PREMIER
I am interested in and passionate about waste reduction; specifically, reuse and repair. At the University of Waterloo, I co-organized repair workshops, where the community could learn how to fix their clothes, jewellery, and electronics, among other things. In terms of my research, I'm interested in the factors that lead to success and failure in behaviour change programs, as well as external influences on human behaviour (e.g. social structures, choice architecture, etc). If you have similar interests, please reach out!
Resume & Projects
I am currently working on two papers related to external influences in social marketing programs.
203 Comments
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Denver, Colorado's "Waste No More" Initiative
2024-05-06 13:03:22 UTC
Hi all,Denver, Colorado is a shining example of waste reduction at its best. They have an ambitious goal of diverting 70% of their waste going to landfill by 2032, and they have some innovative initiatives to ensure that they get there. First and foremost, the City has a “Waste No More” initiative, which is a city-wide ordinance that requires all apartment buildings, office buildings, restaurants, and other businesses to offer recycling and compost services. This means that waste, recycling, and compost collection is universally accessible throughout the city. I don’t know about you, but in my area of the world, this is rare. As part of the initiative, the city requires almost all construction and demolition projects to recycle concrete, asphalt, clean wood, scrap metal, and cardboard. Further, all construction and demolition project managers need to submit a recycling and reuse plan to the City to verify that they are complying with the ordinance before they can obtain a permit. This is significant, as construction and demolition waste constitutes nearly 40% of Denver’s waste stream.Denver is also wisely charging a fee for weekly waste services based on the size of the waste bin, while recycling and compost collection are free, and collected weekly. This provides some obvious incentives for residents to keep waste to a minimum.
For those residents who struggle to pay their waste bills, discounts on waste services are available (up to 100% off their bill) by filling out an easy-to-access application form online. As reported on their website, Denver is one of the few cities in the United States to offer a discount like this. And finally, to facilitate proper recycling and composting, the City has created a very sophisticated waste directory that is easy to use and includes colourful images and drop-off locations for hard-to-recycle items.The only snag in all of this is that on their website they quite prominently post a statistic that Denver residents each produce over 1 tons of waste per year. Yikes. This is a descriptive social norm that tells people that as a collective, they are actually quite wasteful. A better statistic would be one that highlights total waste diverted over the past few years.Overall, Denver, Colorado is showing some inspiring leadership in the area of waste reduction. If you’d like to read more about their exciting initiatives (and there are many), click here. -
Inspiring workplace safety through intrinsic motivation
2024-05-06 12:56:23 UTC
Hi all,Imagine you’re an investor sitting in a fancy hotel ballroom around the corner from Wall Street, waiting to hear a speech from the new CEO of the aluminum company you’ve invested in. The company’s performance has been poor for the past few years, and the board thankfully decided recently that it was time for new leadership. You sit there expecting that the new CEO is going to speak about how he will turn the company around, improve profits, and of course, raise stock prices.Instead, he says this: “I want to talk to you about worker safety”. He then proceeds to explain that every year, many workers from the company, Alcoa, are injured so badly that they have to miss a day of work. He outlines his intention to make Alcoa the safest company in the United States, and his intention to aim for zero injuries.You feel confused. You and others raise your hands, asking questions about capital ratios and inventory levels. The new CEO then says, “I’m not sure you heard me. If you want to understand how Alcoa is doing, you need to look at our workplace safety figures”. You and others clear the room quickly, thinking this man has lost his mind.This scenario happened in October 1987, when Paul O’Neill took the helm of the struggling aluminum giant. Over the course of the next thirteen years, he transformed the company to be one of the safest companies in the world and at the same time, one of the most profitable (the company’s annual net income was five times larger when O’Neill retired than what it had been before he took the lead). Before his arrival, nearly every Alcoa plant had at least one accident per week. When he began prioritizing workplace safety, the company’s workplace injury rate fell to one-twentieth the U.S. average.What is so fascinating about this story, though, is how he did it. O’Neill recognized from the outset that he wouldn’t be able to motivate workers by talking about company profits or shareholder value. He chose something that workers intrinsically cared about, and something that would signal to them that he genuinely cared. When employees realized that he was committed to keeping them safe, there was a sort of reciprocity that developed, which affected more than just the accident rate.New processes were developed around workplace safety, which included a very quick 24-hour turn-around time for workplace injury reporting to reach O’Neill himself. This required new communication systems that broke down previously entrenched hierarchies, and those who embraced the system were promoted. When injuries or fatalities occurred, the cause was meticulously examined, and new habits developed to prevent it from happening again. For example, after one employee fatality in which an employee had jumped a guardrail to fix a machine, all guardrails were painted bright yellow and training procedures were modified to ensure that employees obtained supervisor permission before entering certain areas of a plant. As safety patterns shifted at Alcoa, so did other aspects. For example, policies that managers had previously resisted—such as allowing workers to shut down a production line when the pace became overwhelming—were now embraced, because there was an acknowledgement that that was the best way to prevent injuries. As new routines developed, costs decreased, quality increased, and productivity went through the roof.It is not so much that safety invariably causes productivity and profit to skyrocket, but rather that in this case, at least, safety habits and the systems required to implement them promoted a chain reaction in other areas that produced an overall cultural shift in the company.**Trigger warning** The links that I provide below include stories of human injury and fatality, so please consider that before proceeding. -
Promoting healthy & sustainable diets: Language matters
2024-05-06 12:47:49 UTC
Hi all,There are many reasons that people move towards plant-based diets, from concerns about human-caused climate change to better physical health to social influence.As sustainability and behaviour change professionals, some of you may be promoting more consumption of vegetarian and vegan options in the public sphere. I’ve found some interesting campaigns that communicate in clever ways to influence eating choices.According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), a global non-profit sustainability research agency, when it comes to promoting healthy and sustainable diets, language matters. They have a fascinating initiative called Coolfood, which assists the food service industry in reducing their carbon emissions by 25% by 2030, to align with the Paris agreement goals. A few years ago, they conducted an experiment where they created a menu of eight dishes, two of which were vegetarian. They sent it to 1000 consumers online and asked them to choose a meal. They then sent the same menu to another group of consumers, but the menu items were reconfigured differently: the vegetarian options were placed in a box and labelled “vegetarian”. In this group, the number of people who ordered the vegetarian dishes was 56% less. Apparently, when meals are labelled vegetarian, vegan, or meat-free, sales are significantly reduced. This may be in part because people perceive them to be less tasty or enjoyable than meat-based options.In another experiment that took place in Sainsburys cafés, they took the meat-free dishes and changed the names of them. They then monitored sales of those items for ten weeks in eight stores versus eight control stores. For example, Sainsburys has a ‘meat-free sausage and mash’ dish. They created an alternative name, “Cumberland spiced veggie sausage and mash”, which increased sales by 76% during that period. This is an impressive shift.In summary, if you are promoting plant-based diets, consider using less of the following language:- Meat-free- Vegetarian- Vegan- Healthy restrictive….and more of the following:- Provenance/origin- Flavour- Look and feelIf you’d like to watch a video presentation about WRI’s Coolfood initiative, click here. -
Rainwater tank rebates - is anyone talking about this?
2024-04-29 13:00:00 UTC
Hi all,I had this idea that I would present an interesting rainwater tank rebate program that utilizes a CBSM approach but the thing is….I couldn’t find any. Of the nearly 30 rainwater tank rebate programs I reviewed throughout the United States, not one of them used CBSM. All is not lost, however. I will tell you what I did find.All rainwater tank rebate programs for homeowners apply some kind of financial incentive, ranging from $25 to $5000, depending on the size of the tank. This is certainly helpful, though one of the main problems I noticed was that the process to apply for a rebate was anywhere from inconvenient to a nightmare. Some of the steps were so unclear and the process so laborious that I actually started to become a bit stressed, and I don’t even own a house. There were workshops to attend (some of which were not free), pre-approvals, approvals, pre- and post-inspections, sketches, receipts, and photos to be mailed, and long and complicated application forms. I understand this to a certain degree, but overall, I was getting the impression that few homeowners would engage in these rebate programs with so many barriers in place.Further, on the majority of websites, benefits were not listed at all, or if they were, only one or two benefits were presented.There are several benefits to installing a rainwater tank, including:- Supporting green spaces by irrigating gardens- Alleviating pressure on municipal water supply systems- Saving money on water bills- Reducing the risk of flooding by managing stormwater runoff- Providing healthier, chemical-free water for plants
Homeowners lead very busy and sometimes stressful lives as it is. Whatever behaviour you may be encouraging them to adopt, make sure that the benefits are clear and that there are not too many barriers in place that would prevent them from engaging in the behaviour. Further, ensure that your communication for a desired behaviour is clear and specific, particularly when it comes to instructions. A three to five step process should be sufficient and easy for homeowners to remember what they need to do. Finally, whenever possible, make the messages personal by having a contact person available should homeowners have any questions. It was surprising to me when I went on municipal websites how rarely this occurred.If anyone knows of a successful rainwater tank rebate program that applies a CBSM approach, please provide a link for the benefit of our readers.
Thanks! -
Encouraging urban tree stewardship through active citizen engagement
2024-04-29 12:54:01 UTC
Hi all,Municipalities and NGOs that are working towards thriving urban forests face many challenges, including providing maintenance care for trees that have been recently planted in the city. According to a study by Guzman et al (2018), tree maintenance after planting is not usually covered in municipal budgets. The study aimed to address this need by launching a CBSM program that would engage urban residents in the maintenance and care of young trees.The CBSM program was managed through partnerships between NGOs Tree People and Communities for a Better Environment as well as the City of Huntington, California, and focused on fostering social norms around tree stewardship. The program followed the five steps of CBSM, starting with behavioural selection. Since “caring for a tree” is a divisible behaviour, non-divisible behaviours were selected and studied, including practices like watering, mulching, pruning, and weeding. Through a combination of a literature review, focus groups, and a survey, organizers found three common barriers to citizens maintaining urban trees after planting. They were the following:- The attitude that it is the city's responsibility to care for trees- The belief that carrying a bucket is too difficult- The cost associated with watering treesTo address the first barrier, the organizers fostered social norms by asking residents to place a sticker in their front window when they agreed to care for trees in their neighbourhood. This visible commitment helped to change attitudes that it is the city’s responsibility alone to care for urban trees. To address the second and third barriers, vivid communications were applied to counter misconceptions. Alternative ideas were given for using a bucket such as using a water hose, and an instructional magnet was distributed that clarified the cost of watering a tree for one year: only $5!It is critically important to collect data on barriers and benefits (CBSM step #2), as it is precisely that information that informs the strategies used to influence behaviours, as you can see from this study. In addition to the above strategies, organizers also built a team of student volunteers that regularly cared for trees in Huntington Park. They also helped actively engaged residents to remember to care for trees by suggesting to them that they align their watering practices with street cleaning that was done by the city on a weekly basis. I thought this was a great prompt idea.There is quite a bit more to this study, including detailed results from the surveys. If you’d like to learn more, the open access article is available here. -
The best behaviour & environment studies of 2023
2024-04-29 12:46:47 UTC
Hi all,You may be familiar with Rare, a global organization that works to change individual and community behaviour to protect the environment. From all their newsletters that went out in 2023, they have presented the top five most read behavioural science-related articles.Here are the top three, for your interest:1. Pop normative bubblesNormative bubbles are the gaps between what people believe others think about climate action and what others actually think. Apparently the most significant predictor of taking climate action is what we believe others are doing (or not). Harnessing social norms is therefore critical to achieving gains with respect to climate action. This is a Behavioural Science article by Rare CEO Brett Jenks. Click here to read it.2. Shift how we talk about environmental issuesAs you likely know, information alone is usually insufficient to change behaviour. There are four common myths associated with this that are explored by Anne Toomey (2023). She draws from behavioural science literature to demonstrate that:- Facts alone do not change people’s minds- Scientific literacy is not a panacea- Social norms are underutilized- Targeting messages to a specific priority group is more effective than simply “getting the word out”Toomey concludes the article with recommendations to counter the myths, including appealing to values and emotions, as well as fostering social connection. Click here to read it.3. Improve climate change awareness across the globeA collaborative study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, Data for Good at Meta, and Rare explored questions related to the level of knowledge that communities around the world have about climate change, how many think that climate change is human-caused, and who is most and least worried about it. They surveyed people in 187 countries around the world to find out their knowledge, perceptions, attitudes, behaviours, and policy views. This may be interesting for you to know where knowledge gaps remain and what the global trends are. Click here to read the study.If you’d like to look at the summaries for Rare’s top five most-read articles in 2023, click here. -
Re: Curbside 'gold star'/'good job' Campaign
2024-04-25 14:04:34 UTC
Hi Tamara,
Wonderful! It sounds like you still need to set some behavioural objectives and intended environmental outcomes in order to be able to measure effectiveness. Best wishes with all of that, it sounds like an amazing project. -
Re: Curbside 'gold star'/'good job' Campaign
2024-04-24 18:26:16 UTC
Hi Tamara,
I love the sticker idea. Feedback is helpful, both positive and negative. It sounds like when residents have not sorted correctly, you are gently nudging them to let them know that, which is great. Waste auditing will definitely yield useful data, though I'm wondering if you are also checking for barriers and benefits (CBSM step #2)? That is, when residents are not sorting correctly, will you know why? It will be interesting to see if anyone else has implemented this type of campaign, and what the results were from that. -
Re: Changing social norms around native plants in your area
2024-04-23 18:52:50 UTC
Hi Keri,
This is fantastic. I'm not sure that folks managing behaviour change programs always think of equity issues, so that is so good to hear. Apartment dwellers is another demographic that may be overlooked. It sounds like your program is doing as much as possible to remove barriers to participation. Love this! -
Re: Changing social norms around native plants in your area
2024-04-23 14:23:21 UTC
Hi Virginia,
These campaigns are really impressive. The native plant guides that you have developed are very high quality and useful, I'm sure, to so many gardeners. It is great to see that you are encouraging commitments via pledges and giveaways like those beautiful decals. And I have no doubt that the public-private partnership will go a long way to encouraging more native plant purchases. There seems to be so much latent demand for this that you are tapping into -- it's exciting!
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Special Issue Call for Papers – Adverse Results of Social Marketing Initiatives and Lessons Learned
2019-07-21 18:53:00 UTC
We’re bringing the skeletons out of the file drawer. SMQ is recruiting research articles, conceptual pieces and case studies on social marketing attempts that fell short in achieving stakeholder expectations. There is so much that we can learn from these initiatives—perhaps more than from our successes. In studying such experiences, our special issue contributes to contemporary thinking on publication bias in social marketing and beyond. DEADLINE: Manuscripts must be submitted by April 30, 2020. Manuscripts submitted earlier will be processed immediately and published online upon acceptance. Please contact [email protected] with any questions. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/smq
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