Beyond infrastructural change such as utilising more energy-efficient equipment to improve energy savings, a corresponding change in user behaviour and consumption patterns is key to optimising building performance. This is the same for other aspects of environmental sustainability.

A behaviour change campaign addresses the barriers to environmentally sustainable behaviours, such as the lack of awareness (e.g. not knowing where the light switch is) or motivation (e.g. turning the light off to benefit their colleagues, organisation or the larger community).

Providing clear reasons and motivators for change will engage stakeholders for the long term and result in embedded resource savings.

Signing up for the Sustainability in Singapore Programme will train your staff to identify these behavioural barriers, design and implement effective campaigns to change behaviour, resulting in more engaged staff and cost and carbon savings.

Organisations signing up for this Programme will be closer to realising their sustainability goals. The Programme will also increase staff engagement through behaviour change campaigns to learn about sustainability in a very practical way, and inspire intrinsic motivation. This will lead to a chain effect to encourage staff to formulate their own ideas and actions to support sustainability targets of the organisation.

The possible benefits of a behaviour change campaign include, but are not limited to:

• Increased operational effectiveness
• Direct financial impact in reducing costs for the organisation
• Improved brand values & reputation
• Risk reduction & management
• Increased staff engagement
• Business growth and opportunity

Management is a key stakeholder in the success of your behaviour change campaign. It is important to get the consent of management to be part of the process to design and execute a behaviour change campaign in your organisation.

Management can also play a key role in enthusing the target groups to be part of the campaign, such as to lead the kick-off event with an engaging key note speech, or to be a role model in leading the changes in behaviour. Senior management taking personal actions to contribute to the campaign will inspire all staff to do the same.

There is no standard timeline for the campaign as each organisation is unique. Therefore, the time investment depends on the scale of your behaviour change campaign and the size of your target group (i.e. the group whose behaviour you want to change). Hence, it is imperative to decide on the sustainability topics you wish to engage in.

A golden rule is to understand how the smallest action can potentially create the biggest result. For example, a simple campaign that involves working with facility managers to change their behaviours to adjust equipment settings accordingly (instead of using pre-set parameters) may create a larger impact as compared to changing the behaviour of a large target group of 1,000 individuals which may require more interventions for change to happen.

To make the time investment a bit more tangible, the following could be taken into account as a guideline:

• As a Change Manager, you will need to attend the 2-hour kick-off workshop online to be trained in the basic skills. This excludes the potential time required to do background study on your organisation prior to the workshop
• In addition, you will have one or two coaching sessions (~1 hour) with a behaviour change expert of the program, during the design and/or execution phase
• You will likely have meetings with your internal core team (colleagues who help you with the design and execution of your campaign) and other stakeholders, and need to spend time to organise the campaign
• You may also need to engage your target group prior to or during the campaign in order to sustain the behaviour change. To do this, you might consider engaging “Ambassadors” to work with smaller groups within the target groups (e.g. departments) to keep them engaged over a longer period.

The Change Manager is responsible for leading, designing and executing the behaviour change campaign. This person can be a project manager, a sustainability officer or a facility manager.

The Change Manager could be supported by core team members who may add value to the campaign, with communication skills, IT skills, or a representation of the target group to understand better what intervention could be successful.

The behaviour change process can be applied to a wide range of sustainability issues. It is up to the organisation to select areas of interest.

A good starting point would be overall sustainability goals of your organisation. The programme material available focuses on the following three areas: (1) energy saving; (2) waste reduction and separation; and (3) health & well-being.

The campaign materials were developed over a period of two years, based on 17 Singapore pilot projects. Office buildings from multiple sectors, hotels and supermarkets were involved in this development phase, with specific checklists and examples for these sectors developed as part of the programme material.

Organisations can benefit from the step-by-step behaviour change process. You may also adapt and customise the programme materials provided to tailor to your organisations’ needs.

You will also be supported with online coaching by a behaviour change expert, who can assist you with your questions or give advice on situations you may encounter in your specific industry or sector.

Register here to select your preferred workshop date. Registration is free, and will only take a few minutes.

The Sustainability in Singapore Programme is available to all organisations in Singapore. Thus far, the Programme has participants from supermarkets, offices, hotels, community groups, and even a zoo!

The Sustainability in Singapore Programme is currently free for all organisations to participate. However, a time investment is needed to make your behaviour change campaign successful.

The Programme is suitable for both individuals with no or some prior experience in sustainability. There will be one-to-one coaching with our experts to better understand your organisation’s knowledge in sustainability; and provide coaching in less familiar sustainability topics.

A team will typically have 3-5 people in it. If you have more people who want to be involved, you could split them into multiple groups, each running their own campaign.

Yes! An organisation can have multiple groups registered, each carrying out their own behaviour change programmes. 

Once you have signed up, you will be contacted by a behaviour change coach, who will arrange a one-to-one call to explain the process. The coach will also find out more about your organisation such as sustainability barriers faced and suggest suitable topics to overcome it.

This will be followed by an online workshop with a group of peers from various organisations for more detailed learning on the behaviour change process.

Inspiring others starts with you! Find what intrinsically motivates you to be part of sustainability in your organisation and to make change happen. Think about the things you already do in your daily routine at home or at work. Talk with colleagues about what motivates them to take action for a more sustainable workplace. You will find some answers and get some innovative ideas.

Next, you can have external drivers to encourage behavioural change, such as:

• Making a fun campaign to encourage more people to join;
• Gamification of sustainable actions can work as a motivator;
• Reward and recognition to acknowledge and engage individuals.

During the kick-off training session and personal coaching sessions, time will be spent to look at these potential drivers in more detail.

It takes time to adopt/internalise a new behaviour. The campaign should be continually engaging before it is instilled as part of anyone’s daily routines.

A good way to do this is to start small by choosing only one impact area, e.g. Energy and start with a few simple actions. After achieving some results, you can introduce new actions or work on a new impact area. In this way your colleagues will gradually change their behaviour and will understand more about the simple actions they can take to make their workplace more sustainable.

No, being a psychology expert is really not necessary. During the kick-off workshop you will learn about behaviour change and some of the underlying theories and practices. This is sufficient to design and execute a behaviour change campaign. 

It is always good to keep in mind that a certain percentage of your target audience is not interested. Typically, only a small group of people  will be continuously engaged throughout the campaign, while the larger majority tend to observe what their peers do before they really step into it. Hence, it is important to seek the help of the enthusiasts to influence the larger majority. Of course, there will also be a small group who are simply not interested. This is normal, and you should not be too disheartened, but to focus your efforts on the first and second group.

A behaviour change campaign can start with just one action. The idea of a campaign is that you really think through how you can make the change happen. This is a step-by-step process that can be successful when designed and executed with care. Thinking about these steps, even when you want to implement only one action, is key. Sometimes, implementing one crucial action takes more time than ten simple actions. A successful behaviour change campaign is thus not about the quantity but about the quality and impact of the action.

Once you have registered and completed your first workshop, this website will guide you through the behaviour change process, prompting you on the things that you need to think about at the different stages of your campaign. It will provide you with useful examples and template materials to help you, as well as guidance on how to identify the impact of your campaign and sharing the story of your successes. 

You will also have access to additional behaviour change training materials and videos, the ability to have your campaigns accredited, and the opportunity to learn from other people who are also carrying out their own campaigns.

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