Climate Entrepreneurs and Behaviour Change

1
Climate Entrepreneurs and Behaviour Change

• Duncan McLaren
• Chief Executive
• Friends of the Earth Scotland
• Presentation to Entrepreneurship for a Zero
  Carbon Society, Cambridge University 22-24 Sept
  2008

2
Campaign groups like Friends of the Earth
Scotland sound the alarms and help find solutions

• It might seem that the alarm has been well and
  truly sounded
• But developing climate science suggests multiple
  major causes of concern
• Positive feedbacks such as ocean acidification
  are in the ascendance
• Rapid impacts and catastrophic change will be the
  result of current trends

3
All solutions are not equal Technical fixes -
from fusion to fertilisation - are not (the
whole) solution

• They are politically more palatable
• And, unsurprisingly, have become the fall-back
  position of the climate deniers
• They represent business as usual for modern
  capitalism
• Some will establish new climate entrepreneurs

4
Lewis Wind Power potentially a major
contribution to emissions reductions

• But what are the implicit messages?
• Demand must be met
• Big is beautiful
• Regulation is the problem

5
Zero-carbon societies will need mainstream
behaviour change as well as technical innovation

• Changing buying habits
• Behaviour changes to utilise existing and new
  technologies
• Consuming less
• Campaigners like entrepreneurs need to
  understand the cultural and behavioural frames
  for individual action

6
Governments are exhorting individual action, and
establishing carbon markets

• Carbon markets can drive innovation and stimulate
  change
• But unconstrained carbon markets disadvantage
  developing countries and poor communities
• Effective markets need trust, built on a
  framework of legislation, regulation and
  standards

7
Public trust is weak at present damaged by
stealth taxes and corporate greenwash

• Behaviour change interventions can change
  elasticities of response to price measures
• But Government exhortation to change behaviour
  has been largely ineffective so far
• Not only claims, but also standards are
  proliferating
• Information alone is not the problem action
  requires knowledge, opportunity and motivation
• Carbon calculators help, but need to be
  trustworthy, and set in a framework of regulation
  and social marketing activity

8
For behaviour change to deliver needs the right
framework and a step change in social marketing

• Effective social marketing
• Recognises different motivations of prospectors,
  pioneers and settlers
• Hooks into positive personal interest
• Exploits the power of decentralised networks -
  peer to peer, I will if you will
• Makes more from less, leads values with behaviour
  change

9
Conclusions - on the nature of entrepreneurship
for a zero-carbon society

• Entrepreneurship for a zero-C society will
• Respond to rising carbon prices
• Be as much social as commercial
• Require effective regulation
• Be decentralised and networked
• Manage, rather than grow demand