Comunicación ambiental para la transformación socialiniciativas de consumo responsable en Madrid

Resumo

This research is framed within a study on environmental communication in responsible consumption and based upon three axes: ethics, motivation and participation. It also considers responsible consumption in the broader sense, dealing with concepts such as the so-called aware, critical and transforming consumption to sustainable consumption. The main objective involves defining criteria for the design and development of environmental communication initiatives (campaigns, programmes and strategic plans) in the context of responsible consumption in Madrid. To this end, we use a qualitative methodology based upon different research techniques. The results constitute emerging criteria that serve to propose instruments for evaluation and orientation based on key themes (environmental communication, ethics, motivation and participation therein; and communication for responsible consumption). The instruments are used in a case study in order to establish their degree of usefulness and to improve them. Environmental communication Environmental communication (hereinafter EC) can be defined as a process of development and exchange of messages among different social agents with the aim of promoting increased pro-environmental and sustainable knowledge, attitudes and behaviour (Castro, 1999 quoted by Castro, 2005:11). But this is an area presenting different scopes of development (journalism, marketing, solving conflicts, communication of risks, etc. differentiated by Solano (2001), Castro (2005), Piñeiro (2008) and Cox (2010). The perspective we address therefore constitutes the interphase between educational communication and environmental marketing, because we are interested in researching communication campaigns aimed at education, mostly based on publicity, but not exclusively, in order to change habits, opinions, attitudes, etc. Despite focusing on this interphase, the interrelation between scopes calls for consideration of other views, both in the literature and in the fieldwork. There is a vague concept that includes EC, due to the fact that different definitions have been developed with different objectives. For this reason, in our study we consider EC in the form of a campaign, programme or strategic plan of a public or collective nature, based upon different media and supports (audiovisual spots or ads, banners, posters, brochures, radio ads, etc.), and including interpersonal communication aimed at changing current psychological and/or social factors (values, attitudes, behaviour, opinions, habits, meanings, etc.) to more pro-environmental ones (Piñeiro, 2008). Thus, we focus on environmental communication for social change. Lastly, this communication is included in the Communication, Education, and Environmental Participation (CEPA) model, which serves as a fundamental reference with regard to understanding environmental communication as a useful social instrument for environmental management, to be used jointly with others (Díaz 2009; Hesselink et al., 2007). The role of ethics, motivation and participation in EC In the initial phase of the study, focusing on extracting criteria and tools for improving EC through in-depth interviews and target groups, there are three axes of EC requiring more in-depth study: ethics, participation and motivation. In the first place, on speaking of the state-of-the-art in environmental communication, it was pointed out that there is currently a lack of ethics in some publicity/advertising, as well as the need thereof in the field of EC. With regard to the lack of ethics in publicity, there are numerous expressions, both in the literature and in practice: Greenwashing sins (TerraChoice, 2009); Olivares (2007); Codes of SelfRegulation in Environmental Arguments and Commercial Communications, etc 6 . But also in the world of environmental education, a theoretical advance has been made in the role of ethics in this field (Tréllez, 2002; Limón, 2008; Bonil et al., 2004, etc.). Furthermore, a relationship can be seen between participation and communication in the CEPA model itself, which is recurrently expressed in the interviews and groups, although with different approaches, and this is also reflected in the literature. For instance, in the case of biodiversity, environmental participation and communication are seen as two sides of the same coin, and this has become known as ¿the social instruments for conservation of biodiversity¿ (Europarc, 2007: 27). The relationship between participation and communication presents different specifications related to different theoretical models and positions in practice, which we want to know better. Likewise, motivation constitutes another of the fundamental elements to be studied in greater depth on attempting to obtain criteria for improving environmental communication, because different strategies arise, as well as ways of constructing messages related to motivation (Petty & Cacioppo quoted by Briñol et al. 2001; Gardner & Stern, 1996; McKenzie-Mohr, 2000; Pol et al. 2001, etc.). According to the bibliographic review and the results of the initial phase, participation, motivation and ethics have in common that they are elements of EC and are present both in the design and planning of the process and in the message itself. Based on the specific development of research into these elements, we wish to question this role they play and to conduct more in-depth study into the details of these relationships. We also propose some definitions for discussion with all the experts interviewed. Responsible consumption as a polyedric or polysemous term ¿Responsible¿ consumption 7 (hereinafter RC) could currently be considered as a movement or movements that are starting to take on their own identity, as they have their own seminars, meetings, publications, etc. Before being given this name, these practices of austerity, selection of the article to be consumed with different criteria (solidarity, ecology, etcetera) from maintream criteria, collective organisation for redistributing tasks and goods, etc., already existed. But systematic and collective reflection regarding the need to change questions such as the production-distributionconsumption model, the social relationship with consumption and day-to-day consumption practices, is what enables us to speak of a movement. In practice and in theory, this concept of RC has numerous definitions. ECODES (2007) speaks of the complementariness of the definitions, understanding RC as the choice of products and services not only based upon their quality and price, but also on their environmental and social impact and on the behaviour of the companies providing them. Another meaning of RC, or critical consumption, complementary to the previous definition, involves consuming less, choosing to consume only what is necessary, paying attention to how we are influenced by publicity in the consumption of the unnecessary. In the present study we consider responsible consumption from a broad perspective, including different focuses, from the so-called aware and transforming consumption proposed by the specialized journal called Opcions (which means Options), to the sustainable consumption defined in the Oslo Symposium in 1994 and adopted in the third session of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD III) in 1995. We can therefore consider a wider range of discourses and practices. Thus, the semantic field of RC comprises different labels associated with definitions, practices and nuances, which will all be detected in the study, together with the communication strategies for this purpose. Objectives and methodology The main objective of this study involves defining and applying criteria for designing and developing environmental communication initiatives (campaigns, programmes and strategic plans), specifically in relation to responsible consumption and preferably in the city of Madrid. To this end, we have addressed the following research questions: 1. What intervention criteria in EC emerge from the interdisciplinary dialogue of experts on the subject, and what are the best strategies and tools for designing, planning and evaluating the EC initiatives? 2. What role is to be played by ethics, motivation and participation in EC and how is this to be specified in tools for improving EC? 3. What specific criteria and instruments are to be used for designing, planning and evaluating communication practices in RC in the city of Madrid, based upon knowledge of the context? 4. What are the results of application of the criteria and tools for environmental communication in RC in the case study, and what can be transferred to other cases? Each question in turn generates a sequence of more specific ones. In order to answer these, we employed a qualitative methodology, with techniques and instruments: a focus group or expert group, in-depth interviews, group interviews, survey with open questionnaires, documentary analysis of RC guides, participant observation and flâneur-type derivatives. We have also developed a case study. To answer our first and second research questions, a total of 38 experts participated in the interviews and groups working with EC, both to talk about criteria in general and about ethics, motivation and participation in particular. Selection of participants involved an opinion-based sample using a typological matrix (from a cross between the scopes of work-university, administration, companies, Non Governmental Organizations -hereinafter NGOs- and those of the disciplinary-environmental, publicity and psycho-social contexts). In relation to the techniques applied to the third research question, we analysed: - 67 open questionnaires applied to people related to RC through the journal on conscious consumption Opcions. - The 28 stories from the four flâneur-type group dérives (originally in French, but they are drifts, translated into English), according to different zones of Madrid (7 stories per drift). - 10 guides on responsible consumption from social and citizen movements, NGOs, public institutions and private enterprise, published from 2006 to 2009; - 8 in-depth interviews (3 with experts on dissemination and training in responsible consumption, but not directly related with Madrid, and 5 people associated with responsible consumption in Madrid, from different sectors of the social map created to choose them). - 4 group interviews with people belonging to ¿the transformation culture¿ (in all the RC, individual and group interviews, there was a total of 28 people). For the fourth research question, a case study was developed or one year (February 2009 to February 2010): the Greenpeace Responsible Consumption Strategy (generated within the CEPA framework). Periodic meetings were set up and recorded in audio, in order to subsequently analyse the discourse. Specific meetings were scheduled in order to work with the evaluation instruments developed from other parts of this research project (ethics motivation, participation, RC, EC); furthermore, within the habitual meetings of the Greenpeace Environmental Education Team, the practice of recording conversations associated with the RC strategy has been incorporated. Lastly, a participant observation was made in the RC training course and in the recording of RC (Ecomanía) audiovisual programmes for Greenpeace television; both the course and the interactive material were evaluated, these belonging to the strategy, and two evaluation interviews were conducted with Greenpeace. In the whole research, the interviews and groups were conducted with professionals and minorities active in EC and RC (in the broad sense of the term), and together they can approach interviews to elite groups, which have been frequently used in the social sciences, especially by Dexter (Valles, 2002: 26). The criterion used for analysing the interviews is socio-hermeneutical, postulating interpretation of the text in context based upon study of the argument or discourse. This type of analysis is also applied by Alonso et al. (2010). For the questionnaires we developed an interpretative analysis according to emerging categories of the open answers of the questionnaire, and descriptive treatment of the data by means of software to graphically reflect the results. For the drifts, we performed an interpretative analysis of discourse, both of the field diaries and of the images, seeking emerging and reiterated categories in the discourse, as well as different discourse lines, absences in the discourse, etc. We also considered the text for the analyses, thus completing the socio-hermeneutical sense. For the documentary analysis of the RC guides, we employed an analysis criterion of 32 items applied to each of them, and subsequently we fundamentally compared questions of the qualitative type, such as the discourse lines and positions, finding differences according to the responsible consumption concepts and approaches, construction of arguments with motivating capacity, the strong ideas or comunication prioritites used, etc. Main results The research questions are widely answered in the following study as we can also see in the conclusions. Some of the proposals as criteria for improving EC that emerge from the interdisciplinary dialogue are these steps for pre-inetervention (from a to k): A. Detecting communication needs: finding the balance between internal (promoter) and external (initial target group) demand and establishing specific areas where EC is needed. Good choice of theme. B. Developing a diagnosis of the environmental challenge: by means of analysing the selfmanagement of what is to be communicated (internal) and the use of expert opinions (external). C. Conducting a population diagnosis and updating it permanently (for this, diverse techniques and numerous questions need to be considered): identifying social representatives, environmental characteristics regarding the population, perception and knowledge of the problem, means used (vehicle), priorities, inhibitors and facilitators of pro-environmental conduct, and image of the promoter. Not focussing only on the citizen, but also on other sectors that might be influencing environmental policy. This diagnosis in cases of EC involving participation from the start is self-performed by the collective and propelled by the promoting team. D. Establishing the role played by communications in relation to the range of instruments and determining the function of EC in relation to the other elements used. E. Establishing aims and objectives (modest, specific, clear, determined and measurable): what is the objective of EC at the different levels? Choosing possible changes at the psychological/social level. Establishing evaluation indicators in relation to the objectives and possible changes. There is a need to distinguish between short-term objectives (those involving specific intervention) and long-term objectives (social transformation and constructing a basis of responsibility). F. Study of previous experiences: Studying the promoter¿s background. Identifying similar positive and negative cases of EC and relevant scientific literature. G. Pre-design of intervention proposals (depending on the scope required, this can take the form of: a strategic plan for the programme or campaign, including both internal and external communication) to be created by the promoting interdisciplinary team. Establishing: positioning (from where the EC is to be designed); trajectory to be followed (medium-long term); complete guide of the intervention, with different actions and focuses, along with prior evaluation and permanent revision (updating); relationships among the actors (including the social tissue and working with a segmentation of this according to the objectives set out); determining the balance between achieving reception and acceptance of the message (by means of a balance between innovation and the use of current cultural characteristics). Pre-establishing the channels considered and the resources required. H. Determining the moment and duration: Choosing the moment ad hoc, interpreting the social climate (establishing the appropriate message and whether the media wish to air this information) and learning the agenda (media), both that of the associated promoters and of the target population. I. Capitalising on and articulating the ¿accumulation of potential change¿ generated through other interventions in the same context. Establishing what is already in the social imaginary of the sectors we are addressing that could assist us, and making use of it. J. Evaluating prior to the intervention (we propose a range of techniques, but mainly the use of discussion groups, possibly with target groups, experts, etc.). K. Completing the design of the intervention (including planning and creative resources). The results obtained contribute to the open debate on environmental communication and to orienting communication practices, but following these steps does not guarantee the success of a communication action, due to the fact that the intervention is complex, with many internal and external factors coming into play. New lines of research are therefore established which will be dealt with in greater depth in the following steps of this study.