
White Paper: How to recognise differences in workforce attitudes towards sustainability
Recognize differences in workforce attitudes towards sustainability and design an effective employee engagement with sustainability program.
There are a number of conventional wisdoms to achieving sustainability that behavioural research would suggest could be false hypotheses. In this article we look at these myths and how to overcome them, highlighting the traits that real-world case studies provide on how to get them right.
Wrong: People just need educating and then they will take action! But just because you have shared information, don’t think people will act upon it.
Katie Patrick in her book “how to save the world”, contrasted the education approach versus a behaviour based approach:
Put up facts about waste on posters and do a leaflet drop on staff desks
Get an environmental leader to talk about impacts (of not taking action)
Go to a conference on the topic
Ask staff to watch videos on the topic
Write on the company blog about the intention to reduce waste
Give everyone in the office something that will change their behaviour (like a reusable water bottle to save plastic)
Install equipment that makes it easy for those new bottles to be used
Get everyone to write a pledge to use these new facilities and display them prominently in the office
Add a smiley/sad face next to the new equipment when usage goes up or down
Chart the change in usage over time and display the results for all employees to see
So the false hypothesis is that the education approach on its own will be successful.
Myth #1: Right: How action can drive belief – why the average person in England now buys around three single-use carrier bags a year from the main supermarkets, compared with around 140 in 2014.
The starting point to building better habits was the government introducing a charge for plastic bags – that had previously been provided as an unlimited free supply at supermarket checkouts.
Government data shows that billions of harmful plastic bags have been stopped from blighting our towns and countryside thanks to the single-use carrier bag charge.
In this scenario education (around the need to reduce plastic waste) we reinforced by a financial incentive to change habits. It was a meaningful first step, and it worked.
Wrong: Up to 98% of environmental news stories are negative in nature. Implicit is the assumption that increasing people’s awareness, concern or fear of climate change are necessary precursors for action.
The false hypothesis is that environmental fear is a powerful motivator to act – which is not true for a large proportion of the population.
Myth #2 Right: In real life, the relationship between beliefs and behaviour often goes in the opposite direction: our actions change our beliefs, awareness and concerns through a process of self-justification
In this scenario positive role models have a greater impact on acceptance of the need to change – for a large proportion of the population. Neuroscientist tell us that telling stories of others taking action is a better way to explain the problem than just starting with the issue.
Wrong: when it comes to taking actions, people do what they say. However, this is difficult, because of the need to overcome the intention-action gap.
The Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme identifies a mismatch between what people pledged to do and their actions. For example, they found that:
In this scenario the false hypothesis is that well intentioned pledges do not translate into direct action – there is a noticeable drop-off when it comes to results.
Right: Consumers make a conscious effort to bridge the intention-action gap when three things are true:
In this scenario, sustainability advocates like Jen Gale sum it up as “Our brains resist change…. the more sustainable change can be the less convenient…. to overcome this we need do one thing, one step at a time, and mind the gap”
Source: Sustainable(ish) podcast – https://www.asustainablelife.co.uk/105-the-intention-to-action-gap/
Sustainability targets have a role to play but are not a guarantee of achieving that outcome of themselves.
A good real world case study of this is the aviation company Virgin Atlantic that wanted to reduce fuel and carbon emissions. In 2014, the Fuel Efficiency and Sustainability teams at the airline partnered with academics from the University of Chicago (UC) and London School of Economics (LSE).
They ran control tests across three different options:
The findings were that it was the combination of all three initiatives that led to pilots having the greatest level of task satisfaction with 80%+ wanting to find out more about how to increase fuel efficiency.
The resulting behavioural changes of the combined programme across 110,000 data points from over 40,000 unique flights delivered:
This rigorous research study is innovative in tracking the separate impacts of basic information, personalised targets, and social incentives on precise and well-defined measures of workplace performance in a high-stake setting.
Visual performance and social recognition can be effective for sustained
Influencers are key messengers – peers who ‘look like us’ or are relatable
The power of norms – humans are driven to compare themselves to others (whose characteristics or circumstances are relevant to theirs)
Recognize differences in workforce attitudes towards sustainability and design an effective employee engagement with sustainability program.
sustainability within an organisation
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