Tools- of Changes

The Greater Vancouver Regional District's (GVRD's) Employee Trip Reduction Program took an integrated, multi-modal approach. By supporting the use of all modes of alternative transportation, a higher rate of employee buy-in could be...

Toronto's Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) involves comprehensive energy efficiency retrofits and building renewal initiatives for buildings in the public, non-profit and private sectors. Innovative financing strategies are implemented...

In Southeast Michigan, the Clean Air Coalition runs a program to help reduce the formation of ground level ozone, which is a threat to environmental and human health and is one of the primary contributors to smog. The Ozone Action Program...

When air pollution concentrations approach unhealthy levels, people living and working within the San Francisco Bay Area are notified, and encouraged to avoid activities that pollute the air. Partnerships with local businesses and public...

The Green Communities Active and Safe Routes to School program encourages families to reduce automobile use and increase physical activity for children as they travel to and from school. This case study covers pilot implementation by...

Ottawa's Commuter Challenge is a week long event that encourages people of legal driving age (16+) to reduce air pollution by using active or sustainable transportation to get to and from work or school. People are asked to walk, cycle,...

The City of Ashland runs a range of conservation incentive programs aimed primarily at promoting energy efficiency but also encompassing water conservation, regional air quality, recycling and composting, and land-use planning. The programs...

U-PASS is a comprehensive, flexible program designed to encourage University of Washington students, staff and faculty to use alternative modes of transportation and thereby reduce the volume of traffic in Seattle's University District. The...

In 1998, Nortel Networks initiated GreenCommute, a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) program for its campus expansion in Ottawa, Ontario, that has grown into one of the most comprehensive TDM programs in Canada. Nortel Networks has...

This program is a great example of the use of ongoing individualized feedback and prompts, coupled with norm appeals. Opower helps individual utility companies to send customized home energy use feedback reports to their residential utility...

This program is a great example of applying a “loyalty group” approach to progressively engage participants in changing behaviours. Because electricity and electricity conservation tend to be a low priority for many British Columbians, BC...

Flex Your Power, which was a central part of California's response to the energy crisis of 2001/02, was the largest electricity conservation campaign ever conducted in any state in the USA. It helped convince Californians to reduce peak...

Once a resident signs up for Queensland’s ClimateSmart Home Service, a licensed electrician visits the home, installs a variety of energy-efficiency products, conducts an energy audit, provides recommendations, and leaves behind materials...

Making the housing stock more energy-efficient provides persistent and ongoing returns. However efforts to do so often run into obstacles that diminish program impacts. This program illustrates how to overcome many of these barriers, and...

Since 2010, Cool Choices has inspired employees to embrace sustainability through an innovative game model. Organizations in sectors as diverse as commercial construction, health care, manufacturing, U.S. primary and secondary schools, and...

This comprehensive, long-term approach combines education, training, behavior change and goal setting with progress tracking, recognition and continuous improvement to reduce energy use in schools, hospitals and other institutional settings...

Capitol Hill In Motion is a recent evolution of the individualized marketing approach used by King County, Washington State, USA. It illustrates how to further engage communities where most trips are already not drive-alone. With...

Chicago’s Go Program is an Individualized Marketing program that helps residents walk, bike, ride transit, and use bike share more frequently, while driving alone less often. Compared with past Individualized Marketing efforts in other...

The most effective approach to-date at shifting air travel to train travel, and also at promoting the sale of carbon offsets for airplane travel, this approach could also work well for other behaviors that are perceived by the audience as...

Several policies / incentives, in place over an extended period, have made Norwegians more likely to purchase electric vehicles (EVs) than people in any other country. These incentives have included: exemption from vehicle registration...

While many people in Germany say they would use green energy if presented with a choice, very few consumers do so. In contrast, most people have been using green energy in a few German municipalities where citizens have had to opt out...

Participants in California’s Energy Conservation Competition work to change energy conservation behaviors in their schools relating to lighting, plug-loads, and mechanical systems. They also develop campaigns to encourage fellow students to...

  Fear appeals must be carefully considered as they can too-easily backfire and discourage people from taking in and acting on our messages. And why spread fear unnecessarily? This case study illustrates an appropriate and effective use...

Just One Trip Phase II illustrates the use of Propensity Modelling / Predictive Analysis, Street Ambassadors, Quality Online User Experience (UX), and trip planning to reduce the proportion of single-occupant car trips in Seattle WA, USA....

The City of Austin reduced employee commute travel by one million vehicle miles within six months of making its Leave Time Reward (LTR) a permanent incentive. During this period, the percentage of drive-alone trips fell from 53% to 41%....

Climate Matters trains and supports American TV weathercasters to report on the local impacts of climate change while reflecting current scientific knowledge and concerns. The program provides participating newscasters with weekly story...

To meet global greenhouse gas targets, we will need to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, not just slow down emissions. Carbon Cure was designed to promote a shift in specification and purchasing behaviors across the...

What makes a great cycling city? How did the medium-sized City of Copenhagen get its citizens to cycle to work / school 49% of the time? While topography and climate are significant influencers, safety, supportive infrastructure, and...

Paris is an inspiration for large cities around the world, having reduced car traffic in its core (Ile de France) from a mode share of 12.8% in 2010 to 6% in 2020. How did Paris get to be one of the cities in the world with the lowest...

Smart Trips Austin encourages residents of Austin Texas, USA to take multi-modal transportation options (walk, bike, ride transit, and share rides) more often, rather than drive alone. The program focuses on personal interactions —...

About 75% of food waste goes to landfill, where it becomes one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions at 10% of total emissions. Too Good to Go turns food waste into a win-win situation for everyone, by creating jobs,...

This program promotes carpooling and vanpooling instead of driving alone during peak commute periods, using advertising (online, video, and display), challenges, and prize-based campaigns to attract and retain its target audience. It also...

As climate change leads to more drought situations, it will be important to understand how to best promote water conservation. Southern Nevada Water Authority’s Water Smart Landscapes (WSL) program pays homeowners to replace their non...

Liftshare is a social enterprise that has worked with over 700 of the UK’s largest employers to reduce the number of single occupancy vehicle trips using carsharing, active transportation and public transit when commuting for work. With...

What if you want to move away from gas and oil, but rent, are about to move, or can’t afford solar panels? If your energy supplier has not already pledged to go green, you have few options. The co-ownership of wind farms engages and...

The Fridge Night programme offers simple, practical solutions to help people be more resourceful with and enjoy eating the food they have at home, thereby reducing food waste and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Participants pledge to...

France provides financial incentives to local travel authorities (LTAs), employers and employees to promote carpooling. It also funds the development of carpooling infrastructure, ridesharing platforms that make it much easier to carpool,...

Fairfax County established Transportation Demand Management (TDM) requirements (“proffers”) for new development that would have significant traffic impacts. For buildings within the urban centre of Tysons, trips had to be reduced between 25...

The Bike Smarts program was introduced in Lochside Elementary School to educate students about bicycle safety and to encourage them to travel by bicycle. As part of the program, parents of the students became involved in cycling to school...

Pollution Probe hosts an annual, month-long Clean Air Campaign to raise awareness about smog, vehicle emissions and related respiratory problems. The main event of this campaign is The Clean Air Commute, a one-day event in which employees...

This comprehensive program utilized several strategies including home visits, incentives and starter kits to induce households to reduce energy, water consumption, waste to landfill and pollution.The Green Home Tune-Up provided free...

In Concert With The Environment ( In Concert) is a customizable educational program developed by EcoGroup. It is sold to electric, natural gas, and water utilities in the U.S. who provide the program to local schools free of charge. In...

To influence households to reduce natural gas and electricity use, 20-minute home visits were conducted in which conservation strategies were explained, people were asked to participate, and a commitment to participate was requested.A...

To promote energy conservation, Jasper residents received a one-hour home visit in which conservation strategies and a retrofit incentive program were explained. They were also offered energy efficient products, installation included. The...

Pacific Gas and Electric was using home audits to encourage residents to improve the energy efficiency of their customers' homes. In order to improve the effectiveness of home visits, the utility trained some of its auditors to obtain...

Peterborough Green-Up is a non-profit community environmental organization that helps people become more resource efficient through a home visit service. A demonstration Ecology Park is also run, in conjunction with related workshops and...

The region of Greater Cincinnati implemented an episode day program to deal with the problem of smog and air quality. When smog levels were particularly high, citizens were notified and encouraged to change their behaviours to less...

A 20 minute television program that suggested simple, no-cost strategies for reducing household energy consumption in summer was delivered over cable television in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1982. Residents who viewed the program once, adopted...

This alert reviews research and resources relevant to turning down the heat (turning up the air conditioning temperature) - either by hand or using a setback thermostat - based on a report from Toronto Public Health.Incentives Promising...

The Cambie Corridor Consortium (CCC) was the first transportation management association (TMA) established in Canada. A TMA is an alliance of business, government, and other groups that aims to reduce traffic in a particular area by pooling...

Smart Commute is a multi-pronged commuter options program in the Greater Toronto, Oshawa and Hamilton Area (GTHA). Two levels of government (municipal and provincial) fund local delivery agents (Boards of Trade, Chambers of Commerce and...

This ongoing program educates the public and provides incentives to improve air quality in Portland. It uses non-regulatory approaches that target vehicles, lawnmowers, paints and certain consumer products - to reduce emissions from...

The City of Barrie, Ontario has deferred millions of dollars in waste water and water supply capital expenditures with its retrofit water conservation program. The City supplied subsidized ultra low flow toilets, showerheads and aerators to...

ENERGY STAR is one of the most effective public sector voluntary behavior change programs in U.S. history. The program was designed with the goal of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the energy efficiency of products. ENERGY...

This case study illustrates the successful engagement of a large organization (Environment Canada) in a broad-scale staff participation program. That program, the Commuter Challenge, is a Canada-wide NGO-led event that challenges commuters...

Off ramp was an out-of-class initiative that encouraged secondary school students to walk, cycle or take transit to school more often, thereby reducing car use. It increased awareness of transportation and climate change issues, provided...

The AT&T Employee Telework Initiative provides information and support to all staff and management, corporate-wide, who would like to telework either part-time or full-time. Since 1992, AT&T has succeeded in developing not only a...

Over a one-year period more than 150 people in the City of Århus, Denmark were actively encouraged to use bicycles or public transit for their daily commute. One of the goals of Bike Busters was to assess the extent to which motorists would...

A tiny pilot project in the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) that got families out of their cars and onto the street has grown into a burgeoning, province-wide, active transportation program. Between December, 1998, and spring,...

Turn it Off is a community-based initiative to encourage individuals to avoid idling their vehicles while waiting at such places as school pick-up areas and transit Kiss and Ride parking lots. Replicability: high.The five stages involved in...

Southern California Edison, an American electric utility, reduced the price barrier that discouraged its residential and commercial customers from utilizing compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) rather than the less energy-efficient incandescent...

The University Rideshare Project provides universities and colleges across Canada with the information, training, tools and encouragement needed to easily set up their own car pooling programs, free of charge.The project was implemented at...

The Auto$mart Student Driver Education Program provides driving educators across Canada with a classroom kit that helps them teach student drivers how to drive more safely while saving money and protecting the environment. The kit includes...

Unprecedented steps were taken by the Town of Okotoks, Alberta to ensure its long-term sustainability. The community devised a sustainable development plan that rests on four guiding principles: environmental stewardship, economic...

In the City of Ottawa, EnviroCentre developed and implemented community-based social marketing (CBSM) techniques designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through transportation demand management (TDM) initiatives linked to Green Home...

The Calgary Commuter Challenge is an annual, weeklong event designed to encourage commuters to use cleaner and healthier forms of transportation. Participating organizations compete with each other for the highest rates of employee...

Green Communities Canada’s EcoDriver program promotes fuel-saving behaviours in three core areas: fuel-efficient driving, purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles, and driving less. Participants attend driver-to-driver-format workshops, indicate...

The Energy Smackdown uses engaging game playing to involve community members in energy conservation, and television and webcasts to make visible the energy-saving efforts of teams of households. The Smackdown is organized into two broad...

Edmonton’s LocalMotion project encouraged residents to drive less and consider other modes of transportation. LocalMotion used a combination of special community events, a challenge, and opportunities for hands-on experience of alternate...

The Action By Canadians (ABC) and Count Me In! programs were designed to communicate the issue of climate change to the Canadian public through workshops delivered to individuals at their place of work. The climate change workshop focused...

Everyday Kyoto is a program for educating Bell Canada employees on climate change and inviting them to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses released at work and at home.Bell set up an Everyday Kyoto Intranet site, and offered road shows...

Seattle’s In Motion program uses tantalizing neighborhood prompts followed by direct outreach to engage residents in learning about and trying travel options. King County Metro (KCM) has completed demonstrations in three neighborhoods, and...

20/20 The Way to Clean Air involved individuals in the Greater Toronto Area in reducing home energy use and vehicle use by 20%. It asked participants to make a small commitment (some easy-to-do activities done for a period of two weeks),...

BC21 PowerSmart is a province wide project to conserve resources and create jobs. Residential energy efficiency audits are conducted, and incentives are offered to encourage residents to take steps to improve energy and water efficiency...

This case study picks up from our previous one on the early years of Green Communities Canada's national Active and Safe Routes to School Program. It covers the launch of the "school travel planning" approach. Viewpoints are...

WORKshift is Calgary regional initiative to promote, educate and accelerate the adoption of telecommuting. WORKshift works with businesses to implement telework programs for their employees.Launched in May 2009, WORKshift was a 3-year,...

The Stockholm congestion charge is a tax levied on vehicles entering and exiting the inner city. After a seven-month trial, followed by a referendum, the charges were made permanent and the traffic reductions of 20% have held constant ever...

CAC's HSBC Clean Air Achievers programs provides youth with a chance to meet high profile athletes and be inspired by personal messages to adopt healthier, more active and sustainable lifestyles. The program has dual goals of reducing air...

The City of Burlington's Ice Rink Energy Competition employs a low cost, easily replicable approach to significantly reduce energy consumption, associated greenhouse gases (GHG) and energy costs. A friendly competition to reduce energy at...

A Better City’s Challenge for Sustainability has engaged over 100 participating businesses and properties to develop and meet sustainability standards and practices, and to drive local innovation in energy efficiency. The program uses a...

In Motion participants pledge to shift two drive-alone trips per week to transit, ridesharing, biking or walking. The program uses motivational interviewing, commitments, rewards, engaging materials and norm appeals tailored to each target...

The Cool California Challenge is a state-wide competition between California cities engaging their residents in climate action. Participants earn points for tracking and reducing their electricity, natural gas and motor vehicle emissions...

Chicago was the first U.S. city to require building owners to prominently post a building’s energy performance rating, and to share that that rating with potential buyers and/or renters. While the rating system was being introduced, ComEd...

Green$aver provides home energy efficiency assessments and retrofit services in metropolitan Toronto. These assessments are conducted using Canada's EnerGuide for Houses system, which rates the overall energy efficiency of houses,...

AutoShare, a car sharing company in Toronto, provides individuals with the freedom of driving without the hassles and high costs associated with owning a car. The company began in October of 1998, with 16 members sharing the use of 3 cars,...

Coolfood – World Resources Institute’s (WRI) initiative for curbing diet-related emissions – provides the food service industry with the tools and expertise to reduce emissions by 25% by 2030, in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement...

According to Second Harvest, almost 60% (35.5 million metric tonnes) of food produced in Canada is wasted annually. Roughly 32% (1.2 million tonnes) is still edible. The app informs users about local food nearing its best before date,...

Hampshire County's Transport Awareness Initiative (HEADSTART) encourages more sensible use of cars in order to reduce road traffic and environmental pollution, protect human health and minimize future infrastructure cost. Based on the...