Think Differently. Rio launch the Fire and Rescue e-learning module.

Think differently, the now infamous advertising campaign produced by Apple between 1997 and 2002 highlighted that people who see things differently change things:

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

*Steve Jobs, Apple 1997. 

I love the idea of thinking differently in order to change behaviour, especially when that behaviour is for the benefit of others. I have been practising the idea of behaviour change for over twenty years, since I started my career in eLearning. At Ditto Sustainability our business is built upon the simple belief that educating companies and individuals will change behaviour and attitudes to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle and protect the environment in which we live and work, both now and for future generations. 

Last Tuesday, (26th February) we were delighted to be attending the National Performance Environmental Group (NPEG) hosted by Manchester Fire Brigade. NPEG membership is open to Fire and Rescue Services and Police forces across the UK. Sustainability and environmental colleagues come together, bi-annually to work collaboratively and share best practice, developing tool-kit resources on environmental and sustainability initiatives that encourage people to see things differently and support behaviour change.

I attended this meeting to launch the Fire & Rescue environmental eLearning module, a bespoke module we developed that takes the learner through various interior and external scenes at a typical fire station to learn what can and should be done to become more sustainable. The module was designed to address key environmental issues and legislation relevant to Fire and Rescue sites, for example the use of single use plastic, mental well-being, reducing pollution, managing and recycling waste.

Many organisations today want to be more sustainable. They want to reduce the waste they generate by reusing it or recycling it. They want to reduce their energy use and carbon footprint, make cost savings and embrace renewable options. They want to conserve water and be more water-efficient. Lots of companies and individuals are doing lots of good things to be more sustainable, but for those that aren’t; it often comes down to their mindset and attitudes; both of which help determine their behaviour.

The practice of recycling is in itself an interesting concept when examining human behaviour. Educating and teaching employees to adopt a different mindset and encourage a more sustainable practice can be a timely and expensive exercise. Often for many individuals, rubbish is simply rubbish. For example, when disposing of an empty sandwich packet, few individuals will place any value on the waste. As a result, the packet will be thrown into the nearest bin without a second thought. However, if we were able to change the mindset of the individual to view that sandwich packet as something that can be reused or recycled to avoid it ending up in our oceans or as landfill, then the behaviour changes. 

It is not a new idea that Education and learning help people think differently, and consequently thinking differently changes mindsets and therefore behaviour.  However, how people learn is changing, through the innovation in technology and the increasing luxury of time, learning has become more and more difficult to implement, especially when educating large numbers of people across different territories in different languages.

Ditto Sustainability's eLearning module was created with specific goals in mind as outlined in work with the Fire and Rescue environmental organisation. Converting these goals and knowledge into bitesize chunks of actionable advice in order to understand the impact of our eLearning using our fully integrated data platform,  is what sets us apart. If you would like to find out more about our learning modules contact our team. 

For more information on the Fire & Rescue module, please visit http://info.dittosustainability.ai/firerescue