The Three Levers to Motivate Consumers on the Environment
One of my favourite bumper stickers says “A sweater is a lot cheaper than a Smart Car”. That sort of sums it all up; turn your winter thermostat back 5-10 degrees, put on a sweater, save yourself $100’s in heating bills and save the planet large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. The trouble is, nobody knows what a good citizen you are being, and for most people, the financial gain and clear conscience are not enough, instead they desire a very visible gesture like buying and parking a Smart car in their driveway. Now, everyone sees them as a guardian of the environment, and, they are fashionably hip at the same time.
I am convinced that there are three distinct motivations for consumers and their attitudes about the environment. The first, narrowest and arguably strongest is conscience, the second is financial incentive while the third most wide reaching and impactful is social pressure and reward.
Environmentalism as we know it today began in the 60’s and 70’s with the earliest efforts to recycle a few tin cans and newspapers. The individuals who started the movement were innovators and very early adopters driven by only the power of their individual conscience, there were no financial rewards and certainly no social pressure. On the contrary, besides being dirty work, anyone in those days who acknowledged in polite company that they recycled some of their waste, was branded eccentric at best, or more likely a hippie left wing drug user. Airing of such views in a job interview was probably sufficient to label you as a trouble maker who did not understand how society worked. (Such is the reward for those who seek to make positive changes in society.) Strange that today, job interview questions about the environment abound in all manner of role applications and affirmative opinions are the only way to be seen as informed and in touch.
Fast forward to the new millennia. Energy is no longer the cheap commodity is was in many locations and environmental consequences are beginning to be understood. Yet as we start to look at environmental evolution, consumer changes driven by economic impact pale beside those of social pressure. To admit publicly now that you don’t do any recycling, turn off unused lights, adjust thermostats, pay attention to carbon footprint and more, makes you more than a social outcast, you are practically an environmental terrorist. Yet the way consumers at large chose to positively impact the environment strays a long way from the purely logical financial rewards.
Suppose you were worried about environmental damage from your air conditioner running in the summer. You could spend $5,000 for a more efficient air conditioner, or $15,000 for a ground source heat pump, help the environment, save your money and not trade off any personal comfort (unless you wanted to.) But, you can’t take people down in the basement to admire your new HVAC box (unless all your friends are mechanical engineers) and nobody really knows or cares what you have done. Instead, I am stunned with the number of people who want to notionally free their cottages “off the grid” putting in solar panels or wind turbines, for $10-20,000 that won’t pay back in 25 years if at all. But all your neighbours can come over and admire your foresight, so that if the apocalypse comes, you can run a radio and light bulb while you watch society break down and your food supply chain expire. Many of these same folks are running old electricity hog refrigerators and top load washing machines, they could do more to reduce global warming through appliances for one tenth the price of renewables, but who would know and what prestige would they gain?
So, my conclusion is, conscience and financial benefit are not enough for many environmental decisions if we want to influence consumers. Like so many other decisions in life, the majority of consumers are influenced most by social pressures, positive and negative, even to the extreme detriment of their financial situation in order to achieve social status and recognition. Environmental decisions can often follow the same evaluation as a new pair of shoes, although climate provides a little more self-righteous justification. Not to say its right or wrong, only that if you want to lead consumers to take the “right” actions for sustainability, make sure you pay as much attention to the intangible social impacts as the tangible dollar incentives.
