There is a crucial pivot point when something changes from a passing fad to a cultural trend. Be it a product, a practice or a belief, its time in a small select group ends and matures into the minds of enough people to elevate it to “the mainstream.” For Americans, sustainability has yet to make this leap, remaining in the forefront of a small group of hardcore proponents that champion its cause. In order for it to gain hold on the national level, sustainability must achieve a key percentage jump of support known as “The Chasm.” Instead of trying to appeal to the entirety of the nation, sustainability advocates may be better off trying to gather the most likely candidates to achieve the force needed for broader endeavors.
A friend recently pushed a TED lecture to me (see below), saying it was one of the best he had ever seen. It was a talk given by Simon Sinek and one of the things he covered was social trends of acceptance and allegiance. Part of what he points to is the Law of Diffusion of Innovations that charts the stages of how innovations are received by the public. As something that can relate to any type of innovative, novel concepts introduced to society, it can help shed some light on sustainability (what is that exactly?) and its relationship to the populace.
The chart in question uses a standard bell curve and is broken into five parts. Innovators represent 2.5% of the population, those drawn to new technology and creating it for the gauntlet of tests that society puts on it. The next 13.5% are Early Adopters, comprised of those who try and accept new trends—most willing to question an existing social norm. After them comes the Early Majority followed by the Late Majority, each holding 34% and together making up the bulk of the population. The last 16% is known as Laggards. In the words of Sinek, “the only reason these people buy touch-tone phones is that you cannot buy rotary phones anymore.”
It is important to note that a person’s place on this graph is not for his entire life, but in response to individual concepts. All of us have likely been in all portions of the graph for different products and ideas that we encounter over time.
Innovating Sustainability:
When we link this back to sustainability as a whole, I would say we are still in the first portion of the Early Adopters phase with somewhere between 5 to 10% of the population that moves towards sustainable ends. These people do it not because they want to save money, but because they believe in the underlying meaning of the concept and subscribe to its mantra. As Sinek points out, this is the difficult, critical phase where many concepts and products fail. It is one thing to get to 10% of the population on board, but if you want to achieve the support of the majority of the population and claim that middle 68% you have to surpass the milestone between Early Adopters and Late Majority—the tipping point of the first 15-18%. This 5-8% gap is known as “The Chasm.”
Part of the reason is that members of the Early Majority are described as wary and cautious and will not try the concept in question until someone else has tried it first. This group is seeking to be satisfied, not trail-blaze new terrain; looking for solutions not performance. Their distaste for uncertainty sets their threshold of risk lower than their “adopting” brethren. Sustainability has to attract enough support and gain enough momentum to convince mainstream participants.
Plan of Attack:
This mentality draws into question the shotgun style marketing campaign that many groups relating to sustainability take while trying to gather a following. One school of thought dictates that if we spread the word to enough people then a certain minimum percentage will sign on board. Google hits, spam emails and retweets all fall into the targets of this tactic. A similar mentality is trying to spread your message with conviction but without crossing controversial lines and risk making any enemies (perhaps we could call this the “Washington” approach.)
Instead, the case for crossing the Chasm may be to try and set your target at 15-18% of the country rather than focusing on recruiting something like half of our countrymen. This could be a more concise message that tries to bring education to believers who need to be found, not convinced. Simon Sinek tells us that the Early Adopters are most often people that are sympathizers with the idea behind the innovation.
The choice of interventions and campaigns can be further mitigated by their likelihood of success with only 15% public support. If an endeavor needs more than 15% to be profitable/successful/viable, then it may be the wrong time to use it as a posterchild for sustainability. High Speed Rail is a great example. While I am a vocal proponent of a new an improved transit system that can take people longer distances, more efficiently, we know that a HSR line cannot survive on 15% commuter traffic. Even if of our target audience of 15% bought tickets because they wanted to travel in a more sustainable way, we would still be left with a young and expensive system seeking ridership from people that needed it to be more convenient, cost effective, able to create jobs or be politically benign.
In a way, one could use this to make a case for government intervention in environmental leadership. Whether through incentives or regulation, legislation could feasibly be responsible for cranking participation above the necessary boundary and causing more people to be exposed and informed about a given issue. On the other hand, it is possible that this manipulation of the marketplace could be statistically pulling people into the Early Adopter category that do not really belong there, ending up with those who feel forced to comply rather than subscribing to the underlying belief of the movement.
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Rays of Brightness:
Within the larger umbrella of sustainability, certain innovations have found success and broader public acceptance. Recycling is a prime example. Even in 2007, America recycled 25.8% of its waste according to the EPA and that number has only continued to improve. Far more than 15% of Americans participate in some level of recycling and most cities recycle more than 15% of their waste. Some urban hubs reportedly recycle over half of their waste stream. Part of the reason for recycling’s success could be its foundation from within an activist population. As I have written about before, recycling is known as a grass roots movement that rose from the desire for people to address our growing waste stream. There is neither a federal law mandating recycling (though there could be) or federal legislation that funds recycling efforts on the national level. The key is to build more campaigns that can follow the same track and not have to rely on government arm twisting.
Our interface with innovation is not going anywhere. With a world of technological generations that continue to get shorter the status quo will be questioned with a higher degree of regularity and maybe that is good. It may be exactly what we (especially Americans) need. When speaking on current times, authors Steve Morlidge and Steve Player offer:
Change is the problem, but we cannot deal with change by suppressing it or pretending it does not exist. The only way forward is to accept it and get good at dealing with it.
They were speaking of companies in today’s business environment, but I think the same goes for America in general.
Photo Credit: http://conjellian.net/kimberleydiary.html