Building Tomorrows World Today – Collective Behavioural Change Workshops

The response to the current Covid-19 emergency has demonstrated the power and impact of collective behavioural change. Now more than ever, Ireland needs to harness the power of sustainable, healthy behavioural change to strengthen and re-build our communities.

In June 2019, NUI Galway’s Applied Systems Thinking partnered with AquaTT to host a workshop on Co-creating Sustainable Change, led by Dr Doug McKenzie-Mohr. This year, NUI Galway’s Applied Systems Thinking is partnering with AquaTT and Doug to organise online workshops in the summer, which will be specifically adapted to supporting sustainable change in Ireland.

We are currently engaging with stakeholders and past participants to identify if there would be sufficient interest in the new workshops. At this stage, we are looking for expressions of interest from individuals or organisations who would like to participate.

There are two workshops planned: Introductory and Advanced:

The Introductory workshop is targeted at those who design or fund programmes that encourage individuals or organisations to engage in sustainable or healthy behaviours. These include those working in initiatives for waste reduction, water and energy efficiency, watershed protection, pollution prevention, conservation, and transport changes, in addition to environmental education professionals and public health professionals.

The Advanced workshop is open to people who have already completed the introductory workshop (either in 2019 or in this new, 2020 offering). It provides an in-depth exploration of how community-based social marketing can be used to foster behavioural changes and provides attendees the opportunity to apply this approach to their own initiatives. The advanced workshop will be hands on with breakout session for participants with common interests.

Each workshop will be held online, with three or four afternoon sessions spread over one week. They will most likely be scheduled in the afternoons to facilitate the time difference as Doug will be delivering the courses from Canada via Zoom. All participants will receive an e-copy of Doug’s book, Fostering Sustainable Behavior.

The first 20 participants/organisations to register for each workshop will receive a personal, 1:1 follow up mentoring session with Doug to discuss how to apply community based social marketing to their specific programme.

For organisations that block-book places on the course, Doug is also offering an executive briefing session, which he has found to be very useful for people looking to secure internal support for the roll-out of behaviour change campaigns.

Workshops will be held in the summer (June/July). Participation cost per person will be dependent on the number of participants. Reduced rates for all participants may be available if there are sufficient numbers interested. Further discounts will be provided for group bookings.

We hope that you will avail of this unique opportunity to learn techniques that will help to create a more sustainable, healthy Ireland. Please share this opportunity amongst your colleagues and please let us  know if you or anyone in your network would be interested in joining one or both of the workshops. This stage only involves gathering expressions of interest from individuals or organisations who would like to participate, there is no commitment required at this stage.

For further information, or to indicate your interest in participating, please contact Sive Finlay, AquaTT Communications Manager, sive@aquatt.ie