Tools- of Changes

Provides guides, reports, toolkits and videos to help build stronger municipalities, with resources covering Affordable Housing, Energy, Low Carbon, Transportation Land use, Waste, Water, Women in governmentGuide for Engaging Students to...

Includes a guide to community-based social marketing, and sections with articles, brief case studies, graphic examples, and an archived listserv.Covers environmental topics (composting, energy efficiency, household waste disposal, litter...

Food waste and associated greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by helping consumers embrace "ugly fruit", which is typically equivalent nutritionally to regular fruit. Read on for guidance on how to do this.Abstract Ugly foods...

Includes many annotated links to other web-based resources supporting social marketing and social change...

This document provides a brief summary of options for assessing what portion of any measured behavior changes resulted from your program and what portion resulted from other influences. These options can also be used to attribute the...

In 2022, there are about 2,500 Repair Cafés worldwide, where volunteer experts help repair old items that people bring in, keeping them out of landfills and saving people money.About 80% of the things brought in can be fixed. Some of the...

A good, detailed, freely accessible overview of program evaluation and attribution methods....

A summary of food waste at the consumer level, including drivers, evidence from past interventions, and program design implications.     Contains sections on: Drivers of food waste at the consumer level Review of the food waste...

Rapidly reducing methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide emissions is necessary to maximize short-term climate benefits and stop the ongoing temperature rise.With our estimated global solid waste generation of 2.56 to 3.33 billion tonnes...

This report summarizes the findings of a literature review on recycling behavior, commissioned in 2020 by the U.S. Can Manufacturers Institute. The main findings focus on bin design, convenient collection, messaging and norm appeals, choice...

Two open-access articles in Behavioral Science & Policy (7: 2) provide guidance on crafting messages to promote green behaviors. The first argues that interventions will be most effective if they not only make it easier for people to...

This 2013 literature review summarizes behavioral barriers, benefits and interventions related to campus / institutional energy, water and waste-related behaviors.  Sections of this small-scale review, which was created for the University...

A survey of 5,000 individuals in Australia, Canada, the U.K., and U.S., found that concerns about the increasing cost of living are leading consumers to cut their spending and can be tapped to reduce residential food waste.This study...

This second-order meta-analysis found that the studied interventions increased associated environmental behaviors by 2% to 12%. Social comparisons and financial approaches, followed closely by appeals and commitment strategies, were the...

History of household blue box recycling in Canada, UK, USA, and elsewhere.  Canada:  http://www.toolsofchange.com/en/case-studies/detail/19 (see the note at the bottom of the case study) UK, USA, and elsewhere>https://www...

  This research report explores the motivations of people who dump waste illegally, and the influential factors which may bring about a change in behaviour among these groups of people. This research provides a benchmark for monitoring...

When an everyday product (e.g., paper, cups, aluminum cans) is linked to a consumer's identity it is less likely to be trashed and more likely to be recycled. Further, the tendency to recycle an identity-linked product increases with the...

When consensus about a risk or mitigating behavior is newly developed and/or not clearly understood, communicating that consensus through teachers / instructors can be critical. While this blog entry focuses on climate change, it may also...

Why are men less likely than women to embrace environmentally friendly products and behaviors? Building on prior findings that men tend to be more concerned than women with gender-identity maintenance, this article argues that this green...

This 2017 study compares two modes of visually presenting information  - one using photographs and the other using cartoons - on audience's knowledge, attitudes and behavioural intentions.This study compares two modes of visually presenting...

This 2018 article reports on three experiments exploring the impact of waste disposal signage design on disposal behavior. Conclusions: Icons and pictures are better than words Consistent ordering of signs improves performance ...

This paper looks at behavioral opportunities for reducing consumer food waste at the preacquisition, acquisition, consumption, and disposition stages.Food waste presents a complex global problem that involves multiple actors and...

This page highlights RARE's resources for those at the intersection of behavior and the environment. Behavior Change Interventions in Practice: A Synthesis of Criteria, Approaches, Case Studies, and Indicators. The Science of...

This 2019 document provides a much-needed framework for managing food waste, including food surplus, food loss and food waste.It also provides an overview of the literature on drivers of in-home food waste and translate them into guidelines...

This 2020 report summarizes a consensus study by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine of ways to reduce U.S. food waste at the consumer level. Approximately 30 percent of the edible food produced in the United...

This 2021 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper makes the case that the regulation of goods associated with negative environmental externalities may decrease consumption of the targeted product, but may be ineffective at...

This paper claims to be the first to demonstrate that food-wasting is considered immoral on both behavioral and neuronal levels, and that moral judgment regarding wasting food is primarily related to moral judgment of disgusting behavior...

This study identifies six household food waste segments: no food waste; trust in date labels; safety first; occasional wasters; overpurchasers and overpreparers; and family first. These segments differ in their sociodemographic and purchase...

This study identifies four distinct Australian consumer groups driven by different perceptions of food packaging. Although food waste is one of the largest environmental and societal issues of our day, consumers perceive packaging waste as...