Environmental sector is traditionally rooted in conventional policy tools (solar panel incentives, emissions tests, campaigns et al)

There are big problems with trying to change people's minds - consider deeply embedded believes, attitudes, values - all affect behaviours

Many behavioural barriers to changing environmental change - confirmation bias, consistency bias, ego, denial, delusion, selective memory

Humans are better at rationalising than being rational

Kahneman - the environmental effects on behaviour are a lot strong than most people expect

Much of our decision making happens in system 1 of the dual-processing theory - we rely heavily on our intuition, mental short cuts, emotions, social influence, subtle cues and prompts

Weber-Fincher Law - we perceive magnitudes proportionally not linearly

East Framework for Nudging Behavioural Change

• Easy
• Attractive
• Social
• Timely

Easy

• Defaults - e.g. auto enrolment for organ donation - everyone at birth is opted into an organ donation scheme
• Simplify messages - tax return initiative - taking people directly to the form to fill out, using specialised container lids increases com;dance rates and reduces contaminates entering the recycling stream
• Lower friction costs - substitution is easier than stopping a habit (think e-cigarettes)
• Increase friction costs - 1998 - blister packs were introduced - making people pop individual pills before consumption - this has cut deaths from paracetamol by 43%
• Increasing friction costs to cut food waste - an example is removing the tray makes people carry plates/cups etc. They eat less and waste less in part because of the inconvenience involved

Attractive

• Labelling food as vegetarian - meat-eaters have an easy heuristic to ignore the option - don’t label as exclusive
• Ordering effects - top and bottom of ordering has disproportionate effects
• Incentives: We over-weight our chance of winning in a large lottery - Chinese authorities printed lottery tickets on the back of retail receipts to reduce VAT evasion
• Gamification of MRT commuting in Singapore - created credits to use in online gaming if you travelled at off-peak times - 7.5% cut in peak travel volumes

Social

Social influences - music preferences heavily influenced by the number of downloads / consumer ratings on Amazon / Uber

• Jury decisions influenced by social factors - group think (echoing the views of one or two dominant personalities)
• "Nine out of ten people pay their taxes on time” - increased number of people who completed their tax returns on time
• Messages on towels in hotel bathrooms

Timely

Prompting at the right moment can increase the effectiveness of nudges

Examples:

• More 29/39/49 year olds apply to run marathons and are active on online dating sites … imminent personal landmarks?
• Reverse vending machines in China - get rid of a bottle and immediately get 10 pence off a train ticket
• Target anti-smoking campaigns when there is a flu epidemic and people are aware of coughing / spluttering around them
• Pre-ordering food in schools (implemented in schools in Dumfries and Galloway) - people make healthier choices
• Get people to sign up for organ donation when they are renewing their tax disc