Anyone who’s dipped a toe into the startup world will have come across Crossing the Chasm. Geoffrey Moore’s marketing bible. One of its core ideas is simple but powerful: if you want a new technology to succeed, you need to understand that what motivates your Early Adopters is not what motivates the Majority.

You can’t sell to everyone the same way. You need to know your audience.

Over the last few years, I’ve come to believe this same idea applies to climate action. With a few small tweaks, Moore’s model becomes a powerful tool for understanding where we’re stuck - and how we move forward.

Here’s my take - I call it the Climate Action Adoption Curve.

The Technology Adoption Curve is broken down into 5 segments: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. In a similar way, the Climate Adoption Curve has 5 segments with a healthy helping of alliteration: Activists, Advocates, Amenables, Agnostics and Antagonists. Let's understand a bit more about those personas:

Activists
Leading the charge, deeply committed to climate action
#bold #loud #tireless

Advocates
Ready to act & knowledgeable about climate
#passionate #vocal #persuasive

Amenables
Open to action and looking for direction
#supportive #uncertain #waiting

Agnostics
Unsure but open-minded, need strong social-proof
#tuned out #unconvinced

Antagonists
Resistant to change, skeptical of climate action
#hostile #resistant #cynical

I’ve been on my own how can we fix climate change adventure for a few years now. And I’ve met a lot of Advocates and Activists. People who are lean-forward, climate die-hards. Sustainability Consultants. Eco-Warriors. Rewilding Champions. All of whom should be celebrated and applauded. 👏

Candidly - and somewhat depressingly - two things are true:

1. There are simply not enough Activists and Advocates to make a meaningful difference.

   These are the people who go vegan and pay twice as much to get there by train instead of flying. Their altruistic actions are driven by values. They can be hugely influential but they are the minority - not the majority.

   
   

2. Most Advocates and Activists are locked inside their own echo chamber.

   Especially when it comes to communication. When you dip into this world, you find people deep in climate circles. Sharing scientific papers. Retweeting doomsday headlines. Asking, why won’t people act?

They talk about degrowth. About ditching holidays abroad. And living off grid. Simply not realistic for most people.

Within this world, the common belief seems to be that peer pressure is the lever. That once your neighbours, friends, and colleagues all do “the thing” - everyone else will follow.

And yes, peer pressure is powerful. But it only works once the majority is already doing the thing.

And to get to that point, you need the Amenable - and they need an incentive.

Take recycling.

Think about bin day on your street. When your neighbours put out their bins and boxes, they’re sending a quiet signal.

We’re doing the right thing.

Choosing not to recycle becomes a rejection of that social norm. The incentive? Avoiding shame. Avoiding being the only house on the street that didn’t bother.

Recycling is undoubtably now a mass market activity that most of us opt-in to doing. It's crossed the chasm and has the majority on board.

For any initiative to do that:

• it needs to be easy to do (e.g. regular council provided collections)

• there needs to be an incentive (e.g. social acceptance)

What’s in it for me?

Thinking back to our climate action curve and those Amenables.

Amenables don’t spend every waking moment thinking about the climate. They don’t read policy papers. They’re not deep in the science.

But most want to do something.

We’ve spoken with hundreds of them. And the same two blockers show up again and again:

1. Friction - Climate action feels overwhelming. The problem is too big. The choices too complicated. The information too conflicting.

   
   

2. Fear - They’re scared to act. They’ve heard about greenwashing but don’t know who to trust. They’ve seen businesses over-claim and stretch the truth. And they’ve watched well-meaning Activists slam people online for not being perfect. 🤦‍♂️

It leads to hesitation. A decision not to act - for fear of getting it wrong.

A subconscious choice to wait. To hold back until others go first. Until it feels safe.

They’re waiting for reassurance. For strength in numbers.

Time to flip the approach

We’re dealing with behaviour change. And if there’s one thing we know about changing behaviour, it’s this: Reward beats punishment.

Positive reinforcement works better than guilt or fear.

One of my favourite examples? Volkswagen’s Fun Theory campaign in Sweden.

They rigged a speed camera to run a lottery. If you obeyed the speed limit, you were entered into a prize draw. The prize money came from the fines of those who broke the limit.

It worked. Average speeds dropped by 22%. Not because people were scared - but because they were motivated.

It shifted the mindset from we should to we want to.

Whilst it was only ever implemented as a campaign or experiment there is a lot to learn from the sentiment behind it. It's a great example of what we need to do to drive greater climate action.

Put simply - there needs to be something in it for people.

We’ve come to this obvious-with-hindsight insight after hundreds of research interviews. Business leaders. Sustainability experts. Everyday people.

The feedback is always the same:

“I want to help - but what’s in it for me?”

The answer depends on where you sit on the curve.

If you’re an Activist or Advocate, it might be enough to know you’re making a difference. To feel that you’re on the right side of history.

But if you’re Amenable? You need something more immediate.

Of course, there are countless possible incentives- social, emotional, reputational - but the reward has to be tangible. It has to show up this month. And, given we are in the middle of a cost of living crisis, we believe reward needs to be financial.

We’ve chosen to start with savings. That’s why we’re building the Climate Saver Card - to make climate action easier, more rewarding, and genuinely worth it today.