Are communication and awareness campaigns helpful for sustainability?

he first waste stream to have targets set by the European Commission was packaging, and Portugal has been meeting the targets in practically all materials (except glass). These results are the result of several factors, but above all they are due to the stability of public policies within the sector of the waste produced in our home. The reality is that the strategy approved 20 years ago, within the scope of waste management, has not undergone major changes throughout the various legislatures and different political colours, not even during the period of recent crisis. Over the years, investments were made in collection and treatment infrastructures for different types of waste and companies, in general, have not abdicated their responsibilities as waste producers.

Twenty years ago, numerous national communication and awareness-raising campaigns began to be developed.

The campaigns targeted the general population and were complemented with local and municipal initiatives in schools. These made it possible to reach the beginning of the 2011-16 economic crisis with a population aware of the need to start recycling at home, since different waste streams are produced at home. On the other hand, companies also played their part, spreading messages that promoted good practices, in order to achieve a new strategic positioning, facing a consumer increasingly sensitive to this cause. In some cases, we may even question if we were not facing a green washing. However, these campaigns ended up contributing to a population even more informed and committed to the environmental cause.

This video shows an example of a campaign launched in 2000 by Sociedade Ponto Verde on recycling.

The children have come to understand the broad meaning of the word 'savings'.

At the end of the last decade, a banking institution, on the occasion of the World Savings Day, promoted a study that evaluated the sense of saving among Portuguese children between 6 and 13 years old. Surprisingly, apart from the notion that saving is "not spending too much", it was found that children also understood more concrete and specific ideas regarding the ecological need to save: at the time, around 20 per cent of youngsters associated saving with good environmental practices like saving water or energy. In other words, there is now among the younger public an ecological awareness transposed into daily life. A new auscultation would be interesting, but it is possible to affirm that the results obtained then certainly resulted from a greater sensitivity to the subject and, above all, from the various communication and awareness campaigns developed at the time. Thus, it was possible to confirm their impact and importance yesterday, today and tomorrow.

These initiatives promoted a change of habits and the creation of routines.

Therefore, awareness campaigns should be well structured and continuous over time. Currently, these campaigns are practically sporadic and one-off. They have been replaced by news in the media through traditional media or social networks about sustainability objectives of companies or decisions by the European Commission and/or national governments.

If we focus on the waste produced at home, did you know that nowadays there are collection networks for practically everything?

From used cooking oil to cork stoppers, coffee capsules, packaging, electrical and electronic appliances, light bulbs, batteries, tyres, car oil, expired medicines and their packaging, printing and writing paper. Some waste remains, but in some cases, in the medium term, collection networks will also be available for organic waste and packaging containing hazardous waste. However, this information is not widely communicated.

Communication enables us to gain customers and ambassadors for the challenges we face in terms of environmental sustainability.

When we communicate good practices in terms of environmental sustainability (energy, mobility, water consumption or marine litter), the impact is transversal, as the aforementioned study confirms.

Therefore, communication and awareness-raising campaigns on a national scale should always be present in any environmental sustainability strategy.

This is a more pressing need than ever, given the increasing ambition of national and European targets and objectives. Not being in any way a supporter of more State, but rather a believer in the impact that communication and awareness-raising have on effective behavioural change, there are two hypotheses:

1. who has the legal responsibility for managing the waste generated carries out the campaigns;

2. the State incorporates the responsibility of raising awareness among the population, financing the campaigns through those who (at least) have legal responsibilities to fulfil.

The results obtained so far and the challenges determine this.