By comparing customers’ usage to that of others in the neighbourhood, utility companies are starting to reduce their energy consumption. This, from an experiment conducted by Robert Cialdini, author of Influence:
In a 2004 experiment, he and a colleague left different messages on doorknobs in a middle-class neighborhood north of San Diego. One type urged the residents to conserve energy to save the earth for future generations; another emphasized financial savings. But the only kind of message to have any significant effect […] was one that said neighbors had already taken steps to curb their energy use.
You can see how effective this is just by looking at the graphic used to head the Times’ article. This has now got me wondering how this could be used with recycling.
via Mind Hacks