Consumer Behavior Change
The latest ways brands are supporting a shift toward sustainable consumption, and best practices for brands aiming to encourage more conscious consumer behavior and lifestyles
How a Towel Rail Changed a Village
I was asked recently about my favourite behaviour change stories in the energy space. I didn’t have to think long: my favourite is the one about the £200-a-year towel rail. Yep, you heard that right: a towel rail. ... View More
Big, Bold, Creative ... and Normal: How Brands Can Shift Sustainability Into the Mainstream
Bob Dylan understood the sustainability challenge long ago when he sang, “People seldom do what they believe in / They do what is convenient, then repent” in “Brownsville Girl.”For sustainability to become mainstream, we need to reframe the d... View More
Behaviour Change: Collaboration and Strong, Independent Leadership Required
Consumer behaviour change is the challenge of our time. An effective response will require increased capacity and capability across the sector: more skills, different skills and more people with those skills. If we are to achieve this, we need cross-... View More
New Generation of Companies Emerging to Sate Demand of Conscious Consumerism
In the past two months, the garment factory collapse in Bangladesh, the second-floor failure of the shoe factory in Cambodia, and most recently, the fire in the Chinese poultry plant have resulted in the deaths of some 1,500 workers in the developing... View More
The Power of Peer Influence on Consumer Habits
When it comes to motivating behavior change, there’s nothing more powerful than the recommendations of your peers. This applies to everything from musical tastes of teenagers to brand selections among consumers to farmers in India.This power of pee... View More
Will Millennials Drive the Shift from a Consumption-Based to a Values-Based Economy?
One of the most frequently discussed topics in the sustainability industry is sustainable consumption. How can we shift people away from frequently buying new “things” and toward re-use and alternatives to ownership such as borrowing or swapping?... View More
Sustainable Shipping Initiative Working to Take the Environmental Sting Out of 'Sea Miles'
Ninety percent of international trade travels by ship. And that comes with the type of carbon impact you would expect: The shipping industry’s carbon emissions currently account for 3-4% of global emissions and are expected to triple by 2050 if cur... View More
Round-Up #1: What Can My Brand Take Away From This Issue in Focus?
Our Issue in Focus on Driving Behaviour Change kicked off in style this month with articles exploring why, how and what brands can do to create behaviour change for a better world. Here is the first of two round-ups of the content from Forum for the ... View More
The DoNation: Less Talk, More Action
“Less talk and more action” has been a guiding motto of my life, so I suppose it should have come as no surprise when, after a year of researching the ins and outs of environmental behaviour change for my Masters, I decided to put the theory into... View More
Mooncup: How to Market the Unmentionable
In his book The Green Marketing Manifesto, environmental advertising guru John Grant admits that there is one product that he had no idea how to sell. The problem is not product performance. The little disruptive innovation in question is not just gr... View More
Barriers and Benefits: Changing Behavior Through Social Marketing
Promoting behavior change is something that Lifebuoy knows well. Launched in 1894 by William Level in the UK as the Royal Disinfectant Soap to stop cholera in Victorian England, it went on to be known as the “red soap” throughout the twentieth ce... View More
Crafting Sustainable Consumption Patterns: Nokia's Ecosystem Approach
The consumption of goods and services is growing rapidly with the rise in household incomes and population growth. This growth in consumption is significantly offsetting and underplaying the environmental gains being made on the production side.At No... View More
Case Study: How We Changed the Behavior of Littering
Over the last few years, Shelton Group’s Pulse studies have tracked a decline in concern for several environmental issues — hypothesizing that some issues (such as climate change) have become highly politicized and that the country’s declining ... View More
Marcal Rebrand Lets the World Know That It's Always Been Green
In my speeches on "making green sexy," which I've given in a number of locations in the US and Europe, I talk about different types of message points for three different audiences: deep green, light green/lazy green, and non-green. I discus... View More
The Easiest Choice in the World: Using Innovation to Help Every Customer Be More Sustainable
Since its launch in 2010, the Eco Rating scheme that Forum for the Future created with Telefónica UK/O2 has been helping consumers make more sustainable handset choices, whether they like it or not. ... View More
How to Jump-Start Behavior Change Around Energy Conservation
For many years of Pulse studies, when asked who they most blame for rising energy costs, respondents have said they most blame either 1) oil companies or 2) the U.S. government — with utilities much farther down the list. ... View More
Is It Best to Approach Behavior Change from Inside or Outside of Your Company?
Work on behavior change cannot be considered a new area; various institutions, especially governments, have long sought to influence individuals’ behavior in areas such as health, transport, family planning, etc. It is also not new for companies an... View More
Futerra Launches Behavior Change Tactics That You Must Try at Home
At Futerra we banned using behaviour change tactics in the office. ‘Symbolic self completion’ was being wielded to defend sandwiches left in the fridge, and ‘discounting effect’ insidiously applied to making tea. So the following article come... View More
Brands: The Historical Leaders in Creating Consumer Behavior Change
Brands have the potential to disrupt the status quo and promote behavior change. They certainly have a history of doing so. One of my favorite examples is the way that shampoo brands have changed the way we care for our hair over the past 100 years. ... View More
Driving Behavior Change: From Pioneering Practice to Tipping Point and Beyond
If you’re reading this then it’s safe to assume you are familiar with the global ecological and societal debt that currently accompanies the more familiar economic one. So, no need to remind you that planet Earth will probably make its way throug... View More
