of greenwash, so communications which explain how sustainability can benefit multiple parties can cut through this. Finally, we don’t want to be preached to: messages which provoke thought and encourage re-evaluation are more likely to be seen as relevant rather than those which take a position and assert it, loudly.
The Futures Company’s Greenprint Insight Package (opens pdf) is a paid-for resource which explores UK consumer attitudes to sustainability. It comes on on a USB pen drive. It includes includes multimedia presentation and video resources to help you bring the opportunities and challenges of sustainability to life within your business.
The future’s here – even in Thanet – it is just unevenly distributed…
Eleanor Cooksey writes:
We often use this quote[1] but, as far as I know, have never applied it to thinking about this part of the country. Thanet (the area of Kent made up of Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate) doesn’t tend to crop up in discussions about places that are doing new or interesting things, in the way, that for example, we talk about Totnes with its own currency, or Hay with its literary festival now gone international. Thanet, despite being in the south east, has high unemployment, relatively low income levels and poor health indicators.
However, after having spent a week in Thanet, I am struck by how it does appear to contain elements of what we think will be significant in the future. There are three features in particular which make me think this:
1. Old people make up a significant proportion of the population here. When working on futures projects, we often talk about the ‘ageing population’ with perhaps a reference to the impact this will have on the workplace, but I am not sure we have thought through what it means for general day-to-day living. What I see here is a perhaps a taster. It means that I see many bungalows with neat gardens full of paving stones, gravel and flower pots (meaning no stairs, lawns or flower beds to worry about). I see lots and lots of small cafes offering all-day breakfasts for very good value, where people, who may be living on their own and therefore less inclined to cook for themselves, can get a meal without incurring great expense. On the pavements and in garages, I see mobility vehicles. At the sparkly new Westwood Cross shopping centre built in the area, I couldn’t help noticing that, in addition to M&S, Debenhams, Thorntons and the like, there was also a shop specialising in mobility vehicles.
2. Renewable energy is very visible in the form of the Thanet Offshore Windfarm. On completion this year it is scheduled to have 100 wind turbines, making it, according to the website, the largest operational windfarm anywhere in the world.
3. There are new ways of growing food. Kent has traditionally been regarded as the ‘garden of England’ and the new Thanet Earth greenhouse complex represents a way of achieving this in a resource efficient and technologically enhanced way. Thanet Earth grows salad vegetables hydroponically (meaning the roots of the plants are in a type of rock wool as oppose to soil). Everything in the glasshouses is computer controlled – from the blinds in the ceilings to opening the windows, the liquid feed make-up, the heating, lighting and carbon dioxide levels.
So if you want to experience the future, or at least parts of it, go to Thanet.
[1] The quote is actually ‘The future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed’ and is from William Gibson.
The image is of Thanet wind farm and is from Warwick Energy, used with thanks.
Changing transport
Andrew Curry writes:
I was asked to speak at an event held last week in Leuven in Belgium on The Future of Transport by Said El Khadraoui, an MEP who’s a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism. I went because it was a chance to revisit a large scenarios project I directed a few years ago, for the UK government’s Foresight project, on Intelligent Infrastructure Systems, and because some of the other speakers were at the forefront of work on intelligent transport systems. (And not, of course, because Leuven is the home of Stella Artois).
Transport is a problem because its carbon emissions keep on growing – unlike every other sector – and because it is almost completely dependent on fossil fuel to power it, against a backdrop of expected long-term price increases. One speaker argued that given the carbon impact and the risks, and given also the level of external costs generated by transport, it is likely that transport – especially car use and road freight – is simply too cheap.
The argument which I teased out of the Foresight scenarios was that one of the problems is that we confuse the benefits of mobility with the benefits of access; a century of increasing car use has made services and facilities more distant, and therefore harder to access by anything other than a car. The long-run solution is to redesign the built environment to reverse this process. This takes a generation or more, although it is starting to happen; there are more food shops closer to homes, and road space, certainly in towns, is being taken away from cars across Europe.
In the meantime, technology offers both carrots and sticks. The combination of wireless technology, open data, and smartphones opens up the possibility of applications which make public transport more attractive, and alternatives to car ownership more feasible. This requires more than just better, live information. It also requires the smartphone or a smartcard to be a form of authentication (not necessarily identification), of permission, and preferably of payment as well. The stick is some form of road pricing; the technology is well advanced, and the reasons for implementing it more pressing. The Netherlands is likely to be the first, although Belgium is not far behind. One other issue that’s becoming more prominent is that of the noise impact of traffic.
Leuven is a university town with quite a lot of industry associated with it (a Belgian equivalent of Oxford, perhaps). One of the speakers conjured up a vision of the city using technology to manage its transport issues better – everything from guiding traffic and managing traffic flows, to a drivers’ reserved parking space, to integrating information about different transport systems, to supporting car sharing, to helping people use bikes or walking instead of travelling by car.
The picture at the top, by Andrew Curry, is of the Grote Markt in Leuven, a ‘shared space‘ used by pedestrians, cyclists, and service vehicles. It is published here under a Creative Commons licence.
Barefoot running
Allie Schnidman writes:
The media is buzzing with the “back to basics” theme. While this trend started with food – from the Slow Food Movement to Michael Pollan’s latest book – this “all-natural” trend seems to taking hold in the world of exercise as well.
While it is far from new, barefoot running has recently gained a considerable amount of media attention. Runners are learning more about the advantages of running with minimal foot support and testing it with their bare feet, or for those less confident, with Vibram’s ‘Five Fingers‘ or Nike’s ‘Free’. Runners have joined with scientists and podiatrists to debate the advantages of barefoot running: less impact on the ankles and knees leading to fewer injuries, slower strides with improved running postures and a closer connection to the environment. In fact, one of Vibram’s selling points is “a deepened connection to the earth” with a heightened sense of touch when jumping from one spot to the next.
As can be seen in the food industry, there is an ongoing shift in which the consumer seems, sometimes erratically, to reconnect with the natural environment. The shift in food consumption started with health concerns but now extends to environmentalism: consumers want to eat for their own sustainability, and also for the environment’s sustainability.
The trend of barefoot running could follow the same pattern: we start by kicking off those shoes for health reasons, but continue for the pleasure of a heightened connection with the Earth. But perhaps this is where the comparison stops. For, sooner or later, the barefoot runner comes up hard (literally) against the experience of the paved city roads.
Certainly, as a runner, that’s the reason for my hesitation. I’m interested in testing this out with The Futures Company’s running team, but have concerns about exposing their fine feet to the streets of London. Perhaps it’s just a prejudice, but I wonder if barefoot running is meant for the countryside while pavement running is safer with a cushioned shoe; I find it hard to believe that running without shoes on paved roads is truly a natural experience. But perhaps readers have had a different experience; if so, I’d love to hear your comments.
The photo at the top of this post is from the Fitness Concepts blog, and is used with thanks.
20 April 2010 at 11:00 pm thenextwavefutures Leave a comment
Christmas collection # 4
By far, the most interesting thing I read this year was a magazine article not a book.31 December 2009 at 10:00 am thenextwavefutures Leave a comment
Struggling towards sustainability
Andrew Curry writes:
Whatever the disappointments about the Copenhagen talks, it’s clear that consumers have fairly strong attitudes to sustainability issues, and these have barely been affected by the financial crisis. That was the view of a recent report on our Henley Planning for Consumer Change [PCC] research in New Civil Engineer. Indeed, politicians seem to be lagging consumers on the question of sustainability.
The managing director of The Futures Company’s London office, Will Galgey, told NCE that “The key thing is that there hasn’t been a significant diminishing of engagement with environmental issues. In fact we see the importance of those issues continuing to rise.”
At the same time, consumers increasingly see the links between environmental behaviours and financial prudence. But not all businesses seem to have registered this.
Frank Price, sustainability director at the engineering consultancy Grontmij, argues in the article, “Some businesses may be tempted to reel in their focus on sustainability, based on a false belief that the finances needed to introduce sustainable practices could be better spent elsewhere. On the contrary, businesses that are looking to save money and reduce costs should be looking at their sustainability measures as a priority.”
The costs of not increasing the level of business sustainability are likely to be measured in business reputation. PCC data show that 79% agree that companies have a responsibility to support the communities they operate in, and businesses are identified by some distance as the group “most at fault for causing environmental damage”. At the same time, trust in businesses continues to decline. Potentially this adds up to a vicious circle in which it is difficult for businesses to increase their credibility – or a welcome opportunity to rebuild trust.
For more information about accessing Planning for Consumer Change, please contact our UK Marketing and PR Manager, Jennifer Childs. The picture at the top of the post is from Australia’s fmcg sustainability institute, and is used with thanks.
