What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Although most people try to be as sustainable as possible, it’s  often easy to forget about the little actions one can take to make a significant difference – like simply turning our electronics off. This is especially true when it comes to our laptops. Instead of shutting down the device completely, we often opt to put our electronics in sleep mode. It’s easier (and faster) to just shut the laptop and walk away, rather than completely powering it down. 

Organisations can not only save the energy they use, but also save money, by encouraging employees to turn off their computers at the end of the working day, through the use of green nudging techniques. Setting up automatic power downs is one way of promoting sustainable behaviours in the workplace.

The Green Nudge:

Make behaviour change easy and prime the desired behaviour by setting it up as the automatic default. An automated power down across staff computers at a particular time and outside of work hours, has encouraged organisations to save money and energy. This means that organisations don’t have to rely on their staff members to do the right thing and can set the sustainable mode to default. While this may sound drastic, other approaches were tried and tested, but found to be less effective. 

For example: reminding staff and faculty members to turn off their computers by sending emails just before the end of office work hours; and posting sustainability communication on the website was NOT as successful as automating the shutdown across staff computers after work hours.

The result: Portland Community College for instance implemented Project Power Shift and switched off campus computers every night at 11pm. PCC estimates that by setting a default energy shut-down setting saves them more than $80,000 per year and several thousand kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. It just goes to show that implementing default power down settings can save the earth and your wallet.

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Ever found yourself leaving food on your plate when dining out with friends? Surprisingly, this seemingly innocent action plays a big part in climate change. Each year, a staggering 1.3 billion tons of food goes to waste globally, accounting for a third of all food produced. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reports that food waste contributes to an equivalent of 8% of all human-produced carbon dioxide emission equivalent to 8% of all human-produced emissions. Interestingly, 12% of this waste comes from restaurant leftovers, much of which could still be eaten if stored properly.

Asking to take the rest of your meal “to-go” in a ‘doggie’ or ‘foodie bag’, is quite commonplace in the US. Conversely, doing so in Europe, particularly Italy, is rare and frankly clashes with a well-established „food culture“ that prioritises fresh, beautifully presented meals.

The Green Nudge:

To address that issue, the Italian research group Nudge Italia in collaboration with the behavioural agency “aBetterPlace” designed a Green Nudge to encourage consumers to ask for foodie bags at the restaurant, i.e. boxes that allow excess food to be taken home.

The intervention involved modifying the Default Option for restaurant leftovers. At each table, a token with both a green and red face was provided. Initially set to the green face by default, this indicated to the waiter that the diner requested to take any leftovers home. By establishing that all uneaten food be automatically taken home in a doggie bag; this action becomes effortless for consumers. This Green Nudge addresses social pressures and ultimately encourages the formation of a new habit.

The result: The intervention conducted in Italy and Switzerland led to a significant increase in the use of foodie bags. Pre-intervention, only 40% of restaurant-goers took their leftovers home, while post-intervention, this rate increased to 80%.

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Gili Trawangan is a popular Indonesian island destination hosting over 2,000 daily global tourists seeking sports, entertainment, and natural beauty. While tourism has been beneficial for the local economy, this influx of visitors poses threats to marine biodiversity.

An attempt to enforce local nature preservation has been set in place: Scuba divers must pay a 50,000 IDR fee (approx. $3.75USD) to support Gili Eco Trust’s coral reef conservation. However, divers comprise only 15% of total tourists. Although the remaining 85% of tourists have concerns regarding waste generation, the island has yet to find an effective donation strategy which activates their contribution as well towards local conservation efforts.

The Green Nudge:

Researchers Nelson, K. M., Partelow, S., & Schlüter, A. (2019) collaborated with Gili Eco Trust to design the survey and enlisted Gili Eco Trust interns as research assistants. These interns engaged 790 tourists between April 2017 and April 2018 in the harbour waiting area. They introduced themselves as Gili Eco Trust interns working on a tourism research project and, upon tourists‘ consent, distributed a concise survey printed on A4 paper. Additionally, tourists had the opportunity to make monetary donations into a wooden box featuring the Gili Eco Trust logo, held by the research assistant.

Unbeknownst to the tourists, they were randomly assigned to one of six experimental conditions, with the request for a voluntary contribution placed at the bottom of the sheet.

The study included six donation request options: an open-ended option allowing tourists to specify their donation amount, an “anchor points” approach offering preset amounts with space for „Other,“ two default opt-in options suggesting contributions of Rp.10,000 ($0.75USD) and Rp.20,000 ($1.50USD), and two default opt-out options, indicating non-agreement with the recommended Rp.10,000 ($0.75USD) and Rp.20,000 ($1.50USD) contributions to Gili Eco Trust Foundation.

The result: The study revealed that the opt-out options proved to be the most successful as people tend to avoid the extra effort to tick the box. This research underscores the impact of minor interventions in advancing natural environment conservation. Considering the ratio of participants contributing and the amount donated, and taking into account an estimated annual tourist count of approximately 1 million visitors to Gili Trawangan.

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Reducing our collective consumption of animal products is an important shift to help mitigate the climate crisis. Despite this, meals containing meat are often presented as the default, rather than more environmentally sustainable vegetarian or vegan options. This is a particularly critical issue in the US, where per capita meat consumption is among the highest in the world.

The Green Nudge:

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Despite significant technological advancements and growing environmental consciousness, carbon emissions continue to be the predominant problem in the realm of mobility. Frequently, individuals tend to prioritise convenience and speed over critical considerations such as fuel efficiency and reducing their carbon footprint when selecting transportation routes. Unfortunately, this widespread tendency can result in elevated carbon emissions– consequently posing a grave threat to our environment.

There are several psychological biases and forces underlying this unsustainable behaviour in transportation. The most prominent is “inertia,” where people tend to stick to habitual routes rather than actively seeking more eco-friendly alternatives. “Present bias” is another issue, with people favouring short-term benefits (shorter travel times) over long-term gains (reduced environmental impact). There is also a lack of awareness about the environmental impact of one’s choices, and the false perception that eco-friendly routes are less efficient; of which the latter is influenced by past experiences (anchoring bias).

The Green Nudge:

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

The rising demand for convenient doorstep meal deliveries has propelled the popularity of food-delivery services, notably led by Alibaba’s Eleme, akin to Uber Eats and DoorDash, with a staggering user base of 753 million in 2022. Conversely, this convenience-driven surge intensifies the global environmental challenge posed by single-use cutlery (SUC) waste.

In China, where over 540 million users embraced daily food-delivery consumption by 2019, more than 50 million sets of SUC were disposed of without proper recycling. This concerning trend not only contributes to significant plastic waste but also accelerates deforestation, further jeopardizing ecosystems and posing health risks.

The Green Nudge:

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

India used to have a significant issue with the habitual practice of open defecation, which led to the contamination of drinking and bathing water. To address this issue, the Government of India initiated the Swachh Bharat Mission or Clean India Mission in 2014. The country-wide campaign aims to eliminate open defecation and improve solid waste management, promoting a cleaner and healthier environment for all.

The Kumbh Mela is one of the world’s largest religious festivals, attracting around 200 million people over 55 days. However, in terms of sustainability, the festival presents unique challenges – particularly regarding open defecation and water waste.

The Green Nudge:

To effectively address the issue of open defecation, the organisers of the 2019 Kumbh Mela festival incorporated behavioural insights to implement a proactive solution. They recognized that breaking unsustainable habits can be difficult, therefore, they developed an action plan that taps into various nudge tactics; namely encouraging individuals to use toilets instead of practising open defecation.

Default: The organisers strategically placed toilets near religious sites to make them more convenient and comfortable than when openly defecating. This approach is an example of a default option, where the preferred behaviour is made the standard and more attractive than the alternative. Establishing a new default option is an effective means of influencing the hierarchy of choice for individuals and thus promoting positive habits. By making the preferred behaviour the default as well as a more attractive choice, individuals are more likely to adopt it. 

Feedback: In addition to the default nudge, the organisers installed over 122,500 eco-friendly „smart toilets“ to cater to the needs of pilgrims and tourists. These toilets were equipped with sensors that provide immediate feedback to users on their water usage. By making the abstract (amount of water used) more concrete, this encouraged visitors to be mindful of their behaviour. The smart toilets incentivized water conservation by displaying information such as the amount of water used for flushing and handwashing.

The result: 9,888 MT of waste collected during the Kumbh Mela 2019, sent to Baswar solid waste treatment plant for scientific disposal, ensuring zero waste disposal in Ganga or Mela area.

This approach can be replicated in other contexts throughout India to effectively address the issue of open defecation and therein promote sustainable practices.

Are you aware of any other nudges that help to establish more sustainable habits? Get in touch: hello@green-nudges.com