The ABCs of SBC

SBC in the Planetary Crisis

UNICEF SBC Season 1 Episode 4

Every year, world leaders convene at the UN Climate Change Conference to discuss the urgency of climate change and the need for equitable, people-centred solutions. Could Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) have the chops to tackle such a massive challenge? Can SBC shed some light on the age-old debate on individual change versus system change to reduce emissions? 

In this episode, Qali speaks with experts to understand what SBC can tell us about how to navigate an issue that affects us all, but certainly not in the same ways. 

Guests (in order of appearance)

  • Mónica Wills-Silva, Director of International Programmes EMEA at the Behavioural Insights Team
  • Kash Ramli, Senior Advisor for Behavioral Science at UNICEF
  • Xaher Gul, Public Health Physician and Development Practitioner
  • Jon Bonifacio, Environmental Activist and National Coordinator of Kalikasan People's Network for the Environment
  • Georgina Avlonitis, Urban Ecologist and Programme Manager at UNEP

Resources (in order of mention)

The views and opinions expressed by the contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of UNICEF or any entities they represent. The content here is for information purposes only.

The ABCs of SBC is hosted by Qali Id and produced and developed by Helena Ballester Bon in partnership with Common Thread. To learn more about UNICEF SBC, click here.

Have a question, comment or story idea, please contact sbc@unicef.org


Georgina Avlonitis:

You know, there's the age old saying that the, the raindrop doesn't believe it's responsible for the flood. And, and it is about garnering that connection to something much bigger than yourself. And how to do that is obviously the, this thing we're all struggling with as environmental practitioners and communicators and advocators. But I think first of all, changing the world should be fun.

Qali Id:

What is the role of communities to address a crisis that they didn't create? Can individuals and communities even make a dent in the global climate crisis? Or are we just at the mercy of corporations and governments to implement and follow through on initiatives that effectively turn the tides? Welcome to the ABCs of SBC, where we break down what Social and Behaviour Change is and how it might help us tackle some of the biggest issues threatening future generations. I'm Qali Id, and in this episode we'll be discussing a challenge that affects all of us, but certainly not in the same ways. 2023 was the hottest year on record, with extreme weather related events all over the globe. Where I live in Kenya, we've experienced years of severe droughts in the Horn of Africa, leaving millions of people displaced and food insecure. At COP 27, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres captured the urgency of the climate crisis well, when he said, We are on a highway

António Guterres:

to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator. The clock is ticking. We are in the fight of our lives and we are losing. Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.

Qali Id:

And since then, the world continues to drive in the fast lane. According to the World Health Organization, research has shown that 3. 6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change, and between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250, 000 additional deaths per year from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress alone. Given these colossal numbers, It's hard to imagine that recycling my coffee cup or turning down my air conditioning is going to make the difference between a climate disaster and a world in which the next generation can thrive. So here's Monica Will Silva, a behavioral scientist at the Behavioral Insights team, to tell us about how SBC can have an impact in the climate crisis.

Monica Wills-Silva:

We recently published a report on how can we apply behavioral sciences to get to net zero. And one of the things that we've been looking within that is the stats that the climate change committees release that basically shows that about 62 percent of what we want to achieve in terms of emission reductions could be achieved through behavioral change. Be that things like adoption of new technologies, like electric vehicles, heat pumps, like making, homes energy efficient or things like lifestyle changes, like eating less meat and less dairy, being more active and so on. 62%. So what is standing in our way? We found in our research that if you ask people, nine out of 10 people will tell you that they actually want to engage in more sustainable ways of living and that they want to adopt some of these behaviours. But simultaneously, what we find is that there's still lots of barriers. In the, say, build environment in the space around them, and like very small things, very small frictions that might decrease those behaviours. So there's a lot of space to win in the, in the, the sort of behavioral space of getting to net zero.

Qali Id:

So if behavior can make as big of a dent as the research says, what are some of the barriers that get in the way? I spoke to Kash Romley, senior advisor for behavioral science at UNICEF to learn more.

Kash Ramli:

I think part of that is down to the amount of confusing information, whether intentionally through misinformation or just, just because of the complicated technical nature of climate change, where we don't know which behaviours actually have the true huge impact. Take recycling, for example, right? Everyone, it's become like, I guess, in the past, it's become like the beacon of positive environmental behaviour. But research generally shows recycling actually has minimal impact on, on the environment, and most of the time, recycling doesn't actually happen the way that we think it does. But I think individuals like it because it's quite a salient behavior that they can see, and it's part of their lives, and they can see the separation of waste. But. What the experience is in the moment and not necessarily the entire supply chain. That kind of feedback is made less salient.

Qali Id:

So people are latching onto the more visible but less impactful behaviours, which makes me a bit pessimistic about behaviour actually making a dent. Have we seen examples of SBC working to drive significant change in emissions?

Kash Ramli:

Probably the most robust form of intervention in the research that we've found that has been scaled to a global level and has been industrialised. Using social norms as feedback to reduce household water and energy consumption. This is by showing, showing people how much they consume and then comparing that against their average neighbours or peers. That's been shown to be effective across lots of different cultures and countries.

Qali Id:

That sounds really promising. I'd love to learn more about how we in the global majority can harness SBC methods in the climate response. Here is Xaher Gul, a clinician based in Karachi, Pakistan, who specializes in integrating SBC and system strengthening.

Xaher Gul:

It's hard to support and strengthen a system which keeps getting unraveled. It's hard to consolidate progress when you have to keep diverting resources from development to humanitarian response and crisis response and families. living by roadsides due to the floods, and with 240 million people in the country, even small proportions translate into huge numbers. And there's already existing food insecurity, and the floods, and the agrarian economy. You can see how everything starts compounding. You can't keep plugging these holes. Right? If everything is sort of fenestrated and it's all leaking out, how many holes can we keep plugging ultimately? But climate change is not of our doing as a nation or as a country. So the price that we're paying is inordinately huge.

Qali Id:

You're absolutely right. Plugging holes will get us nowhere. With the complexity of a country like Pakistan or here in Kenya, where should we begin?

Xaher Gul:

I think climate change response should focus first and foremost on addressing the legacy of colonialism across the Global South, which continues to manifest in terms of the power differentials between communities and decision makers. When people have no control over their own decision making or lives by virtue of how resources are allocated, how rights are protected, then to expect them to start doing responsible things is a bit of a stretch and unfair. You can't just blame people for not doing certain things more wisely. I think addressing power and paternalism and information asymmetry is first and foremost. I think making efforts to, for more equitable distribution of resources is a priority. I also think that reducing the decision making space is also a priority.

Qali Id:

I think Xaher makes a good point here. Colonialism is inseparable from climate change, and therefore I think it should also be inseparable from our response. A starting point, even. What does this look like for people designing and leading SBC programmes? I think

Xaher Gul:

for programmers, particularly in the space that we are working in, the development sector, one of the ways of accounting for this is to think about very specific behaviours that are linked across the social ecological landscape. You can't just think about the woman or the individual or the man or the child. You have to think about their lived environment, their lived experience. I like to look at it as a causal chain over six different levels. There's the policy level, which lays out the laws and policies. There's the institutional level, where those policies manifest in terms of implementation mechanisms. We have the community level, which houses the individuals that we are looking at. And we then have the facility and service delivery interface where, by virtue of my health systems focus, certain behaviours take place and provider behaviours manifest. We then have people in their households as individuals living with their families, whether it's their partners or husbands or parents, and focusing just on the individual and not accounting for these additional five levels that will influence how they engage with the system, if they engage at all, and whether they adopt certain behaviours or they don't. If we don't facilitate policy reforms, which enable availability of those services, then no amount of behavior change at the individual level will manifest as impact. And having that chain of specific behaviours, which feed into each other, is really foundational to SBC. And for climate change, it becomes even more critical to look at it that way because no one individual will do one behavior in isolation unless the S part of SBC is also shifting.

Qali Id:

I think looking at it as a chain, as all interconnected, is really helpful and also affirms that for any behavior to really make an indent, our environments and our systems need to change too to allow for it.

Xaher Gul:

When we look at behaviours that we think need to change or that we need to promote and we look at it in cross section using the social ecological framework. I'd like to encourage folks to think of this not as a cross section, but rather as a longitudinal process. Behaviours that are happening today are manifesting due to the historical influences that feed into the culture and the thinking and taking that longitudinal retrospective look will help us understand, all right, what created these problem behaviours in the first place. That would allow us to start creating responses that may be able to mitigate those causes or address those deep rooted causes. And unless we do that, It's dangerous to go into a community and start telling them that your elders were wrong, you were wrong, everything is right. Nobody takes that well. So I think empathy is important and humility needs to go hand in hand with that as we approach this.

Qali Id:

Thank you, Xaher. On the one hand, we have individuals and communities. But we also have leaders meeting every year for the COP UN Climate Change Conference. Here's what Kenya's president, William Ruto, had to say at COP 28.

President Ruto:

Our approach must be collaborative, inclusive, and anchored in justice. This means making decisions that prioritise the well being of every person, while acknowledging that climate action is inextricably linked to social justice and equity. In this room, ladies and gentlemen, we have the power. the means, and most of all, the responsibility to act.

Qali Id:

Collaborative, inclusive, focused on people and equity. Sounds like SBC right? What do we have to show for these words? Here's Kash again.

Kash Ramli:

I think I have a pretty low expectation of global coordination on addressing these things. There's a lot of countries that would naturally be hesitant to kind of sign off and agree on addressing climate change. If a country makes a lot of its money from the environment, why, it's not going to be motivated to, to reduce, to reduce that.

Qali Id:

So where does that leave us then? And who can we trust to lead us into the future? I think young people across the world have shown tremendous leadership and organization, and I wanted us to hear from one of them. Here's Jon Bonifacio, a 25 year old environmental activist.

Jon Bonifacio:

My journey as a climate activist began when I discovered that my medical school in Manila would be underwater by the year 2050, which made me realise that we needed climate action here and now, made me drop out of school and pursue climate activism full time. I'm the National Coordinator of Calicasan People's Network for the Environment and former National Coordinator and Convener of Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines or YACA. When it comes to engaging the youth, part of the task is really making sure that fellow youth really see their potential when it comes to becoming a climate activist, when it comes to enacting change.

Qali Id:

Which can understandably be really difficult if the change you're hoping to see isn't supported by the systems around you. What do you see as the biggest challenge in motivating and mobilizing youth around the climate crisis?

Jon Bonifacio:

Here in the Philippines, we do face a lot of challenges, one of them being the fact that activism in general is really looked down upon and stigmatised, and on top of that, particularly youth Being vocal about different issues in the country is something that people look down upon. For climate and environmental activists here in the Philippines, it's extremely difficult because we do face attacks and harassment for our advocacy.

Qali Id:

And despite the pushback you receive within your own society, you keep going.

Jon Bonifacio:

When it comes to youth activism, there's a real strength in numbers. It's really essential that we link up, not just with other youth, but also with other sectors of society, because it's only through collective action we can really push for the dialogues, um, engaging with policy makers, uh, different forms of action that we need to see in our society today.

Qali Id:

So what does collective action really mean? What does it look like in your work?

Jon Bonifacio:

Collective action means understanding that our approach really must be rooted in linking up with other people. So, for example, in the work that I do in my organizations, part of the task is really to reach out to the small fisherfolk, the small farmers, the urban poor who are experiencing the brunt of the climate crisis and who really understand the need for social action here and now. We were able to mobilize lots of youth to really go to the communities that are being impacted the most when it comes to climate change. Really see how floods, how intense heat is really affecting the people, not just our fellow youth, but also the older generation in these, uh, marginalised communities. By mobilizing with a lot of fisher folk communities in particular, we were able to score dialogues with, uh, officials from the national government when it comes to the issues of reclamation and other projects that are impacting marine ecosystems in the Philippines.

Qali Id:

That's impressive. So, in a society where speaking out against the status quo is frowned upon, you found the people who are probably the most willing to speak out, the people who are hardest hit by these issues. And it's through working together that you've gotten the government to really pay attention to environmental degradation.

Jon Bonifacio:

That's what we really need to leverage and that's what we really need to push for and it really starts by understanding that the crisis we're experiencing is something that everybody experiences and by understanding on our own capacity what we can do to link up with other people to make sure that we listen to them and they also listen to us and really work together to really assert our position on the table and make spaces wherever we can because again, our future is at stake, all of our dreams and all of our hopes are really banking on a better future for all.

Qali Id:

From your perspective, John, what can UNICEF and other large organizations do to get your voices and perspectives into the rooms where those important decisions are being made?

Jon Bonifacio:

UNICEF definitely has a role to play in this development. Providing opportunities for young people to engage more in the international spaces so that they can really bring their narratives and their stories from the ground to the people who need to hear them. It's stories like these that hope to inspire more and more people to engage in social action. But on top of that, they really serve as templates for further action, also in upholding the rights of young people to speak out and speak up about the different social issues that are impacting their community or their country. Institutions like UNICEF can directly ensure the safety and security of activists like myself, whether that's in the Philippines or in other parts of the world.

Qali Id:

I feel like UNICEF and other similar organizations are making an effort, but it's clearly not enough. We spoke to Georgina Avlonitis, an urban ecologist and someone who's been part of this journey to climate justice for a long time, to understand why this is the case.

Georgina Avlonitis:

It's horrible because, you know, today's youth is synonymous with environmental activism. And they, they've been taking centre stage in this global fight to protect, to protect the planet. There are disruptive innovators, they're the future entrepreneurs, decision makers, and the future brave industry leaders. You know, they totally, youth are still so poorly integrated into, into critical decision making processes within adult led arenas. And often they receive these invitations without meaningful integration or impact. And that's kind of what the term youth washing is. And youth washing is such a missed opportunity. And it's an opportunity for adults in power to, to open avenues for access and inclusion, rather than continuing to promote these tokenistic opportunities, because essentially young people are the generation that need to be empowered with a seat at the decision making table, but also the tools and the processes to meaningfully add value at that table.

Qali Id:

Do you have any words of wisdom that you can share from your experiences cultivating and participating in social movements?

Georgina Avlonitis:

The fun factor, changing the world should be fun. We're surrounded by challenges and yes there's a triple planetary crisis and the world is on fire, but we were born for this time. Everyone here on earth today has an incredible opportunity to make their own personal impact but also to affect change in part of the wider community. And people are much more likely to join a movement when they, when they perceive that the cause directly affects them or their community. And I think then there's also this sort of big ticket of, of social norms and influence. So people tend to join movements because they feel social pressure to conform to the norms of their peers or group or society. And I think it's also tapping into that desire to fit in because that's a deeply human desire. And then of course, the more people join a movement, the more there's that social proof. And then of course, you know, they always say that the most, the most rewarding careers, the most rewarding activities where you can see the fruits of your labor. So it's about those positive feedback loops. That's a huge factor, reinforcement that what you're doing is actually having an impact. Your actions are making a difference. So that sort of perceived self efficacy and the belief in both your own ability, but also in whatever group or movement's ability that you're part of is, is actually affecting change. And I think that's also a huge factor in, in motivating participation. And then of course, accessibility. So the ease with which Folks can engage with the movement, whether it's, you know, an online platform or it's via radio or it's local events or other means that, that can really influence the decision to join if it's easily accessible. So whether you're an engineer or whether you're an artist or whether you're a scientist or whether you're a street sweeper or whatever it is you are, we all , we all have the power to impact change.

Qali Id:

That's our show. Let's recap. Climate change is hitting vulnerable communities hard, demanding urgent and collective action. We need policy and legislative environments to enable green behaviours and more community led climate response and people power, especially among the youth, which all play a crucial role in getting there. Incorporating SBC into the mix can make sustainable choices enjoyable, break down barriers, and empower individuals and communities to make a significant impact on the climate response. Whether this has been the first episode of the podcast that you've listened to, or if you've been following along from the start, I just want to say thank you for joining me on this adventure and lending a small part of your busy day to learning about SBC. As always, you can find more information about the experts in this episode in our show notes, along with other helpful resources. We won't be releasing an episode next week, or the week after for that matter. We'll be off speaking to more experts, chasing down SBC in different parts of the globe, to bring you more episodes on how it can be applied to the big challenges. While we're away, you can get your fix on SBC by visiting sbcguidance.org. Thank you for listening, sharing, and stay tuned.

People on this episode