WHOSE BEHAVIORS MUST BECOME MORE SUSTAINABLE?
Everyone's

Thirty years ago we were optimistic that technology would solve all the world’s problems… particularly our environmental woes. We made it to the moon…we can do anything! But with overpopulation and the exponential impacts of crises such as global warming, deforestation, erosion, and pollution — just to name a few — we’ve realized that we must integrate and balance our social, cultural, environmental, and economic interests and objectives now, if we are to ensure health and happiness for future generations. We also know that every one of us plays an important part — in fact, so important that our behaviors at home, work, and play constitute the greatest potential for positive or negative change. The Fresh Outlook Foundation’s mandate is to focus on the behavior change piece of the sustainability puzzle.

Communities must respond to their myriad political, administrative, operational, scientific, technological, and behavioral challenges in and through the public, private, civic, and innovation sectors. Change in each of these sectors is prompted by slowly evolving policies, procedures, practices, programs, and projects — all of which require behavior change for long-term success.

Behavior change is a process not an event. To be successful, people and organizations must move through the following stages:

Understanding — where you create interest and awareness and use customer-centered, bottom-line perspectives to change attitudes.

Contemplation — where you persuade or motivate behavior change by helping individuals and/or groups identify unsustainable actions and the benefits of and barriers to sustainable alternatives.

Action — where you educate about appropriate and lasting behaviors, and build participants’ confidence about and commitment to the new behaviors.

Maintenance — where you reward people for the changes they’ve made and encourage them to share what they’ve learned with others.

These stages, which form the basis of community-based social marketing, will be used by the foundation to engage individuals and groups in the public, private, civic, and innovation sectors.