How Canada is using data to turn good intentions into climate action
Actions speak louder than words and nowhere is this more true than when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. A huge challenge for governments in meeting their climate goals is driving behaviour change and addressing misconceptions that prevent people taking action.
In Canada, while belief in climate change is high and most people say they are willing to make changes, the subsequent adoption of high-impact measures like heat pumps and electric vehicles is low. These are among the high-level findings of the Program of Applied Research on Climate Action in Canada (PARCA) which aims to close the intention-action gap by delving deep into how Canadians think, feel and act on climate-related issues and using the insights to test interventions that shift the dial.
“Our approach to behavioural science now looks very different from what folks were doing 15 years ago,” said Kieran Findlater, senior lead for established programs at the Impact and Innovation Unit within Canada’s Privy Council, which leads PARCA in partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan).
“Those efforts were really framed around nudging, where you try to achieve low cost but effective change in how folks are acting in the world to advance policy goals,” he said, adding that PARCA aims to go beyond this by understanding more deeply the beliefs and assumptions that drive behaviour. The programme launched in 2021, building on work during the pandemic using behavioural insights to address vaccine hesitancy.
The PARCA programme conducts ongoing nationally representative surveys about climate issues and in-depth studies in specific areas. Since December 2021, the programme has fielded more than 30 studies, reaching over 160,000 Canadians.
“Often data that government relies on comes from other jurisdictions – for instance, insights from the US or Europe and they aren’t necessarily applicable to Canada,” said Findlater. “Or there might be other factors in play within the Canadian context.”
ECCC and NRCan host behavioural science fellows in their teams and the goal is to use the research insights to run rapid experiments and field-test promising interventions before scaling them up.
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Climate communications
The Low Carbon Economy Fund is designed to help companies upgrade to more efficient technology. However, ECCC noticed that companies that were awarded potential funding often didn’t follow through on making the proposed changes and receiving the funds. Research through PARCA revealed that “this comes down to operational transparency, essentially”, explained Holly Palen, director of the Innovation and Youth Engagement Division at Environment and Climate Change Canada.
She said that “sometimes it’s hard for the potential recipients to understand the various stages and gates”. Further, the research suggested that some companies were applying before they were ready to implement new technologies. ECCC updated messaging to be clearer about the process, including how funding applications are reviewed and what makes a successful application.
“What we were able to do through that is make changes to how government interacts with companies and businesses, to make the whole process more efficient and, at the end of the day, more successful,” said Palen.
In the round of applications following the changes, the Low Carbon Economy Fund received fewer applications but they were more likely to be successful.
In another example, PARCA research has been used to inform better ways to encourage more people to donate ecologically significant land to protect Canada’s natural heritage. While research showed that nature is important to Canadians, donations through the Ecological Gifts Program were lower than expected.
A behavioural science fellow worked alongside colleagues in ECCC and the Canadian Wildlife Service and non-governmental organisations.
“We were able to make a lot of changes that had really good feedback in terms of simplicity and understanding,” said Palen, saying the process helped to “translate government speak and government process [so that it] doesn’t serve as a barrier to people accomplishing the goal that they would like to achieve”.
Driving change
PARCA is also changing the way NRCan does things. NRCan ran survey questions to understand how Canadians feel about zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) ownership, including costs, advantages and disadvantages, and sentiments around federal programmes, policies and subsidies.
Following this was an online survey experiment with 3,000 prospective ZEV buyers around barriers to purchasing. NRCan also tested the impact of messaging.
“We tested whether the way we talk about barriers in our communications affected stated intention to buy ZEVs,” said Nadim Kara, deputy director, innovation policy at NRCan.
One of the key findings was that many Canadians overestimate the upfront costs of ZEVs.
“In their minds, it’s double the price of the comparable ICE vehicle, but it’s actually maybe only 20% more, or maybe in some places it’s almost comparable,” said Kara. “This is really important stuff that we’re feeding, not only to our senior managers, but across the federal family to Transport Canada and other colleagues at ECCC.”
“It’s not about nudging [people], but it’s giving them the right information so that they can make good decisions if they want to reduce the emissions from their transportation energy use,” he added.
PARCA research is now also informing changes in NRCan’s home energy labelling guide to boost uptake of retrofits.
Read more: National climate ministries shown to reduce carbon emissions
Climate adaptation
PARCA focuses on climate adaptation as well as mitigation. PARCA research published last year found that two-thirds of Canadians said they had experienced more extreme weather than usual in the previous two years. Over 40% had experienced first- or second-hand wildfire impacts, but most had taken no wildfire-related actions and were not familiar with FireSmart, a national programme to help Canadians increase resilience to wildfires.
Kara says the research has provided insight into how to improve this awareness and action.
“What we’ve also done is we’ve shared that data, not just in the federal family but with external stakeholders including the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs,” said Kara. He noted that the programme is not just about gathering data but also “mobilising the data” and getting it into the hands of those who interact closely with citizens.
While many of the trials so far have been around digital interventions and messaging, it is also informing longer-term approaches.
“Innovation and experimentation in government doesn’t necessarily happen overnight,” said Palen. “There are some things we can change quickly, like maybe how we’re communicating something on social media, or how we write a press release, but to redesign a programme where we start from the ground up with the development of a policy — that takes a bit more time to see the impacts.
“At the same time as we’re working really hard to translate all of the knowledge and insights that we’ve received, we’re also always looking ahead to building this in where we can, where the results are transferable, but those results will only be realised a little bit down the line.”
Findlater says PARCA is succeeding in opening lines of communication across government and generating evidence that’s “efficient, effective and flexible to the needs of specific teams, as well as to the narratives of government”.
“We try to think beyond the day-to-day focus of individual teams and understand where government priorities are headed,” he said, “And we’ve really seen that as an important benefit of the programme, being that we have a broad perspective.”
Prepare to scale
PARCA’s work could inspire countries elsewhere to help bring citizens on board with the changes needed to reach net zero. Canada works with the OECD, co-chairing its behavioural insights group and co-leading a working group on green transitions, and Findlater said Canada’s work on programmes such as PARCA “is perceived to be the most advanced such effort amongst all of the countries present there”.
For other governments considering similar programmes, Kara advises them to design pilots with the intention of them receiving longer-term funding. He said this means embedding an independent evaluation expert from the very beginning, collecting data on impacts, and retaining the flexibility to pivot. Selecting the right projects for fellows to work on is also key.
He urged governments to “ensure that the resources are allocated to the hottest files that the government has, and to make sure that that’s where you’re trying to demonstrate an impact right off the bat”.
Palen added that while programmes like PARCA are an investment, they deliver return: “Behavioural science requires real expertise, real data analytics, people who are highly educated, so it is a cost, but the cost benefit can be really impactful and meaningful when you’re able to create more effective and efficient programmes.”
About Sarah Wray
Sarah has over 15 years’ experience as a journalist with a specialism in the public sector and topics such as digitalisation and climate action. Sarah was formerly the editor of Cities Today and Smart Cities World, as well as a specialist video-based publication in the aerospace sector. She has also written for publications including Smart Cities Dive, Mobile Europe, Mobile World Live and Computer Weekly.
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