According to the European Commission, human-caused global warming is now growing at a pace of 0.2C every decade. Behavioral nudges may be the most effective ways to draw an individual’s attention towards the climate crisis and promote sustainable choices. Besides being low-cost and salient, the use of various types of prompts, ranging from texts to visual stimuli, makes it attractive, too. By leveraging these nudges, policymakers, organisations, and even individuals can promote sustainable behaviours to all walks of life without resorting to mandates or restrictions. This article explores the power of choice architecture in encouraging sustainable choices and their potential to drive positive environmental change.
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Understanding Behavioral Nudges
Behavioral nudges are subtle changes to the choice architecture that can influence people’s decisions without limiting their freedom of choice. These nudges work by directing individuals towards choices that are in their best interests or align with desired outcomes.
In their book Nudge, co-authors Richard Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein explain that people typically think in two cognitive systems: System 1 and System 2. System 1 is an automatic thought process, whereas system 2 is a reflective thought process. For example, the automatic system is a gut feeling and the reflective system is thinking critically.
Understanding how to differentiate between these types allows policymakers to propose nudges that can be optimised to achieve their full potential.
How to Nudge Effectively
According to the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Little Book of Green Nudges, four aspects are crucial when designing a nudge to achieve the full effectiveness:
- Easy: Humans tend to opt for easy options, meaning that, in order to encourage desired behaviors, any barriers or hassles have to be removed. Alternatively, we can simply set a default option to achieve the expected outcome.
- Attractive: People are more likely to get magnetised by visually attractive cues and try to develop a behavior. These cues can be noticeable, and can be made motivating to draw positive results.
- Social: People are greatly influenced by their peers. Hence, a way to encourage them to practise environmentally friendly behaviors is by promoting the fact that other people have adopted green lifestyles and by highlighting benefits of a sustainable lifestyle.
- Timely: On a daily basis, humans make 90% of decisions using System 1, automatic thinking. Considering that nudges are the most effective way to change people’s lives and that, due to present bias, people value the present more than what lies ahead, incorporating positive messages can influence people’s decisions. For instance, one could help people understand the advantages of adopting immediate environmentally friendly habits, and help them plan ahead to avoid or minimise the consequences of climate change.
The Power of Default Options
Making sustainable behavior the default option means nudging people to stick to the default choice or status quo, in other words availability heuristic, a type of cognitive bias which reinforces people’s decisions based on the information they already have.
Between 2019 and 2020, a study was conducted in ten Chinese cities to understand how green nudges – pop-up reminders would not appear upon online food ordering – can affect individuals’ cutlery decisions when placing food-delivery orders. Seven were controlled cities without nudges (Qingdao, Xi’an, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, and Chengdu), and three were controlled cities with “no cutlery” default nudges (Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin). Behavioral differences between the customers in cities with nudges and those in the control cities before and after the introduction of green nudges were compared. The study used customer-level data in collaboration with food delivery platform, Eleme.
Upon ordering, customers in controlled cities with green nudges could choose the number of single-use cutlery (SUC) sets they wanted, with the default options being “no cutlery.”
Customers who chose the option of “no cutlery” received green points, which could be redeemed for planting a real tree in a desert area. For instance, 16 green points could be earned upon an order without SUC. With 16,000 points, customers could request a real tree to be planted in a desert region of China.
The concept of changing the default option to “no cutlery” and rewarding consumers with green points on Alibaba’s food-delivery were part of the behavioral economics and social psychology’s concept of nudging. The study found that green nudges increased no-cutlery orders by 648%, particularly among women, older individuals, frequent food-delivery-service users, and wealthy individuals. Overall, the company’s performance remained unaffected, suggesting that this nudge was cost-effective in reducing SUC waste.
The experiment demonstrates that the proper use of nudges can lead to positive changes, influencing consumption behavior towards more ethical and sustainable choices and increasing environmental awareness.
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The research is particularly reflective of today’s consumerism-based society, where the growth of takeaways and food delivery services has given rise to a series of environmental issues, including plastic pollution and food waste. The US online meal delivery market size reached US$29.1 billion in 2023 and it is expected to reach US$68.6 billion by 2032. If these numbers are not alarming enough, then what is?
Framing
Messages and choices can be framed to influence people’s choice architecture. Framing can also lead to intrinsic motivation to act if it is placed properly. According to a 2012 article, gain-framed messages are more effective than loss-framed messages in terms of promoting prevention behaviors.
Likewise, another 2010 research concluded that climate change behaviors may be effective if the topic revolves around the gains of climate change actions instead of the losses due to inaction. As a result, the use of powerful and encouraging messages can be used to draw people’s attention and motivate them to challenge themselves to act wisely.
For example, using posters or sharing message prompts stating that a ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees might be more beneficial than telling people that using papers everyday is harmful to the environment.
You might also like: Framing a Crisis: The Evolution of Climate Communication and Storytelling
Gamification and Incentives
Gamification and incentives can be powerful behavioral nudges to encourage sustainable choices. By turning sustainable behaviors into engaging games or providing rewards for environmentally friendly actions, individuals are more likely to adopt and sustain these behaviors. One such example is Germany’s Deposit Return Scheme, said to be one of the world’s most successful systems for refillable beverage containers, achieving a 98% return rate.
Through this scheme, consumers receive varying incentives for returning reusable and single-use containers. For example, all single-use plastic bottles, aluminium cans, and glass bottles are worth €0.25 (US$0.27). The price for reusable bottles is reduced to €0.08 for glass bottles and €0.15 for plastic bottles.
Making Sustainability Salient and Tangible
As aforementioned, present bias often makes people prioritise immediate gains over long-term benefits, and sustainability can sometimes feel abstract or distant. Behavioral nudges can overcome this by making sustainability more salient and tangible. Providing visual cues, such as real-time energy usage displays, can make individuals aware of their impact and encourage energy-saving behaviors. Additionally, using vivid imagery or personal stories that highlight the tangible benefits of sustainable choices can enhance their appeal and motivate action.
For example, in Hong Kong supermarkets, consumers are charged extra HK$1(US$0.13) for a plastic bag, a move that has led to a significant decrease in the use of shopping plastic bags. Doubling the levy scheme from HK$0.5 to HK$1 has so far been effective in influencing people’s choices and more consumers have become aware of their impacts on the environment ever since the campaign kicked off in 2009.
Final Thoughts
Green nudges can be a game changer in today’s generation to promote sustainable choices and to address the environmental challenges we face. Not only are people’s attention spans getting shorter, but they are easily distracted.
Behavioral nudges offer a promising approach to encourage individuals to make environmentally friendly decisions. It allows policy analysts and behavioral economists to study how humans make decisions and propose nudges to influence their choice architecture.
By understanding human behaviour and leveraging techniques such as defaults, framing, and gamification, and many more, we can nudge people towards sustainable choices without compromising their freedom.
