How to Achieve Conservation Outcomes at Scale: an Evaluation of Scaling Principles

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Frontiers - Publisher Connector ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 04 January 2017 doi: 10.3389/fmars.2016.00278 How to Achieve Conservation Outcomes at Scale: An Evaluation of Scaling Principles Willow Battista *, Amy Tourgee, Candice Wu and Rod Fujita Research and Development Team, Environmental Defense Fund Oceans Program, San Francisco, CA, USA The importance of scaling initiatives that promote environmental protection and conservation is almost universally recognized. But how is scaling best achieved? We empirically evaluated the relationship of a list of factors that have been postulated to facilitate successful scaling to the degree of scaling success achieved in 56 case studies from a variety of sectors. We identified 23 factors that are significantly associated with successful scaling, defined as self-replication: an innovation that is congruent with local sociocultural patterns, takes advantage of existing scaled infrastructure, and facilitates a paradigm shift; adequate resources and constituencies for scaling, secured from the Edited by: start, drawn from both within and outside the system; pilot sites that reflect conditions E. Christien Michael Parsons, George Mason University, USA at future sites rather than ideal conditions; clear and deliberate scaling expectations Reviewed by: and strategy; capitalization on economies of scale; a project team that has a unifying Leslie Cornick, vision, includes both individuals who helped design the innovation and members of the Alaska Pacific University, USA Edward Jeremy Hind-Ozan, target audience, and empowers users with the requisite skills; target audiences that Manchester Metropolitan University, take ownership of the project; the provision of long-term support systems; ongoing UK learning about the factors influencing scaling; direct management of relevant supply *Correspondence: and demand streams; targeted marketing and dissemination efforts; and the evaluation Willow Battista [email protected] of scaling success indicators. We also explored correlations between these principles, and identified a group of principles that together explain nearly 40% of the variance in Specialty section: success: the provision of long-term support systems (or one of its surrogates: turning This article was submitted to Marine Conservation and users into partners, a user organization with wide reach, and the empowerment of Sustainability, the target audience with requisite skills); resources mobilized from within and outside a section of the journal Frontiers in Marine Science the system; user organizations that have the capacity to implement the innovation; innovations that are platform solutions and that provide rapid feedback; and pilot sites Received: 18 June 2016 Accepted: 13 December 2016 that have realistic conditions relative to future sites. Our results suggest that for scaling Published: 04 January 2017 to be successful: (1) scaling must be considered at all stages of a project; (2) the Citation: context must be managed and barriers to scaling must be identified and removed and Battista W, Tourgee A, Wu C and Fujita R (2017) How to Achieve (3) deliberate attention must be paid to scaling methods, marketing and dissemination Conservation Outcomes at Scale: An efforts, and long-term monitoring of scaling progress. Evaluation of Scaling Principles. Front. Mar. Sci. 3:278. Keywords: scaling, expanded impact, scaling success, conservation initiatives, pilot project design, targeted doi: 10.3389/fmars.2016.00278 marketing, economies of scale, barrier removal Frontiers in Marine Science | www.frontiersin.org 1 January 2017 | Volume 3 | Article 278 Battista et al. Analysis of Scaling Principles INTRODUCTION different types of information and levels of confidence, to adopt a new innovation (Rogers, 1962). Many environmental problems have been solved at local scales, In his 1991 book Crossing the Chasm, Moore modifies Rogers’ but it is becoming increasingly clear that these solutions do not original five adopter groups, calling them innovators, visionaries always spread across larger geographies. For example, marine (early adopters), pragmatists (early majority), conservatives (late protected areas demonstrably achieve many ocean conservation majority), and laggards. He goes on to describe a “chasm” goals at local scales (Lester et al., 2009) when they are designed between the visionaries and the pragmatists, explaining that the and implemented well (Airamé et al., 2003; Mora, 2006; Edgar innovators and visionaries are actively seeking new technologies et al., 2014) but cover less than 2% of the ocean’s surface simply for the sake of advancing a given field and are accepting after over 20 years of implementation efforts (Heal and Rising, of some element of risk, while the pragmatists and conservatives 2014). Ideally of course, successful conservation initiatives would (which essentially differ only in their thresholds for adoption) scale spontaneously, with little or no expenditure of financial need to understand how the innovation will benefit them or human capital. However, cases of such spontaneous scaling personally and want a stable and proven product before they appear to be rare (Middleton et al., 2002; World Health will be willing to try it out (Moore, 2002). The key insight is Organization and ExpandNet, 2009; Management Systems that visionaries and pragmatists want different things, so different International, 2012). More often than not organizations put marketing strategies must be used for each (in contrast to the extensive time and effort into designing and implementing pilot previously-prevalent marketing model, which suggested using projects to ensure that their innovation will be successful, but product success in each group as a base for marketing to the next not into preparing the ground for scaling up (World Health group) (Moore, 2002). Organization ExpandNet, 2011; Hartmann et al., 2013). In fact, The principles described above have recently been embraced pilots are often executed where and when conditions are thought by the discipline known as “social marketing” to facilitate to maximize success, leaving organizations unsure of how to the spread of ideas, behaviors, or innovations to improve apply pilot project lessons and experiences to new sites (World public wellbeing and address social problems. Social marketing Health Organization ExpandNet, 2011). This in turn often leads campaigns have been in use for a number of years in to scaling failures where excessive effort and capacity must be the fields of public health and international development expended in order to ensure the success of new projects (World to encourage behavior changes such as healthy eating and Health Organization ExpandNet, 2011; Management Systems quitting smoking, and spread innovations in health care and International, 2012), or where the innovation simply fails to catch microfinancing for remote communities (e.g., Simmons et al., on at new targeted sites (World Health Organization ExpandNet, 2007; Rosenberg, 2011). More recently, groups like Rare 2011). (http://www.rare.org/) and individuals like Doug Mckenzie- Many authors across a variety of disciplines have written Mohr (http://www.cbsm.com/) have pioneered the use of these about factors that should facilitate efforts to spread ideas tenets in efforts to spread conservation-relevant behaviors such or innovations or ensure scaling success. For example, in as sustainable agriculture recycling, and water and electricity 1978 Granovetter detailed his Threshold Models of Collective conservation (Fuller et al., 2010; Ardoin et al., 2013; Butler et al., Behavior, which seek to explain how new behaviors spread and 2013; Mckenzie-Mohr, 2013). new norms emerge as different individuals’ “thresholds” at which Importantly, most of the above-mentioned work has been they will adopt an innovation or new behavior are crossed directed toward understanding and applying tools to facilitate (Granovetter, 1978). These thresholds are determined by the and enhance the spread of behaviors or innovations from variable cost/benefit ratio of adopting the given innovation to one individual to another. Significantly less work has been that specific person, and they dictate how many of the person’s done around understanding the factors that might improve peers must first adopt the new behavior before that person the spread of group or community-scale behaviors from one will do so (Granovetter, 1978). Shortly after the Threshold geographically distinct area to another, as is generally necessary Models were being developed, Prochaska and DiClemente in the scaling of a conservation innovation. Although many (1982) developed the Trans-Theoretical Model of Change, which of the factors and principles that authors have suggested will describes the conceptual stages individuals transition through improve the individual-individual transmission of ideas may when attempting to change their behavior: encountering the new also be useful when considered in a larger-scale context, there behavior, considering adoption, determining to adopt, adoption, are other factors that appear to be important in the spread and finally maintenance (Prochaska and DiClemente, 1982; of innovations between groups. For example, Kern et al. Butler et al., 2013). This concept of adoption stages has been (2001) describe conditions likely to facilitate or hinder the adapted and applied by a variety of individuals and groups spread of environmentally-relevant

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