Overcoming Barriers to Successful Environmental Advocacy Campaigns in the Organizational Context

Abstract

This paper extends the scope of environmental communication studies from the public sphere to the organizational context with two main aims: first, to understand what barriers there are to individual environmental behavior and second, to suggest how these barriers can be overcome. The findings, based on 13 interviews in Finnish organizations that have implemented an environmental advocacy campaign, the WWF Green Office, support previous findings on individual and societal barriers and, in addition, suggest four barriers specific to the organizational context. To overcome different individual, organizational, and societal barriers, the findings suggest that environmental communication efforts in organizations should, for example, focus on small issues, concretize how action matters, and involve employees at all times. The paper concludes by arguing that while campaigns such as the Green Office can increase environmental awareness in organizations, they are largely ineffective in addressing the serious environmental challenges we face.