Positive Deviance Approach
Introduction and Purpose
The Positive Deviance approach is a strengths based behavioural method that identifies and promotes the uncommon but successful behaviours already being practised by individuals or teams within a community or organisation. The method assumes that the desired actions already exist within the organisation, even under the same constraints that others face. In a business context Positive Deviance involves finding employees, departments, or sites that are already achieving strong biodiversity outcomes such as maintaining thriving green spaces, reducing waste, or supporting local wildlife, and learning from their practices. These examples can then be adapted and shared across the organisation.
The Positive Deviance approach is effective because it builds ownership, encourages peer learning, and avoids the resistance that can accompany top-down sustainability initiatives. The approach values the practical knowledge of employees and helps embed pro- biodiversity practices that feel authentic, achievable and collectively supported.
Positive Deviance can uncover and amplify biodiversity friendly behaviours that are already occurring within a business, making successful practices visible, valued, and shared across teams. These can take many forms, including small everyday actions or larger, coordinated initiatives. Examples include:
- Teams who have found creative way to pollinator habitats or wildflower patches in unused areas around office grounds or car parks.
- Facility teams who have adjusted maintenance schedules to allow wild plants to flower or created log piles and insect habitats.
- Staff who have integrated sustainability or biodiversity positive criteria into procurement, selecting local or eco-certified suppliers.
- Offices that have introduced paper reduction strategies or reuse systems for materials and packaging.
- Departments that have initiated biodiversity themed challenges, volunteering programmes or citizen science monitoring projects.
- Cafeteria or catering staff who have sourced ingredients from biodiversity-friendly farms or reduced food waste.
- Communications teams who have included biodiversity related news, staff initiatives, and project updates in newsletters, intranet posts or internal campaigns, helping to normalise biodiversity as part of organisational identity and everyday conversation.
- Employees who have promoted active and sustainable travel such as cycling or walking to work, reducing emissions and improving local air quality.
- Teams who have reused office materials creatively, for example repurposing containers for planting or using old furniture to build outdoor planters.
- Managers who have built reflection into team meetings, recognising small actions and encouraging idea sharing for biodiversity positive actions.
Examples include:
The Clorox Company integrated a Positive Deviance-informed framework to uncover how some employees naturally integrated sustainability thinking into product design and marketing decisions. Instead of training all staff top-down, they studied these “positive deviants” and created peer stories and mentorship to spread their approach.
Unilever used Positive Deviance to uncover how certain teams managed to deeply engage employees in sustainability projects (e.g., reducing waste, supporting smallholder farmers).
By promoting and learning from these internal successes, businesses can scale up biodiversity-supportive practices using peer-to-peer diffusion rather than formal enforcement.
Key Features
Timeframe:
- Creation and implementation of a Positive Deviance strategy can take from two months to initiate, once established a Positive Deviance can become an ongoing process continually implemented. The timings may vary depending on the organisation’s size, the number of employees involved, and the depth and scale of behavioural change targeted.
Materials Required:
- Tools for data collection, including interview guides, staff surveys and observation checklists, designed and conducted in line with ethical good practice.
- Participant information sheets and consent forms for any employee involvement, supported by a clear data management plan that outlines how information will be stored, used and deleted, in line with organisational policy.
- Internal communication platforms such as intranet pages, newsletters, or short films to share Positive Deviance case studies and progress updates, ensuring transparency and accuracy in how staff contributions are represented.
- Facilitation resources and training to support inclusive peer learning sessions or workshops, encouraging open dialogue, collaboration and mutual respect.
- Monitoring and feedback tools to track the adoption and impact of new practices, ensuring that data are collected transparently and that employees can choose how to participate.
- Recognition materials such as certificates, acknowledgements, or biodiversity innovation awards to celebrate achievements and sustain motivation.
- Small budget, permissions, and logistical support to provide materials, venues, or digital infrastructure needed for implementation and evaluation
Skills Required:
- Facilitation and inquiry to identify, engage, and guide staff in reflective dialogue about what works, building trust and encouraging open exchange.
- Qualitative research to observe, interview and document successful practices, using storytelling to convey insights and make learning relatable.
- Communication to share positive examples in clear, accessible and motivating ways that inspire wider participation.
- Leadership and recognition to ensure senior managers visibly support, endorse and celebrate staff-led biodiversity innovation.
- Collaboration to strengthen cross-departmental cooperation, enabling teams to share ideas, coordinate actions and sustain experimentation.
- Monitoring and evaluation to track the diffusion of new behaviours, assess impact and refine the approach over time.
Potential Impact:
- Faster diffusion of biodiversity-supportive behaviours through peer-to-peer learning rather than top-down enforcement.
- Greater employee empowerment and a stronger sense of ownership in contributing to sustainability goals.
- Improved culture of innovation, with biodiversity challenges reframed as opportunities for creativity and experimentation.
- Higher rates of behavioural adoption and retention due to the relevance, authenticity and ownership of staff-driven ideas.
- Enhanced organisational reputation for fostering bottom-up leadership, collaboration and continuous learning in sustainability.
- Development of internal biodiversity champions who model success and inspire ongoing improvement across the organisation.
Case Study
Instructions
To implement Positive Deviance within an organisation, use the following steps as a guide:
- Identify positive deviants through internal surveys, performance data, environmental monitoring, staff nominations, interviews, or informal observations to locate individuals or teams achieving strong biodiversity outcomes under the same organisational conditions as others.
- Study the behaviours of the identified positive deviants by analysing what these individuals or teams do differently, focusing on their routines, decision making, collaboration, and social interactions.
- Extract transferable insights by identifying specific, replicable practices that contribute to success, rather than personal attributes that cannot be reproduced. This may involve comparing work routines, analysing decision-making processes, mapping workflows, or holding reflective discussions with successful teams to uncover the concrete actions, tools or relationships that enabled positive outcomes.
- Facilitate peer sharing by creating opportunities for successful teams to share their practices through workshops, short videos, learning sessions or peer mentoring activities.
- Encourage adaptation by supporting other teams to modify and integrate these practices in ways that suit their own context, promoting ownership rather than replication.
- Monitor diffusion by tracking how the successful behaviours spread and evolve across the organisation, celebrating visible progress and shared achievements.
- Integrate into communication and recognition systems by featuring Positive Deviant case studies in newsletters, intranet updates, or staff meetings to reinforce learning and recognition.
- Ensure ethical practice by gaining consent from individuals or teams before sharing their examples, respecting confidentiality, and being transparent about how information and results will be used across the organisation.
Rationale
Positive Deviance is grounded in the belief that effective and sustainable solutions already exist within an organisation. By identifying and amplifying these successful practices, Positive Deviance leverages internal expertise and experience to drive positive change. It encourages collective learning, builds confidence among employees, and promotes the diffusion of positive behaviours through peer influence and shared ownership.
Benefits:
- Leverages existing strengths by building on what employees are already doing well, rather than imposing new directives.
- Enhances ownership and engagement as staff are more likely to adopt and sustain biodiversity actions developed by their peers.
- Encourages innovation by recognising and rewarding creativity and experimentation in addressing biodiversity challenges.
- Improves credibility since solutions developed by colleagues feel authentic, relevant and achievable.
- Strengthens organisational culture by fostering a collaborative, learning-oriented environment that values biodiversity leadership.
- Cost effective, making use of internal knowledge and resources instead of relying on external consultants or complex behavioural programmes.
Links to Resources
GIZ offer an outline of the Positive Deviance approach.
Standford Social offer a review of Positive Deviance for social innovation.
The Positive Deviance Collaborative offers guidelines and tools for Positive Deviance.
