Greener Behaviour Programme
We all have to think about how our individual actions, taken
at a local level, may have negative effects to the wider
environment.
We have been raising awareness of how individual behaviour and
lifestyles affect both the local and the wider environment with
residents in Islington.
The project, which was funded by the Islington Strategic
Partnership, aimed to motivate and encourage people to make
practical, realistic but valuable changes to their lifestyles.
Groundwork employed and trained local people to become "Green
Champions" who went door knocking and engaged with residents
face-to-face, talking to them about considering their environmental
footprint and helping them to identify and implement changes that
will lead to them making greener lifestyle choices.
The Approach
- To engage people’s hearts and minds, not
just their brain cells. The Green Champions took residents on
a shared journey and engaged them on an emotional level,
rather than simply providing information and asking people to
change.
- Sell hope not fear- champions encouraged
residents to make small yet valuable changes to their lifestyles
and make people feel part of the solutions to addressing
environmental issues.
- To personalise messages and to link
environmental issues to people’s every day lives and give
them a familiar context. The campaign aimed to demonstrate how
simple changes to people’s behaviour can have immediate
benefits to them, their families, their estate and Islington.
- The campaign is aimed at engaging the general
public and does not assume that residents have knowledge
of environmental issues or a strong desire to safeguard the
environment. The campaign acknowledges that different people are
motivated in different ways and have different action
triggers.
- To make clear and direct requests to encourage people to
adopt more environmentally friendly behaviours
that will become habitual over time.
- To provide accurate information that is relevant to
residents.
- To feedback to people. Feedback is vital. The
project will feedback to people about what has been achieved and to
reinforce positive behaviours.
Overall Green Champions knocked on 61,351 doors
and spoke to 12,342 Islington residents living on
113 social housing estates, covering all four committee area
(north, south, east and west). The overall contact rate was
20%.
In addition to the door knocking campaign, the Green Champions
also held stalls at community festivals and fairs, where they
promoted the Green Behaviours project through using the pledge
cards, and making pledge badges and flags with children. In total
they attended 16 festivals and fairs around the borough.
Impact:
- 98% stuck to pledges
- 61% found it easy to stick to pledges, 38% ok and 1% hard.
- 50 % lead a greener lifestyle than they did a year ago.
- 82% say it is important to save energy in the home
compared to 76% a year ago
- 80% used low energy light bulbs in the last year
- 2,348 residents pledged to put a water saving device in their
toilet- 25,710,600 litres of water saved and 441 pledged to shower
rather than take a bath-
- 7,243,425 litres of water saved
Communications experts Futerra have helped Groundwork develop
professional communication materials such as posters and pledge
cards to use in the campaign. These can be downloaded below.
The programme was funded by the Islington Strategic
Partnership.
