What motivates you to help the air?
When you think about air pollution, what gets your attention most? Is it the effects on your own health, the impact on the environment or what air pollution, and how you might be contributing to it, are costing you in dollars and cents?
Yup – air pollution is proving to be costly to our environment, our health and our pocketbooks.
Check out this air pollution website created by The School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong. This innovative calculator shows the various ‘costs’ air pollution has on individuals in that country and the cost of collective health.
But air pollution is a problem that impacts us all – 100 per cent of the time – no matter where we live or the state of our health. And in order to improve anything, we have to be willing to change. Starting with our own behaviour.
So we want to know – what makes you care most about the quality of the air we share? Is it a healthier body, bank account or community?
The question of personal motivators is one we think about a lot when we’re developing social marketing campaigns about the outdoor environment and its effects on health. Our goal of making people more aware of an issue, helping them understand it and see how it is relevant to them personally, is the precursor to motivating people to take action – to change their own behaviour.
Not unlike other social topics, people feel connected to issues in different ways – and these connections are what motivate them to do something.
When it comes to air quality, parents who have kids suffering from asthma are more likely to be motivated by health concerns. Others may be motivated by their passion for the earth and all its species. What about you? Maybe it’s only relevant when the day comes that you are asked not to drive to work because of high health risk from particulate matter in the air. Or the cost of gas is so high you realize it’s not worth it to idle your car unnecessarily. Will it be the financial considerations that are the kicker to making you care about the air?
Protecting our air for environmental and human health reasons is a continuous challenge. Behaviour change is a slow process. The more we know about what motivates people to think about air quality, the better able we are to shape these conversations about our most vital life sustaining resource – air — in a way that will get more people to sit up and listen.
Can you help? Leave a comment on what your top motivator is, and tell us what country or province/state you are from.
Dear Procurement, is it time to get with the e-times?
We’re hired by private, not for profit and public organizations across Canada — and the contractual arrangements with some of these publicly funded, otherwise progressive groups, don’t always align with the sustainability goals we are hired to help advance.
I understand the t-crossing and i-dotting form the vital backbone for product and service delivery. But to cut to the chase – why does procurement need so many hard copies of RFP responses and contracts? And why multiple copies of multi-page documents when our ‘agreement’ is demonstrated through signatures on only one of those pages?
Over the years, our firm has signed numerous agreements that require printing of two, four and even recently up to eight signed, hard copies of documents. Some even with specific requests to print single sided — only to be delivered through mail or courier back to procurement departments to allow our work to begin.
In an age of e-collaboration and electronic storage and back-up for almost everything, would one hard copy not suffice? Or, could an e-transfer of a contract with an e-signature be considered official? If a hard copy is necessary in the process, the organization that needs it could print on their end, and cut out the fuel consumption related to postal and courier mailings.
It would be great to hear what “progressively green” procurement departments are doing to cut carbon while still fulfilling due diligence on legal and contractual obligations. In the meantime, we’re making it a habit to ask procurement departments if double-sided and/or email are acceptable in the receiving of documents.
Take a partner
It’s an ongoing challenge in public health outreach and promotion — reaching as many people as possible in the most effective ways possible. So, as health communicators, what strategies can we use to tackle that mountain?
Over the last few years we’ve spoken several times at conferences and public health events about the benefits of identifying and fostering relationships with stakeholder groups in support of improved personal health.
The rationale – awareness and understanding of a health topic will be more accepted and more likely to be acted upon when it comes from a voice people believe in – a doctor, a therapist, support group leader, or non-profit health organization, etc.
Well planned and executed partnership programs rely on a network of like-minded groups to share health promotion messages through their existing communication channels and tools without heavily impeding on their resources. The benefits of this model include increased credibility, cost effectiveness, consistency of message and expanded reach within a health promotion campaign.
Easy to say, harder to do.
At Communication Solutions, we’ve developed an Integrated Health Promotion outline — a short series of questions for project leaders and managers to consider when planning an outreach initiative, which can help form the basis of a measureable stakeholder partnership model.
These questions include:
- Are there opportunities to align or connect with organizations in support of my program or initiative?
- How could my messages align with those being shared by other groups? Would the messages appeal to their audiences?
- Are there new or additional opportunities to create champions of my program or initiative?
- What communication channels and tools could be created or accessed to maximize increased education and information sharing?
In the end, thoughtful investment in a partner program makes it easier for stakeholders to share information and promote action even after funding dollars run out. What successful public health partnerships have you or your organizations been involved in?
Our total business review
It’s amazing how the Total Business Review we participated in more than a year ago — through internationally renowned agency management guru David Baker of ReCourses – benefits our day to day work, our decision making and direction. Baker’s advice helped us to recognize the benefits of narrowed expertise, improve our definition of roles, and create focused positioning related to our experience. It’s been quite a transformational process at Communication Solutions, and even in our “infancy” of implementation, the advantages are felt. If you manage anything, we recommend you read David’s newest book, Managing Right for the First Time.
Trust – Can’t Be Left Up in the Air
Beijing, China and San Luis Obispo County, California, are an ocean apart. But in the past few weeks, they both faced pressure from the media and the public in relation to air pollution.
In the case of Beijing, city air quality officials and the government have been increasingly called to task on the details of their air quality reporting, specifically the levels of particulate matter (PM) in the air. They’ve also been criticized based on conflicting air quality monitoring made available through the US Embassy in Beijing, which suggests air pollution levels are much higher than what the city reports. Just last week, Chinese officials bowed to some of that pressure by committing to upgrade their air index and to include levels of PM 2.5 in their data sharing, in addition to PM10.
In San Luis Obispo County, residents learned air quality research commissioned in 2008 to measure particulate matter near a recreational vehicle area has been accused of being flawed. The study was completed to help officials determine how to reduce PM traveling downwind from a popular off-road recreation park. It’s important research with an admirable goal. However, if people doubt the study process, will they have faith in the results?
And that’s the tie; public trust – earning it, maintaining it and protecting it. No small feat when trust is your most valuable asset in communicating about air quality – whether you’re a public, private or not-for-profit organization.
Air quality reporting has become a vital public health service that is gaining more and more attention. We know from our research on branding and communicating air quality indices, people are more likely to make decisions about how to manage their own health, and how to be stewards of air, if the air quality information comes from what they consider a trustworthy source – whether that be a health care provider or a government agency.
Organizations that report air quality have an obligation to uphold an open and transparent system for measuring, reporting and communicating relevant messages so people, no matter where they live, can have faith in the information, and the information source.
Do you understand and have faith in the air quality information in your community?
Why mom’s voice is a good one when it comes to clean air
Listen to your mother – she’s got a powerful voice. It’s a message that has united a group of knowledgeable, eloquent, and determined women across the US who make up Mom’s Clean Air Force – an organization that has aligned itself with some of the most respected health establishments in the US to rally against air pollution.
The force includes a keen and informed group of bloggers (mostly mothers and some fathers, too) who fare from a variety of professional and personal backgrounds, providing many voices, points of view and calls to action to improve the air. The appeal has attracted politicians, elite athletes and well known authors, among others, who lend their support to the cause. The organization also provides tools, resources, and events for those who want to get more involved.
As a group of professional women and mothers who focus our work on communicating about outdoor health, we are impressed.