Changing Behaviours for a

Changing Climate

From Theory to Policyto Action?

Professor Stewart Barr

School of Geography
Is the aspiration
to become an
eco-saint
enough to
make you
change your
behaviour?
 Outline
A contested issue;
Why behaviour change? The logic of the
Citizen-Consumer;
Behavioural Theories;
Frameworks for studying behavioural change;
Policy approaches;
The challenge of climate change and
behavioural change: science, knowledge,
context and practice.
 From the Old to the New...
Gilg-Selman spectrum of state-led policy
options for environmental management:
Regulation;
Disincentives;
Incentives;
Exhortation.
Moved to citizen-led, co-production of
polices as the state is rolled back
(Jessop, 2002).
 Consumption, Citizenship and the
Environment
The act of consumption is becoming increasingly suffused
with citizenship characteristics and considerations.
Citizenship is not dead, or dying, but found in new
places, in life-politics (Scammell, 2000, p. 351).

Choice is key, but it drives down responsibility to

citizens

Who frames environmental responsibility and what it

means to live a healthy, fulfilling life?

Therefore a fundamentally Neo-liberal,

small-state approach.
The rise of choice architecture
A nudge is ...any aspect of the choice architecture that
alters peoples behaviour in a predictable way without
forbidding any options or significantly changing their
economic incentives. To count as a mere nudge, the
intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid. Nudges
are not mandates. Putting the fruit at eye level counts as
a nudge. Banning junk food does not (Thaler and
Sunstein, 2008, page 8).

not all non-regulatory interventions are nudges in the

standard understanding of the term. Nudges prompt
choices without getting people to consider their options
consciously, and therefore do not include openly
persuasive interventions such as media campaigns and
the straightforward provision of information (House of
Lords 2011, p. 12).
 Promoting sustainable lifestyles

We all governments, businesses, families and communities,

the public sector, voluntary and community organisations
need to make different choices if we are to achieve the
vision of sustainable development (DEFRA, 2005, p. 25)
 The Behavioural Problem

Whats the problem,

or what are the
problems,
with this
advertisement?
 The Information Fallacy
promoting engagement in a new activity,
such as walking or biking to work, is much
more complex. An array of barriers to
these activities exist, such as concerns
over time, safety, weather, and
convenience. The diversity of barriers that
exist for any sustainable activity means
that information campaigns alone will
rarely bring about behavior change
(McKenzie-Mohr, 2000, p. 546)
Behavioural theories: the disciplinary
landscape of pro-environmental
behavioural change
Three main approaches:
1. Psychological:
Theory-driven;
Individually focused;
Studies often experimental in design;
Largely quantitative studies making certain
epistemological assumptions.
 Three main approaches
2. Sociological - practices:
Driven by ideas of Grounded Theory;
Society-focused (family, household,
community);
Studies often observational / ethnographic in
design;
Using qualitative methods.
 What is of interest here is not the bad
behaviour itself, but the social
practice(s) that lie behind these
behaviours
 What underlying social and
economic trends drive the social
practice of driving? Any ideas?
 Three main approaches
3. Grey literature and policy-facing
research:
Often commissioned by government
departments;
Dominated by an outcomes-based
philosophy;
Often draws on a range of academic
literature.
 Policy Approaches: Social Marketing for
behavioural change

Social marketingunderscores
the importance of strategically
delivering programs so that they
target specific segments of the
public and overcome the barriers
to this segments engaging in the
behavior
(McKenzie-Mohr, 2000, p. 594).
 Defras framework for pro-
environmental behaviours,
January 2008
Evidence and Principles and
Behaviour goals Segmentation
consumer insight approaches

Implications for policy

STRATEGY
Source: DEFRA (2008)
 Impact High CO2 impact High impact and
Who is Avoid
unnecessary (CO2) 1,000kg/hh common behaviour
doing flights (short
haul)
what
Use more
efficient vehicles

Use car less for Install insulation

short trips

Waste less food Current

0% Increase Behaviour
recycling
Low Better energy 100%
management High proportion
of population
Install
microgeneration

Adopt lower
impact diet
Buy energy
More responsible
efficient products
water usage

Eat more food

Low impact and that is locally in
uncommon season
Source: DEFRA (2008)
behaviour 0 kg/hh Low CO2 impact
 Ability to act High High ability and
Segment
willing
willingness
and ability 1: Positive greens
2: Waste watchers I think its important that I do
Waste not, want not thats as much as I can to limit my
important, you should live life 3: Concerned impact on the environment.
thinking about what you are consumers 18%
doing and using. I think I do more than a lot of
12% people. Still, going away is
important, Id find that hard to
7: Honestly give up..well I wouldnt, so
disengaged carbon off-setting would make
Maybe therell be an me feel better. Willing
environmental disaster,
maybe not. Makes no
14% to Act
5: Cautious participants
difference to me, Im just
I do a couple of things to High
living life the way I want to.
Low help the environment. Id
18%
really like to do more, well as
long as I saw others were.
14%
6: Stalled starters 4: Sideline supporters
I dont know much about I think climate change is a big
climate change. I cant problem for us. I know I dont
afford a car so I use public think much about how much
transport.. Id like a car water or electricity I use, and I
though. forget to turn things off..Id like
10% to do a bit more.
14%

Low potential and Source: DEFRA (2008)

unwilling Low
 1. Social Marketing for
Sustainability?
Information-deficit models do not generally work.

So, what about social marketing or Nudge?

Climate change presents major challenges for

marketing behavioural change:

The lack of clarity and acceptance of the concept;

The discrepancies between different sites of practice;
The major shifts in consumption required; and thus:
A questioning of the acceptability and logic of the
sustainable lifestyle in a Neo-liberal setting
 2. How much is enough?
The comfortable perception that global
environmental challenges can be met through
marginal lifestyle changes no longer bears
scrutiny. The cumulative impact of large
numbers of individuals making marginal
improvements in their environmental impact will
be a marginal collective improvement in
environmental impact. Yet we live at a time
when we need urgent and ambitious changes
(Crompton and Thogersen, 2009, p. 6)
3. Is the Citizen-consumer the best
framework?
Can a Neo-liberal, consumption-centred
political framework help us?

We are not clear about the extent to which

Government intend to reduce carbon emissions
by reducing car use but, if they hope to achieve
a significant reduction, the evidence suggests
that regulatory and fiscal disincentives to car use
will be required (House of Lords, 2011, p. 65).
 4. Beyond the individualand the
environment?
Behaviours should be seen as part of wider social
practices:
conceived as being routine-driven, everyday activities
situated in time and space and shared by groups of people
as part of their everyday life (Verbeek and Mommaas,
2008, p. 634.
This necessitates also looking beyond environmental
motives:
What counts is the big, and in some cases, global swing of
ordinary, routinized and taken for granted practice. This
requires an upending of the social environmental research
agenda as conventionally formulated. Only by setting the
environment aside as the main focus of attention will it be
possible to follow and analyse processes underpinning the
normalisation of consumption and the escalation of
demand (Shove, 2003, p. 9).
 5. New research agendas
What intellectual frameworks of sustainable
resource use exist that can provide a
relevant and workable social context for
change?
(Dobson, 2010; House of Lords, 2011; Seyfang,
2005).

there is as yet no real appetite for conceptual

renewal or for revisiting embedded models of
state - citizen responsibility (Shove, 2010, p.
1282). Climate Change, Social Discourse and Behaviour