People follow the crowd. Harness that through inter-community competitions by amagra11

I agree with Anna, and would like to add a few thoughts. One of the most important things we need to do is reduce consumption and overall carbon footprint. Perhaps those competitions could award communities that demonstrate quantifiable improvements in public transit use and reduction in gas consumption?.. Or reduction in volume of waste and increase in recycling and composting? Or increase in renewable energy?.. Businesses that show commitment and take real measures to go green, would be able to display awards and certificates, that would promote their PR. But that all has to be monitored and considered holistically, with a life-cycle analysis. For example, plastic bags have been banned in Brookline (and styrofoam trays as well). Yet many people don't bother to bring their own reusable bags to Trader Joe's, since they know they'll get a lot of doubled paper bags for free. Is that practice really green?.. Or perhaps if consumers have to pay for the bags (even small amounts) they would think twice? And maybe shoppers who bring reusable bags can somehow be rewarded over time?.. Critical thinking is required in order to determine the true value of things. Recognizing and rewarding good environmental stewardship can certainly help. This is a good proposal that has potential for development. Cheers !..

this has to be the blueprint for effecting any shift in behavior. the average person will be more receptive to information and more encouraged to act if the problem is presented through entities they feel they're a part of and (more importantly) want to be a part of. sports teams are the perfect example. work places, churches and associations are other examples. ranking and reward systems always seem to work well within communities. the larger the community, and the greater the members' perception of being recognized by other members for their status, the more effective. how you make sustainable living (and so on) a status to be desired within a large voluntary community and how you enforce or verify positive action depends on the community. so the question becomes, how do you create an initiative that a broad range of groups will be obliged to participate in, and members of the groups will want to participate in. how can such a thing be accomplished on a large enough scale without government involvement? what about a currency or market to participate in. that's probably thinking too big but it's all I can envision right now. someone else might have more insight into that.

I'm an economist and we believe in incentives. That's a perfect example of drive people's behavior via economic incentives. However, economic incentives needs to be well elaborated, organized, thought, and implemented. How will the implementation be done? without a good implementation plan, incentives will fail. Paulo