It’s my great pleasure to welcome readers and contributors to this month’s Issue in Focus on Behavior Change.
At Shelton Group, our purpose is to help companies define and leverage their sustainability commitments to gain a market advantage.
We accomplish that by keeping our finger on the market's pulse and using the insights we glean from our ongoing, proprietary research to motivate mainstream consumers to make more sustainable choices — i.e., change their behaviors.
This Issue in Focus will look at behavior change from a dozen perspectives — all based in hard data and real-world examples. Our perspective is this: When working to create more sustainable behaviors, it’s important to give people specific, prescriptive action steps. Too often in this community we talk in broad-brush strokes and platitudes, like "Be green!" That's like saying, "Lose weight!" We have to get to the "how" if we want people to actually take steps forward, and we have to keep them engaged and motivated over time.
Brands have a history of creating behavior change, thus they're the perfect leaders on this front. And, as we’ve seen from the rich and diverse entries that were submitted in answer to Sustainable Brands’ call for content, sustainability thought leaders understand that behavior change is the true task at hand.
We at Shelton Group appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with Sally Uren at Forum for the Future and our friends at Sustainable Brands as we exchange ideas and spark new ones. We’re looking forward to considering the many facets of the question: What makes people do what they do? We would love to hear your thoughts.
Best regards,
Suzanne
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Suzanne Shelton is CEO of Shelton Group, the nation’s leading marketing communications firm entirely focused in the sustainability and energy efficiency sectors.
Published Jun 3, 2013 12pm EDT / 9am PDT / 5pm BST / 6pm CEST