With cost of living on the rise and increasing impacts from natural events it is not surprising that waste, traffic, energy independence and water security are priorities for many metropolitan and regional communities.
Schools, councils and other local boards all have a role supporting residents and businesses to plan for the future, reduce their costs or adopt healthier lifestyles. Just telling people what to do won’t work. They need to be involved so that any initiative or intervention will meet local priorities and address the unique challenges and opportunities that exist in every place.
How do you do this?
Listening is an important first step. It’s important to observe what’s going on and what people are talking about. You can do this by scraping social media, monitoring the local press, tracking council complaints and mapping these against regional and national priorities. This will help you understand the issues. You can test your understanding through surveys, focus groups, community discussion and workshops with local authorities. Then you must understand people’s behaviour to create an effective behaviour change strategy.
Here’s a real-life situation
Councils spend a fortune processing waste. The easiest way to reduce this expenditure is to reduce the amount of waste people produce, but, if you just say “cut down what you throw away”, they’d have no idea where to start. You must pick one behaviour and then work with real people to design an activity that they can and want to do.
And here’s a real-life solution
The smelliest waste is organic waste. People often just throw leftovers away. This is strange because the cooking column is a popular feature in any magazine or online media. People love to experiment in the kitchen!
A real life intervention taught people how to creatively use those left-overs. Recipe cards, celebrity cooking demonstrations at the shopping mall and packet instructions taught people how to turn last night’s dinner or takeaway into an attractive next night’s meal. It can work but only if you engage effectively.
Articulous are national leaders in driving change through public participation. Just say hello to find out more about our innovative behaviour change initiatives.
