The council will carry out a range of work to engage and communicate with residents, voluntary and community organisations, businesses, academic institutions and other statutory bodies on the progression of this environmental strategy.
Engagement and communication activities will draw on the latest research and approaches in community engagement and environmental psychology (a discipline concerned with effective communication and behaviour change with regards to environmental issues), and utilise concepts and principles such as:
- Making sustainability meaningful for citizens (focusing on factors such as the wider environment and community and communicating with people based on their environmental values).
- Habit discontinuity (taking advantage of existing lifestyle opportunities to encourage behaviour change e.g. promoting energy efficiency when people move homes).
- Using social networks and norms (utilising what other people do and/or is the expected behaviour e.g. most people in this area now recycle food waste).
- Two-way participatory engagement/communications (engaging others in discussions and work on the issues and the solutions to deliver the environmental priorities for the city e.g. the development of community energy projects through the use of grants).
- Using existing engagement and communication activities wherever possible (to ensure a holistic approach, maximise the use of resources and prevent engagement/ communication overload).
- Pre-testing and evaluating different engagement and communications (to ensure that they are as well designed as possible and that lessons are learned for future activities).
