A better future through behaviour change
(L_R) John Merritt, EPA; Dave Griggs, MSI; Michael Daddo, The Shannon Company; Liam Smith; John Thwaites; Edwina Cornish, Monash University; Bill Shannon, The Shannon Company
A society where environmental sustainability considerations are an integral part of everyday decision-making is the goal of a new multi-disciplinary research initiative launched this week.
BehaviourWorks Australia, an innovative partnership between the Monash Sustainability Institute, EPA Victoria and The Shannon Company, aims to discover and influence the motivations underlying human actions.
With the goal of encouraging behaviour change at individual, community, business and government levels, BehaviourWorks Australia will bring together highly-developed but previously separate strands of research and practice.
Professor John Thwaites, Chairman of the Monash Sustainability Institute and ClimateWorks Australia, said all partner organisations shared a commitment to addressing contemporary environmental challenges, such as energy and water usage, and recognised that influencing behaviour was critical to this.
"BehaviourWorks Australia will play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between behaviour change disciplines, researchers, and practitioners in business and government.
"While economic incentives, regulation and educational programs may all impact decision-making, the motivations underlying human behaviour are more complex than any of these individual fields of research allow.
“Interdisciplinary approaches and expertise stand the best chance of generating influential and lasting behaviour change," said Professor Thwaites.
"BehaviourWorks Australia intends to be at the forefront of international behaviour change research and practice, with a foundation based on collaboration and knowledge sharing among leaders in the field of behaviour change and environmental sustainability."
Led by Dr Liam Smith, the team at BehaviourWorks Australia includes Monash University researchers from a variety of disciplines including psychology, education, law, economics and marketing. The on-the-ground experience of leading practitioners from government and business will assist in translating the research into practice.
The goal of the initiative is to develop and apply an adaptive behaviour change approach, suitable for public and private sectors, to be implemented by all partners. Constantly evaluated and adapted in line with new, collaborative research, this approach will deliver best practice behaviour change programs and outcomes.