ChangeStar

This discussion document from Richard Docwra questions whether the strategy commonly used to seek behavioural change on environmental issues - asking people to make a few small changes to their lives - is flawed. He poses the question based on what he sees as weaknesses within this behaviour change approach and then suggests changes to increase the effectiveness of the strategy.


The weaknesses he discusses about the "small steps" strategy are the following:

1. "It is not directed at meeting specific goals - It could be argued that the ‘small steps’ approach is simply not sufficiently ambitious in its aims – it seems to say ‘well, we’ll just do what we can’, rather than ‘here are the goals, and here is what we need to do to achieve them’."
2. "Its goals are unclear - Perhaps the current ‘simple steps’ approach is the first in a carefully-planned series that will continually ratchet up the level of change in the public over the next 10 years in order that we meet our goals....This process of ‘visioning’ for a sustainable future is being undertaken by a few more radical thinkers and organisations but is not yet part of the ‘green mainstream’. It needs to be, as the process of understanding our environmental goals, the detailed vision of the future they entail and developing detailed strategies in every area of society to achieve them is critical to our ability to meet our urgent environmental challenges."
3. "There is no prioritisation of actions - [A] very simple improvement that many environment groups could make to the ‘small steps’ approach that they are advocating to the public is to prioritise the steps they are asking members of the public to take to make their behaviour more sustainable...Regardless of whether someone is deeply committed to the environmental cause or is only prepared to make a few changes to their life, being able to understand the relative impact of different actions (and thus prioritising them) is a vital ingredient in an effective response to the problems."
4. "Asking for ‘small steps’ without context might not be the most effective method of seeking behaviour change from individuals" - Here Dowcra counters the argument that the future vision may be too depressing or too complicated to engage people. "Skilled communicators should be able to ensure that the latter problem does not occur, and the former problem can be overcome by challenging people’s views as to what a ‘good life’ consists of, away from the consumerist philosophy that evidence suggests is failing to make people any happier and towards a world in which people pursue and enjoy true quality of life." Otherwise, he suggests that there is a risk of "demotivation" as further conservationist steps are added to changes already requested.

In the conclusion of this document, Docwra suggests that "the environmental cause should focus its programmes of public behaviour change specifically on meeting its urgent goals within the necessary timeframes. Secondly, it should invest more time in setting out the strategy required to meet these goals and the vision of the future it entails...." Finally, he advocates for strengthening the approach to seeking small behaviour changes by adding information about the relative impact of small changes and the part they play in a long-term strategy, providing a clear long-term vision of what an individual's life will look like if the changes are successful.

ChangeStar Newsletter - October 2007 accessed on July 9 2008.