Cool Block
Cool Block promotes over one hundred actions that can help make households, neighborhoods and entire cities more sustainable.
Background
Note: To minimize site maintenance costs, all case studies on this site are written in the past tense, even if they are ongoing as is the case with this particular program.
Cities contribute 70% of the planet’s carbon footprint, and people account for 70% of these emissions. This represents an enormous opportunity to reduce their carbon emissions. Cool Block is a non-profit initiative of the Empowerment Institute, focused on this opportunity.
In the words of James Keene, Palo Alto City Manager, “The Cool Block links the climate change challenge facing our planet to the intimate, personal, social scale of the city block.”
Setting Objectives
Each participating community set its own objectives. These usually included taking specific actions, reducing CO2 per household, recruiting block participants, and having them complete the program.
Getting Informed
Cool Blocks built on the Empowerment Institute’s 40 years of behavior and social change experience, with millions of people in hundreds of cities worldwide.
Motivators
The following are some of the key motivators identified by this work.
- Agency (“I want to make a difference”)
- Meaning (‘I want to create a better world for my children” and some of the other benefits below)
- Community (Connecting and collaborating with neighbors in a meaningful way)
- Resilience (disaster and energy resilience, increased levels of safety, security and well being)
- Carbon Reduction (reduced carbon footprint, money saved, reducing clutter in the home)
- Water Stewardship (reduced water bills, protection of the local water supply)
- Neighborhood Livability (safer, healthier, greener, friendlier, more resilient and more resourceful neighborhoods)
The program also identified a few audience-specific motivators.
- Busy professionals had an opportunity to build ties with each other, support each other in emergencies, and enjoy unique place-based pleasures together.
- Parents could take many actions with their children, creating teaching and bonding opportunities, while increasing comfort, sense of security, and connection. Further, safer neighborhood and knowing other neighbors could contribute to their children’s mental health.
- Empty nesters and retirees coul make new friends, save money, raise their property values, and leave an environmental inheritance.
Barriers
The main barriers encountered were time and sustaining commitment throughout the program. The keys to addressing these barriers were the power of a peer support system, effective meeting scripts, a clear meeting structure, and the accessibility of the behavior change platform.
Delivering the Program
The program was based on city-block-level participation and neighbor-to-neighbor recruitment. The first step was for a volunteer block leader to step forward. That person received training and support materials. These first champions were recruited in many ways including nonprofit and government agencies that promoted one of more of the targeted actions, past participants, faith- based groups, and block and neighborhood associations, among others.
Each block leader then went door-to-door to invite the households on his or her block to an information and team building meeting. At that meeting, participants got an overview of what was ahead and signed up to lead or host one or more meetings. This team and meeting structure provided a strong peer-support system. (Neighbourhood Coaches and Block Leaders, Norm Appeals, Peer Support Groups, Word of Mouth)
Each team of five to eight households explored eight topics during nine bi-weekly meetings over about five months. During these meetings, participants were invited to choose from over 100 different action ‘recipes’. This provided the flexibility to take individual circumstances into account. The program provided self-directed meeting scripts and a trained volunteer coach who had already been through the program.
As the program expanded to new communities and counties, the local governments and non-governmental organizations provided information for adapting/localizing the ‘recipe cards’, although most of the recipes were generic. For example, they identified local resources to be listed on the cards. These information sources also provided updates when that information changed. (Vivid, Personalized, Credible, Empowering Communication)
Because the program’s platform was online, including the recipe cards, it was relatively easy and inexpensive to make these changes.
In return, the program provided the city agencies and nonprofits with valuable user feedback, for example on the usability of their resources.
The most popular climate change mitigation actions were reducing waste, using less hot water, choosing energy-efficient lighting, moving toward a vegetarian diet, choosing and maintaining a fuel-efficient car, and switching to 100% renewable energy. In addition, 25% of the households carried out household energy retrofits.
The most popular climate change adaptation actions were creating seven-day stores of food and water, preparing for earthquakes and fires, reducing water used for personal care and car washing, and reducing toxic chemicals released into the environment.
A web-based support system helped participating households to plan and act with the help of local resources, and to track their progress (Overcoming Specific Barriers.) To highlight progress and help participants visualize it, the web-based system showed each household a bucket being filled as each household progressed towards its goals. (Vivid, Personalized, Credible, Empowering Communication)
When they first joined the groups, participants focused on habits within the home. Later they worked together on actions that impacted their blocks, neighborhoods and cities. Their household choices increased demand for policies, technology and market solutions that drove even more behavior change, activating a virtuous cycle. The process also built trust, community cohesion and second order change leadership capacity required for fast, sustained change (Building Motivation Over Time.)
Pilot Implementations Three cities in California (Los Angeles, San Francisco and Palo Alto) first piloted the program, involving 45 blocks. Five additional cities then also piloted the approach - Mountain View, Santa Barbara, Isla Vista, Irvine, and Petaluma.
Measuring Achievements
Each block team recorded online its actions taken, most of which were ongoing behaviors. A web-based system used this information to estimate the corresponding impacts per year. On top of tracking reductions in carbon emissions, the online system tracked water, natural gas (therms) and electricity (kWhs), and estimated money saved from sustainable actions performed on the platform.
Program impacts have been evaluated from implementations in different countries, using meter readings, calculations based on actions taken, interviews, and surveys.
A longitudinal study of the original Ecoteam Program in the Netherlands looked at consumption of gas, electricity and water; and the production of waste two years after participation in the program. The study included a control group. A study of the program’s impact in the UK also looked at durability of the new habits.
Results
The pilots demonstrated Cool Block’s success with 5,000 people in 325 Cool Block teams across eight California cities. Collectively, they reduced household carbon by 31% - about 25,000 metric tons per year.
The program and its predecessor have now been implemented in over 200 cities across 22 countries, with over 2 million households and 10 million participants, saving 20 billion pounds (9.07 million metric tons) of greenhouse gasses per year. This is a conservative estimate as it is based on reductions during the first year of activities only.
Program impacts have been shown to sustain well over time. A longitudinal study of the original Ecoteam Program in the Netherlands found that that two years after participation, 19 of 26 behaviors and investments remained improved while seven behaviors and investments had improved further. The amount of natural gas used fell 21% shortly after participation and was still 17% before original levels two year later. Electricity use fell 5% shortly after participation and fell further to an 8% reduction two years later.
Block livability also improved. Participating blocks were safer, more likely to have community gardens and tool-sharing, ways of helping neighbors in need, litter cleanups and block parties.
Contacts
David Gershon dgershon@empowermentimstitute.net
Notes
The Cool Irvine program received the Institute for Loal Government’s 2023 Beacon Leadership & Innovation Award at the Platinum (highest) Level. The award recognizes voluntary efforts by cities, counties, and special districts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy, and adopt policies that promote sustainability.
Data Sources
