Energy: removing the barriers to change in business

In the article entitled “Energy: understanding the barriers to change in business“, we identified the attitudes and catalysts within your company that determine whether your energy saving policy will fail or succeed. Here, myLIFE explains the concrete action you can take to implement the tools to facilitate change.

Aiming for energy-related behavioural change in a company is not an easy task. You have to learn to identify the barriers to the adoption of new virtuous behaviours, but you also have to pinpoint the problems specific to your company: the activity, the environment, the variety of groups of employees, the context of the change, etc.

There is no magic formula that can be replicated by all organisations. Different audiences, in different situations and at different times will require different types of interventions to effectively change their behaviour. The interventions you choose need to fit your business context and simply reproducing what others have done is less likely to be successful.

The interventions you choose need to fit your business context and simply reproducing what others have done is less likely to be successful.

The challenges specific to each company

The first step in developing your new energy policy is to identify the environmental problems specific to your organisation, as well as the means to be deployed to address them. These can be water use, energy, recycling, transport and fuel consumption, etc.

After identifying the levers for action, identify all the behaviours that will need to be changed and understand the context in which they occur. On this basis, you can define interventions that will take into account how organisational factors and individual behaviours interact. For example, there would be no point in encouraging employees to adjust the thermostat based on the temperature in the room if there is no system in place allowing staff to change it from the office. To successfully bring about a change, it must both be possible and desirable to facilitate it wherever possible.

Using the EAST framework to facilitate change

The Nudge Unit (BIT) in the UK has created a framework that facilitates behaviour change in order to generate effective interventions to reduce your energy consumption. EAST stands for Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely. Without forgetting the importance of adapting each intervention to your situation, here are some examples to help fully understand each component of EAST.

• • Make it easy. Why not automate or programme the shutdown of computers from a certain time, or install an innovative heating system that adapts to whether anyone is in the office.
  • Make it attractive. Just emailing your employees with a reminder to switch lights off is unlikely to be effective. On the other hand, if the email comes with an encouraging video clip from an influential person at the company, the message is likely to make a greater impact. If it would suit your company, why not set up a “green” bonus, rewarding employees who have made stand-out effort to reduce energy.
  • Make it social. Sharing the results already achieved as a collective, thus highlighting a “winning” group, encourages the adoption of the right behaviours. Employees are always more motivated when they feel that their actions are paying off or when they see that their colleagues’ virtuous behaviour is valued!
  • Make it timely. A repeated action becomes a habit, a repeated habit becomes a behaviour, a repeated behaviour becomes a character trait. The further along an employee is in this cycle, the more difficult it is to change the way they act. So timing is crucial. Do you want to encourage your employees to use their own cars less often, or to cycle in or work from home more often? Rather than upsetting long-standing members of staff with your new policy, target new employees first with your messages, before they get used to a certain way of travelling to the office. If your message works with them, there is a good chance that, as a “social” effect, other employees who have been at the company longer will go with the flow and agree to try an alternative.

Ultimately, it is the employees, at all levels of the organisation, who have the power to effect a change.

This last point reminds us that, ultimately, it is the employees, at all levels of the organisation, who most often have the power to effect a change. Consequently, while it is true that it is up to management to define and approve the general framework of a corporate energy policy, its implementation cannot simply be top-down or bottom-up. A collaborative approach is always favourable; do not hesitate to call on all employees to innovate and come up with ideas for effective intervention. This will make the expected changes much more attractive and will undoubtedly contribute towards a positive collective dynamic. Good luck!