Most people want to do the right thing for the environment within their businesses.
In a recent survey we found that 98% of people in an organisation said they felt responsibility to do their bit for the environment.
The challenge is that they’re just not sure how to do it.
As well as benefiting the environment sustainability can bring about cost-savings for businesses. Research by the European Environment Agency [1] has shown that energy behaviour change alone can result in savings of between 5-20% which is fabulous and combine that with technical interventions and energy efficiency savings can be maximised. That 5-20% is a hugely untapped opportunity for anybody interested in sustainability and its associated savings.
Putting behaviour change initiatives in place can help you meet your environmental targets quickly and often at low cost.
So, if you want to implement a environmental behaviour change in your business or at your workplace read our advice below for some tips to get you started.
Obtain senior buy-in and approval
Obtaining senior buy-in and approval is vital for successful behaviour change at work. You may need their support to send out messages, approve budgets and to demonstrate the behaviours you want to change. Getting them on board is key to a successful initiative.
As well as this approval you should identify all the key stakeholders in your organisation. This could include people who directly control access to staff, bill payers, people responsible for sustainability or energy management and the staff themselves.
Identify the one behaviour you want to change
What are the environmental issues in your organisation? This could be water usage, energy usage, recycling, transportation and fuel usage etc.
Then identify all the desired behaviours that you could change and understand them in context in which they occur. Bear in mind that different audiences, in different situations, and at different points in time will require different types of behaviour change interventions. The interventions you choose need to be tailored to the context of your business and simple imitation of what others have done is less likely to be successful.
To begin with pick one environmental behaviour to focus on. Keep things simple and then when you have successfully achieved change for that one behaviour you can build on that success.
Engage your staff
Successful behaviour change is done with people, not done to people and engaging staff makes behaviour change more likely to succeed.
Securing support from other colleagues and front-line staff provides the best source of new ideas, suggestions and innovations and creates a sense of ownership. Make it as easy as possible for staff to get involved by ensuring they have sufficient time, and the necessary resources, to get fully involved.
There is only so much you can do with hardware and bits and pieces. If you don’t reach the people behind it, you’re just wasting your time” (Coca Cola Enterprises)
Understand what needs to change
To change behaviours, you need to have 3 elements in place.
1. Capability
2. Opportunity
3. Motivation
Capability is about having the right physical skills and/or the right knowledge and information about how to perform the behaviour. For example, how to correctly recycle, how to switch off equipment.
Opportunity is about having the right resources to be able to change. For example, time, money and space. It is also about having the right social opportunity, usually having the right people around you to help you change. For example, supportive people and others who share similar goals.
Motivation is about being more highly motivated to do the behaviour at the relevant time than not to do the behaviour, or to engage in a competing behaviour. For example, to be more motivated to switch off equipment than leave it on.
We like to think of this as being a 3-legged stool (like one of those camping or fishing stools) and if any leg of the stool is weak then that is where you focus your action for change.
You can use this framework to understand what needs to change in your organisation.
What is the weak leg of the stool in your business for the behaviour you want to change?
Our behaviour change advice top 10
Identify the discrete behaviour you want to change and understand the context.
Interventions must be tailored to the context.
Successful behaviour change uses a multi-intervention approach.
Align the intervention with other non-environmental goals (e.g. operational effectiveness, safety).
The design of behaviour change interventions needs to be completed with staff.
Identify who is likely to be the best messenger for the intervention.
Interventions to change behaviour are NOT only financial incentives - incentives can drive perverse anti-behaviours.
Split incentives make changing behaviour more challenging (e.g. different person pays for energy to the person who uses energy).
If you can't measure sustainability use, measure sustainability behaviours.
Successful behaviour change relies on a three-legged stool of Capability, Motivation and Opportunity: lose one leg and the stool falls over.
Do you want to know more?
Behaviour Works has specialist expertise in energy behaviour change and if you would like some support for your initiative we would love to get involved so do get in touch to have a chat.
We also run one and two day training courses on behaviour change based on our award-winning process. Our two-day course is approved by the Energy Managers Association.
Best wishes
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Behaviour Works aim is simple. To help make change happen in your personal, family or working life. Every week we help people across the world with their own change journey with our ‘Making Change Happen’ online training. Check us out at Behaviour Works.
[1] https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/achieving-energy-efficiency-through-behaviour/file
Fern Photo by Wes Carpani on Unsplash
Lightbulb Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
