Communicating ESD

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Communicating ESD Solitaire Townsend Futerra
Sustainability Communications Ltd
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Public Recognition of Sustainable Development
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Demographics

• Welsh Consumer Council survey
• 55 of ABC1
• 14 of DEclaimed familiarity with the term SD
• The Defra Survey of Public Attitudes 2001
• Awareness of SD lowest among 18-24 year olds
  (18 of respondents claimed to have heard of it)
• Highest among 45 to 64 year olds (41)

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Awareness of SD

• 34
• Age as a factor
• Deliberately incomprehensible?

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Understanding Sustainable Development
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Deliberative Forum

• Awareness of environmental problems in the
  broadest sense was high, but knowledge of the
  term sustainable development (SD) was low

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Deliberative Forum

• Participants did not feel well informed about
• what kinds of issues were facing society
• why they were happening
• what the solutions were
• to what extent they would affect this country
  and in what timescale

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Deliberative Forum
Participants found that they were already
undertaking lots of actions which were
considered sustainable. Only rarely was this
out of any desire to be environmentally
friendly, though this might be a secondary
benefit
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Deliberative Forum
Participants spontaneously said that they were
most likely to be influenced to act sustainably
by what friends and relatives said and did
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Deliberative Forum
They recognised that there were limitations to
information in terms of how it could influence
people They thought that many of the examples
used as stimulus assumed a pre-existing interest
in SD They also rejected some of the
preaching messages used to communicate green
issues in the past
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Deliberative Forum

• Three main themes were thought to have most
  potential to influence people to become more
  sustainable
• shock tactics
• keeping it local
• keeping it simple

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Values Modes Who are we talking to?

• 21 Settlers
• Security/sustenance driven, backward looking,
  yesterday was better
• 44 Prospectors
• Esteem/outer-directed needs, in the now,
  fashion, status, success
• 35 Pioneers
• Inner-directed needs, ethical, self-exploration,
  look forwards, like change and discovery

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Promoting Photovoltaics

• Settlers
• Prospectors
• Pioneers

ACTION Someone else
SOLUTION Id rather not change
INCENTIVE Queen, council, neighbour normal
We should organise
If fashionable
Add value, latest thing/trend
Ill do it myself
Good for planet Ethical imperative Lets do it!
Network of interesting people doing it for a good
cause
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• You do not need to be a professional
  communicator
• but you do need to approach it in a
  professional way

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• Big picture
• Technically correct
• Be cool
• Belong
• Only stories work
• Optimism
• Glory button
• Change is for all
• We need more heroes
• Personal circle

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For more information Solitaire
Townsend FUTERRA soli_at_futerra.co.uk www.futerra.co
.uk