Change for Good at UTS

In climate, we tend to over rely on scientific and technical and engineering solutions. But important thing that that leaves out is people and their behaviour. I've been fortunate enough in the past to work with hard scientists and engineers who get it. They admit, “You know, we can build it,” “we can design it,” “we can engineer it,” “but we don't understand people.” And people have got to use these things or engage with these things. So if you build an energy efficient building but humans don't want to use it in the way it was designed, then you've got a problem.

I often use the analogy of tobacco control. So if you take tobacco smoking rates here in Australia, they've gone down massively over the past 50 years. And that change really came about due to banning smoking in public places, regulating and banning marketing of tobacco products, price controls, individual support packages, nicotine patches. And it wasn't one of those interventions on its own. It was a combination of those working together over a long period of time.

So when you look at other problems, like, addressing climate change or improving public health, to address non-communicable diseases like diabetes or cancer and so on, it's about coming up with similar packages of change at multiple levels over the long term to shift things.

A new area I’m working in at the moment is electric vehicles. And again, you know there's a perception we've had a couple of surveys about what people's attitudes are. That's all the behavioural insight we need. And it's like, well, even if people have got a positive attitude towards EVs, there's all these other potential barriers in the way like who's at risk of being left behind? If you don't have access to rooftop solar or a charger, or if you've never owned a car because you can't afford one, what does the EV transition look like for you?

But for me, it's really about change out there in the real world. And one really good example of real-world impact for me was an energy efficiency program that we ran down in the Illawarra of New South Wales a few years ago. One of the big insights that we developed there was that for some people it's not just about cutting back on how much energy they're using. And indeed, for some older people on lower incomes, they were using so little energy that it was damaging their health and wellbeing. It's about using energy smartly and efficiently, and wisely. Towards the end of the program, one of the project participants, they wrote a letter to me and she explain that she learned so much through the project about her energy use she'd seen real differences in her energy bills, but also helping improve her comfort and health and wellbeing. And to me that's real-world impact. That's why we do the job.