Public Services Lab Blog

Spreading green ideas

Mark Griffiths - 23.02.2011

NESTA's Big Green Diffusion project sets out to explore ways of encouraging the take-up of green initiatives at scale.

What we want is not just more people, but significantly more people, integrating environmentally friendly practices in their lifestyle, or establishing green enterprises, and significantly more communities increasing their energy security through local energy production, or their food independence through local food co-operatives.

Scaling up is difficult

Scale-up, or diffusion, or adoption is tough. But it is ultimately what matters - a good idea that sits in a pocket of glorious isolation is not enough to meet the challenges out there.

What does the theory tell us? The starting point for all talk about the adoption of innovations is Everett Rogers - he's the man behind the terms 'early adopter' and 'laggards' that are used to describe the take-up of new technology.  

Rogers defined five characteristics of innovations that influence whether or not it is taken-up.

1. Its relative advantage - how much better is the innovation than what was there previously?
2. How compatible the innovation is with an individual's life
3. How easy or difficult the innovation is to use
4. Trialability - can the innovation be experimented with, so reducing the risk of taking on the innovation?
5. Observability - can the innovation be observed?  (Rogers's father, a farmer resistant to innovations, was only persuaded to adopt a new hybrid seed corn when he saw the hybrid seed corn standing tall on the neighbor's farm while his own crop had wilted during a drought.)

I think this analysis, with an overlay of the human dimension - the relationships that people have, their motivations and energy - is roughly right.  So, how does this apply to the projects in the Big Green Diffusion project? How do the seven fantastic projects we are working with fit into this framework?

Making it easier

It feels to me that many of the projects are directed at making the innovation easier to use. For example, The Community Finance Summer school project, or Low Carbon West Oxford, or Bricks and Bread all set out to share the knowledge that they have built-up in the hope that others will find it easier than they did to adopt a green innovation. Another example is the Local Food Champions project which offers advice and support to communities wishing to establish their own food co-operative.

Integration in everyday life

Other Big Green Diffusion projects show how an innovation is compatible with the existing rhythms of a lifestyle. The great team based at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales is demonstrating, in a realistic home environment, how anyone can adopt the changes needed to lead an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. They also add in a big dollop of observability in that they are encouraging people to establish in their communities very visible Eco Teams.

Motivating people

Two Big Green Diffusion projects tackle head-on the people aspect of 'scale-up'. Beyond the Cover Story with their 'I-We-The Planet' model, and Oxfordshire United, who are wanting to recruit the motivational sources of sport, and especially football, into the green movement, are looking to nurture the motivation and energy that people bring to the green challenge.

We have a great portfolio of projects wrapped under the heading of Big Green Diffusion - all focused quite rightly on the challenge of getting take-up at scale. I'll blog more about what we are learning as the project continues.