CalWEP has developed a series of Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) resources for water conservation professionals as part of its Landscape Tool Series. The CBSM resources consists of the following three publications: Vol. 1 – Case Study Review & Pilot Framework; Vol. 2 – Landscape and Outdoor Water Survey & Best Practices Guide; and Vol. 3 – Agency Survey Implementation & Findings. This off-the-shelf resource package is intended to provide water agencies and other interested parties with background knowledge and an initial blueprint for launching their own CBSM program. The project was funded by DWR’s California Water Efficient Products Initiative grant.
At a practical level, CBSM combines psychological knowledge with applied research methods to provide a usable framework for practitioners to promote behavior change across diverse settings. Ultimately, CBSM strategies seek to identify and remove barriers to a desired behavior change, while simultaneously promoting associated benefits of the behavior. Practitioners follow a five-step approach, that includes piloting specific CBSM tools prior to rolling out a broad-scale program. These steps include:
When applied to environmental initiatives CBSM can prompt behaviors that help curb resource consumption. In recent years, CBSM has emerged as a promising framework for promoting energy efficiency and other sustainability-related behaviors. Effective CBSM strategy address barriers while promoting social, environmental and personal benefits, such as lower monthly utility expenses.
