You care about green living. Why else would you have come here to read this article? But you have friends and family who don’t care about it, and it frustrates you.

How can you advocate green living in a way that they’ll receive?

I’m sure you know of people who try to cram the green message down other peoples’ throats. If you own a car, eat meat, or have leather shoes, they consider you an enemy of the environment.

People who agree with them applaud. Everyone else becomes more resistant to environmental causes. But it’s not only the ill-mannered extremists that turn people off.

A scientific survey of attitudes toward green living

Researchers at Georgia State University studied how people respond to messages about climate change. Which messages would most successfully promote green living?

Some of the 2,000 people surveyed saw messages about personal sacrifices such as using less hot water. Others saw statements about legal issues such as deforestation, or carbon emissions.

Then the researchers asked respondents for their thoughts on climate change. People who received the policy messages turned out to be more receptive to the idea that humans cause it. More of them said that they should support climate-friendly politicians.

Not so with people who received messages about individual responsibility. They were less likely to say they would take steps to reduce their own emissions. Researchers noted the same effect across the political spectrum.

Risa Palm, the study’s lead author, said the study reinforced previous findings. People favor any kind of change except changing their own behavior. So yes. Pass laws to stop pollution. Just don’t tell us about our own responsibility.

And why would people respond this way? Palm says no one really believes that their choices make any difference. Climate change is a big issue. People don’t see how choosing how long to shower will affect it. And who likes being told what to do?

Some years ago, I saw a video about Unilever’s sustainability efforts. People made nasty comments in response to its claim that consumers accounted for most of the energy used in its products. But Unilever is probably right.

Take its Lipton Tea, for example. One teabag’s share in the environmental impact of manufacturing, packaging, and shipping a day’s production of teabags doesn’t amount to much. But what about heating water every day to make a cup of tea? What about a hundred million Americans heating it more efficiently? Or less?

So we need to learn to deliver such messages to promote green living more effectively.

Where did the idea of personal responsibility for the environment come from?

Care for the environment became a mass movement in the run-up to the first Earth Day in 1970. Organizers and speakers exhorted people to become politically active and to pressure businesses to change their ways.

They had little to say about how ordinary people could adopt a green lifestyle. Maybe that’s one reason why Earth Day became so successful.

But in 1989, John Javna self-published a book called 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth. No commercial publisher wanted it. He proclaimed that if enough people took simple steps to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle, it would have a huge environmental impact. He had found a different way to promote green living.

By that time, the original bloom of enthusiasm for environmental legislation and big systemic changes had passed. Influencing everyone’s personal behavior was a novel idea. Javna’s bid to advocate sustainable living became an unexpected best-seller. It was translated into 23 different languages. But nothing much changed.

Javna himself became so disillusioned with the real impact of his book that, for a  while, he even turned his back on his own advice.

“I had this vision that it would be a gateway, an entry point, for people, and that they would get more and more involved,” he said. “After a few years, it was quite clear that they weren’t.”

Some people, at least, recycled. They bought eco-friendly products. Mostly, they made some minor, incremental changes and stopped. Yet deforestation, emission of greenhouse gases, pollution, and  other environmental crises continued.

Javna’s 2008 edition has all the eco-friendly tips. But it also urges readers to find one environmental cause they care about and become personally involved in advocating for it.

The limits and possibilities of personal responsibility

Critics pointed out that individual responsibility by itself can’t solve environmental problems. The world still needs large-scale policy changes. We can conscientiously buy eco-friendly products, but we can’t shop our way out of the environmental crises we face.

And yet who can expect any real progress if governments pass lots of laws to make industry change its ways but ordinary people don’t choose to change theirs? After all, there are billions of us. Who will adopt a green lifestyle if they don’t hear the green living message?

Yet, especially in the US, if governments decide to go beyond pressuring businesses and mandate individual sacrifice, people will reject it. It steps on their personal freedom.

Messages that cast the same behaviors as fun or exciting work better.

For example, Copenhagen, Denmark responded to the oil crisis of the 1970s by building infrastructure for biking to make it safer and more convenient. Then city leaders marketed bicycling as something glamorous and sexy. As one leader put it,  “a multivitamin Viagra pill for the urban landscape.”

By not condemning cars and driving, the campaign succeeded brilliantly. Copenhagen now has five times as many bikes as cars. Even more bikes than people. In a 2010 survey of bicycle users, people said that it was faster, healthier, cheaper, and more convenient than driving. Hardly anyone mentioned environmental concerns. Yet the environment benefitted.

The green gap

A 2011 study by the advertising firm Ogilvie & Mather found that about 16% of the American population care more about climate change and related environmental issues than just about anything else. It called them Super Greens. Another 18%, Green Rejectors, greet environmental issues with hostility. That leaves 66% of us somewhere in the middle.

Upper Middle Greens largely agree with the Super Greens about the seriousness of environmental issues. They balk at taking any steps that seem too expensive or inconvenient. There is, in other words, a noticeable gap between their opinions and their behavior.

Lower Middle Greens generally regard rhetoric about climate change and other environmental issues as more hype than truth. They can be persuaded to adopt green lifestyle practices if they see any personal benefit, such as saving money.

Ogilvie & Mather concluded that advertisers need to make green living seem normal, not simply a fringe issue.

I would add that we have to try to persuade the militant virtue signalers to shut up.

Some truck drivers responded to marketing Toyota’s Prius as a virtuous, environmentally friendly purchase by “coal-rolling.” That is, they deliberately removed emissions controls and enjoyed the clouds of black exhaust fumes they created. Owning a Prius became symbolic of what many people disliked about environmentalists.

A successful green living message?

What if we could promote green living as something exciting and future-oriented?

• Instead of telling people not to be consumers, tell them to buy good quality products they’ll enjoy for a long time.
• Instead of telling them about the environmental impact of using electricity, show them how to save money they can use for something beneficial.
• Make the message more about how they can contribute to something worthwhile than about what they need to stop.

And another thing: what one person out of 7 billion decides to do makes no difference. But none of us is that isolated. If I change one habit, what difference would it make if a billion or so other people worldwide choose something similar? People need assurance that they matter.

In more than ten years of writing this blog, I have certainly recommended that readers not use the drive-thru or bottled water. But I hope I have not come across as a scold. In my cost of convenience series, I have tried to point out the benefits of greener alternatives. And I have certainly harped on how individual choices matter. But in advocating for better ways to promote sustainability, I recognize that I need to keep a strong focus on making it look attractive.

It will be difficult to achieve the lofty goals of the environmental movement. It will be impossible without the cooperation of a critical mass of the population. And that requires developing an effective green living message.

Sources:

How people came to believe that individual choices could save the Earth / Kate Yoder, Grist. January 16, 2020
Mainstream Green / Graceann Bennett and Freya Williams (Ogilvie & Mather, 2011)
Messaging Sustainability: From Boring to Cool /  Soraya Darabi, Sustainable Brands [January 10,  2014]
Want some eco-friendly tips? A new study says no, you don’t / Kate Yoder, Grist. October 20, 2020