Improving Environmental Behavior in Companies: The Effectiveness of Tailored Versus Nontailored Interventions
Abstract
Workshop managers in garages (N = 153) received a message by mail with recommendations on how their subordinates should behave to reduce oil pollution of wastewater. The recommendations were either tailored or not tailored to the current behavior routines in each specific workshop. Tailored messages resulted in more accurate knowledge (assessed 1 week postintervention) and in more pro-environmental behavior (assessed 3 months postintervention and compared to pretest data). Tailored messages were as effective with or without additional information on behavior routines in other garages. Compared to no message (control group, n = 60), the tailored messages resulted in more pro-environmental behavior. The nontailored messages were hardly more effective than no message. The nontailored messages remained as ineffective when readers were helped (via a routing procedure) to select those parts of the message relevant to their workshop. It is concluded that tailoring is a promising new approach when campaigning for pro-environmental behavior in organizations.
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1. Participants in this study who already performed the environmentally optimal behavior received verbal reinforcement in the tailored messages. This part of the intervention can be categorized as a consequence condition.
2. As described in the Method section, the total index as well as the subindexes of proenvironmental behavior change consists of the sum of the behavior change scores (–1 or 0 or +1) divided by the number of performed behaviors. The implication of this choice for the mean of the change scores (instead of the sum) is that the index scores represent the relative improvement in environmental performance and not the absolute improvement. For example, if in two garages all performed behaviors are environmentally incorrect at the pretest and correct at the posttest, but in one garage all 13 behaviors are performed and in the other garage only 5 behaviors, then the total index of pro-environmental behavior change is identical and maximal for both garages (i.e., 1). From an environmental impact perspective, one might argue that it is interesting to use the sum of the change scores because then the index scores represent the absolute improvement in environmental performance (i.e., environmental impact). We repeated all analyses in the Results section with sums (instead of means) as Index scores: The pattern of results was equal (support for the main hypothesis and negative answers to the research questions).
3. ANOV As revealed that the effect of messages was not influenced by the number of employees (M = 6) in the garages.
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