Let’s take a fresh look at a couple of tired old sayings that you’ve probably heard a million times and examine what they mean when it comes to raising environmental awareness and encouraging everyday citizens to take environmental action.

Awareness Versus Action

Here’s the first phrase: “Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?” In the environmental world, this classic dilemma could be rephrased as, “Which comes first, environmental awareness or environmental action?” You could be forgiven for answering that environmental awareness comes first, because that is how it appears to the untrained eye. Social and behavioral research studies, however, often find otherwise, that small actions lead to big changes in attitude, which can then lead to big behavioral changes.

In his classic book Fostering Sustainable Behavior, social marketing guru Doug McKenzie Mohr cites a number of cases where the simplest possible behavior becomes the first step in a journey that leads to broader changes. An example of this development is when a person holds a flashlight for an energy auditor and later undertakes major energy conservation efforts at their home.

I like to tell my clients that the smallest and easiest of environmental actions matter, whether it is replacing an incandescent light bulb with a more energy-efficient lamp, making a $30 donation to a worthy cause, or signing an electronic petition. These actions matter a lot because they are a kind of “gateway drug” for the people who do them. If you can make people aware of how good it feels to make a little difference, some will come back looking for a bigger fix. The next time around, they might insulate their attic, make a large donation, or speak up for the environment at a public hearing.

One Environmental Action Leads to Another

Here’s the second old saying, from the world of physics: “A body at rest stays at rest; a body in motion stays in motion.” In the world of behavior change psychology, that might be rephrased this way: “A body that pays lip service to the environment will probably keep doing so, but a body that takes a first step for the environment is likely to take a second.”

When we set out just to raise environmental awareness, what we often end up producing instead is lip service. If you want awareness to lead to action, then it helps to define that action at the outset and directly aim for it.

What these examples have in common is that they point to the importance of beginning environmental communications with behavior. Establish a goal of motivating your audience to take some small action, and follow up afterwards by lavishing your audience with praise and gratitude — and suggest the next, more meaningful action they can take.

About the Author

Eric Eckl runs Water Words That Work, L.L.C., an environmental communication company, and writes a blog that provides tips on how to raise environmental awareness and promote conservation action. The company has developed the Due Diligence Test Panel, a service that nature protection and pollution control organizations can use to pretest their environmental message materials before publication.

Photograph: Parcheesi by John Nyberg, Copenhagen, Vanloese, Denmark. www.hdrfoto.dk

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