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Catherine Fish
Age:
Company:
Country: 		26
BrainJuicer
UK
Topic chosen:
Sustainable energy
 
Title of submission:
Learning to Love Less
Understanding how to promote energy-saving behaviour through public information communications
 
Abstract:
Learning to Love Less: understanding how to promote energy-saving behaviour through public information communications. The scientists alone cannot bear the responsibility for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, and consequently reducing our CO2 emissions. While we need the boffins to develop and implement renewable sources of energy to ensure we have power beyond fossil fuels, only a drastic reduction in the amount of energy that we use now can enable renewables to supply our future demands, and slow down the effect our consumption is having on the climate. In the UK, over 40% of CO2 emissions come directly from what we do as individuals – heating our homes, driving our cars etc. It is therefore vital that individuals appreciate the impact of their own personal energy usage, and make changes in their lifestyles to reduce their personal CO2 emissions as far as possible. However, people struggle to change energy use habits which, in many cases, they will have acquired over a lifetime. An emotional stir-up is needed to cause people to deviate from these deeply-set habits. Public information campaigns promoting energy-saving behaviour must therefore engage people emotionally, and get them to feel that changes that they make in their own lives will have a lasting impact on the common good. The objective of this study is to determine which kinds of messages, aimed at encouraging energy-conserving behaviour, are most effective in engaging people emotionally, and which are therefore most likely to result in behaviour change. By identifying the most powerful ways to communicate environmental messages, I will make recommendations on how to employ messaging in public information campaigns aimed at reducing energy usage, encouraging habitual energy conservation, and making us better able to supply our energy demands with renewable sources in years to come.
A bit more about Catherine
Cat graduated from the University of Durham in 2005 with a first in English Literature. Since then she has worked as an Account Analyst at IRI, analysing market content data to help her FMCG clients gain vital market insights. Cat joined BrainJuicer in 2007, where she has enjoyed applying her analytical skills and creative thinking to answer the questions which inform her clients' key business decisions. When not busy Juicing, Cat likes to read thick books with tiny writing and bake chocolate brownies.





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