The final episode of Sir David Attenborough’s BAFTA award winning documentary the Blue Planet II highlighted the impact of single-use plastic is having on the oceans.
“We are at a unique stage in our history. Never before have we had such an awareness of what we are doing to the planet, and never before have we had the power to do something about that. Surely, we all have a responsibility to care for our blue planet. The future of humanity and indeed all life on earth now depends on us.”
This episode was a catalyst in the wider discussion about pro-environmental or green behaviours. These are behaviours that minimise harm to the environment as much as possible, or even benefit it e.g. minimising energy use, and reducing waste. It’s about ‘doing good and avoiding bad’.
What are environmental behaviours?
What are some of the behaviour changes we need to make? In what way can we live more sustainably and do good by the environment? This is not meant to be an exhaustive list but hopefully will give you some simple ideas to get you thinking:
Switch things off. Forgetting to shut down a PC overnight for 1 week will waste enough energy to make over 500 cups of tea.
Pick the right products. Choose products with biodegradable packaging. Buy boxes instead of bottles. Often, products like laundry detergent come in cardboard which is more easily recycled than plastic.
Replace. If you are still using old energy guzzling bulbs (i.e. incadescent or halogen bulbs) then replace them with LEDs. They use up to 90% less energy and last up to 15 times longer.
Turn the heating thermostat down by one degree. This can save you up to £75 according to the Energy Saving Trust.
Avoid using the tumble dryer and hang clothes outside when you can.
Put lids on pots and pans to reduce cooking times. Match the size of the burner to the right pot or pan.
Use a microwave to cook food. They use only 20% of the energy required to run a full sized oven.
Recycle whatever you can. Do some research and make sure you understand exactly what your council can recycle.
Use a reusable mug or flask. Around 2.5 billion coffee cups are thrown away every year in the UK alone – that’s seven million a day! Less than 1% of these can be recycled, meaning most spend up to 50 years in landfill. Lots of coffee outlets offer a discount when you use your own cup and there are many eco-friendly options out there.
Use a reusable water bottle. Plastic bottles are one of the most frequently found items on beach cleans globally. Despite having the best quality tap water in the world in the UK less than 30% of people refill their reusable water bottles. The average person in the UK will use 150 plastic water bottles every year. If just one in ten Brits refilled once a week, we’d have 340 million less plastic bottles a year in circulation.
At work print on both sides of paper.
Use a reusable produce bag.
Use a razor with replaceable blades instead of a disposable razor.
Use reusable cutlery or opt for a compostable alternative.
Swap from using clingfilm to an alternative like beeswax wraps.
Use loose leaf tea with a tea strainer instead of teabags that are sealed with plastic.
Sometimes we can feel like our efforts are only a drop in the ocean (irony intended), but if we all make one or two changes the collective effects will be reflected in our oceans and land for years to come.
In a recent survey we conducted a whopping 98% of people said they felt they had a responsibility to do their part for the environment.
We recognise that our individual or household behaviours has a substantial impact on the environment. However, it can be difficult for us to relate personal consumption and behaviour to large-scale problems such as climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and natural resource depletion.
Even if we express environmental concern and awareness, this does not always translate into behaviour.
How to change your environmental behaviours
Our Behaviour Works team are not environmental experts, but we are experts in changing behaviours. Follow our simple 7-step Whale approach steps to changing your environmental behaviours. (Read more about what inspired our Whale approach to behaviour change and why we donate £1 for every online Making Change Happen programme sale to WDC here).
#1 Clarify your why. Think about why it is important to you to change your environmental behaviours. Maybe you want to do your best for future generations of your family, maybe you feel moved by the plight of plastics on our oceans or maybe you simply want to save money. It doesn’t matter what is driving your desire to change your environment behaviours – just make sure you understand your why.
#2 Wish: Set your environmental wish/goal. Next set a wish (or a goal) for yourself. That might be something like: I want to reduce my energy consumption or my energy bills or I want to reduce the amount of single use plastic I consume.
#3 Focus: Break your environmental goal down into specific behaviours. Write down simple positive statement with phrases like ‘I will’, ‘I have’, or ‘I am’. Use a ‘doing’ word and include a timescale and how you would measure it. For example, for the wish ‘I want to reduce the amount of single use plastic I consume’ you might:
I will use a reusable water bottle.
I will use a reusable coffee cup.
I will use a reusable cutlery set.
The best way to think about this is to ask yourself ‘if someone else was watching me what would they say I was doing?’.
#4 Impact: Pick one behaviour that will have the biggest impact and is easy for you to do – what’s the one behaviour that is most likely to get you started – and then you build on others once you have nailed the first one. You should aim for quality, not quantity and change will come from one well thought through behaviour change.
#5 Commit: Write down what you commit to doing. Writing it down and sharing it with people who can hold you accountable is really powerful.
#6 Understand: Understand what needs to change. To change your behaviours, whether it’s a big change or a small environmental change, you need to have 3 elements in place*: Capability, Opportunity and Motivation.
Capability is about having the right physical skills and/or the right knowledge and information about how to perform the behaviour. For example, knowing what your local authority can recycle.
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, being motivated to remember to carry your reusable coffee cup with you to work every day.
I 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.
#7 Action: Make an action plan tailored for your needs
If you have read this far you are probably already highly motivated to change your chosen environmental behaviour.
Perhaps the weak leg of your stool is capability? Your action plan should focus on how you can gather more information and skills to help your chosen environmental behaviour.
Perhaps the weak leg of your stool is opportunity? Your actions plan should focus on making it easy as possible for you to carry out your chosen environmental behaviour.
Keep track of your progress and remember it’s all about progress not perfection.
Let us know your suggestions for environmental behaviours that you are going to change in the comments below.
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.
Earth Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
People Photo reposted from Eco Expo - Save the World
