What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Gelderland Province offers abundant natural beauty that’s cherished by both humans and animals. Nevertheless, where nature and human activities intersect, accidents can occur. In the Netherlands, thousands of wildlife collisions happen annually, often due to speeding motorists unaware of animals along the roads. This behaviour poses risks to both traffic safety and animal welfare. 

Additionally, the annual shift in daylight patterns brings earlier darkness. While wild animals maintain their regular rhythms, human travel occurs later; thus contributing to an increase in wildlife collisions.

The Green Nudge:

To mitigate this issue of wildlife collisions, creative agency ANDC has developed interventions targeting motorists‘ behaviour.

Their research identified three promising approaches: capturing attention and offering actionable perspectives, heightening risk perception, and reinforcing desired behaviours among the respective target audience (drivers).

Signs were created to welcome motorists into the wildlife domain, fostering a sense of being “guests” in the animals‘ territory. These signs concluded with a clear demarcation, distinctly outlining the area’s boundaries. Furthermore, in order to amplify the perception of risk, a dynamic light sign was developed to indicate the frequency of wild animal crossings.. Finally, strategically positioned silhouettes of wild animals along the road served as attention-grabbing symbols to evoke associations with the local wildlife.

The result: This set of interventions significantly reduced the speed of motorists. In the short term, the average speed decreased by 3.64 km/h. Over the long term, the average speed was consistently lower, showing a reduction of 5.19 km/h on average.

Are you aware of any other nudges that help to protect wildlife? Feel free to get in touch: hello@green-nudges.com

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Water waste in hotels resulting from showering is a significant problem, especially when guests do not concern themselves with the extra costs. On average, hotel guests likely shower for 8-10 minutes, a significantly increased use of water as compared to a more economical 5-minute shower when at home.

This behaviour is simply bad for the environment and contributes to unnecessary water depletion. And moreover, because hotels consume thousands of litres of water on a daily basis to accommodate this increased demand, hotel operational costs are also inflated.

The Green Nudge:

As part of its ongoing mission to reduce water usage, Disneyland Paris is testing special water-saving shower heads at Disney Sequoia Lodge. These illuminated showers start with a soothing blue for the first 10 litres; switch to an encouraging green up to 20 litres; then shift to a reflective purple when the guest uses up to 30 litres; and finally signal with a bold red, when guest usage exceeds 30 litres. This clever use of universally recognized colours not only promotes shorter showers, but also merges significant behavioural change with enjoyment.

The result: The „Hydrao shower heads“ have successfully reduced water use in showers by 22% at the testing lodge. Pending their continued effectiveness, the resort plans to expand the installation of these efficient shower heads and water-saving toilets in all of Disneyland-Paris hotel rooms.

To boost conservation efforts even further, Disney-Paris ought to consider enhancing the water-light system by activating the red light earlier.

Are you aware of any other nudges that help to save water? Feel free to comment or get in touch: hello@green-nudges.com

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Early in 2018, Cape Town (South Africa’s third-largest city) — nearly ran out of municipal water following a three-year drought!

It was the worst in recorded history, one, which even seasoned climatologists didn’t see coming. City managers prepared to implement emergency water rationing – the most extreme of which would have involved shutting off water to homes in the suburbs and to businesses outside of the city centre. Families would have had to collect a ration of 25L of water per person, per day, from 200 collection points around the city.

The Green Nudge:

To avoid having to implement ‘Day Zero’ extreme measures, the city used other methods to encourage reduced water use, including fines, increased tariffs, and Green nudges. 

Other cities facing similar human-induced climate change extremes can pull lessons from Cape Town’s experience. These can be universally applied, especially as extreme drought and urban growth continues to put pressure on dwindling water resources.

Green nudge 1 – Public recognition

When the city publicly praised “water wise,” residents by highlighting their names on the municipality’s website, people reduced their water usage. 

Green nudge 2 – Comparative water-use map

The Cape Town Water Map was an online tool designed to draw on social comparisons and public recognition, in order to encourage behaviour change. The digital map awarded households  with a green dot (per household and per month), to those that stayed within the city’s target water levels. 

Green nudge 3: Name-and-shame

The city released the names of the streets where the top 100 most wasteful household water users were, threatening to name and shame those who ignored restrictions. The mayor sent letters to individual households that were using more than 50kL of water per month; reprimanding them and asking them to lower their usage in order to behave in a more pro-social way. Households responded quite drastically by cutting their water use down.  

Green nudge 4: Raise the alarm, offer the solutions 

When the city released its water disaster management plan, it communicated firmly how urgent the situation was, but gave clear instructions on how people could reduce water use. Residents responded quickly and decisively, resulting in the single biggest reduction across the 2.5 year drought period. The take-home message: sharing clear, salient information with citizens during times of crisis is crucial in driving behavioural change, particularly if it also gives people a sense of what they can do to help fix the problem.

What unsustainable behavior needs to change:

Whether it’s for a cup of tea, coffee, or to fill a pot, chances are you’re using a water kettle multiple times a day. Yet, how often do you pour precisely the required amount of water into your kettle? It’s rarely accurate, often resulting in an overfilled kettle, wasted water and electricity. So, how might one reduce unnecessary water and energy use while preparing your daily hot water fix?

This seemingly minor issue is more serious than you think. Even in a country as tiny as the Netherlands, over 5.3 million cups of tea are brewed daily on average, leading to a considerable waste of water and electricity. Just to put it in perspective: boiling a litre of water consumes as much energy as keeping a light on for an entire day! Quite wasteful, isn’t it?

The Green Nudge:

To address that issue, behavioural agency, “Unravel Behaviour” devised a Green Nudge to encourage the precise amount of water required in the kettle: stickers that guide and personalise tea cup volumes.

Quantity charts on most kettles range from 1.5 to 2 litres; leaving out the precise millilitre measurement for a cup of tea. To ensure more accurate water usage, the experiment used a custom kettle sticker appliqué, specifically tailored to the volume of one’s favourite tea cup as the variable; and had one without – to serve as the control. This created nearly two identical kettles, differing only in the placement of the stickers. 

The result: Compared to the standard kettles, the stickered kettles showed 195 ml  of unused water remaining in the kettle. This means an extra glass of water, on average, was wasted in every tea-making attempt without the customised stickers. The translation of this impact: The nudge led to substantial energy savings and 1 glass of water, less wasted per person. Just in the Netherlands alone, overall, this totals 97 litres per individual, and a staggering 1.4 billion litres saved annually.