Break the chains – we create successful change programs for environmental sustainability

You’re looking to create greater environmental sustainability. But you feel shackled.

You’ve likely tried a number of different approaches. Education. Addressing values and attitudes. Motivational seminars. They didn’t work very well, if at all.

We know why. Moreover, building on new holistic / systems approach to change (i.e. behaviour) we can transform your sustainability problem into a productive outcome.

When you’ve had enough of change management schemes that don’t deliver, break the chains.

We put you in the driver’s seat of the change process.

We work with leaders to develop new ways of understanding and transforming your organisation, both internally and your services, to deliver your sustainability vision.

The services that we offer include:

• Turning your values into outcomes

• Getting everyone on board

• Transforming unsustainability

• Designing and implementing programs and projects that deliver

All of our work is benchmarked. We measure your existing practices before and after one of our change processes. This way you can see the actual change that we deliver.

We work with you to get your organisation to be more effective, more adaptable, in managing its sustainability direction and work.

Whether you need to respond to a change for environmental sustainability in your organisation or want to improve your sustainability offerings, Actual Behaviour Change delivers.

When you’re tired of change processes that don’t work…

To understand what Actual Behaviour Change does, it is worth considering what we don’t do.

• We don’t try to change people’s attitudes or values.

• We don’t rely on “educating” people.

• We don’t assume that people are rational machines that carefully weigh evidence and then act.

• We don’t believe that society is simply a collection of individuals.

Why don’t we do these things? Simply put, they don’t work very well, if at all. Moreover, there is abundant evidence of a values/action gap – people don’t necessarily do what they say they value.

We hear a lot about “evidence based” policy and practice. Yet the evidence that supports these “common sense” strategies like education, changing values, and sound argument, is thin on the ground.

To continue to use innovation and behaviour change strategies that rely on the dot points above, is a bit like banging your head into a brick wall; it’s great when you stop.

We invite you to stop. In doing this, reconsider the problem of “change” for greater environmental sustainability. We will work with you to do this and in the process develop numerous new change-strategies for you to consider and implement.

Here’s what we do.

It’s behaviour change Jim, but not as we know it

About Behaviour Change takes a radical, yet almost obvious approach to innovation and behaviour change for greater environmental sustainability. We examine and change actual behaviour. This is a departure from traditional attempts at behaviour change.

Our starting place is examining what people actually do. This means taking account of the effects of their physical surroundings, organisational relationships and competencies. It is the inter-relationships between the physical, organisational, and personal, that produces specific behaviour. Change one or more of these and behaviour changes.

However, there is a little more to the problem of change. We know how people will respond to suggested change regarding environmental sustainability. As people tend to want to do tomorrow what they did yesterday their default response will be to stick with the status quo. We are all, naturally, conservative. This means that people will act to defend their existing “the way things are done around here”. But, people are open to change should it be perceived to be aligned with their pre-existing practice.

We draw on ideas and insights that have been developed over the last 30 years but have only recently evolved to a stage where they can be applied to case studies. Actual Behaviour Change brings the transformational “practice turn” to your workplace, providing new insights and tools for you to use to achieve greater environmental sustainability.

This is what we do.

Should you want to explore becoming a more effective agent of change, contact us.

Measurable, deliverable, organisational and behavioural change

Delivering change

We start by working with you to understand the environmental sustainability problem that you want resolved. What practices are embedded within the problem?

We then map the relevant practices to uncover the physical, organisational and personal factors that “create” the behaviour.

This mapping is then creatively explored to generate strategies that can be considered. We work with you to develop strategies that are directed at changing one or more aspects of the practice (i.e. the physical, organisational or personal) as these will result in changes that will be more environmentally sustainable, should they be applied.

Prior to strategies being implemented, baseline measurements are taken. Then strategies are trialled (prototyping). A final round of baseline measurements is taken so that you can see how effective the strategy has been. We can then work with you to roll out the strategic-change should you be satisfied with the results.

We select appropriate tools to use throughout the process. We draw on business management, design thinking, and practice theory tools.

Training a new generation of change agents

We can provide your organisation with training so that you can utilise the power of the “practice turn” as needed.

Training modules are tailor made to suit your organisation’s needs and are based on Master-level credentials.

We can provide mentoring for people trained in the practice turn, to help make them more effective change agents.

Leadership support

We can provide ad hoc support to leaders engaging in this new way of tackling change for greater environmental sustainability.

About

Today’s work environment is dynamic and seemingly in constant flux. In the workplace we are stretched by demanding stakeholders and markets. We are encouraged to be responsive and adaptable, not only in our core service provision but also to community concerns about environmental sustainability, diversity and social responsibility.

Actual Behaviour Change draws on powerful new ways of understanding social, organisational and personal dynamics that were developed by Dr Geoffrey Binder during his PhD. This research examined how everyday practices affected the outcomes for a “sustainability showcase” master-planned community. This saw the development of new ideas and insights into the widely documented problem of the values / action gap – there is a gulf between what people like to do and what they actually achieve (i.e. the vision for the “sustainability showcase” did not materialise).

The ideas that came from this research underpin Geoffrey’s teaching of Master of Environment students at the University of Melbourne and are used to provide new insights and, importantly, strategies for actual, measurable, behaviour change.

In 2019 Geoffrey and the rest of the teaching team at the Office for Environmental Programs received the University of Melbourne Award for Excellence in Education for Sustainability (a strategic priority award). The office has led education in environmental sustainability at Melbourne for 20 years through multi- and inter-disciplinary teaching drawn from nine of the 10 faculties. The program has pioneered teaching innovations at Melbourne through embedding scenario-based role-playing activities, flipped classrooms, real-time student interaction and action teaching. We have changed the way students understand, but more importantly, act, to solve the pressing environmental and sustainability issues of our time.

There is an age old saying in business: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”¹.

This begs the question, when it comes to change within an organisation or in the way it does its business, what is it that we need to measure? We can set targets and goals, but these do not guarantee change. Similarly, vision statements and policies do not guarantee change. And as for typical training seminars and workshops, well you’ve likely tried these!

Actual Behaviour Change uses a newly developed understanding of innovation (change) within and between organisations that focuses, uniquely, on the day to day practices that animate organisations.

Practices – “business as usual” – provide certainty that the job gets done. Bureaucracy works! But rarely do we take into account the fact that people tend to want to do tomorrow what they did yesterday. This feature of the human condition means that people are naturally resistant to change. No one set out to be deliberately “unsustainable”.

We’re just starting to come to terms with the idea that unsustainability is a feature of what people do on a daily basis, mostly, without thinking about it. Worse, even if we do think about our unsustainability, this often doesn’t change behaviour – there is by nature a values/action gap.

Actual Behaviour Change has cracked open this conundrum. We understand what enables business as usual, how to disrupt it, and crucially, how to transform it.

¹While this idea is flawed, it nevertheless points to the need to carefully define what constitutes a measure of change. This is what baseline measurements do, as opposed to simplistic proxies for success. (See Liz Ryan’s piece in Forbes: ‘If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage It’: Not True)

Dr Geoffrey Binder heads Actual Behaviour Change. He has been working in, and teaching, behaviour change for several years.

You can find Geoffrey on The University of Melbourne’s “Find an Expert” Page.

Geoffrey draws on a multidisciplinary approach, to develop new transdisciplinary frameworks for achieving change for greater environmental sustainability. These underpin the work of Actual Behaviour Change.

Geoffrey works with a team of experts to deliver change programs to government, business, other organisations and individuals. Through LOCI he is a member of the Urban Well – a team of environmental consultants that specialise in Better Best Practice on legacy projects.

Many of Geoffrey’s publications can be found at Research Gate.