CAMPAIGNers – Citizens Acting on Mitigation Pathways through Active Implementation of a Goal-setting Network

CAMPAIGNers

Back Active Start date: 01.05.2021 Website

ACTIVITY INFORMATION

What we are doing

Climate change is a human problem, caused by humans, affecting humans, and requiring a human-centric solution. CAMPAIGNers aims to make low-carbon lifestyles a major part of the solution by identifying lifestyle transformation potential, and associated barriers and enablers across 5 continents and 16 major cities with over 20 mil. residents. Feasible pathways to GHG mitigation are developed to include the empirically validated lifestyle changes, and are applied to the principal integrated modelling tools used in the EU to provide robust insights into the system-level impacts of large-scale lifestyle transformation. CAMPAIGNers builds on previous consortium-led projects that substantially improved the understanding of societal structures and interventions that encourage lifestyle shifts, and identified limitations to the existing evidence-base. Namely, current lifestyle transformation research is either limited to narrow, specific contexts or groups, or deals in hypothetical behaviours where most citizens do not have real experiences to draw on. CAMPAIGNers’ ground-breaking approach overcomes these drawbacks by implementing a ‘goal-setting network’, where over 100,000 citizens receive and create challenges to try out tailored adaptations to their daily routines via an engaging app. Their responses to these challenges, associated treatments, and short questionnaires will deliver unprecedented data of behavioural processes, (local) barriers to change, and motivators, allowing for empirically-based scientific support of cities in crafting policies to encourage low-carbon lifestyles. Together with local, national and EU policy makers insights are analysed regarding the ‘right-level-to-act’ and policy-ready recommendations are jointly derived. A workshop in the EU Parliament, hosted by First-Vice President Ms. McGuinness, and supported by 9 more MEPs from 6 countries and 4 political parties, will ensure high-level feedback and contribute to consensus building.

How we are tracking

# of EU-level policy makers involved, either through information provision or in discussions. Target: 50 # policy documents directly utilising CAMPAIGNers’ results. Target: 5 # informed/involved policy makers (with competence in preparing NDCs). Target: 30 # new/improved local policies (defined or implemented) for supporting lifestyle transformation. Target: 100 # of representatives to the Conference of the Parties or their team members involved/informed. Target: 10 # of cooperations with non-governmental initiatives for monitoring progress towards the Paris Agreement’s goals. Target: 10 # of identified avenues and mechanisms for utilizing climate science. Target: 20 # of policy makers informed about the found mechanisms incl. provision of example for implementation. Target: 50

What we are achieving

ICLEI will lead the process of creating the goal-setting network as an engaging and insightful resource for citizens, researchers and policy makers. In detail it will establish the goal-setting network of CAMPAIGNers across participating municipalities. The Lighthouse and Follower Cities are supported by the app marketing specialist Saints to promote downloading and using the app through all available communication channels and networks, targeting a number of 100,000 active participants within the network’s first year. The results from the citizen interactions with the goal-setting network will be utilised to co-create policies for supporting citizens to develop more climatefriendly lifestyles.