Reigniting interest in sustainability through psychology

Business investment into promoting sustainability is falling on increasingly deaf ears. To understand why, mext conducted research and found most are just saying the same thing, over and over again.

Business investment into sustainability and consequent promotion is increasingly falling on deaf ears. To understand why, mext market engagement consultancy conducted extensive qualitative research in seven countries, resulting in a better understanding of motivations related to sustainability.

"We found that most businesses promote sustainability either by unconsciously preaching to audiences or playing the social justice/guilt card" says mext Founder and Managing Partner, Stefan Grafe.

The research found a high concentration of generic messages, such as 'Look at us, do the same', 'Your actions are causing harm' and 'Join us to save your children'. Many research participants felt the messages were simply mind-numbingly boring and did not see why they should engage with the business

mext advises businesses to take a big picture approach, not in terms of society, but in terms of the audiences mind.

Using the most advanced understanding of the human mind, Morphological Psychology, mext determined the six fundamental factors, connected in three tensions, that governs all decisions related to sustainability in a persons mind.

"To change behaviour, it is paramount to understand what is going through in your audiences mind. After that, creating an effective campaign to capture their imagination is easy." Grafe says.

"So instead of playing on the same evangelist or social justice cards, Sustainability messages can take on other elements such as harmony and the ideal world; measures that turn cultivated actions into intuitive processes; give rewards (mental or psychical) for successful learning and more."

For more information or if you are interested in learning about specific business applications of the model, contact mext on +61 3 96864170.

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Tags: consumer research, Psychology, understanding sustainability


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