Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
renewable technology. This barrier is often referred
to as a
future bias
. Future bias exists when we
prioritize present needs or desires over longer-term
benefits. Future bias is clearly a major barrier
when it comes to domestic investment in renew-
able technologies. While investment in renewable
technologies involves a significant financial outlay
in the present, its financial benefits are only re-
couped over a much longer period of time (as are
its environmental benefits). The UK government's
new Green Deal initiative has sought to overcome
future bias in the domestic renewables sector by
offering households the chance to have the up-
front costs of installing new technologies met by
corporations (such as the retailer B&Q or utility
companies), while consumers pay this investment
back with the money that they generate from
reduced energy bills (see Behavioural Insights
Team, 2011).
A final suite of environmental behaviour
changing policies that has grown in prominence
recently is those that draw on the insights of
social marketing. Social marketing involves the
use of commercial advertising techniques in the
pursuit of public policy goals. Consequently,
while corporations may use advertisements and
promotions to get our attention and persuade us
to buy their products, social marketing is based
on the assumption that similar techniques can
be used to promote more environmentally res-
ponsible behaviour. The South African energy
company Eskom recently developed an interest-
ing example of how social marketing techniques
can be used to promote pro-environmental
behaviours. This advert - which only lights up a
small section of the billboard it is on would appear
to be very ineffective during daylight hours -
promotes the responsible use of energy by com-
bining humour with the establishment of a new
social norm. The billboard appeals to our collec-
tive sense of humour to the extent that it cleverly
subverts the common use of excessive and unnece-
ssary lighting in commercial roadside advertising.
At the same time, by demonstrating Eskom's
personal commitment to conserving energy (by
paying for a full billboard advertisement, but only
using a fraction of the rented space in order to
reduce energy use), the advert psychologically
suggests that wasteful energy use is not normal and
should always be resisted. Social marketing tech-
niques, like those used by Eskom, are part of
the new environmental behaviour changing regime
to the extent that they do not use rational prompts
to action, but instead appeal to the more emotional
sides of our characters.
8.5.2 Critiques of environmental
behaviour change policies
Environmental policies that target the more-than-
rational aspects of humans are clearly based
upon a more nuanced, and potentially accurate,
understanding of why humans behave in harm-
ful ways towards the environment. Notwithstand-
ing this, these new policy initiatives have become
subject to numerous critiques (see Crompton,
2010; Shove, 2010; Jones et al 2013; Whitehead
et al, 2011).
At one level, ethical concerns have been raised
about these new policies. Given that many of these
initiatives seek to exploit people's emotional (often
automatic) responses to behavioural prompts,
some commentators have suggested that they
may reflect forms of social manipulation that,
even when pursued in the common environmental
good, tend to undermine the democratic pro-
cess (Whitehead et al, 2011). At another level,
others have questioned whether such policies will
actually be effective when it comes to reforming
long-term patterns of environmental behaviour
(Crompton, 2010; Jones et al, 2013:
Chapter 6).
In a recent report developed by a series of environ-
mental charities and campaign groups (including
the WWF, Oxfam, Campaign to Protect Rural
England and the Climate Outreach and Inform-
ation Network), it has been argued that contem-
porary behaviour changing policies are only
likely to be effective over short periods of time.
The
Common Cause
report argues that a lot of
environmental behaviour change policy uses
