Providing shoppers with product-specific and dynamic energy efficiency information – via a simple score, drives significantly cleaner choices.
What unsustainable behavior needs to change:
Imagine you’re buying a new washing machine. Even if you wanted to choose the most energy-efficient one, you typically can’t – for the simple reason that appliances are labelled purely with the energy class they fall into (both here in the EU and the US). Put another way, we as consumers cannot “choose” the most energy-efficient appliance. Instead, we “have to pick” one (and hope for the best). This distinction between choosing and picking may sound like semantics, but it’s crucial.
We cannot expect consumers to make green choices when they aren’t able to make a choice at all. The Enervee team decided this conundrum was wrong, and wanted to enable consumers to make a greener purchasing decision.
The Green Nudge:
The obvious question however, is whether we as consumers would move to choose the most efficient, if we could. Put another way, do we tend to pick because we cannot choose, or do we pick because we cannot be bothered to choose?
To get to an answer, the team at Enervee combined behavioural and data science, to study every single product in the market, and to develop the “Enervee Score.” The Enervee Score ranks every product in a category, scoring between 0 and 100 – the higher the score, the more efficient the product compared to other similar products. By introducing this score, they turned what had been a “shrouded” attribute into an “actionable” attribute.
The result: In randomised controlled studies they saw a 20% increase in efficiency for products chosen when the score was shown. This result is crucial, regardless of shoppers’ interest in sustainability or the climate.
This simple nudge secured innovation awards and has been held-up as an example of ‘market transformation,’ moving US policymakers away from expensive product rebates. And nudging consumers to buy a more efficient product means there are energy savings every time that product is then turned-on, by virtue of it being more efficient than the average product in that category. This is an example of a single nudge, used one time, that can deliver energy savings across the lifetime of the product.
Do you know of any other nudges that promote better, sustainable decision-making? Feel free to get in touch: hello@green-nudges.com
From Guy Champniss, PhD, Head of Behavioral Science at Inizio Engage XD, a global consulting firm specialising in healthcare strategy and engagement. He also serves as a Professor of Innovation & Behavioral Science at IE Business School. He was a founding member of Enervee, where he was responsible for consumer behaviour. Enervee is a US-based, VC-backed climate-tech company that’s built around a simple behavioural nudge, proven to deliver more energy efficient purchase decisions.
From Tauranga to Auckland, New Zealand schools are enthusiastically embracing the fun of sustainable commuting one Wednesday at a time.