G1.2 Community based social marketing
Develop and run community based social marketing program to reduce consumption and inform consumers about options for reducing their carbon footprint.
Doug McKenzie-Mohr’s Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing argues that a great deal of research shows that neither providing people with more information nor changing their attitudes does much to change their behavior. However, it does show that they are likely to change some behavior when they know that other people in their networks are changing it. The book provides a detailed set of methods for promoting actual behavior change, based on the relevant research, and provides a number of case studies. (He also runs a consulting business; its website provides a very large collection of resources, from research articles to discussion groups.
The Rocky Mountain Institute did a study of tactics for promoting online and in-person tactics to enable peer diffusion of investments in energy upgrades.