A Proposal and Case Study of Online Community Operation Model to Promote Pro-Environmental Behaviors

Abstract

In order to solve our energy and environmental issues, it is important not only to make efforts by industrial fields but also to promote pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) in our daily lives. It is however difficult for us to keep doing PEBs for a long time. In order to keep it, it can be effective that they join an online community because they can interact with each other to keep their motivations in the community even if they live in distant places. In this study, the authors have proposed an online community operation model to promote our PEBs. The model is organized based on six principles of compliance-gaining strategies and aims to promote not only their message postings to Bulletin Board System (BBS) but also their PEBs. An online community which realized the model was built and had been operated as a case study for four weeks where 10 participants had joined. As the result, it was found that their message posting activities had been kept to the end and PEBs activities of half of them were significantly improved.