The Science of Change (Part 1): Behavioural Insights for Sustainability

Welcome to About Sustainability…, a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES).

In this episode, hosts Dwayne Appleby and Alice Yamabe are joined by Philipe Bujold, Senior Behavioural Scientist at Rare’s Centre for Behavior & the Environment. 

The Center for Behavior & the Environment (BE.Center) at Rare is an international non-profit that works to put behavioural science into practice, applying behavioural insights and design thinking to address issues such as climate change, coastal overfishing, plastic pollution, and biodiversity loss.

This episode is the first in a three part series exploring how behavioral science can help us tackle some of today's most urgent environmental challenges. We discussed what behavioural science is, where it comes from, and how organisations like Rare are applying behavioural insights to real world issues. We explore key concepts such as nudges, sludges and behavioural levers. 

Resources mentioned

• Rare’s Centre for Behavior & the Environment: behavior.rare.org
• Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky

"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

Episode Transcript

Alice Yamabe (00:01):
Welcome to about sustainability, a podcast
brought to you by the Institutefor Global Environmental
strategies, or itis. I'm AliceYamabe, and in this episode, my
co host Dwayne Appleby and I,we're joined by Philip Bujold,
Senior behavioral scientist atrare center for behavior and the
environment. This episode is thefirst in a three part series

(00:22):
exploring how behavioral sciencecan help us tackle some of
today's most urgentenvironmental challenges. We
discussed what behavioralscience is, where it comes from,
and how organizations like rareare applying behavioral insights
to real world issues likeplastic pollution, climate
change and conservation, weexplore key concepts such as

(00:45):
nudges, sludges and behaviorallevers. We began by asking
Philippe to tell us whatbehavioral science actually is,

Philipe Bujold (00:54):
essentially any field that is studying human
decision making, human actionand the different variables that
influence the actions thatpeople take. So nowadays that
means sociology, socialpsychology, economics,
neuroscience, anthropology, butin the olden days, really not

(01:19):
that long ago, actually 30-40,years ago, that mostly meant
economics. And the reason Ibring this up is because that is
actually what has shaped many ofthese strategies that we still
use today for behavior change.
So in traditional economictheory, essentially people's
choices were governed by thecosts and benefits of our

(01:39):
actions. And so the assumptionwas that human beings in general
were essentially maximizing thebenefits of their decisions and
minimizing the costs, and thatanything that didn't align with
that was considered irrational.
And so that meant that we hadvery specific tools to change

(02:00):
behavior. We could use materialincentives like fines or
bonuses, so essentially payingpeople to adopt specific
behaviors. We could introducerules and regulations. So
mandates really designed to kindof stop people from doing
certain things or enable peoplefrom doing certain things. Or we

(02:21):
could use information, and thatwas a typical tool, because us
as environmentalists cared aboutspecific things, and so we
assumed that if we gave peopleinformation about these things,
they would also care and changetheir behavior. What we now know
today is that economic theory isnot the be all and end all of
human decision making, and we'vereally incorporated a lot of

(02:42):
different theories, a lot ofdifferent findings from other
fields into what is calledbehavioral science. So starting
in the 50s, when we startedreally acknowledging the fact
that our brain is not infinite.
It doesn't have infinitecapacity, we have limits on our
cognition, and that reallygoverns a lot of thinking in
behavioral science is what wecall bounded rationality. So we
are rational within limits,within our biological limits,

(03:06):
really. Then in the 70s, we havepeople like Amos Tversky and
Daniel Kahneman, who reallystarted challenging a lot of the
assumptions that were present ineconomic theories. So looking at
things like how gains versuslosses are perceived, how people
might not weigh probabilitiesand uncertainty equally, and

(03:28):
that was very, very important.
And then it's the 90s, we see afew findings, but it's not until
2008 really, where the booknudge was published, that really
this new way of thinking aboutdecision making kind of enters
the mainstream. So nudge was allabout how we can change little

(03:50):
contextual things in theenvironments that people live in
that really govern our choices,and so we're able to essentially
influence people's choicesunconsciously. And that was
very, very important, because itthen led and paved the way,
really, to what we call nudgeunits, or behavioral science

(04:10):
units and government, which,fast forward 10 years, are now
present in almost every aspectof government and every aspect
of life, at least in Westerncountries. So what we mean today
by behavioral science isessentially a much broader tool
set than kind of the pay them,stop them, tell them from

(04:31):
before. And the main insights,really, that I think are
important, really, for thelisteners today, is that what
behavioral science says thesedays is that, yes, material
incentives, rules andinformation are all important,
but also context matters. So theway that choices are presented
to people, the way that wedirect people's attention,

(04:53):
really matters for influencingdecision making. We are social
animals, so that means thathighlight. Existing or changing
social norms is also veryimportant, even though economics
would unfortunately argue thatprobably what we see other
people doing or what we thinkother people think of us
shouldn't influence decisionmaking. It really does. So

(05:15):
that's an important aspect ofit. And then the final insight
that kind of rounds it all off,is that emotions are often much
more powerful than reason, thanthose material incentives, than
the rules and regulations, thanthe information. The way we feel
really matters when we're makingdecisions. And so modern

(05:36):
decision science, or modernbehavioral science, really
incorporates all of theseinsights and kind of puts them
together into differentframeworks that we're able to
use.

Alice Yamabe (05:47):
Could you share some concrete examples of how
behavioral insights are beingapplied in practice, perhaps
across different fields,behavioral science,

Philipe Bujold (05:56):
although kind of applied behavioral science, I
would say, really entered thefray and kind of the the
mainstream in the 2010s itreally did so initially around

(06:17):
kind of finance and publichealth. So those two fields are
really the ones, kind of at theforefront of applying behavioral
science and about thinking abouthow people actually make

(06:40):
decisions. How could reframeinterventions, different
policies there, they're reallyleading the pack. Then you'll
have public health popping updevelopment and actually,

(07:02):
environment is kind of at thetail end of this. We're lagging
behind quite a bit. Climatechange has done incredible work
looking at all the differentlevers that are influencing

(07:24):
human decision making, beyondjust economic decision making,
but things like conservation,plastic reduction, we're still
way behind what other fields aredoing. So we're still relying

(07:48):
mostly on the theories of thepast, such as economic
incentives, so religiousmarkets. And there is also this

Alice Yamabe (07:58):
And could you also walk us through how rare came to
integrate behavioral scienceinto its work.
other theory that I would saykind of plagues us

Philipe Bujold (08:04):
Yeah, so rare has been around for 40 to 50
years now, and we primarily werea social marketing organization.
unfortunately, and I thinkthat's because we're all kind of
So we used to work on speciesconservation, doing what was
called pride campaigns at thetime, which was really to help
experts in different topics, andthat's information deficit
facilitate pride of communitiesin conserving specific species.
So we'd work with getting peopleto recognize and be prideful
theory, which really relates tothe idea that all of us are in

(08:26):
about conserving a specificparrot or tigers and things like
that. And they did that foraround 40 years, and then in
this field because we care aboutspecific things, right? So,
2017 they started looking at thebroader field of applied
behavioral science that wasgrowing talking with other, what
conservationists,environmentalists, we are
we call nudge units, ordifferent behavior change
organizations, and they reallydecided to bring that rigor of
interested in these topics, andwe do our job best when we get

(08:47):
applied behavioral science tothe rest of the organization. So
they founded the Center forbehavior in the environment,
more information. And for somereason, because that's how we do
which is the unit, or theinternal Think Tank, if you want
that I'm nestled in. And ourrole is to really bring evidence
our work, we also assume that alot of behavior change is
based behavior change or appliedbehavioral science evidence to
the work that rare does, and toanyone who wants to work with us

(09:08):
inherently a lack ofinformation. So in conservation,
on different projects. And we dothis by both bringing our own
framework and so behaviorcentered design to the work that
in environmental work, there isstill kind of a focus on either
we do, which is essentially adesign process that lets you
leverage insights frombehavioral science through
providing more information topeople, which we now know isn't
different steps in designing anintervention, and also through
our own methodology,methodological or analytical

(09:31):
always a solution to behaviorchange, either market incentives
frameworks. So we have thebehavioral Levers framework,
which essentially defines sixbuckets or types of
interventions that you can thinkof and that you should think of
more like we used to do, butvery little in terms of looking
when you're designing theprogram, a behavior
intervention, a policy forchanging behaviors. So a way to
at all the different drivers ofbehavior that we should be
simplify all the insights thatare coming out of behavioral

(09:52):
economics, social psychology,sociology, neuroscience, etc. So
looking at like other fields aredoing.
we have those two frameworks,and now we apply them to.
Environmental issues around theworld. So we have three internal
programs. One is in agriculture,one is in fisheries, and the
other one is really lookingbroadly at carbon emissions.

Dwayne Appleby (10:11):
I have a bit of a follow up question that we've
mentioned the book nudge. It'svery highly influential. I
recall, you know, myself, youknow, in university,
encountering, you know, thisbook, and really, you know,
setting political science, andthinking, wow, this is, this is
really a game changer in a lotof ways. And I wonder, looking

(10:34):
from the environmentalperspective now and in the
context of the work that raredoes, is there a, is there a
distinction between what wewould call kind of nudge theory,
or what has become known asnudge theory based on, you know,
the concepts kind ofencapsulated in that book, and
the work that rare does is, isusually, you mentioned a number

(10:57):
of different kind of levers ofof behavior change. And I wonder
how, how how the two kind ofmodels overlap.

Philipe Bujold (11:04):
Yeah, so nudge really became quite famous
because it was reallychallenging kind of the
establishment at the time thatreally relied on, like I said,
market incentives andinformation. And what nudge was
saying is essentially that smallchanges in our decision context.
So in the environment thatgoverns our choices, can have

(11:25):
markedly different effects onpeople's choices in the end. So
I was talking earlier abouttaxes versus rebates, the
outcome could be the same,depending on how you position
it. You could say you either paya 10 cents bag tax or you get a
10 cents rebate if you bringyour own bag, right, the outcome

(11:49):
would be the exact same, butjust that tiny change in framing
changes behavior quite a bit,and that's really what nudge was
about. It was showingeconomists, politicians,
policymakers, that, hey, noteverything actually has to fit
into this more, I guess,explicit bubble of levers that
people used to think about. Sowe had material incentives or

(12:12):
economic incentives. We hadrules in the past, and we had
information that we could verydirectly think about. But then
what nudge did was open up thiswhole door of more implicit
levers, or levers that are notdirectly observable in people's
minds. And that opened the wholedoor to other fields that were

(12:33):
looking at the role of, forexample, emotions, of social
norms, of, in this case, nudge,we call this choice
architecture, so the way that wedesign the choice environment
for people and all of thesethings really, really matter for
decision making also. So thatkind of opened up the whole
spectrum of different tools thatwe have to help influence

(12:55):
people's decisions. So at rarefor example, we have our own
Toolkit, which really describeskind of most of the tools in the
behavioral sciences. And wesplit them up into six
categories. So we'll havematerial incentives, which are
kind of the more traditionalcosts and benefits that taxes
would would impose, or differentfees or bonuses. Then we'll have

(13:18):
rules and regulations which aretypically more policy oriented.
So the different things thatgovernments will enforce, we
have information which is stillvery relevant. So these three
things are the traditionallevers that we think about, but
then we have more behaviorallyinformed levers, which are then
these emotional influences. Sothinking about how you frame a

(13:38):
message, what emotions it willconvey how people will feel
about specific things. We havesocial norms. So what people are
seeing other people do, or whatother people think we should be
doing are very important, and sowe have this as a separate
lever. And the final one ischoice architecture, and that
really relates to that nudgespecifically. So nudge is very

(13:59):
important, but there's so muchmore now in the behavioral
science toolkit. So it's kind ofopened the eyes of everyone, but
in doing so, we've nowintegrated so many more levers
from different fields thatBehavioral Sciences has gone way
past just behavioral economicsand what it was in the 70s or
90s.

Dwayne Appleby (14:17):
To what extent are there different strategies
to approach I guess you couldsay different different levels
of decisions, or different entrypoints. So you can think of, you
know, there are certainlycollective challenges, right?
You know, collectiveenvironmental challenges, you
know, in thinking of plastic ina Riverway. But there's also,

(14:38):
you know, individual, householdlevel things or institutional
levels, I wonder if there's, ifthere's a difference in in the
way we approach that, in thedifferent combinations of levers
that might might work well, oreven just what we know about how
people respond to these types ofinterventions.

Philipe Bujold (14:58):
Yeah. So the unfortunate. Reality is, I can't
give you a clean cut answer tothat question, because really,
context will be the maindeciding factor for a lot of
these these challenges thatwe're addressing, and context
can be the level of influencewe're looking at. So are we
working with individuals? Are weworking with communities? Are we
working with institutions, orare we thinking more at a

(15:20):
systems level? So that's one wayto think about it, but also the
context of the decision itself.
What kind of decision is it? Howis it being driven? What are the
different factors that arecoming into play, and so on that
that later note, I think onething that is still quite
fascinating, and that I love inthis part of the work is that
you do see buckets of challengeskind of emerging over time and

(15:44):
repeating over and over. Soenvironmental challenges are
very different and very quitestrongly, really, across
different contexts. But thetypes of decisions that we're
asking people to do are alsoquite similar across the
different contexts. And so, forexample, just kind of three main
buckets that we tend to see. Thefirst one will be really

(16:06):
decisions that are more basedout of habits or that are not
really highly consequential forthe individual at the time where
they're making that decision. Soyou can think of like choosing a
plastic bag over reusablealternative for us in the
moment, it doesn't have thatmuch impact, and it's something
we really do out of routine, outof habit, but that's kind of one

(16:29):
big bucket of things that wetend to see. Relates to diet,
choice, it relates to plastics,it relates to a whole host of
different situations, and thereare specific ways of tackling
this also, the second one thatwe see is often kind of the
opposite of this one. It's highconsequence, uncertain behavior,

(16:50):
so things that people don't dooften and that are kind of
really surrounded by a lot ofrisk and uncertainty, very often
tied to kind of theirlivelihoods or big financial
decisions. So one good exampleof that is we do a lot of work
with farmers in Latin America,and a lot of the choices there

(17:11):
are about going from kind ofthis old intensive agriculture
model to more regenerative styleagriculture, and that requires a
lot of new different practices,and it's very risky, because
they have experience with theold practices, but not the new.
They don't know exactly what toexpect, and kind of information
alone isn't going to help withthat. So that's the second
bucket, and we see that with alot of things, either people

(17:34):
adopting solar panels orelectric vehicles adapting new
practices. So really, thatsecond bucket there, and then
the last one that we tend to seequite a bit in conservation
actually, is all about theseissues that really require
everyone to cooperate for it tomake sense, kind of financially
and rationally. So you can thinkof these collective dilemmas

(17:57):
cooperation dilemmas, collectiveaction dilemmas, we call them in
the field, that really come intoplay here so rare does a lot of
work here with fisheries in theGlobal South, and we'll be
working with different fishingcommunities to kind of help
create reserves in their localfisheries area. Unfortunately,

(18:20):
that can be a great solution ifeveryone participates. But if
you're creating a reserve andonly a few fishers are actually
following the rules and theothers are not, everyone kind of
loses out in the end. And so youreally need everyone to be
participating for the solutionto make sense for everyone. And
that would really be the thirdbucket. So yeah, these decisions

(18:42):
where, unless you get everyoneor kind of a significant amount
of a community, an institutionor a system to participate, then
your solution just does not makesense. Whereas in the two
others, your solution stillmakes sense, even if you're the
only one adopting it, it's justthat there's other barriers that
are coming into play.

Alice Yamabe (19:01):
Can you tell us more about how you decide where
is the most effective like, whattype of decision will have the
most effect in terms ofprotecting the environment or
mitigating climate, what will beeasiest to do, and how do you
tailor your approaches to eachtype of decision.

Philipe Bujold (19:22):
The good news on that front is that since we're
behavioral scientists, ourexpertise is on behavior, not
necessarily on the impacts ofall of these behaviors. And the
reason I say it's the good newsis because you're not putting
all of your eggs in one basket.
There's not one person that isactually having to have the
expertise on everything. And sofor a lot of our projects, we're
actually working withecologists. We'll be working

(19:43):
with different naturalscientists, essentially that are
the experts on what are the bestpractices that people should be
adopting. They'll be consultingwith local communities on what
the local communities want to bedoing, and they'll be selecting
essentially, what is that newbehavior that new children. Is
that new practice that peopleshould be adopting? And that's
when behavioral scientists mostlikely will come in. That's when

(20:05):
we at rare will usually come in,and it's really once a behavior
has been selected. How do wethen make sense of it? How do we
ensure that people are willingto do it? How do you encourage
people to do it? And that's whenour expertise will come into
play. So we have a set of peoplethat will be working with the
communities, who are theexperts, really in their area,
and also academic experts moreon kind of the natural science

(20:28):
side of things that will helppick those practices. Usually,
we'll work also withpolicymakers, what makes the
most sense, and then we'll comein, once that has been selected,
to really understand kind of,what are all the different
motivations, motivators andbarriers for a specific choice
in that context? So everyone hasa role to play, and really that

(20:48):
that's how we're able tomaximize kind of everyone's
potential, at least within theorganization. I'm wondering, if
you know, given that context ofthinking about how we,

Dwayne Appleby (21:01):
you know, how we best approach this challenge,
whichever it happens to be, in adifferent sector. But I wonder
if there are some other examplesof perhaps successful
interventions, perhapschallenging interventions, that
you could share, that are from,you know, a variety of sectors.
You know, of course,biodiversity, but maybe you
know, urban spaces, challengesthat are unique to cities, or

(21:24):
kind of issues of consumptionand production, whether that's,
you know, a business side orindividual waste management.
Yeah, if you just have any anyexamples you could share.

Philipe Bujold (21:35):
If we look more at kind of infrastructure and
the design of cities, one thingthat comes up a lot is really,
how can we leverage thatinfrastructure to help influence
kind of the choice architectureof other people's different
choices, right? And when itcomes to plastic waste, just
waste in general, there'sactually quite a lot of work
being done on that, because asmuch as we would love

(21:59):
information and again, finds tochange behavior when it comes to
plastic and waste. Actually, alot of choice, architecture,
emotion, social norms are goingto be the solution to most of
our problems. And so reallyinteresting intervention that
was done actually, in Copenhagenwas looking at, how can we guide
people towards existinginfrastructure in a way that

(22:19):
kind of just fits into theirexisting habits, as opposed to
having to create a whole new setof behaviors. And it's going to
sound overly simplistic, but ithad a great effect, and they
just put little green footstepson the pavement that guided
people from kind of high wasteconsumption areas to where they
could dispose of the waste. Soliterally, green little
footsteps that led people tobins and that had a massive

(22:43):
effect on reducing the amount oflittering in the cities. And
there's tons of differentinterventions that actually rely
on choice architecture, but havethe most effect using kind of
these habitual processes.
Another way that differentgroups different governments can
actually influence behaviorquite significantly is through
what we call significantly isthrough what we call defaults,
so changing kind of the statusquo behavior, or what is

(23:06):
typically recommended, what isthe path of least resistance for
behavior. And a great example ofthis would be when people are
signing up for different kind ofelectricity providers. Some
countries, Switzerland pilotedthis actually, where they're
trying to set the default to themost environmentally friendly
electricity price. So whenyou're looking for different

(23:28):
electricity plans with aprovider, and you'll have 345,
different options. And if youthink of it as like an online
form, online you have differentboxes. Well, one of them will be
pre selected, usually the mostenvironmentally friendly, and
that's enough to actuallyinfluence a lot of people to
stick with that decision,because it aligns, essentially
with people's intentions.

Dwayne Appleby (23:51):
If I can jump in quickly and just say that when
you were mentioning, I think itwas in Copenhagen, the kind of
green feet on the ground, whatimmediately came to mind for me
was what I've experienced inmany retail locations, that
companies, larger companies, usethis to kind of guide you to
where they want you to go insidetheir their store. And so I

(24:17):
think it's interesting thatthey're, you know, the similar,
similar methods are being usedin one in one case, it's being
used successfully to help usconsume more, which may or may
not be a good thing, probably abad thing. But on the other
hand, it's, you know, inCopenhagen, it's being used to
help us to figure out how bestto, you know, waste, segregate,

(24:39):
dispose of our waste in aresponsible way, help with
closed loop efforts reduceplastic use and so on. It's,
it's interesting to see how youknow the kind of the same
behavioral insight is put to usein different ways, you know, by
different actors within thesystem.

Philipe Bujold (24:58):
Definitely, and actually, that that's something.
In worth bringing up, a lot ofthe system like you're saying,
is actually created already tokind of lead to more negative
environmental outcomes, reallyso high consumers and behaviors

(25:23):
and the systems are built forthat, and so a lot of the work
that behavioral scientistsactually do in the environmental
space is just kind of reducingthe push that systems have
towards unsustainable behaviors.
Some of your listeners mighthave heard the term sludge

(25:49):
before. If we think of nudges asessentially little changes to
people's choice architecture, tothe environment in which people
make choices that will promote abehavior, a sludge is the

(26:09):
opposite. So it's the way thatthe environment is created to
dissuade a good behavior andprobably promote kind of a high
consumerism, less

Alice Yamabe (26:25):
I'm realizing as we talk that we're faced with
environmentally friendlybehavior. And actually, a lot of
behavior change every day in ourlives, but I'm wondering, do you
the work that's being doneinstitutionally with governments
have any concrete example of asludge that might have been
removed from my everydaysurroundings, and then I might
is reducing the amount of sludgethat is kind of leading us
not have noticed, but actuallyis influencing me towards having
a better behavior towards theenvironment and society in

(26:46):
astray away from ProEnvironmental behaviors. So
general. You're in Australia, somaybe a sludge that was removed
we're looking at the systemsthat already exist and trying to
in Australia that people mightnot have noticed,

Philipe Bujold (26:56):
actually, Australia is leading the way on
think, Okay, what is this systemactually pushing people towards?
a lot of they call these sludgeaudits, where they will be
looking at whole departments ingovernment and trying to see
And instead of creating a wholenew intervention, can we just
where is their extra steps thatpeople have to go through to
access funding or access grantsor access government help, and
remove some barriers in thisexisting system to kind of
trying to remove these so all ofthese little points of added

(27:17):
piggyback on those more implicitprocesses going on in our heads
friction we call So there's alot of work trying to remove
that. A lot of digitization workby governments is trying to
that we're maybe not aware of,but that are still influencing
actually get to that. So howcould you remove as many steps
as possible to simplify systems,to get people where they want to
our behavior quite significantly.
be quicker? One of the biggestenvironmental examples I could

(27:37):
give you is it used to be very,very hard in many countries to
kind of switch to solar power onyour house. You needed to go
through loops and then differentregulations with governments.
And a lot of governments areactually trying to simplify
that, to get people to be ableto switch to solar quicker, to
connect to the grid quicker whenthey want to switch to renewable

(28:01):
electricity. So these are someof the examples of sludge being
removed, but there's all sortsof different examples of sludge.
Sludge isn't just friction. Itcould be kind of any bad eco
information. So we're faced witheco labels all the time. A lot
of them are confusing. A sludgeaudit might help you kind of
consolidate these and make surethat they're very clear. It

(28:24):
could be about unnecessarydelays. It could be about
disinformation campaigns tryingto reduce the amount of
disinformation. We can probablysee that there's not a lot of
sludge auditing being done onsocial media these days, but
there used to be a lot more. Andyeah, the rest of kind of these
sludge removal programs arereally about the friction in

(28:46):
systems infrastructure that'skind of lagging behind things
like this.

Alice Yamabe (28:51):
And how do you decide that a target behavior is
actually well fitted foreveryone? For example, you were
mentioning digitization, and I'mseeing that this is something
that they're trying to implementin Japan. But then elderly
people might not be as ready tohave that change happen in their
lives, maybe sometimes at theindividual level, it's not that

(29:13):
easy than just implementing likea quick system change. So I feel
like this is a huge wall thatwe're faced with when we're
dealing with behavior change,because people are not ready to
change their habits, or they'renot ready to invest into maybe
like solar panels, or they feellike this is a huge investment.

Philipe Bujold (29:34):
It kind of goes back to those three main buckets
of types of decisions that wewere talking about earlier. So
depending on what you're tryingto change, you'll want to use
very different strategies, orwhat we call levers, to change
those behaviors. So let's sayyou're talking about
digitization in Japan. In thiscase, what is that digitization
affecting? What kind of habitsis it changing, and is it kind

(29:57):
of feeding into the way thatpeople were. Already doing their
behaviors? Is it something newentirely? Is it something that
people have to do a lot of thetime when you're doing a kind of
a behavioral audit, or goingthrough this design process,
trying to think of anintervention to encourage a new
behavior? These are alldifferent things you'll be

(30:17):
looking at. So who are yourdifferent audiences? What are
they currently doing? What arethe audiences that are probably
fine without an extraintervention? What are the ones
that you will need extraintervention with all these
different things? And I have tosay a lot of the time, quite
controversially, if people arenot adopting a new behavior, it

(30:37):
might just not make sense, andthat's something that we do tend
to still forget. Even withbehavior change, we think, oh,
we'll be able to use emotions,social influences or nudges to
kind of fix the behavior. But ifit doesn't make sense
rationally, in the same waysthat we used to quantify
behavior. So does it make senseeconomically? Do people have all

(30:58):
the information that they needto do it and kind of, does it
align with existing rules? Itwill still fail. So you really
need to be looking at theentire, the entirety of the
barriers and motivators that areaffecting kind of someone when
they're looking at changingtheir behavior. So you said
maybe a lot of the time we don'tknow if a behavior change makes

(31:18):
sense. How do you know, beforeyou scale, how do you know at
the design when you're designingthe intervention, that this will
be an actual behavior that willmake sense for most people? So
that would be part of the designprocess. So let's say we're I'll
take the example of fish Revver.
So fish Revver is one of variousinternal programs that works on
fisheries, and we're in eight,almost 12 countries now, and the

(31:40):
main behaviors that they'll bepromoting are different based on
the context, but they all relateto helping fisheries kind of
manage their own local waters.
So helping people set up managedaccess areas where only local
fishers are allowed to fish, andthen set up reserves where fish
for fish populations wouldessentially bounce back from and

(32:02):
that is kind of the naturalscience solution to a lot of
things. But then when we'reactually looking at the system,
we need to think, Okay, well,will a reserve make sense for
people? Is this something thattheir livelihood can sustain?
Can they actually stop fishingin certain areas? Can they not
what are the other things thatwe need to introduce into the

(32:23):
system for all this to makesense? Because if you just
create a park on paper, it's aproblem that might not be
enforceable, that people mightnot follow. So which fish
forever, for example, will helpcommunities create these
reserves. But then we also havea whole different side, helping
people set up, essentiallybanking co ops, so that they can

(32:43):
kind of Wither the storm of thatinitial drop in fisheries set up
by the reserve so they'll beable to save and have that money
accrue on the side, if times doget tough because of the
reserve, But then over time, asthe reserve kind of starts
giving off its benefits, andmore and more Fisher in the area
and fishers are actually able tobenefit from it, we've been able

(33:04):
to essentially, kind of bridgethat time gap. So even though
the behavior didn't make senseat the beginning, we've also
looked at what are the otherthings that we can do in the
system to make everything makesense at the end. And that's one
thing that a lot of differentprograms are actually doing.
They'll be looking at, okay,what are the other levers, the

(33:24):
other things that we need totake into account, and that's
where theories of change comeinto play for programs. So what
are all the different things weneed to put into place to get
that final outcome? And we'reonly talking about behavior
here, but there's a lot ofdifferent things that will come
into play also for that to happen.

Alice Yamabe (33:44):
Can you just tell us a bit more about what is a
theory of change? Because I feellike this is a bit obscure

Philipe (33:50):
as part of the rare design process called behavior
centered design, one of our mainoutcomes will essentially be a
theory of change, or you createa program with a key
environmental outcome. In thiscase, you have defined the
behaviors that you need toachieve to hit that outcome, but
you'll also be thinking about,what are those psychological,
those social, those systematicthings that have to change those

(34:13):
barriers and motivators forbehavior to then lead to that
behavior, to lead to thatoutcome, and then you'll create
interventions that will feedinto this. And so it's a
different way of thinking aboutinterventions where most people
will usually think, okay, wewant to achieve that outcome.
Let's think about a informationcampaign or a social marketing
campaign. We really workbackwards through things and

(34:36):
create a theory of change. Soit's a causal pathway. If you
want a hypothesis that's set onpaper, and you can actually
validate it. So did yourintervention actually lead to
that change that you think isnecessary to lead to behavior
change which will lead to youroutcome? And each step is
actually something you can testand you can look at and make
sure it has succeeded and isproving true. So. And so that's

(34:59):
what we mean by a theory ofchange, and it is usually the
outcome of most design processesthat are being used in
behavioral science, but it isoften something that we see
lacking actually, when you'relooking at different programs
doing behavior change, becausethey don't have that clear
chain. And so when things don'twork out, they don't know
exactly why, and they're notable to diagnose why something

(35:21):
might have gone wrong.

Dwayne Appleby (35:23):
So you outlined this theory of change that kind
of walks us through, from, youknow, stating the objective, and
then, you know, the behaviorsthat will help achieve that
objective, and then going a stepback and saying, What are these,
you know, psychological orpsychosocial states that are
required to bring about thosebehaviors and so on and so

(35:46):
forth. And it's reallyinteresting from from, I guess,
the the project managementperspective, that quite often
when we look at monitoring andevaluation, we almost look at it
in the opposite direction, youknow. And so it's a really
interesting exercise for forpractitioners to sit down and
and think about it and come fromthis different perspective. And

(36:10):
so I wonder if there's anythingyou can say about the value of
taking this perspective, what'sthe like? What's the value add
for for a project developer oran implementer, community
organizer, local government,what have you

Philipe Bujold (36:27):
definitely so I'd say in environmental work,
actually, probably one of thebiggest shifts that behavioral
science is having is kind ofthat reframing of thinking
through programs. Because, yes,there are a lot of theories on
behavior change and actuallyconservation climate change, we
have been good at looking at abroad base of theories for the
last 1020 years. What behavioralscience is helping is putting

(36:49):
everything into a framework thatyou can use to kind of think
through systematically. And sothese theories of change are one
example of that, and they'realso a good example to think
through how we're deploying ourprograms to make sure that we're
doing it conscientiously. Sowhen you're actually apply
applying intervention, we wantto make sure that intervention

(37:10):
is leading to a specificpsychosocial state change that
leads to specific behaviorchange that leads to a specific
outcome. And in a way, itactually reframes the entire way
that we do approach programdesign, because you're not
actually building from theintervention. You're building
from the outcome and goingbackwards. But it also opens up
the whole door to different waysof funding these interventions,

(37:33):
or essentially validating ourinterventions. So whereas a lot
of environmental work used to beabout okay, we've pitched that
we're going to be doing 15social marketing campaigns, or
we're going to hit 200,000 likeson Facebook, something like
this. Now we can actually tryand pitch these psychosocial
state changes. So these changesin psychological, social or kind

(37:53):
of structural variables. Soinstead of saying, Okay, we're
doing X amount of socialmarketing campaigns, we can
start thinking it in the senseof okay, have we actually
changed social norms orperceptions of social norms for
people? And so you don't have todo 10 social marketing
campaigns. You can do eight, ifyou only need eight for a
majority of people to think thatmost people are doing your

(38:15):
target behavior. Or you mightneed to do 12. And that's okay,
because you're actually tied toyour kind of psychological
indicator, as opposed to yourmonitoring indicator, which is
usually how we think of program design.

Dwayne Appleby (38:28):
Well, I wonder, then I mean thinking about that
in terms of, as you said, youknow, you can, you can set
these, these parameters, andthen check on your success, you
know, and you think aboutreporting to if it's funders or
its government, or government isimplementing a program on their

(38:48):
own, and they need to beaccountable to the taxpayer, you
know. How does this type offramework lend itself to to that
monitoring and evaluationaspect? Like, can it be? Is it
is it, you know, veryqualitative. Is it quantitative?
Is there something that can besaid about about the rigor of

(39:09):
being able to capture theresults of behavior change intervention?

Philipe Bujold (39:14):
Yeah, so behavioral science, for better,
for worse, actually typicallyrequires both qualitative and
quantitative work. So you'llneed a lot of qualitative work
to understand the specifics ofthe context you're working in,
because obviously, behavior ismessy. People are messy. You
want to understand the completecontext in which a behavior is
taking place to be able to bestdeliver kind of your

(39:36):
recommendations and the insightsthat you have to share. So a lot
of qualitative work goes intoplay. A lot of quantitative work
also goes into this to try andquantify essentially those
insights. So if you think a lotof people are perceiving that
the norm is not a line, youstill want to be able to
quantify this and understand howmany people are actually

(39:56):
thinking this. And that's veryimportant in the initial design
bit. But it then is alsoextremely important at the end,
and that's another thing thatapplied behavioral science
really kind of brings to thefield. It's this mindset of
evaluation, because it comesfrom all of these old academic
fields that we're very focusedon measuring change. So changing
one variable and kind of testingin an experimental setting, what

(40:20):
will the outcome of that be? Andso a lot of these new frameworks
of Applied Behavioral Scienceactually bring this into the
real world. So we'll be using alot of qualitative quantitative
insights to be creating ourinterventions. But then we need
quantitative and qualitativedata to actually be able to do
what we call causal inference,or essentially understand the

(40:40):
impact of our work, see if ithas worked, if it hasn't worked,
and actually do properevaluation of this in a more
rigorous way than what hastraditionally been done,
especially in environmentalwork. Very often we tend to just
look at what was there beforeand what was there after, but so
many things change over time.
Just think of how our perceptionof climate change has changed in
the last 510 years, and that'susually the length of a program.

(41:04):
So unless you're doing rigorousevaluation, you don't know is
the change you're seeing becauseof the work you're doing or just
because society is changing? Andthat's one of the things that
applied behavioral science isbringing it's this mindset of
experimentation, of properlyevaluating programs to really
understand is the outcome thatyou're seeing because of the

(41:24):
behavior you've changed, becauseof these psychological, social
or structural states that you'vechanged because of your
intervention. And that is reallythe chain that wasn't there
before that, I think, has beenthe biggest revolution in
Applied Behavioral Science forenvironmental work.

Dwayne Appleby (41:42):
So maybe we could, you know, turn to
considering behaviorallyinformed policy. And I wonder,
to what extent do you see thatso far as as as a success? Is it
gaining momentum? Are thereparticular challenges? I think
we've often seen that manypolicies, especially at the
national level, tend to be verytop down, whereas at the local

(42:06):
level, they might be bottom up.
So I mean, there are differentdifferent approaches and
strategies here, but in general,what's your take on behaviorally
informed policy?

Philipe Bujold (42:18):
At the moment, essentially the beginnings of
kind of Applied BehavioralScience was in government, and
it was to inform policy. Soactually there is great
behavioral public policy beingdone out there, and there are
behavioral scientists being putat all levels of government, in
environmental work. A lot of thework is actually driven by NGOs.

(42:40):
So that's why we talk less ofpolicy work and more about
programs or interventions, butbehaviorally informed policy is
essentially just anotherentrance point, if you want, in
the way we can change behaviorso behavioral public policy can
still utilize those levers I wastalking about earlier, of
emotions, social norms, choicearchitecture, and they do.

(43:02):
There's a lot of work being doneon choice architecture at the
level of public policy that kindof then shapes the entire
system. So it's not a matter ofone or the other. I think
because of the way we are siloedin our own organizations, we
might think of it as differentaspects of behavior change, but
really, policy is just anothername for behavior change, kind

(43:26):
of at the systems level. And Ithink that is one mistake that a
lot of us make, is that we thinkbehavior changes with the
individuals or communities, andthen policy is a separate other
thing. But it's not a mistakethat is done across the space in
Applied Behavioral Science. Ithink that is actually something
that we do need to fix in theenvironmental space where policy

(43:49):
is not dissociated frombehavioral science. Behavioral
Science can enrich policy andvice versa. And I wonder, is
there just thinking about, youknow, as we were talking about
behavioral sciences anddesigning interventions programs
and the need to really make themcontext specific, audience
specific. When we're looking atpolicies that are being

(44:11):
developed by differentgovernments in different places,
to what extent are thosetransferable? Are there?

Dwayne Appleby (44:18):
Are there kind of core components, things that
we see like, I mean, we'vementioned plastic bag fees or
something. These seem to pop upin many, many places across the
region and globally. And so Iwonder, are there other kind of
key top level takeaways thatthat maybe you've seen for kind
of success factors or or pain points?

Philipe Bujold (44:42):
Yeah. So if you think of behavioral science,
kind of as a way to approachbehavior change, or as a way to
approach the interventions thepolicies would create, really
all it is is a greateracknowledgement of all the
different things that willinfluence behavior so as opposed
to specific fields that willfocus on. Just market incentives

(45:03):
or just information things likethat. What behavioral science
tries to do is really look atthe whole array of things that
will essentially modify behaviorover time. And there are some
trends, but also each country,each context, will have their
own way of looking at thesedifferent things, the different
things that will be acceptablein that society versus the

(45:25):
other. That being said, thereare huge trends across the
sector for what works and whatdoesn't work, because we are all
human, and our brain, by andlarge, works the same. We have
the same structures at the sameplaces, and we have the same
algorithms kind of shaping ourbehavior. So loss framing is
always going to be quiteeffective across a wide array of

(45:47):
issues. So not just with bagtaxes, but it's done for a lot
of other things. Defaults arevery important. So one of the
main examples of defaults is howa lot of countries switched to
organ donations by default whenyou get your driver's license,
versus having to opt in for it,which is a tiny amount of
effort, but one that actuallydissuades most of us to just

(46:09):
clicking it. If it's by default,most of us don't opt out, but if
we need to opt in, most of usdon't do it. So that's another
example that can be kind ofapplied across the board. And
defaults are extremely powerful.
Of all the choice architecturetools you have out there,
defaults are typically among themost powerful ones. Social norms
are also something that acrossthe board is very, very

(46:32):
effective. If you're able tohave a policy that helps enforce
specific messaging about hownormal something is, how many
people are doing something. Ifyou're able to make behavior
more observable, that is verypowerful. So in the US, a great
example is this project relatedto Opower, which is all about
making more observable people'susage of electricity they

(46:54):
deployed in a bunch of differentcommunities across the country,
and essentially what they didwas, at the end of every month
when people were getting theirutility bills, they would also
get a ranking of where they fitversus other people in terms of
electricity usage. And thatseems very simple, and it's
something that can be deployedat a policy level, but it had

(47:16):
massive impact on electricityusage. It's something that has
been done, again for water, thatis being trialed for a bunch of
different behaviors, butessentially being able to
compare yourself to others andhave the idea that others might
be able to see what you're doingreally helps influence behavior,
because we are social creatures,and a lot of what we do really

(47:39):
depends on what we think otherpeople are doing or what other
people expect of us, and that'sa very key tool that policymakers

Alice Yamabe (47:50):
use. So you said that we're all humans, and we
might all react in similar ways,but I still feel like maybe some
countries or some communitiesmight react better to some
levers, especially you mentionedsocial norms. I feel like this
is probably even more powerfulin Asian countries. I feel like
in Japan, this is probably oneof the most powerful levers. How

(48:13):
do you assess the differentcultures, the different contexts
in which you're going to applyyour intervention, and how? How
can you sort of anticipate whichapproach will be most efficient
depending on this context?

Philipe Bujold (48:27):
Yeah, so that will all be done in the initial
research that we'll do. So whenyou're approaching a project,
you obviously want to understandkind of what are the main
driving forces in the specificcommunity you're working with.
And yes, like I said, we're allhuman, so we all follow the same
principles. But what will reallychange things is the way that
our upbringing, our society, ourcommunities, kind of help us

(48:49):
ascribe value to specific thingsor not to other things. So we
can think of it as I don't lovethis dichotomy, but a lot of
people use it where we'retalking about collectivist
countries versus individualisticcountries, right? And there's a
lot of debate around this, butessentially, if we just take the
principle about what it means isthat a lot of people in
collectivist countries wouldreact more strongly to kind of

(49:12):
norm messaging, whereas thatmight be less relevant in
individualistic countries. Andif that's something that you're
finding in a community whereyou're seeing that social norms
seem to be a driving force here,then you want to probably
leverage that in your behaviorchange intervention. If it's not
something you're seeing in yourinitial research, then you
wouldn't want to be essentiallyleveraging that. Maybe it was

(49:35):
something else you can leverage.
And so you can look at emotions.
You can look at choicearchitecture. You can look at
different incentives that mightcome into play instead. But
that's essentially what yourinitial research would be
telling you, and that's why youwant to be following the design
process that kind of worksthrough each step you want to
make sure you're not missing anything.

Alice Yamabe (49:56):
And what about the different types of messaging
around approach?

Philipe Bujold (50:00):
So again, that will tend to depend on kind of,
what is the behavior you'retrying to change. What are the
different drivers that arebehind it when we think
messaging, typically, whatpeople mean is kind of emotional
messaging, or the intent thatyou have with messages. And
obviously, at a simplisticlevel, we can think of gains

(50:21):
versus loss frames. So sayingsomething will be positive
versus something will benegative will have markedly
different effects. But even justthe emotions that we're using
are a bit more intricate thanthat, and will have different
effects. So having a messagethat's more about hope will have
a different effect, a messagethat's about pride. So pride

(50:43):
will tend to drive continuedbehavior. So if someone is
already doing something well,they pride will tend to kind of
keep that going, whereas hopewouldn't. For example, you can
try to engender anger, you cantry to engender interest. I
think a lot of us try to avoidmore negative emotions in our
messaging, or more negativeframes and seeming. Yeah,

(51:06):
exactly, powerful, exact. Butyou need to know exactly why
you're using it and when you useit. You need to be very accurate
in your intent, I guess is whatI'm trying to say. So there has
been seemingly a ban on kind ofusing negative messaging, and I
think that's because it mighthave overused it in a lot of
context where it wasn'tnecessary, but if you're very

(51:29):
full of intent, essentially withthe emotions that you're trying
to engender, then you're muchmore likely to succeed in your messaging.

Alice Yamabe (51:38):
Why is there a ban on using negative emotions,
because I have seen so manymessaging around like flight
shaming, especially in Germany,a lot of shaming around certain
types of diets, especially maybemore meat focused. Yeah, I
understand it, but at the sametime, I also get that it's not
completely ethical, and I'm sortof having a hard time balancing.

(52:01):
How much do we want to shamepeople, because we want them to
get to a certain behavior andbut maybe just encouraging them,
or like, making them proud abouthaving a certain behavior, is
not enough, because they're sortof restrained by sort of a
belonging, an identity thatthey've associated for so long
with this type of behavior. So,yeah, how do you balance that?

Philipe Bujold (52:24):
Yeah, no, definitely. I think that's one
of the main actually trade offsthat kind of happens in
environmental work, especially,and that's something that other
applied behavioral sciencefields don't necessarily have,
and that's because we have a odddual mandate where, like, public
health, is essentially trying tomake people healthier, which is

(52:45):
good for people, very often, wehave a mandate to protect the
environment, which doesn'talways align with protecting
people. It is a trade off thatwe have to find in the middle.
And there is no right or wronganswer. However, there are
things you can put in place toensure that you're not doing
unnecessarily harm to differentcommunities, or that you're not

(53:07):
kind of creating an environmentof polarization. And so a lot of
people are looking at co designapproaches where you're really
working with the communitiesthat you are trying to
influence, to think, okay, theseare the different levers that we
can be utilizing here. These arethe different approaches that we
might want to be looking at.
Maybe it's social norms, maybeit's material incentives, maybe

(53:29):
it is choice architecture oremotional messaging. But you
really want to be working withthe communities to understand,
how would they perceive this?
How is this going to actuallyinfluence behavior? Is that
something that they want to besaying, is that something that
they want to be doing? And Ithink that's more the answer

(53:51):
than a blanket ban on yes or no,because the community might be
completely fine with some of theissues, but again, no one will
ever be 100% fine with eitherkind of we do everything or we
do nothing. So it is alwaysgoing to be a trade off, and
that is the inherent kind ofdifficulty within environmental
work. It is value based, and soit's just a matter of making

(54:13):
sure that we are looking at thevalues of the people that are
really the target of ourinterventions, as opposed to our
own values as economists,environmentalists, the people
who essentially will not beimpacted by these interventions.

Dwayne Appleby (54:27):
So I'm wondering, I guess, for our
listeners, if there's anyonelistening who is interested in
integrating some of thebehavioral insights, lessons
from behavioral sciences intotheir work, whether it's in, you
know, conservation work we'vetalked a bit about today, if
they're working on cities orclimate mitigation, you know,

(54:49):
what are some kind of takeawaysthat you'd like them to leave
leave the podcast with today.
And if there's any resourcesthat you would want to point
them to.

Philipe Bujold (55:00):
Words, yeah. So at the risk of over
generalizing, given how you'vedescribed your listeners, I
think most people listeningright now would probably fit the
category of someone who broadlychanges behavior or helps on
behavior change to some level.
And so I think thatautomatically should mean that
we need to be looking deeper at,what are the latest theories on
behavior change? What doesApplied Behavioral Science mean?

(55:21):
How we can integrate that intoour work to make sure that we
are the most effective atchanging behavior as we can and
so that would be, I guess, thethesis here. But there are
solutions. Don't worry. It's notjust a problem. And there are
resources everywhere these days,especially when you're looking
at applying behavioral sciencein conservation. So rare is a
great organization to startwith. You can go to

(55:44):
behavioral.rare.org which is ourresource and community of
practice, to get everyone kindof on board with what behavioral
science means. But we're not theonly ones. There's other
organizations out there, there'straffic, there's a Nature
Conservancy. You can look at thebehavioral insights team. We're
all on the same side here. We'reall trying to do good and be
more effective at behaviorchange, and do it in a way that

(56:06):
respects the people we'reworking with. So I want to
encourage everyone to doesn'tmatter who you're talking to, as
long as you are doing it in asystematically rigorous way. So
yeah, if anyone wants to reachout, always happy for them. I'm
guessing you'll put my detailssomewhere that people can reach
out to. But also go have a lookat giver that red.org It's a
great place to start.

Bob (56:32):
Thank you for listening to about sustainability. Please
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(56:54):
About sustainability is producedby the Institute for Global
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(57:16):
and we hope you'll join us nexttime you you.