Behind the scenes of 2025 at Behaviour Change

As we wrap up the year, there is a lot our small but mighty Behaviour Change team have to be proud of. Most of the time, we only surface the polished outputs of our work - in case studies and blogs that highlight final interventions, completed projects and the momentous impact we’ve made for positive social and environmental change.

This year we wanted to lift the curtain on 2025’s biggest achievements and show the work ‘behind the scenes’ that brought these projects to life. 

Chewing Gum Task Force

The end product: A successful 4th year of the Chewing Gum Task Force’s 5-year scheme to tackle chewing gum litter across the UK. This year we delivered over 10,000 signs to 57 councils, recording an up to 86% reduction in gum littering. 

Behind the scenes: Managing a national gum litter programme requires enormous logistical effort, led this year by Anaïs, who coordinated dozens of councils, deliveries, and kept everything running smoothly across the UK.

We clocked a lot of miles throughout the year with Rob, Polly and Anaïs travelling to Liverpool, Maidstone, Bristol, Cambridge and Tower Hamlets, conducting recces, visiting conferences, and testing our new night-time economy interventions. 

Camp Waste Not (Denver, USA)

The end product: A city-wide food waste prevention programme developed by WRAP in collaboration with the City of Denver, Denver Public Schools, Sprouts Farmers Market and We Don’t Waste - focused on five practical food-saving behaviours. 

Behind the scenes: Following months of trans-atlantic Teams meetings and workshops, David and Honica took a trip to join WRAP US colleagues at the start of the year to co-facilitate workshops with partners in Denver and Phoenix. This collaboration translated into the strategy and plan for the initiative, where WRAP Americas colleagues Elaine Fiore and Natasha Dyer developed the Camp Waste Not programme. 

Sustainable Workplace Wins - Decerna

The end product: A practical, engaging toolkit designed to help organisations in the Tees Valley area adopt sustainable behaviours in their day-to-day work. Complete with 15 different behaviours to choose from, 29 tools, and a loveable character called Brew. Look out for the case study for this project in the new year. 

Behind the scenes: This started with a deep insight review into the Tees Valley context plus a focus group with a brilliantly diverse range of businesses (including an alpaca farm, delicatessen, nursery and air conditioning company). An in-person workshop in Darlington kick-started intervention design, and from there Honica, Tasha and Anaïs worked closely with our Head of Creative, Duncan Mills, to design the toolkit and interventions. 

Recycle Week 2025

The end product: A high-impact national campaign featuring 8 recyclable items as ‘binfluencers’, voiced by celebrities (Warwick Davis, Big John, Josie Gibson, and Asim Chaudhry) and brought to life across social media (including our first TikTok activation). 

Behind the scenes: This was a true full-service project where Rob, David and Polly led the charge - developing the strategy, creative design, media management and working closely with WRAP’s PR and creative teams. The team were deeply involved in the whole campaign, from attending the videoshoot with Among Equals, commissioning a life-size Minty costume, and running the social channels. 

5-year recycling behaviour change strategy for Kent

The end product: A comprehensive recycling behaviour change strategy for Kent County Council, to be delivered across 12 districts.

Behind the scenes: This was a huge collaboration with our WRAP colleagues involving quantitative and qualitative research, evidence reviews, waste composition analysis, workshops and expert consultations. This all translated into the full strategy developed with the team at WRAP: Rachel Gray, Sally Wilson and Polly Davies. 

What else has been happening behind the scenes? 

Whilst not yet “end product”, the team have been quietly building lots of brilliant projects this year, 4 to mention include: 

1. An exciting project led by Tasha that we’ll be delivering in the new year on food choices
2. Devon food waste pilots: Two new interventions have been delivered in Teignbridge to boost participation in food waste recycling, with more innovation underway next year
3. RNID: Honica has been developing ideas for a new hearing protection campaign launching next year
4. 50L Home: With the help of an AI research tool, Tasha conducted and analysed interviews with 50L Home pilot households in Los Angeles about their water use, and used the insights to develop a set of intervention ideas aiming to further enhance water savings

Additionally, 2025 has given us a lot to celebrate: David was selected to join the government’s new Communications and Behaviour Change Advisory Group for the extended producer responsibility for packaging scheme, and we won a large project which will see more trans-atlantic travel next year. Plus, big personal celebrations this year from Anaïs who bought her first home, Honica who got married, and Tasha who recently got engaged.

2025 will be a hard one to top for sure! Thank you to our clients, friends and collaborators for another brilliant year - we can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2026.