Cycling And Community-Based Social Marketing

The report, Cycling: Getting Australia Moving, for the first time, places a dollar value on cycling participation.

The GreenPages Eco-directory has written up this new report by Dr Rob Moodie – Professor of Global Health at the University of Melbourne’s Nossal Institute.

What The Report Tells Us

Cycling currently saves an estimated $227.2m per year in health costs alone and it offers considerable benefits to individuals and governments. Addressing the barriers preventing more Australians from cycling can lead to substantial savings for both government and the community.

Economic Benefits From Cycling Are Already Significant

• Over $200 million cut from health care costs each year
• Reduction in the cost of traffic congestion – $63.9 million
• $9.3 million saved in transport ‘externalities’ such as greenhouse gas abatement

Cycling Is Increasing

• 28% increase in cycling to work between Census 2001 and 2006
• Cyclists in capital cities rode 189,392,000 km to work in 2006
• 1.7 million Australians cycled for recreation in 2006

How Do We Get This Message Out There? We Move Beyond Brochures

Bicycle Victoria is bringing Canadian environmental psychologist Dr Doug Mckenzie-Mohr to Melbourne to deliver one training session on ‘Fostering Sustainable Behaviour’ Friday 18 July 2008. The theory and practice of National Ride to Work Day and Ride2School have been influenced by the McKenzie-Mohr approach.

About This New Approach

For over twenty years Doug McKenzie-Mohr has been incorporating scientific knowledge of behaviour change into the design and delivery of community programs. He is the founder of community-based social marketing – an approach to delivering environmental behavioural change programs that is used throughout the world. He has provided training internationally for over 40,000 environmental program planners.

Five Steps To Change

The cornerstone of sustainability is behaviour change. Sustainability requires individuals and businesses to act (eg reduce CO2 emissions, increase water and energy efficiency, and prevent pollution). To date, most programs to achieve these changes have relied upon disseminating information. Research demonstrates, however, that simply providing information has little or no effect on what people or businesses do. But if not ads, brochures or booklets, then what?

Community-based social marketing has emerged as an effective alternative for promoting sustainable behaviour. There are five steps:

• Selecting behaviour you wish to change
• Identifying the barriers and benefits to achieving the changes
• Developing strategies
• Conducting a pilot
• Broad scale implementation

For more info about Community Based Social Marketing, visit see www.cbsm.com

Workshop Details
Friday, 18 July, 2008 9:00am – 4:30pm
Venue: TBC (Melbourne CBD)
Cost: $220 (GST inclusive) per head (includes morning tea & lunch)
For more info visit the Bicycle Victoria website.