A recent piece in the New York Times reveals that living green is driving couples into therapy when one half of the couple is greener than the other. One partner might sneak unsustainably produced meals, set the thermostat too high or drive too much—chiding and guilt ensue. If it goes on long enough, the happy couple is no longer happy. Even families are tense as greener children clash with their not-so-green parents.

This seems a bit ridiculous (for a number of reasons), but it got me thinking about what does work when trying to convince someone (or some company) to change their unsustainable ways. This is the topic of an annual conference called Behavior, Energy and Climate Change; among its lessons:

• Information alone doesn’t work. People usually need some other motivation. Money saved is good; money earned is better.
• The payoff (or bad result from inaction) needs to be relatively immediate. The threat that your town may be under water when the glaciers melt or knowing that you’ll break even on that solar system in a mere 15 years doesn’t get many to change.
• Competition helps. If you know what your neighbor is doing, you want to do better.
• Tracking progress also motivates, especially if you can see how much money you’re saving.

It’s hard to change behavior, and harder still to communicate in ways that make a difference. When I consider these campaigns, the successful ones have this in common: they lead by example. A company credibly demonstrates that they are walking the talk, and others follow or do business with them. Or a campaign fosters friendly competition, so participants naturally follow one another.

Meanwhile, my former housemate will be pleased to know that I’ve drastically shortened my shower times….

Changing behavior, at the corporate level as well as the individual level, will be key to solving our energy problems and reducing the world’s carbon footprint. (Often it’s the elephant in the room, sharing the sofa with energy conservation.)

Information alone isn’t going to accomplish the task, and a couple of events are coming up that look at this issue. One is the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change conference in Washington, D.C., Nov. 15–18 presented by ACEEE, Stanford’s Precourt Energy Efficiency Center and the University of California’s  California Institute for Energy and Environment. (I’ll be there, presenting on Thinkshift’s Credibility Quotient assessment tool in the poster session.) It will bring together industry, academics, policy makers and others to consider the latest research, pilot projects, and more.

One of the main speakers will be Doug McKenzie-Mohr, who’s also presenting a two-day workshop, “Fostering Sustainable Behavior,” Nov. 2–3 in Portland and Nov. 4–5 in San Francisco. McKenzie-Mohr literally wrote the book on the subject, available as a free download from his website (which is loaded with articles, case studies, and forums). Workshop info is on his site; registration is here. (Thanks to the Triple Pundit post by Deborah Fleischer for alerting me to the workshop and the book download.)

I like to work myself into a good froth before posting one of an occasional series of rants on words and phrases that make me want to spit nails. And I’m finally there on consumer, used to identify a person or people (as opposed to business jargon for a market sector).

In fact, I’ve stewed over this one so long others have beat me to it (see Joseph Romm in Grist). But consumer deserves a pile-on. As in, “Consumers value convenience above all else.”

Well yes, consumers would. But would citizens? Parents? Community members? Patriots? Environmentalists/sports fans/gardeners/name your identity here? The use of the word “consumers” to identify people at all times in all contexts encourages us to think of ourselves—and each other—as nothing more than engines of consumption. It frames our view on problems and solutions in a way that narrows the perspective to purely personal concerns (often amounting to unexamined habits) and positions us as passive recipients of whatever’s out there—we can accept or reject, but not direct.

A sentence like “Consumers care more about perceived effectiveness and than about exposing their household to hazardous chemicals” will be accepted as a truism. Yeah, consumers are like that. Would the sentence “Parents care more about perceived effectiveness and than about exposing their household to hazardous chemicals” seem quite as commonsensical? I’m going to say no.

I’m also going to take a vow: I will never again use the word consumer to refer to a person or people. (I admit it, I’ve done it.) And at the risk of sounding preachy, I think everyone who writes or talks about sustainability issues should do the same. The words we use to describe things affect how we see them. And even when we’re shopping—perhaps especially when we’re shopping—we need to stop seeing ourselves as simply creatures who buy things.