Meeting Report. Behaviour Change for the Climate in Brighton and Hove: What’s Next?
Natasha Parker
Key points
Behaviour change will be essential if decarbonisation targets are to be met – and will bring other health and well-being benefits. It can also trigger and reinforce policy changes.
Behaviour change can be impeded by physical, psychological or social barriers, but there are tools available, and different approaches grounded in the literature: nudges, boosting, social contagion, and choosing the right messenger.
A key lesson is to focus on positive not negative messages: pride works better than guilt; positive, nature-based imagery is powerful; small steps are valuable; imperfect progress is better than no progress.
Community plays a big part in spreading changes in behaviour and generating policy change. Schools can play an important role in building engagement.
There are many opportunities to support and accelerate behaviour change in Brighton and Hove.
This was a small round-table, to explore the proposition that there were useful cross-cutting things to say about behaviour change in relation to climate, and practical implications, irrespective of the sector and of sector-specific policy. Obviously, behaviour change was not the only tool in the tool-box. Policy or ‘system change’ also mattered: subsidies for heat pumps, for example, or the availability of cycle lanes. However, the starting point was that the theory and practice of behaviour change could help accelerate action.
Natasha Parker led the event. The introductory Powerpoints for the round-table are here. The framing was to be found in Natasha’s Briefing Paper for Climate:Change, ‘Accelerating Climate-Friendly Behaviour Change in Brighton and Hove’.
Natasha tackled five questions:
Why behaviour change?
What behaviours need to change?
Whose behaviours need to change?
How does behaviour need to change?
What are some behaviour change strategies?
Reducing emissions requires people to behave differently. The UK Climate Change Committee has reported that 62% of emissions reductions in UK depend on people behaving differently. Around 53% of emission reductions will come from adopting new technologies, like installing heat pumps, switching to elective vehicles, retrofitting our homes and installing solar panels; 9% of emission reductions will come from lifestyle changes, including reducing car travel, reducing flights, reducing our consumption of meat and dairy products, and reducing our consumption of goods and services. See Figure 1.
Figure 1
What behaviours need to change?
Source: Behavioural Insights Team: How to Build a Net Zero Society
Although these changes could be challenging, it is important to know that sustainable lifestyles are consistently associated with higher wellbeing. Sustainable lifestyles are usually healthier lifestyles – involving active travel, cleaner air, warmer homes, healthier food. There is a ‘warm glow’ theory – that it feels good to do good. And many sustainable behaviours fulfil our Psychological Needs for autonomy (directing our own lives), competence (building new skills), and relatedness (connecting communities). Materialistic aspirations (for wealth, status, social recognition) are consistently associated with lower wellbeing.
Natasha argued that individual action, community action and system change are intertwined – and behaviour change can spark tipping points towards system change. For example, when people try to make changes in their own lives (like cycling instead of using the car), they notice the public infrastructure (like bicycle lanes) that are there or not there to enable them. They then take more interest in what their council is doing and are more likely to vote for politicians pushing for positive change. See Figure 2.
Figure 2
How individual actions lead to system change
Source: Katie Patrick, Hello World Labs School of Climate Action Design
Behaviour change interventions need careful planning. Public understanding of priorities is often low. For example (Figure 3), recycling ranks much higher in people’s perceptions than more impactful actions, like eating less meat and dairy. There are many counter-narratives at work: for example, that net zero is too expensive. Nevertheless, there is generally strong support for climate action (over 80% in the UK), and willingness to take action (Figure 4).
Figure 3
Public understanding of impactful actions is low
Source: Behavioural Insights Team: How to Build a Net Zero Society
Figure 4
Willingness to take action
Source: Behavioural Insights Team: How to Build a Net Zero Society
Many factors stop people adopting sustainable behaviours. These can be physical, psychological or social (Box 1).
At its simplest, designing a behaviour change intervention involves: (1) Choosing a behaviour you wish to impact, (2) Talking to people and understanding their barriers and motivators to undertaking that behaviour, and (3) Designing an intervention to amplify the motivators and reduce the barriers. But the literature on the factors influencing human behaviour has been described as ‘enormous’ and ‘bordering on the unmanageable’.
There is no magic bullet to change behaviour but there are things we can influence. People need:
The capability to do the behaviour (to know what to do and how to do it);
The opportunity (the infrastructure to do the behaviour is there and it is the easy and affordable option); and the
Motivation to do the behaviour (the behaviour is desirable, socially acceptable and perceived as beneficial to them and to society).
Turning to Behaviour Change strategies:
Nudging - Nudges do not remove choice but make it easier, more appealing or fun to make the sustainable choice. Nudges bypass motivation and get us to change our behaviour by stealth. For example, mixing plant-based meal options within a menu lead to more people taking the plant-based option than if they are on a separate vegan menu.
Boosting - improve people’s competences to make informed choices that align with their goals, preferences, and desires. Boosting recognises people’s agency and their desire to be active citizens. Boosting interventions tap into existing motivation and give people what they need to make sustainable choices. E.g. Visit a Heat Pump schemes.
Social contagion - One of the strongest predictors of a household installing rooftop solar panels is the number of households nearby that already have them . . . if they are visible! Social contagion is perhaps our most powerful tool to change behaviour.
The messenger can be more important than the message. We need trusted messengers to deliver the message, and we need more diverse messengers. For example, among the most trusted messengers for heat pumps are gas boiler service engineers. Leera Valencia - a young nature influencer - has a following of 95,000 on social media, reaching urban youth audiences and nurturing nature connection.
Pride is a better motivator than guilt - A study on emotions and self-control presented participants with chocolate cake under one of three conditions: one group were told to imagine how proud they would feel for not eating it. A second group were told how guilty they would feel if they did eat it. A third control group received no such priming. It was the pride group who best resisted – a full 40% did not touch it, compared to just 10% in the guilt group, which was even worse than the control group.
Concluding, Natasha argued that we need to make sustainable actions easier, cheaper, and more convenient. However, social contagion is our most powerful tool to get people to do what they have the capability to do right now -
We need to see our neighbours getting heat pumps . . .
See our friends choosing plant-based meals . . .
See our colleagues using a reusable coffee cup . . .
Make progress visible – see how well we’re doing
Sam Zindel discussed how typical images around climate change conjure up images of wildfires and the world burning, and of activists out with placards. Headlines focus on painting eco-activists as extremists and alarmists. This can be unrelatable and off-putting to many.
He suggested instead that we shift to more positive, nature-based imagery. Nature is universally loved and more engaging.
Sam asked how we engage people in climate solutions that go further than recycling: for example, to ask the 80% of people who want to do more to do just that bit more than they are already doing. We need to reach the ‘environmental moderates’. He suggested we do this through positive stories and imaging grounded in nature. Thus, positive climate action can be taking your kids out into nature for the weekend or simply walking along the seafront instead of a road. We need to drag climate out of the culture wars and back into popular culture.
Sam is launching a new campaign – Gen R – standing for Generation Restoration. This uses bright, nature-based graphics – as a positive movement for nature. Gen R has three core principles:
Make individual decisions, without judgement
Take Collective responsibility (community action)
Accept imperfect progress
Figure 5
Gen R
Source; www.genr.org.uk
Katie Eberstein spoke about the power of education to drive sustainable behaviour in communities, and about the success of the Our City, Our World programme in Brighton and Hove. Education is key to behaviour change. We must ensure young people have knowledge, skills and attitudes to make good decisions in the future; and enable young people and schools to influence family behaviour to trigger ripple effects.
Schools sit at the heart of communities and have power to influence community behaviour. They can be a hub of change. Families choose schools according to their values and vision, and the values and principles they want their child exposed to.
42% of UK households have a school aged child (ONS – 2022)
8% of UK workforce employed in education (ONS – 2024)
In Brighton & Hove
148,000 households have a child in school
37,700 pupils in Primary or Secondary state funded schools
54 Primary (92%) + 5 Secondary (50%) schools involved in Our City Our World
Our City, Our World takes a whole school, whole city approach (Figure 6). The curriculum covers knowledge, attitudes, green skills, nature connection, Net Zero institutions and families as changemakers.
Figure 6
A Whole School, Whole City Approach
Katie shared some inspiring examples of activities happening in schools – from clothes swaps, to “switch off fortnight”, the Big Bird watch, no mow May, and tree festivals.
She emphasised the power of collective action – during No Mow May – the collective impact was 25,755 square meters returned to nature!
The round-table discussed the implications for Brighton and Hove. It is the wealthier areas who have the highest carbon footprints in the City – higher than the national average - while poorer areas have the lowest carbon footprints. The wealthiest have the most to change – but we must engage everyone – and not leave anyone behind. The Trust for Developing Communities is leading a partnership of many local organisations in a new Climate for Communities project to put communities at the heart of climate action in Brighton and Hove.
There were many practical actions that could be taken to accelerate behaviour change in the City. Among those discussed were (in no particular order):
Making it easier to reduce and recycle at Festivals like Pride.
Having conditional licencing for sustainable procurement.
Pre-messaging visitors to have fun sustainably, with clear expectations and standards, encouraging respectful and sustainable behaviour.
Initiatives like ‘No-Meat Mondays’, encouraging sustainable food choices across communities.
Sparking community conversations - going to existing meetings, food banks.
Schools used as hubs for spreading environmental education and awareness, as launchpads for environmental projects.
Setting up a newsletter of local climate action and sharing local good news stories
Having a green space or wildlife forum.
Launching Brighton and Hove in Bloom.
Planting more trees, to enhance green spaces and biodiversity.
A focus is on collective action—everyone doing their part for a greener future.
____________
Natasha Parker leads on behaviour change for Climate:Change
Thanks to Kavya Joshi for support, and for the photos.