Sustainable Lebanon
Community Engagement with Measurable Results
EcoAction Case Study - Sustainable Lebanon, NH
The Challenge
Sustainable Lebanon was trying to find a way to engage their community to be more aware of actions that they could take to be more sustainable. Sustainable Lebanon was also trying to bring more awareness to their organization. Sustainable Lebanon had tried a workbook approach in the past, but was not successful. They wanted a simple, fun, approach to helping their community take sustainable action.
The Solution
Sustainable Lebanon deployed an EcoTeam template with a localized version of the EcoAction App they named SNAPP (short for ‘Sustainable Nature App’).
Residential Recruitment:
Green Community Catalysts worked with Sustainable Lebanon to advertise and recruit community members through flyer distribution, local press, numerous newsletters from other local organizations, social media, a recruitment video and a customized website (snapp-lebanon.com).
Team Meeting Coordination:
Upon pilot launch, Green Community Catalysts created a EcoTeam meeting schedule and content. Over the course of the 3 months, the teams met 5 times with a different sustainable topic each time. The 5 different sustainability topics were: home heating, electrification, transportation, food, and goods/services. During these virtual meetings, we discussed the importance of the topic from an impact perspective, the various actions in the app related to the topic, a knowledge share among the team members related to the topic, and local infrastructure or policy situations.
The EcoTeam meetings provided great motivation, encouragement, accountability, and general community comradery. The metrics accumulated by each team’s actions decided the winners of the monthly challenges.
App localization:
Green Community Catalysts worked with Sustainable Lebanon to localize the APP to the Lebanon region. This included global settings like the clean energy ratio of their local utility, available composting services, average household footprints in Lebanon, local resources for various actions, and local news and events related to sustainability.
View an overview tour of SNAPP (Sustainable Lebanon’s localized version of the EcoAction APP).
Business Recruitment:
Local businesses are important for two reasons: one, they provide ‘offers’ that are used as prizes or rewards to the monthly challenges, and two, they emphasize the ‘buy local’ aspect of being more sustainable. Green Community Catalysts worked with Sustainable Lebanon to identify the local businesses most willing to participate and provided the necessary marketing materials for recruitment.
Program Analysis:
Green Community Catalysts performed a data analysis mid-way through the pilot and again at the end to understand what was working and what was not working. The mid-pilot analysis was critical as it allowed us to make a few minor adjustments for the second half of the pilot. The EcoAction App provides a rich data collection and reporting mechanism that allows program analysis from a variety of perspectives.
The Results
All in all, Sustainable Lebanon felt that the pilot was very successful. Some things worked as expected and some did not – but that is the purpose of a pilot.
For this pilot, we were monitoring and measuring the following metrics:
Participation
We recommended and invited participants to use the APP and be involved in an EcoTeam. However, we also allowed people to use the APP on their own without being part the team support structure (i.e., go ‘solo’). The differences were astounding!
Utilization of the APP was significantly higher when combined with the team support structure.
79% of EcoTeam users were active in the APP versus only 31% of solo users
Behavioral Change
At the end of the pilot, we surveyed participants and asked if they felt that the initiative encouraged them to take new actions and to shift behavior.
64% Yes
27% Maybe
9% No
Carbon Footprint Reduction
Over the course of 3 months, we found that the average household completed 133 actions and had an average carbon footprint reduction of 0.56 mt CO2e (annual extrapolation)
Community Awareness
Although we don’t have quantitative data, in interviews we learned that there was a significant increase in people that not only became aware of Sustainability Lebanon’s activity in the community but also the sustainability actions that were happening at the municipal level.
Spreading the Word
At the end of the pilot, we also asked people if they felt that the pilot brought about more sustainability oriented discussion with friends and family (outside of the pilot).
100% responded Yes!
Expand roll-out to broader region
When asked if the initiative should be rolled out to a broader region around Lebanon,
78% said Yes
22% said Maybe
Continue to Meet and use App
When asked if people would like to continue to meet in small groups to discuss sustainability,
100% said Yes or Maybe
