Behaviour Change

Going Carbon Neutral Stirling (GCNS) is a behaviour change project which aims to engage and sustain 35,000 people in Stirling District in reducing their carbon. Understanding the behaviour barriers to meaningful carbon reduction is a crucial element of the GCNS model.

Barriers to Behaviour Change

According to a recent Ipsos Mori poll about 80% of people said they were concerned about climate change. But very few of us are doing anything on the type of scale that is needed to reduce our carbon footprint. This is sometimes referred to as the attitude – behaviour gap. In order to address this problem we need to understand what the barriers to behaviour change are:

Plenty of Advice, but little support

Without well communicated support in place to help change happen, many of the action points for low carbon living feel unfeasible, completely inconvenient, time consuming or mysterious & complicated.

Example One: parents are frequently advised to ensure their children to walk or cycle to school for health reasons as well as to protect the environment. But without safe routes in place, parents will continue to put safety above any other considerations.

Example Two: we are advised to insulate our homes, particularly our lofts. But many lofts are crammed with stuff and most installers will not move anything before putting insulation down. For householders, clearing their loft is not only a physically demanding task but it"s one that requires a significant amount of time and organisation to accomplish and as a result few people find time to do it. Support needs to be in place to ensure everyone is able to access help prior to laying insulation.

Example Three: there is plenty of research to suggest people are more likely to carry out a new behaviour when they know that others around them are doing the same thing. But most carbon reduction action e.g changing lightbulbs or turning washing machine temperature down has been targeted at individuals making it more difficult to feel a sense of collective action and as a result it becomes easier to forget or just not do carbon reduction.

Who is responsible for increasing support?

Ultimately we all are, BUT, national and local governments and business can do a lot more to ensure that low carbon solutions are easily accessible. This will require a lot more capital investment and some policy changes.

What are we waiting for?

Politicians are waiting for people to tell them they want this type of investment because financial support into low carbon ventures and support structures will usually mean less expenditure into other areas – like new roads. Why not TELL YOUR POLITICAN NOW!

Back to top

Lack of Social Norms

Conforming to accepted social norms was simply a matter of survival in ancient times. If you gave little of value to your community, you risked being ostracised in times of hardship. This has left all of us with a deeply-rooted need to display our value and importance to our communities.

With easily available credit, a simple way to demonstrate our  'worth'  is through what we possess.  Basically the 'more' we have, the 'more' we are worth. However, cutting carbon and living sustainable lives almost invariably means  'having less'   (certainly of high carbon (brand new) products and services). Despite achieving significant 'mores' in other areas - more healthy food, more active travel, the  'having less' of value and 'worth-giving' products and services is  antagonistic to this deeply ingrained need to demonstrate our personal value through what we have.   Marketing has exacerbated this anxiety,  ' having more' has been ever increasingly associated, through 50 years of skilled marketing by business and government, to our need for ‘affluence, power and worth' . So it 's no surprise there is consumer resistance to the idea of buying and owning less ' stuff '  - everyone is telling us we will be worthless if we do this!

Making change on deep-seated beliefs like these, becomes a lot easier for most of us, when we see others doing it, especially if a new belief and behaviour is led by an  opinion former – right in the epicentre of our community . Cutting our carbon through buying less high carbon brand new products and services feels much less threatening.

Taking this one step further, opinion formers may start to question if over-consumption is bad for the community, and wonder if it actually removes personal value. We may then become anxious about losing personal value and thus we change our behaviour and re-set our social norms.

What does GCNS do to overcome this barrier?

Locally

GCNS engages with community groups and businesses and kickstarts a regular, carbon reduction and perhaps more subconsciously 'values' conversation within a peer group ensuring this dialogue is no longer the realm of the "green environmentalist" but is now very much seen as "mainstream". GCNS also encourages and supports local government and stakeholders,  to put sustainability at the core of its actions and communications and that local businesses promote sustainable products and services as the smart, caring and obvious choice.

Nationally

GCNS works with others across Scotland and the UK to lobby and support the government to provide a more carbon supportive infrastructure, which gives a clear message to the public that low carbon living is desirable in every way and the obvious choice.

 

Back to top

Lack of Ease of Action

Problem: It is not easy to cycle safely, especially as a new cyclist, throughout Stirling City.

Solution: we need safe cycle routes.

Problem: It is not easy to understand domestic energy consumption in order to make the most effective changes.

Solution: SMART metering needs to be rolled out quickly.

The UK does not have the comprehensive infrastructure that allows us to live low carbon lives affordably and conveniently. Our poor record in spatial planning, supporting local food systems and local services, public transport planning and building regulations, combined with global laws which require ever increasing profit margins often through centralising decision making and spending, all serve to make the low carbon, and often 're-localised' alternatives difficult to find/follow.

Who can help?

We need to ensure that every decision at every level is assessed with carbon, as well as money, at its core; ultimately this could be through some type of carbon tax such as 'Cap and Divedend'. The Scottish Government has started with a light touch 'carbon account / assessment' of all its internal budget decisions. Not only can this best practice be used more widely throughout the country but the government can also increase incentives and regulatory controls on businesses and local authorities supporting and requiring them to cut their own service carbon, and that of workers, and, in the case of local authorities, residents. Businesses can choose to lead the field by assessing the carbon impact of their products and services, cutting carbon where they can, and then ensure they offer the most sustainable solution as the most cost-effective and convenient solution. Carbon labelling has been created to help show customers the carbon impact of the goods and services that they buy. However, so far, uptake of this is on a voluntary basis.

With carbon labelling in place, and decision making that puts carbon and future proofing central to the outcome, we would:

  • be able to take a train more easily and cheaply than flying, within the UK and abroad
  • be able to insulate easily and cheaply the solid walls (link to attached doc) of our hard to treat homes in Stirling
  • be able to tell immediately if lamb from New Zealand is lower or higher carbon than that sourced from Scottish farms
  • be able to work remotely, or hot desk with absolute ease, cutting down on commuting travel
  • allow our children to walk and cycle to school, knowing they are completely safe
  • find it cheaper and easier every time to repair broken goods rather than replace them
  •  stop built-in obsolescence, reducing the load on landfill, and costs on our pocket of having to replace goods that are built to break down

Back to top

High Carbon Aspirations

Thanks to established 'social norms' combined with an annual UK spend of £17 billion on advertising, our aspirations as a society are, in the main, high carbon. We’re encouraged to take cheap flights abroad and at home, to continually replace our old cars with new and to require an ever increasing number of appliances and gadgets to help or entertain us.he highly acclaimed and entertaining video The Story of Stuff explains, in just 20 minutes, how the way we are doing things now is leading to critical pollution levels and resource degradation. 

What can we do?

We can ask our MP, MSP and MEP what they are doing to ensure that carbon is priced out of the economy. Bristol are engaging in a discussion to ask for a moratorium on advertising of high carbon goods and services - because they are, in essence, bad for our health, in the same way that other advertising that is bad for our health - smoking and alcohol- is entirely or partly banned.

We can also ask the retailer, every time we make a purchase, which is the lowest carbon or most sustainable service or product on offer, and choose that one (and complain if they either don't know or if it is overpriced!). We can insist that our retailers and manufacturers repair our broken gadgets as opposed to replacing them. Businesses will respond to what their customers ask for. So it is important each and every one of us takes the opportunity to say "we want the most sustainable solution".

This doesn't just apply to small and medium sized firms. Responding to customers' demands may create a dialogue around sustainability within the largest of companies and potentially inspire investment in understanding the carbon impact of their products and services

What does GCNS do to overcome this barrier?

Through increasing the collective awareness of what 'low carbon' really means and tying it into solutions and communications that are smart, caring and fun, the aim of GCNS is that the Stirling public will hopefully begin to associate low carbon living as the common sense, caring, fun and smart choice, good for themselves and good for their community, and conversely, high carbon products, services and holidays as less smart, less caring and community minded and overall less desirable choice. An end goal would be where the Stirling resident perceives the marketing of high carbon goods and services as perverse and unethical.

GCNS works with businesses to promote products and services that are aspirational and low carbon to make sure practical, truly low or lower carbon solutions are brought to the fore. Companies (particularly car manufacturers and supermarkets) are on the ball with communicating a preference for lower carbon goods - but as a route to growing their overall sales - which of course increases our total carbon emissions.

Back to top

Conflicting Messaging & non-joined up thinking

Despite the very best of efforts, most of us can only cut small amounts of carbon on our own, perhaps up to 40% of our footprint, on our current infrastructure. Getting beyond 40% requires the support of government and business to ensure that the best infrastructures, services and products are in place to serve a truly low carbon lifestyle, in a way that is convenient and cost effective. It is therefore very important that people who are cutting their personal carbon remain motivated and continue to make carbon reductions where they can, and to see that their efforts are being supported by action from government.

Is this what is happening? Unfortunately not across the board. There are still many conflicting messages, poor policy decisions and examples of non-joined up thinking out there. We're told to cut our car use yet government seems as committed as ever to road-widening and new road building schemes, whilst miniscule activity is taken to support widespread sustainable transport options. Personal carbon savings we might make as individuals would appear to be wiped out by emissions from a determinedly growing aviation industry. We're asked to turn our heating down, yet the finance for home retrofit programmes that would make this a practical and comfortable thing to do give way to building iconic landmarks which serve little purpose in our future world. It's no surprise then that the public is confused and feels de-motivated.

What can GCNS do to overcome this barrier?

Locally & Nationally

Where GCNS sees poor carbon practice from a leading business or our national government, we get in touch to lobby for change. We are in talks across the UK to tackle the retail model used by many high street shops, to encourage sales of cradle to cradle goods, and in these main street brands, a new focus on the sale of refurbished goods. At national government level we are lobbying for support to increase inter-organisational hot-desking, tele-conferencing and workhubs to try and help us cut our commuting, national support of the 10:10 campaign and roll-out of community-owned energy generation schemes.

We work with Stirling Council, and the Community Planning Partnership in a more supportive role - as we fee they are making brave moves to truly make Stirling an increasingly sustainable place to live and work. Since working with GCNS, the council has re-drafted its Economic Strategy to make sustainability and its commitment to carbon neutrality implicit within its practices. The council has Carbon Cutter Plans going within its own staff teams, as well as its own carbon management plan. GCNS is involved in advising on many strategic forums including the Local Development Plan, The Open Space Strategy and Climate Change Strategy.  We are also working with stakeholders including our MSP Bruce Crawford, the Council and Forth Valley College looking at a potential community food project.  

 

Complexity and number of messages

Illustrations by Steven Holland.

Back to top

Love low carbon living