04/15/2008 09:17 AM

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How to Create Change Page 1

by Rona Fried

As we know, the American consumer has yet to embrace the big changes required to halt climate change.

We have a big hole to dig ourselves out of and don't have the time to do it gradually. Americans have demanded everything to be cheap and industry has responded: food, clothes, airline tickets have become inexpensive enough for us to buy pretty much whatever we want when we want it. If we don't have the cash, we just put it on a credit card or take the retailer's offer to pay nothing for a year. That also worked for buying houses until recently; we continue to see car manufacturers hawk SUVs the same way in their endless television commercials.

This consumer society is completely unsustainable for our environment and our economy. We've shipped our manufacturing offshore where it's cheapest, hurting our economy and making it vulnerable to China's whims.

We are suffering from a severe leadership vacuum that few are willing to fill - utter words that intimate we might have to curtail our excesses and expect to get crushed by the political process and the media.

I believe peoples' attitudes will evolve with time - and strong visionary leadership - as it has with health threats such as smoking and high cholesterol, but we don't have several more decades to coax and pry them into action.

For now, people continue to drive gas guzzlers, protest buying hybrids because they are too expensive and put climate change concerns near the bottom of the list for the presidential race. They rise up to protest human rights violations in Tibet but don't make a murmur when it comes to climate change or the trashing of our environment.

It's time to get down and dirty and practical, so let's focus on what might really work to make progress on climate change at the grassroots level.

Why is it that Americans are more than willing to spend $30,000 or more on cars because they are "cool" or have "status" but they see spending $22,000 on a hybrid as too expensive?

Americans are driven by:

- saving money
- emotional and financial security (feeling safe)
- status and prestige
- keeping up with "Jones"

Add a touch of human psychology on how to create behavior change: identify the behavior you want and give people positive feedback on how close they are to achieving it, rewarding them as they get closer and closer.

Example: RecycleBank gives people discount coupons to favorite retailers like Starbucks and Whole Foods based on the amount they recycle. Suddenly, communities with miniscule recycling rates are recycling  75% of their waste. Why? People save money and, very importantly, they receive positive feedback for their actions. Recycling no longer relies on "doing the right thing." Each week, a truck comes along that weighs their recyclables and gives them positive feedback - the more they recycle, the more coupons they get. 

Because of this innovative business model that's based on psychology, RecycleBank is rapidly expanding from 35 communities serving 125,000 homes in 2007, to an estimated 500,000 homes by year end.

Example: Hybrid cars have a feedback system that other vehicles don't have. A gauge shows you your gas mileage every time you put your foot on the gas pedal. Push it down hard and you can see you're using a lot of gas. Accelerate gradually and you can see the car using less gas. It's a lot of fun to play with it to try to get the best gas mileage you can, especially when you see yourself cruising at 75 miles a gallon!

Why not make this simple, yet very effective feedback/ reward mechanism standard in all vehicles?  Why doesn't every home and business have a meter inside that shows how much water and energy is used by heating and air conditioning systems, appliances, lights, toilets and showers? The meter would also indicate what they're paying for that energy and how much it would be reduced by lowering consumption.

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