A pilot randomised controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of the MaTerre180' participatory tool including a serious game versus an intervention including carbon footprint awareness-raising on behaviours among academia members in France

Background. Activities embedded in academic culture (international conferences, field missions) are an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, collective efforts still need to be strengthened to lower the carbon footprint of the academic sector. Serious games are often used to promote ecological transition. Nevertheless, most evaluations of their effects either uses qualitative methods or focuses on changes in knowledge and not on behaviour. The main objectives of this study are to 1) Evaluate the feasibility of a control and an experimental behaviour change intervention and, 2) Evaluate the fidelity (the extent to which the implementation of the study corresponds to the original design) of both interventions.Methods. People employed by a French research organisation (N=30) will be randomised to one of the two arms. The experimental arm consists in a 1-hour group discussion for raising awareness about climate change, carrying out a carbon footprint assessment and participating to a serious game called “Ma terre en 180 minutes.” The control arm consists of the same intervention (1h discussion + carbon footprint assessment) but without participating to the serious game. On two occasions over one month, participants will be asked to fill in online surveys about their behaviours, psychological constructs related to behaviour change, sociodemographic and institutional information. For every session of intervention, the facilitators will assess task completion, perceived complexity of the tasks, percentage of completion of online questionnaires, duration of each session and perceived responsiveness of participants. Descriptive statistics will be done to analyse percentages and averages of the different outcomes.Discussion. Ma-terre EVAL pilot study is a 1-month and a half pilot randomised controlled trial aiming to evaluate the feasibility and the fidelity of a 24-month randomised controlled trial aiming to change academic behaviours such as professional mobility by air, daily commuting and digital and material purchases.