Getting Others on Board with Going Green at Work: Using Social Norms and FOMO (post 4 of 5)

What if you could change your colleague’s behavior as it related to sustainability actions by simply bringing up the topic and mentioning a few facts? Can it be that easy?

You are likely thinking ' I wish it were!'. Behavior change can be tricky, as you likely know if you are reading this post. Achieving it takes more than just handing out information and hoping people will make the right decision. If you want to create sustainable behavior (no pun intended), then you need to understand what motivates the person in front of you.

This is the fourth in a series of five posts about this topic. If you haven’t seen the first, which deals with leading by example, the second, which focuses on WIIFM, or the third, which looks at the importance of storytelling, be sure to check those out as well!

In this post, we will talk about how peer pressure can be an important factor when trying to achieve environmental sustainability goals at work. We'll also discuss how fear of missing out (FOMO) might motivate your colleagues into action, since FOMO and peer pressure can be closely intertwined.

First, let's look at how peer pressure can be used in a positive way to help support your environmental sustainability or going green project at work. When we think of peer pressure, we typically think of someone negatively influencing you to take action. But what if you could use peer pressure to influence positive behavior change?

This is just what Robert Cialdini did in a test to see how guests at a hotel would respond to different sustainability messages. Using social psychology theories, he and two graduate students at Arizona State University randomly placed one of five messages in the 260 guest rooms of a local hotel. The messages asked the guests to reuse their towels instead of getting new ones, and the reason for this was given as follows:

"Help the hotel save energy"

"Help save the environment"

"Partner with us to help save the environment"

"Help save resources for future generations"

"Join your fellow citizens in helping to save the environment"

Can you guess which of these messages was the most successful and led the highest number of people to take action? It was the last one, which described a social norm and what fellow guests were doing. Forty-one percent of the guests who received those cards reused their towels. The next most popular were messages around the benefit to future generations, and the least action was taken as a result of the messaging mentioning the hotel.

Looking at the above, think about how you could craft some of your messaging to your colleagues to use peer pressure and social norms. If the project that you are currently launching or are about to launch doesn't have much traction - or any - you can easily look to other companies or to groups of individuals who are taking similar actions to those that you would like your colleagues to take.  

Using the example provided in a prior post in this series, around creating an office reuse center, you could track and publicly post the number of people who have donated to the office supply reuse center to encourage others to do the same. If you are tracking what is donated and what is used, you could also share the amount of money that was saved by reusing supplies over a certain period of time.

This is where FOMO also comes in with sustainability messaging. The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a fear that you will miss out on something because people who are important to you may be doing it. You can think about how the action that you would like to promote - for example, increasing the use of the office supply center - could result in others missing out.

Some sample messages:

• What if there is the perfect pen that is just sitting there in the supply center just waiting for you?

• What if there was a fun notebook that you could use to take notes?

• Have you seen this cool [insert name of item in supply center]? Grab it before it’s gone. [In this instance, you would also include a picture.]

These things may seem trivial but to many people, it is what makes every day more interesting and fun.

Some other social norm and FOMO ideas for your workplace include:

• Recognizing - on social media - sustainability actions that some of your colleagues took or others in your community who are related to your organization.

• Sharing fun pictures of sustainability actions that you took or that others have taken that could also be implemented at your workplace.

• Giving public shoutouts to coworkers at company-wide meetings.

• Highlighting sustainable events happening that your colleagues could participate in

• Creating a space in the intranet or where it is digitally accessible by your colleague where you talk about the cool things that happen at work related to sustainability.

So, get creative. What are some sustainability-related messages around positive peer pressure and FOMO at work that you could create?

Next week, we’ll be providing the fifth post in the series, so be sure to be on the lookout for it!

P.S. If you are currently working within an organization and are looking to grow your skill set and knowledge around sustainability by starting with where you currently work, be sure to download our free Beginner’s Guide to Going Green, with 50+ low-cost and low barrier to entry projects and much more to get started with. If you are looking at becoming a consultant, this could also be helpful in providing you will additional information around potential projects and the business case for going green.

Anca Novacovici

Anca is an author, speaker and founder of Eco-Coach Inc. She is passionate about supporting individuals and organizations around going green and environmental sustainability. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.