Center for Social Innovation

Establishments in better managed firms are significantly less energy intensive. Better managed firms are also significantly more productive. These results suggest that management practices that are associated with improved productivity are also linked to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Managers and marketers can motivate consumers to participate in environmental conservation programs by telling them how the majority of other people behaved in the same situation. Researchers specifically studied how to ask hotel guests whether or not they wanted to reuse their towels during the course of a stay. The study highlights the benefits of employing social science research and theory—rather than business communicators’ hunches, lay theories, or best guesses—in crafting persuasive messages. Guests given a description : "the majority guests in this hotel asked to reuse their towels," were 9% more likely to make the same decision than guests who were simply asked to "help save the environment" with no information on comparative behavior. Guests were motivated even further when the description matched their social demographic even more closely. They were even more likely to reuse their towels when told the majority of people staying in their room in the past had done so.