Who We Are

Human Behaviour Change for Life (HBCL) - we are passionate about applying the science of behaviour change to issues affecting humans, animals and the planet we live on.

Our Story

We are Human Behaviour Change for Life (HBCL), a team of human behaviour change specialists, experts, and support staff. We have a vision, geekiness, and endless enthusiasm for our belief that to create effective positive change for our planet we must consider the behaviour of humans themselves.

Our journey began with a shared passion for improving the wellbeing of animals and humans. This drive shaped both our professional and personal lives and finally led us to the understanding that one of the most significant challenges people and organisations face is delivering change. This realisation resulted in a deep fascination with behavioural science that would influence the way that we approached our work to this day. The use of human behaviour change (HBC) is now firmly embedded into our practice, and we have gained a wealth of experience practically applying the science of human behaviour change to animal welfare.

Founded by Suzanne Rogers and Jo White in 2016 following the success of our first international conference on HBC for Animal Welfare, Human Behaviour Change for Animals (HBCA) registered as a Community Interest Company. Since its beginnings, HBCA has grown to include a team of specialists, and together, we have worked with numerous clients bringing human behaviour change techniques to improve the welfare of animals and the lives of animal owners and carers across multiple continents, species, and social demographics.

After several years of success through Human Behaviour Change for Animals (HBCA), the systemic nature of our work became increasingly clear, with much of it overlapping into human health and wellbeing, and the environment and conservation. This overlap naturally led us to think about the interconnected world that we live in. We live in a system where our behaviour has an impact on our world every day of our lives, for good and for bad.

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How We Work

HBCL provides actionable advice to understand human behaviour and the science of human behaviour change. We partner with our clients to design and use evidence-based solutions that lead to positive sustained change for specific challenges and issues. We work with senior decision-makers to embed behavioural science and practice into the core of what they do, so that their teams and their clients can benefit from its application and use. It is our goal to make behavioural science inclusive and useful for individuals, business leaders, NGOs, policymakers and practitioners on the ground.

We work as a team to deliver our consultancy, research, and education activities. For each project, we bring together people with the most relevant skills. This approach means that our clients receive input from multiple specialists with specific expertise relevant to their work, without having to coordinate the team themselves – a ‘one-stop shop’. If you would like to learn more about how to get involved with HBCL, either as a team member or a client, please get in touch with us, we would love to hear from you.

“The team is knowledgeable, passionate, and enthusiastic, and so they really are great to work with. I particularly enjoy the chance to sit down and brainstorm with them, as our different areas of expertise make for a really interesting session.”

Helen Lambert, HBCL Specialist

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Core Team

Specialist Team

“The HBCL approach to this project was very flexible, which it absolutely needed to be. We started out with a vison for the project area but as the project developed and data was collected there was a need to progress the vision. The HBCL team guided us through this process extremely well to ensure that the outputs from the project will deliver the eventual outcomes and drive the necessary changes.”

Lis King and Helen Brookes, Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB)

We worked with Four Paws to explore how the impact of their animal assisted interventions project could be assessed.

“The work of HBCL has significantly helped us shape our strategy in terms of our work to improve the welfare of stray dogs in Romania”.

James Piernay, Four Paws

We designed and facilitated a practical workshop for the Strangles Symposium which was sponsored by Redwings Horse Sanctuary and the British Horse Society, and prepared a report for the committee (Redwings Horse Sanctuary, British Horse Society, Animal Health Trust, SRUC, University of Edinburgh and World Horse Welfare) and symposium attendees:


“Jo from Human Behaviour Change for Life provided outstanding support pre, during and post our event. The comprehensive report compiled by Jo has provided our organisation with detailed action points that we can focus on to continue with our aim of supporting owners and improving equine welfare.”

Emmeline Hannelly, The British Horse Society Welfare Education Manager

We worked with the PDSA in providing feedback on the development of their vaccination campaign in relation to applying human behaviour change theory in practice to the campaign. We conducted a survey across their staff to explore the opportunities and barriers that exist with regard to interactions with pet owners at their clinics in terms of how to increase vaccination of dogs, cats and rabbits. We provided live and pre-recorded webinars to introduce the concepts of human behaviour change and its application to the wider PDSA team who are working with clients.

“Suz and Jo have been fantastic to work with as we’ve introduced the concept of HBCL to our educational campaigns, beginning with exploring different ways to tackle the decline in vaccination rates. They’ve been flexible, creative and engaging, and I’d thoroughly recommend getting HBCL involved when planning and executing your next behaviour change initiative.”

Vicki Betton, PDSA

We provided a training session for the Blue Cross Equine Welfare Advisors team about applying human behaviour change principles to their work with horse owners. Feedback from the organiser included:

“Thank you so much we all really enjoyed it and found it very useful. It certainly got us thinking about how we can approach certain situations differently and also how we can change our visit forms and paperwork.”

Ruth Court, Blue Cross

We worked with International Cat Care to explore how to adopt an HBC-focused approach in their work.


"International Cat Care helps cats by enabling people and one another to understand cats’ individual needs and perspectives better so that they can act in the best interests of the cat and its welfare. In order to achieve this we need to understand human behaviour change and HBCL have been pivotal in developing our understanding of this complex science.”

Vicky Halls, Project Manager Cat Friendly Homing, International Cat Care

HBCL ran a training day with the Cats Protection exploring how the impact of their work could be monitored and evaluated. The day included how to build on the quantitative and qualitative methods already being used and an introduction into ongoing planning of projects.

“HBCL have really helped the CP Community Neutering Team to have a greater understanding of behaviour change and how to improve the implementation of this in the work we are already doing to change human behaviour for cats. HBCL delivered a great workshop for us, which also helped give some good clarity in the area of evaluation and measurement of change.”

Jane Clements, Cats Protection

We designed and facilitated a workshop on behalf of FOUR PAWS on developing a campaign to promote horse welfare across Europe.

“It’s been a pleasure to work with HBCL, Jo White and Suzanne Rogers experience in human-animal behaviour change, as a key component for addressing animal welfare issues, has been highly valued. As too has their facilitation skills in terms of facilitating a FOUR PAWS workshop on developing a campaign to promote horse welfare across Europe. Their research, preparation and facilitation for this workshop was very thorough and professional and all participants had a much better understanding of how to address animal welfare issues through changing human behaviour at the end of the workshop. HBCL share our organisation’s values and high standards when it comes to animal welfare protection and I would not hesitate in recommending them for future projects.”

Julie Sanders, Director of Companion Animals Department, FOUR PAWS International

“Nothing was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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