The Green Nudge
“An influential line of thinking in behavioral science…was a mistake.”
An influential line of thinking in behavioral science, to which the two authors have long subscribed, is that many of society’s most pressing problems can be addressed cheaply and effectively at the level of the individual, without modifying the system in which individuals operate. Along with, we suspect, many colleagues in both academic and policy communities, we now believe this was a mistake.”
Last year, I came across a thought-provoking blog post by communications strategist Ruth Taylor on why environmental campaigns “have a duty to examine the deeper narratives that their work reinforces.” One of the most common underlying narratives that sustainability campaigns embrace either explicitly or implicitly, Taylor argues, is the idea that “many social and environmental challenges can be dealt with cheaply and effectively by prompting individuals to modify their behaviour through focusing on simple and relatively easy steps, for example; using less plastic, or washing clothes at 30℃.” Propelling this individualizing narrative to global popularity in environmental campaigns — which points to individuals’ behavior as the root cause of our environmental woes—is a theory in behavioral science about…
