Category: Behavior change

Posted on

P2Rx™ Announces Behavioral Change Webinar Series for Technical Assistance Providers

The Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx™) will launch a comprehensive webinar training series in January 2013 to help pollution prevention technical assistance providers initiate, implement, and measure behavioral change resulting from their programs and initiatives.

There is a strong focus nationwide on being able to measure behavior change resulting from federal and state pollution prevention and sustainability initiatives.  There is also a lot of interest in how to use social media and social marketing to drive meaningful change in organizations.  To address these questions and help technical assistance providers expand their reach and better understand their effectiveness, the P2Rx centers have collaborated to develop a webinar training series featuring experts and specialists from around the country.  Five monthly webinar trainings are scheduled for January-May 2013.  A listing of these FREE webinars can be found at: www.P2Rx.org.

About P2Rx:

P2Rx is a national partnership of regional pollution prevention information centers funded in part through grants from EPA.  They build networks, deliver P2 information, and measure P2 program results.  The strength of the network lies in the expertise and diversity among the regional centers and the variety of audiences served including government and state environmental agencies, technical assistance providers, businesses, educators, nonprofit organizations, and the general public.  For more information, visit: www.p2rx.org.

Title: Beyond Energy Efficiency: Behavior Change Tactics for the Pollution Prevention Community
Date/Time: Thursday, January 17, 2013 / 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM CST
Webinar link: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/833280647

Join Susan Mazur-Stommen, Director of Behavior and Human Dimensions Program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), to discuss what behavior change research tells us about how people make decisions and what motivates them to make changes. She will also examine how pollution prevention technical assistance providers can use that research to influence behavior change and improve implementation rates at the companies they work with.

Title: Using Social Media Channels to Inspire Offline Action
Date/Time: Wednesday,February 20, 2013 /11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PST
Webinar link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/259888354

Zoey Kroll is an Internet Communications Coordinator at SF Environment and a Social Media Strategist at Hayes Valley Farm. She will talk about using social media channels to inspire offline action. In the webinar, we’ll interact with and discuss how apps (RecycleWhere), activity clubs (Photo Adventure Club), and social media tools can inspire people to move from clicks to compost.

Title: Embedding Sustainability In An Organizational Structure
Date/Time: Thursday, March 7, 2013 / 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM CST
Webinar link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6242325881081454848

An Assistant Professor in Technology and Operations Management at SFU Surrey, Stephanie Bertels’ research interests include innovations related to sustainability, institutional change, inter-organizational collaboration, and resilience and reliability. Her current research bridges organization theory and the issues surrounding sustainable development to explore how organizations can develop and implement innovative strategies for a more sustainable future.

Title: Make People Do Good Things (Sometimes Via Social Media)
Date/Time: Thursday, April 11, 2013 / 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PDT
Webinar link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/886701426

At San Francisco Dept. of Environment, Jessian Choy led the creation of SFApproved.org to make it easier for you to buy over 1,000 green products. And she uses fun scavenger hunts to engage 28,000 City staff with draconian laws to buy green. Jessian leads negotiation and role-play trainings to prevent good ideas from dying with bad storytelling and hecklers.

In this interactive event, get answers to these questions and more:

  • What are new, easy tips to make it fun for people to do good things?
  • How can you engage people if they unfollow or unlike you?
  • What should you do so your audience tweets about your event during and after?
  • How will it be easier for you to find less-toxic, green products with the improved SF Approved List coming in March 2013

Title: Environmental Sustainability and Behavioral Science: Meta-Analysis of Pro-environmental Behavior Experiments
Date/Time: TBD
Webinar link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6597474733924842752

Richard Osbaldiston has been working as a research psychologist for over 15 years. He has found there is one fundamental cause-effect relationship: the motivation that comes from within a person is what causes that person to behave in certain ways. When the right situations and settings are created, people can achieve unbelievable things. Richard’s goal is taking his work in the field of motivation and applying it to the long-term care industry to ultimately change people’s lives for the better. Richard received his PhD in Psychology with a minor in statistics and research methods from the University of Missouri.

Posted on

Green Buildings as Sustainability Education Tools

I have an article in the most recent issue of Library Hi Tech entitled “Green Buildings as Sustainability Education Tools.” In it, I provide an overview of green building technologies and practices and illustrate how public libraries can use them as tools to teach their communities about sustainability and foster behavior change.

The full citation for the article is: Barnes, Laura L. (2012). “Green Buildings as Sustainability Education Tools.” Library Hi Tech 30(3), 397-407. (Online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/07378831211266546). I’ve also deposited a version of this article at http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34138 for those who don’t subscribe to the journal.

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of green building technologies and practices and illustrate how public libraries can use them as tools to teach their communities about sustainability and foster behavior change.

Design/methodology/approach – Through literature searches, case studies analysis, and individual phone and e-mail interviews, the author identified ways that public libraries can use their buildings to demonstrate green technologies and practices and show their patrons how to apply them at home, at work, and in the community.

Findings – Education is a component of LEED certification. Many LEED certified libraries publicize a list of the green technologies used in their building projects. Some sponsor programs related to the green building and include permanent displays in the library to explain how the technology works. The Fayetteville Public Library went beyond these basic techniques to not only improve the sustainability of their operations but also become a community test bed for a renewable energy project.

Originality/value – This paper sheds light on how building projects can be used not only to educate the public about green technologies and practices, but also inspire others to begin using similar techniques at home, at work, and in the community.

Posted on

The Power of Curiosity: How Linking Inquisitiveness to Innovation Could Help to Address Our Energy Challenges

Download the document.

Almost every country in the world will face massive energy challenges over the next few decades. In the UK we are already faced with an energy ‘trilemma’ – three important goals that are pulling us in different directions. We need to aggressively reduce carbon emissions, while ensuring that a varied energy supply can reliably meet our energy needs, and we need to achieve this without exacerbating fuel poverty, by keeping energy bills at affordable levels.

In this context, we need fresh insight into energy supply, demand, and efficiency. The challenge is that innovative solutions will need to engage with the complex interplay of technology and behaviour, suggesting that the traditionally technology-led energy sector needs to become more curious about the foibles of human nature, and customers need to become more curious about their interaction with the energy technologies they rely on every day.

Unfortunately, most people are not particularly interested in their relationship to ‘energy’ as such, and a variety of attitude surveys suggest growing levels of ‘green fatigue’. We may think about the issue of ‘energy’ when we notice our gas and electricity bills are getting higher, but our curiosity is rarely piqued while turning up the heating or leaving the lights on.

Perhaps if we better understand the nature of curiosity in general, we might find ways to cultivate curiosity about our shared energy needs, both in the energy industry and the population at large. If we can do that, it may help us spur the kinds of social and technical innovation that are now political, economic and ecological imperatives.