I read Doug McKenzie-Mohr’s book on community-based social marketing this week, ‘Fostering Sustainable Behavior’, and I thought it was brilliant.
Dr. McKenzie-Mohr outlines a researched process on how to engage people in sustainable behavior. I liked it precisely because it’s not a pie-in-the-sky approach to engaging people, but is about doing your research, making informed decisions, targeting the appropriate behaviours and being realistic about barriers and benefits.
We will be looking to use this approach in our work at The Gaia Project, especially in our Sustainability Teams. These teams engage all sustainability stakeholder groups at schools, and act as a managing body for sustainability at the school. So far, we’ve worked on projects where the school has implemented a composting program (Bathurst High), school-wide recycling (Fredericton High), and Park Street School is just beginning the process of implementing a school-wide composting/recycling program.
Changing people’s behaviour is the hard part, so I look forward to sharing the community-based social marketing approach with these schools.
You can find an online version of the book here.
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