Motivating sustainability

Numerous strategies have emerged from social science research into how to motivate people and groups to adopt environmentally sustainability behaviours, how to inspire sustainability, how to help people overcome barriers, and how to encourage people to take effective action on climate change.

The use of incentives, feedback, rewards, knowledge about stages of change, norms and modelling have all been researched in the context of promoting sustainable behaviours.

Key points

• Make climate change here, now and for sure to counter people’s tendencies to discount things that are distant in time and place.
• Use social norms to show that ‘it’s normal to be green’.
• Use local and trusted communicators that are ‘like you and me’ to talk about climate change.
• Activate intrinsic values (‘bigger-than-self’ values), that are more related to pro-environmental action (and in fact greater expressions of concern across a wide range of bigger-than-self problems).
• Build people’s identity as someone who cares about the environment and takes action.
• Relate climate change solutions to sources of happiness and wellbeing so that people are more inclined to participate and come up with creative strategies.
• Use stories about positive change to leave people feeling hopeful and positive and showing the way to create a more just, equitable and healthy world.
• Frame individuals’ responses to climate change as an informed choice between desirable and catastrophic outcomes.
• Use social norms about protecting the environment to show people that ‘everyone is doing it’ and ‘it’s normal to be green’.